Why I Fast At Thanksgiving- A Day of Mourning

The nation needs it's stories, it's mythologies in order to brainwash the people giving them a point of identity whilst continuing to fleece these unwitting participants. An essential tale in the American mythology is the story of Thanksgiving. Even the name is inappropriate, were it probably titled it might likely be called ThanksTaking.

As a personal refutation of this false story, that glorifies genocide and mischaracterizes the factual historical event in just about every way possible, I choose to fast on this inglorious holiday. I fast not only out of respect for those who were colonized but also as a symbolic gesture. While the historical fabrication of Thanksgiving is scarcely on people's minds as they stuff their bodies to the gills and tune in to the latest Sports Attraction at the Coliseum, it has largely become a day that symbolizes American corpulence. So with this in mind I opt to make a symbolic gesture and fast. In this small way I refuse to perpetuate the mythology of this day and reject the gluttony that has become the American Way of Life.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Here is the truth:

The reason they talk about the pilgrims and not an earlier English-speaking colony, Jamestown, is that in Jamestown the circumstances were way too ugly to hold up as an effective national myth. For example, the white settlers in Jamestown turned to cannibalism to survive. Not a very nice story to tell the kids in school. The pilgrims did not find an empty land any more than Columbus "discovered" anything. Every inch of this land is Indian land. The pilgrims (who did not even call themselves pilgrims) did not come here seeking religious freedom; they already had that in Holland. They came here as part of a commercial venture. They introduced sexism, racism, anti-lesbian and gay bigotry, jails, and the class system to these shores. One of the very first things they did when they arrived on Cape Cod -- before they even made it to Plymouth -- was to rob Wampanoag graves at Corn Hill and steal as much of the Indians' winter provisions as they were able to carry. They were no better than any other group of Europeans when it came to their treatment of the Indigenous peoples here. And no, they did not even land at that sacred shrine down the hill called Plymouth Rock, a monument to racism and oppression which we are proud to say we buried in 1995.



The first official "Day of Thanksgiving" was proclaimed in 1637 by Governor Winthrop. He did so to celebrate the safe return of men from Massachusetts who had gone to Mystic, Connecticut to participate in the massacre of over 700 Pequot women, children, and men.



The Puritans focused on religious piety and devotion to the Word. Because of their strong religious beliefs, the Puritans established a government that was very much interwoven with their religion. Only church members were allowed to vote, creating a society absolutely controlled by Puritan leaders. In this society, civil obedience was synonymous with duty with God.

About the only true thing in the whole mythology is that these pitiful European strangers would not have survived their first several years in "New England" were it not for the aid of Wampanoag people. What Native people got in return for this help was genocide, theft of our lands, and never-ending repression.



http://www.uaine.org/

What does anyone have to be thankful for in the genocide of the Indians that this "holyday" commemorates? As we sit with our families on Thanksgiving, taking the opportunity to get out of work or off the streets and be in a warm place with people we love, we realize that none of the things we have to be thankful for have anything at all to do with the Pilgrims or the official (sanitized) version of American history, and everything to do with the alternative, anarcho-communist lives the Indian peoples led before they were massacred by the colonists in the name of Christianity, privatization of property and the lust for gold and slave labor.

Yes, I am an American. But I am an American in revolt. I am revolted by the holiday known as Thanksgiving.

I look forward to a future where I will have children with America, and ... they will be the new Indians.

And I don't have to buy presents.

Turkey is probably my favorite meat. But it's important to make the sacrifice.

I have heard that there used to be between 50-60 breeds of turkey and now there are only a handful, maybe three or four.

Not eating for 24 hours might make me feel morally superior to the gluttonous masses fattened on the lies of European colonialism, but beyond that it accomplishes nothing.

and often, that is the most important thing. As an uber left liberal, I feel a great deal of guilt around this holiday and it's "cleaned up" story.

Food rulz. I like to eat it.

and we reflect on what we are thankful for in our lives now, not the past...

What Columbus did to the Arawaks of the Bahamas and the Taino of the Caribbean, Cortez did to the Aztecs of Mexico, Pizarro to the Incas of Peru, and the English settlers of Virginia and Massachusetts to the Powhatans and the Pequots. Literally millions of native peoples were slaughtered. And the gold, slaves and other resources were used, in Europe, to spur the growth of the new money economy rising out of feudalism. Karl Marx would later call this "the primitive accumulation of capital." These were the violent beginnings of an intricate system of technology, business, politics and culture that would dominate the world for the next five centuries.

All of this were the preconditions for the first Thanksgiving.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Puritans lived in uneasy truce with the Pequot Indians, who occupied what is now southern Connecticut and Rhode Island. But they wanted them out of the way; they wanted their land. And they seemed to want to establish their rule firmly over Connecticut settlers in that area.

In 1636 an armed expedition left Boston to attack the Narragansett Indians on Block Island. The English landed and killed some Indians, but the rest hid in the thick forests of the island and the English went from one deserted village to the next, destroying crops. Then they sailed back to the mainland and raided Pequot villages along the coast, destroying crops again.

The English went on setting fire to wigwams of the village. They burned village after village to the ground. As one of the leading theologians of his day, Dr. Cotton Mather put it: "It was supposed that no less than 600 Pequot souls were brought down to hell that day." And Cotton Mather, clutching his bible, spurred the English to slaughter more Indians in the name of Christianity.

