As my more intelligent blog readers know, Thanksgiving is normally the time of year when friends and family come together to celebrate the blessings and good fortune they’ve received throughout the year. It’s also a time to remember how much you dislike most of your family members, and to watch the Detroit Lions lose a professional football game.
But this wouldn’t be 2015-style America if there weren’t some people out there who wanted to take everything that is nice and good and normal about the traditions our country has and turn them into things that we should all FEEL VERY GUILTY ABOUT. I mean, just look at this image from Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. What is this racist shit? Franklin has to sit by himself? And all the music was written by Vince Guaraldi, a white man who co-opted the Jazz tradition. No, you can’t watch Charlie Brown for Thanksgiving. Here’s some other reasons you definitely shouldn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, according to the Social Justice Warriors of America.
First of all, don’t forget that this country was built on the backs of slaves and Indians errr Native americans so the Pilgrims were probably the worst people ever to set foot on the Earth. So you can’t celebrate Thanksgiving, because if you do, you’ll be legitimizing the senseless genocide of Native Americans (who also senselessly committed genocide against other tribes and were just as different from each other as the British and the French). Shame on you, sir.
Secondly, Thanksgiving is bad for the environment, don’t you know. If you can make it through this ThinkProgress article without punching your laptop in frustration, you’re a better man than I am. In addition to avoiding all the terrible things that Thanksgiving does to the environment (like actually transporting food across the country, which provides jobs and helps the economy), you have to make sure that you’re ready to do battle with your climate denier family.
Even with all these tips, Thanksgiving is hardly a carbon-neutral day for most of us. But there’s one more way you can get bigger climate returns on the day: Talk about it.
Maybe your family or friends don’t believe in climate change. Take a moment before the holiday to brush up on some key messages, and think of it this way: Convincing just one person to reduce her carbon footprint doubles what you can do on your own.
Yes, because what better way to promote Thanksgiving and family unity than arguing about psuedo-science?
Lastly, if you’re going to celebrate Thanksgiving, we’d all prefer that you do it in the same way that you celebrate any religion other than Islam—by keeping that shit all to yourself. Because, you know, by talking about all the things you’re thankful for, you’re really just demonstrating your privilege. You don’t deserve anything that you have, because meritocracy is just, like, an illusion, man. So don’t post anything about being thankful, because everything you’re thankful for rightfully belongs to somebody else who just isn’t as privileged as you. Especially don’t post about being thankful for your family, because talking about your traditional family is probably a trigger warning to somebody who is in a non-traditional blended family that’s headed by a man who identifies as a transwoman every other Tuesday and a sway bar.
I wonder how long it will be until we start talking about Thanksgiving the same way we talk about Columbus Day. I’m guessing by next year.
man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant.”
― H.L. Mencken
Sort of says it for me :the only thing I feel guilty about is not taking advantage of a couple of opportunities lately.
Holy shit ~
Is it really this bad ? .
Screw that , I have ever so much to be thankful for , mostly that I was born and raised in AMERICA the very best place on this Earth , trust me I’ve lived in some shitholes and the U.S. of A. had ;em all beat hands down .
My one complaint is : where to buy MINCE PIE in Los Angeles ? .
-Nate
Motherfuckers crossed the line with dissin’ Charlie Brown! Charlie Brown is sacred territory.
Besides, Franklin has the best seat! I know from my own childhood that it’s all win if no one else can reach your plate. As a black person, I know for a fact that black folks will take your rolls during grace when your eyes are closed! 😀
I literally watch 3 programs/shows, total, and do so by streaming them, thereby avoiding all commercials (including Campbell Soup My Two Dads ones), other B.S., and the 24/7 everything “Breaking News Emergency OMG we’re all going to die!” interruptions.
We live in a marketing saturated, consumption intense, money-is-our-national-god, celebrity worship, breaking-meaningless-news, rat race, empty society.
I intend to do my part for the environment.
At 6am the smoker will have a 50lb hog thrown on, to be smoked for about 8 hours. As the hog is nearing edible, the turkey fryer will be ignited, ready to accept a 20lb bird. The grill will be fired up to start roasting corn on the cob and a commercial stove( with dual ovens) will be used to cook/heat all the sides.
SJW’s, tree huggers, BLM, and other rabble rousers NOT invited. Go sit in your preferred location and chant, sing, scream, yell or whatever you wanna do, far away from me and mine.
Yep, doing my part for the environment. 🙂
The Sierra Club recommends . . . ? Fuck ’em: they fought to have Pike’s Peak paved even when real earth scientists told them it would dramatically increase erosion, and now I get to see the effects of that screwup every single day.
Seriously, is anyone still fooled by the backlit photographs of water vapor exhaust which populate Think Progress’ pages?
I’ll be driving out past several mind-blowing car and parts yards this coming Thursday (Murilee’s find isn’t the only one with brain-melting contents along that highway) and keeping everyone in my heart and thoughts; I’d send a post from there but for some reason (coughShrieverAFBcough) it’s a cellular Sargasso despite several repeaters being LOS to the residence.
And I’m still wondering what happened to that monster collection of Citroens just east of Peterson; someone really enjoyed accumulating DSes there.
I would take Franklin’s seat, I hate having dinner so squashed together you can’t eat, like a Japanese salaryman on the subway. Did you see the headline today about the University of Ottawa banning free yoga sessions because of all the “cultural issues” it brings up. I refused to take the bait and click on that trash.
