Category: Miscellaney Page 5 of 13

Thanksgiving might be the most important American holiday, with only Christmas in competition. It’s become a very commercial holiday, and even here in Canada it seems every store has a “Black Friday Sale” sign up, which is odd, because our Thanksgiving is on a different date.

The story of Thanksgiving is that the Puritan settlers were having a hard time, and the natives helped them out, and they had a big feast together to celebrate the harvest.

Initial settlement in North America was hard. Settlements failed, and agricultural techniques imported from the Old World didn’t work well. The Puritans might well have died if the natives hadn’t helped them out.

Of course, what the Puritans and British colonists later did to the natives was basically wipe them out. And, in fact, Thanksigivng became a holiday when the scalps of natives were literally kicked around, and Thanksgiving was given for murdering them.

The… wages of charity. It’s hard to look at Thanksgiving and not think that the natives would have been better off if they hadn’t helped at all. Indeed, if they’d done everything they could to wipe out every European settlement.

But there is a twist to the story. The Puritans, of course, were religious fanatics. Their brand of religious fanaticism not being welcome in England, another brand of religious fanatic being in power (from the Reformation on, from a modern point-of-view, practically everyone was a religious fanatic), they headed off to a place where they could practice in peace and act like complete assholes to each other.

But the Puritans whom the natives helped, the Pilgrims who had that Thanksgiving dinner with them, it turns out they weren’t personally monsters.

Having figured out how to survive in North America, more Pilgrims came. These new Pilgrims became the majority, and they despised the Godless Natives. The old Puritans defended the Natives and objected to the bad treatment and were so stubborn about it that they wound up excommunicated, and excommunication, in Puritan society, was a big deal.

Charity and kindness, it appears, did work, but only with those who experienced it. And those people, alas, quickly became a minority and could not protect their native friends.

It’s hard to draw anything good from this, but I do find it encouraging that at least those who had personally received kindness were willing to fight and suffer for those who had shown them that kindness.

And that’s about as much good as I can find in Thanksgiving’s foundation myth.

As for the present, I hope American readers are enjoying their Thanksgiving, or at least the food. Whatever the past, we can try and make something good (I typed “food” originally, which seems appropriate) from the present.

Money would be rather useful, as I don’t get paid by the piece. If you want to support my writing, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.

Was reminded today of a barista at a Starbucks I used to frequent, who at the end of the night would give out sandwiches which would otherwise be put in the garbabe, and fill up cups with drinks which would otherwise be poured down the sink.

A very simple kindness, and one which was against company policy.

Good man.

Real polarization in a country happens when different factions don’t accept the other faction has a right to exist.

When you say “traitor,” or “Go back home,” or “You don’t belong here,” what you’re saying is that someone doesn’t have a right to exist in your country. Traitor, in particular, is a strong word: Traitors are subject to the death sentence.

As long as I’ve been watching American discourse, there’s been a lot of it. It was almost completely on the right wing, but there is now some of it on the left.

Eliminationist rhetoric is dangerous, because it makes your fellows into enemies. It is the precursor to war. It is the statement: “If I could get rid of you (and killing is fine), I would.”

You see it in a lot of countries with problems. I’m always astonished at just how much the opposition in Venezuela hates Chavistas, for example. Many of them really, really want to kill them. They consider them illegitimate traitors.

The US has always had an “America First” bunch who aren’t just isolationists (US isolationism would be fine by me). They really, truly hate colored people, Jews, “liberals,” “Commies,” and so on. If they could, they’d hang them from lamp-posts.

But understand clearly that when you start saying “Nazi” and “Fascist,” you’re damn close saying that it’s okay to kill those people as well, because killing Nazis is justified.

Of course, if they are Nazis and close to taking power, well, perhaps they should be killed? You’d cheer for the Germans if they’d stopped Hitler in a huge purge, wouldn’t you? (This isn’t a way of saying don’t oppose Nazis, and that’s the dangerous thing about it.)

Seems to me the US is on a dangerous road. It’s entirely possible that this too will pass, but I see a lot of hate that’s reaching dangerous levels.

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US Constitution by KJD

It’s sometimes unclear to me whether the US has been more of a good thing than a bad thing, but Happy Independence Day. Remember to thank the French–there’s a fairly strong case that without them, the US would have lost the War of Independence.

But every powerful nation has committed their share of atrocities, so, well, so be it.

Enjoy the day.