The larger issue remains a U.S. strategy conducted and, alas, directed in Washington by big money interests that care not about the health and welfare of its citizens who are not sharing in the wealth.
Thanksgiving is rooted in the traditions of early 17th century pilgrims, illegal immigrants or transplants, as celebrations of survival because of bountiful, and more importantly shared harvests. This was the beginning of “We the People.”
President George Washington presiding from New York City, a freedom fighter that the British regarded as a terrorist – first designated the celebration of Thanksgiving by our national government a century later in 1789. Previously the Continental Congress of our nascent republic proclaimed several such days at varying times during the war of rebellion against England.
General Washington in December of 1777 celebrated a day of “Thanksgiving” after the defeat of the British at Saratoga during our War of Independence. This war or insurgency was conducted when we were still a loose confederation of colonies who rebelled, in part, because we were resisting the taxation needed to pay for the ongoing folly of foreign wars and entanglements of our then, arguably legal though corrupt, government – the British – located across the Atlantic Ocean.
Sounds all too familiar today. We the People – or actually our “elected representatives” from gerrymandered districts crafted by craven, self-interested politicians who know only “I” – that are promulgating wars and endless foreign entanglements and oppression against we. Now they are threatening the exporting new victims of oppression that came here “yearning to breathe free.”
Thanksgiving became a national holiday in 1863 during another bloody war, this one fought initially to keep our new nation united, but a war that ultimately evolved to end the dreadful practice of slavery. Unfortunately, it did not end racism, as is all too evident in current headlines and the hateful words of the President, chief enabler of the ultra-right.
Slavery also resulted in the absurd Electoral College. It was a compromise to Southern interests, who counted property as population – three fifths of a head for each slave – to keep true proportional representation in Congress behind economic and political interests. This needs fixing. Now.
Back when President Lincoln was protecting our constitution he proclaimed that the last Thursday of November would be a National Day of Thanksgiving. Slavery – the issue that the writers of our Constitution, many of them slaveholders and most of them wealthy – feared to address because of self-interest and politics, ignoring the ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident” proposition. These were beliefs they professed in their own Declaration of Independence – ” all are created equal.” Sound familiar, and depressing – given the tawdry cast of characters residing around the Potomac living on Taxpayer welfare.
This founding fathers failure of foresight, failure of political courage, and failure of morals to address the ethical and legal problems that would ensue, as well as the fearsome bloodshed it would take to semi-resolve them, still only partially, is cause for thanks. Thanks, that slavery would, be over, eventually, as the Civil War dragged on.
Fighting still another war, this one economic but just as devastating to the overall American well-being, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered that Thanksgiving should always be celebrated on the fourth Thursday of the month to promote holiday shopping earlier to stimulate a stalled economy. Little did FDR know that Thanksgiving would become a new form of oppression for our economically underprivileged who are now forced to work on a holiday, many of them at starvation wages, since raising the minimum wage would cost our rich ruling class a pittance.
Nevertheless, today on Thanksgiving, let us – We the People – give thanks for our current tattered democracy, which despite the egregious Supreme Court Citizens United decision (from the spiritual successors of the judges who ruled in 1857 that Dred Scott was property) that ensures the rich, and only the very rich will dictate policy and have their laws passed. All this while avoiding personal taxes and moving corporations offshore to avoid paying taxes. It’s time for a constitutional amendment to put this right. Trump won’t even release his tax returns.
Indeed, we citizens or taxpayers are once again attempting to make things right – but not enough of us, as the last election turnout showed. Let us remember and respect the hard battles past and the citizen soldiers who fought them, while girding ourselves for the political, economic and ongoing military battles we now face.
Through it all, remember there can be more reasons to celebrate at Thanksgivings to come, particularly if we adhere to the “We the People” principle of our founding fathers. Call it American optimism or American liberalism and expanding inclusiveness – for these problem-solving, practical American traits, we can always be thankful.