Oh and Happy Thanksgiving! God bless the USA
I consider myself blessed to be able to spend Thanksgiving with the ones I love and enjoy a Lions loss…er turkey, I mean turkey.
I keep suggesting to anyone & everyone that minimalism is best.
Quality over quantity, bitches.
Our homes, garages, basements, minds and souls are filled with an average of 3% useful and/or important and/or highly beneficial things and 97% useless detritus.
Not a problem. Haven’t celebrated Thanksgiving since I’ve been divorced. Holidays are depressing. Ever make a festive meal for one?
Hey Ronnie – I understand how holidays can be a depressing in this manner. Here’s wishing you the best this time of year! And thanks for the great reporting – you and the Brothers Baruth are about the only reason I read TTAC anymore. Your Elio coverage has been fantastic, but your history pieces approach ne plus ultra status.
Holidays are depressing for most people, especially adults, for precisely these types of reasons; divorces, deaths of loved ones, familial problems/dysfunctionality, etc. – we can evade confronting these things for much of the year, but Holidays force us to confront them head on, in person and emotionally.
That can be a drag, Ronnie. We have three in our family, my wife, my son and me, and we often travel a couple of hours to dine with my brothers-in-law and their families.
But whenever we are at home on Turkey Day, try to make it a point to invite one or more people who live alone to dine with us. Only happens about once every five years or so, but when it does, it tends to make our day as well as theirs.
Hope you can find a situation like that. Or perhaps you can make one…find others in your situation, and plan a get together for all of you, on a rotating basis. Don’t even have to limit it to Thanksgiving.
I did that a couple of times, between my divorce and when I finally met my true love.
Hope you can find some friends for those kinds of days. And if you are ever in the Philly area, hit us up…you just might end up with an invite next year. (A bit too late for this year, but if you are in the area, hit me up anyway…no need to wait for the holiday.)
Any religion other than Islam?
What are you talking about? Those folk have great food during Ramadan evenings – and I don’t have to fast. It’s a Win-Win
The carbon footprint thing….yeah, that’s the alarmism that annoys people, and trivializes the real thing. Just eat your damn turkey and have fun already. The gubmint will get round to things that actually make a difference eventually…
Very informative, and well-written, Bark.
Your work is in the best tradition of that old journalistic axiom, that it is the duty of a good journalist to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.
FWIW and FYI, I recently heard that the research that led to the banning of DDT decades ago, contained a deliberate flaw. The scientist who did the research that showed that eggshells were weakened by DDT deliberately reduced the calcium intake of the birds in the study to about one twentieth of what was in their normal diet. And since eggshells need calcium to form, guess what really caused the weakening of the eggshells.
Another scientist did an opposing study, where the calcium intake was not manipulated. It showed that DDT did not cause shell weakening. The editor of the journal that published the first study rejected the followup study, telling the author scientist that as long as he was editor, that the (peer-reviewed) journal would never publish anything that didn’t show that pesticides caused harm.
As the classic book about statistics was titled “Figures Don’t Lie, But Liars Know How to Figure”.
Keep on speaking Truth to propaganda. If enough of us do, perhaps it is not too late to rescue our world and our children from these blatant attempts at brainwashing people into harming average people in order to further enrich the ultra-wealthy.
One more, before I go…when Al Gore was running for POTUS, he had a dam opened in order to film a campaign ad of him whitewater rafting on a river he claimed to have cleaned up, through his environmental efforts. Only problem was that there was a severe drought at the time, and he severely lowered the water level of the reservoir, in order to create the necessary water level downstream to be able to produce the ad.
Not to mention that the carbon footprint of the properties he owns just for personal residences alone, are on a par with entire small towns. Carbon footprints, and more realistically, just an out and out waste of natural resources.
Just remembered another bit of news for you…I just read that one of the two Australian girls who had gone to Syria to become “ISIS brides” (they had Eastern European names, FWIW) was killed while trying to escape from ISIS in Raqq. Apparently they found out that their romantic dream of life as the bride of an ISIS warrior wasn’t so noble after all. The article said that the other woman had already been reported as dead, though without circumstances being revealed. But the other one was supposedly clearly killed while trying to escape from ISIS after having gone there to join “the revolution”.
Wake up, people…the truth IS out there, but your eyes and ears have to be open, and your brain has to be engaged.
The performance artist Laurie Anderson, who was married to Lou Reed for years until his death, was on NPR last week. She said that she and Lou had come up with three “rules to live by”…never be afraid of anyone. Have a good BS detector and know how to use it. And be REALLY tender with each other.
All sound good, in the right context. But the second one sounds especially important in today’s world.
I thought you, Bark, and the B&B of Riverside Green, might appreciate that one, also.
Sorry for rambling on, but it is nice to know that there are a few other people who aren’t afraid of the truth here.
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!
Enjoyed your rant, j.grif
been listening to Vince Guaraldi quite a bit lately, excellent stuff!!
https://play.spotify.com/album/7DuJYWu66RPdcekF5TuZ7w
Great post Bark. Normally I don’t agree with everything you say but you hit the nail on the head here. Some people just want to ruin everything and the louder the yell, the more attention they get. That’s true on both sides of the political spectrum. Unfortunately on the left, it seems like people are just looking for ways to get offended so they can start being assholes to everyone around them. This is coming from a guy who clearly leans very left of spectrum on political, social, and economic issues. It’s getting out of hand. Just enjoy your damn Turkey already and have a good time with you family. America is pretty awesome and it’s a lot better than it used to be.
Oh… and Happy Thanksgiving!