Thanksgiving: The Thinking-Man’s Farce

This thinking man would rather be on the beach.

...it was intended to be a celebration of peace, and, in the past dozen decades or so, the government of the United States has done all that it could to eliminate the descendants of those we first celebrated the holiday with.

By Citizen Correspondent Todd Williams

Date Posted: 11/26/08

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Every year millions of United Statesians gather around a dinner table to give thanks, and, in one of many annual nationalistic displays, they eat a huge meal. (In others they hold parades and blow sh*t up.) Stuffing, cranberries, casseroles, pies, potatoes, both sweet and mashed, and, of course, the turkey. All to celebrate our colonization of an area and pay reverence to the everlasting, eternal bond between us and the natives of the land, who were here before it was ever "discovered." In fact, the natives would not have even known that they were here had we not told them. After all, we had sole possession of all of the flags and maps telling them that they were in America.

If you read past that bit of smarmy paste, I thank you (Canadians), because now I would like to tell you why I choose to not participate in this annual feast, if I can help it.

It starts with the Christmas music in shopping malls and rampant consumerism in the name of a country I cannot support and a god I do not believe in, though Obama's election gave me some cause for faith. I have been anti-Thanksgiving for so long that it does not feel like a boycott anymore, so much as any other day.

I go about my routine; I avoid the entanglement of ads and overweight parents with pudgy offspring by staying indoors or in bars as much as possible. Unfortunately, even the local organic food chains have stocked their meat-piles with turkey carcasses.

It has always, as long as I remember, struck me as odd that we take a day out of each year (two, counting the rapidly fading Columbus Day) to celebrate the rape and genocide of a whole nation, or several.

Sitting down at a Thanksgiving table feels hypocritical, as it was intended to be a celebration of peace, and, in the past dozen decades or so, the government of the United States has done all that it could to eliminate the descendants of those we first celebrated the holiday with. In the beginning, we received a warm meal, and in return they got blankets, with smallpox.

I also feel that this is an average day for many, as Thanksgiving is the ultimate celebration of both obesity and a lack of education. With weight gain on the rise and the grip of the age of anti-intellectualism only slowly loosening, there is not much to be giving thanks for right now.