Thanksgiving: Is Working for the Common Good a Fool's Errand?
BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG
By Mark Karlin
Quite frankly, I'm still a little bit of an elementary school kid when it comes to Thanksgiving. I fell for the image of Puritan Pilgrims inviting members of the Wampanoag tribe to celebrate the end of a harsh year with a bountiful meal.
That was in 1621, before the massive kill off of Native Americans as the U.S. fulfilled its "Manifest Destiny" by expanding to the Pacific. Thanksgiving, before it became a family day of overeating and football, had become a celebration of mythic dimensions that symbolized union, community and inclusiveness.
It's tragically ironic that Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday during the Civil War, in which the two veins of American political history fought each other in bloody battle after bloody battle. Although the Union prevailed, the South and its values of white entitlement, cheap labor (slavery is its precedent) and anti-federal government paranoia continued to stream along, emerging at points in our national history with vigor and pernicious intensity. Such is a time now, as the Palin/Beck/Limbaugh/DeMint/Bachman wing of the GOP is ascendant.
Palin may be from Alaska, but her political, theological roots are strictly ante-bellum Alabama (although her particular strain of religious extremism is unique unto itself, but asserts the basic Southern attitude of Christian dominance and religious control of government).
So Thanksgiving, meant by Lincoln to symbolize unity, has come to be a time when some Americans view it as a holiday of national community (progressives), some see it as a holiday that celebrates the arrival of Christian Europeans to civilize and tame the primitive Native Americans, some see it as a family day of reunion, and some see it as a day to get stuffed and watch football.
For those who advocate a national community -- as opposed to "I want what's mine for me and family and the rest of you are on your own" -- the Thanksgiving myth of an embracing, tolerant and sharing nation remains an unrealized but attainable goal.
Somedays it feels like we are dreaming "the impossible dream," that working for the common good is a fool's errand. But advocating for the better angels to emerge in a democracy that has become subservient to behemoth multi-national corporations is what passionate progressives do.
BuzzFlash is thankful for our Internet community (which has grown over nearly 10 years to include several sites and social networks such as Twitter) -- and all the progressive Internet sites, bloggers, radio hosts, and the liberal beachhead on television.
We are thankful for all those who remain true to progressive principles and remain advocates for a caring society.
Your energy and commitment will determine whether the great experiment in democracy that is America will fall prey to global corporatists and ante-bellum selfish Christian extremists or evolve into a champion of social and economic justice.
In agitating for this noble goal, there is much to be thankful for.
BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG
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Helping
I do as much as I can to help my fellow humans, especially the poor, but I sometimes reflect that I'm helping people who, as Christ-tards, are holding back women, progress, science, and humanity in general. When I give five bucks to a homeless person, I often hear, "god bless you," as if god had anything to do with their recent bounty. I do bother to point out their error: "god had nothing to do with this. If there were a god, you wouldn't be out here asking me for money."
Obama is a right-wing tool, perpetuating the government designed in the constitution by the very weatlthy founding fathers: government by the rich, for the rich, and of the rich. If you want something else, look to what the founding fathers did; it requires courage and firepower.
Working for the common good?
Not a fool's errand.
It's hard, it's slow, its frustrating, but if we're not doing that then what are we doing? And why would we even be getting and reading this email from Buzzflash.
Leave the sourness alone for a day and give thanks that we're alive and well enough to be reading and writing and caring.
Colleen Clark Cambridge, MA
to what? to whom?
To what or to whom should I render these thanks? That I live out a meaningless, pointless, empty life I didn't ask for? They beat my butt to make me breathe. I've been for my 65 years extremely lucky--nothing really bad has ever happened to me. Yet I usually wish my mom had had another illegal abortion. She had one she was extremely proud of--a good decision. But she wanted me. Selfish move on her part, eh? Ah, well, no one in the history of mankind ever did anything for an unselfish reason.
Foolish? Probably.
As long as we're a nation of corporations, not citizens. As long as we are ruled by "good" presidents and "bad" presidents instead of the rule of law.
But we can change that you say? Next time we'll elect politicians who promise change!!
Oh, wait.....
So what _is_ the solution when citizens no longer have representation?
Just trying to be logical and asking. "Pragmatic" even -- which is one of Obama's favorite words.
Change we can believe in that's just more of the same!
Better include Obama in with Sarah Palin on this one. He too is no progressive. In fact, he is nothing but a Blue Dog DINO-Fascist.
They are both pawns of the upper 1% plutocracy, playing their parts in a farce that we call democracy.
At the end of the day, we still have a fascist leadership in D.C., just like we had under Dubya/dick. The story is just more of the same. Only the actors have changed.
When will WE THE PEOPLE get tired of watching these repeats?
On this Thanksgiving Day, the upper 1% plutocracy will gourge themselves on the bottom 95% of us turkeys who were led to the slaughter, again. This time by a faux Democratic president.