Three hundred thousand Indians were murdered in New England over the next few years. It is important to note: The ordinary Englishmen did not want this war and often, very often, refused to fight. Some European intellectuals like Roger Williams spoke out against it. And some erstwhile colonists joined the Indians and even took up arms against the invaders from England. It was the Puritan elite who wanted the war, a war for land, for gold, for power. And, in the end, the Indian population of 10 million that was in North America when Columbus came was reduced to less than one million.

The way the different Indian peoples lived -- communally, consensually, making decisions through tribal councils, each tribe having different sexual/marriage relationships, where many different sexualities were practiced as the norm -- contrasted dramatically with the Puritan's Christian fundamentalist values. For the Puritans, men decided everything, whereas in the Iroquois federation of what is now New York state women chose the men who represented the clans at village and tribal councils; it was the women who were responsible for deciding on whether or not to go to war. The Christian idea of male dominance and female subordination was conspicuously absent in Iroquois society.

http://www.countercurrents.org/us-cohen271103.htm

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It wouldn't look to good on you if you were to call someone else an idiot over something they never said.

...without at least attempting to find contradictory evidence. It only took me a couple of minutes to find the following... (This is also partially a response to the top post in this thread.)

From the following website:

http://www.sail1620.org/discover_feature_thanksgiving_on_the_net_roast_bull_with_cranberry_sauce_part_3.shtml

Winslow's words are our only evidence. Nothing impels us to doubt his information that the Pilgrims opened the grave of a European sailor and his child, reburying them after removing from the grave a few items that to a European would not have been considered grave offerings having any symbolic significance. The Pilgrims exhibited memorable sensitivity in refraining from disturbing Indian graves, once they learned to recognize them. They did not dig up graves in order to eat corn buried as grave offerings. There is no indication they removed corn from any graves. The corn was found in baskets whose shape when packed in earth would result in domed pit spaces. There is nothing to support the idea that corn was placed in graves as offerings, although small gifts of corn have been found in graves excavated by archaeologists working hundreds of miles away (the American southwest and Peru, for example).

...

Throughout the accounts of these discoveries of storage baskets of Indian corn, Winslow repeats the intention to try to meet the Indian owners and negotiate repayment for the corn that had been taken That was an intention to provide compensation for what the Pilgrims understood would be considered theft if no payment were made. (During the first year, Pilgrims stole corn; Indians stole abandoned tools.) Establishing that neither side would steal from the other was an important part of early negotiation between them. Attempts to locate the specific owner of the corn were ultimately successful and repayment was made (see Pilgrim Edward Winslow, p. 36).

And also from this site:

http://hnn.us/articles/7302.html

We may examine representative incidents by following the geographic route of European settlement, beginning in the New England colonies. There, at first, the Puritans did not regard the Indians they encountered as natural enemies, but rather as potential friends and converts. But their Christianizing efforts showed little success, and their experience with the natives gradually yielded a more hostile view. The Pequot tribe in particular, with its reputation for cruelty and ruthlessness, was feared not only by the colonists but by most other Indians in New England. In the warfare that eventually ensued, caused in part by intertribal rivalries, the Narragansett Indians became actively engaged on the Puritan side.

Hostilities opened in late 1636 after the murder of several colonists. When the Pequots refused to comply with the demands of the Massachusetts Bay Colony for the surrender of the guilty and other forms of indemnification, a punitive expedition was led against them by John Endecott, the first resident governor of the colony; although it ended inconclusively, the Pequots retaliated by attacking any settler they could find. Fort Saybrook on the Connecticut River was besieged, and members of the garrison who ventured outside were ambushed and killed. One captured trader, tied to a stake in sight of the fort, was tortured for three days, expiring after his captors flayed his skin with the help of hot timbers and cut off his fingers and toes. Another prisoner was roasted alive.

The torture of prisoners was indeed routine practice for most Indian tribes, and was deeply ingrained in Indian culture. Valuing bravery above all things, the Indians had little sympathy for those who surrendered or were captured. Prisoners. unable to withstand the rigor of wilderness travel were usually killed on the spot. Among those—Indian or European—taken back to the village, some would be adopted to replace slain warriors, the rest subjected to a ritual of torture designed to humiliate them and exact atonement for the tribe's losses. Afterward the Indians often consumed the body or parts of it in a ceremonial meal, and proudly displayed scalps and fingers as trophies of victory.

Despite the colonists' own resort to torture in order to extract confessions, the cruelty of these practices strengthened the belief that the natives were savages who deserved no quarter. This revulsion accounts at least in part for the ferocity of the battle of Fort Mystic in May 1637, when a force commanded by John Mason and assisted by militiamen from Saybrook surprised about half of the Pequot tribe encamped near the Mystic River.

The intention of the colonists had been to kill the warriors "with their Swords," as Mason put it, to plunder the village, and to capture the women and children. But the plan did not work out. About 150 Pequot warriors had arrived in the fort the night before, and when the surprise attack began they emerged from their tents to fight. Fearing the Indians' numerical strength, the English attackers set fire to the fortified village and retreated outside the palisades. There they formed a circle and shot down anyone seeking to escape; a second cordon of Narragansett Indians cut down the few who managed to get through the English line. When the battle was over, the Pequots had suffered several hundred dead, perhaps as many as 300 of these being women and children. Twenty Narragansett warriors also fell.

A number of recent historians have charged the Puritans with genocide: that is, with having carried out a premeditated plan to exterminate the Pequots. The evidence belies this. The use of fire as a weapon of war was not unusual for either Europeans or Indians, and every contemporary account stresses that the burning of the fort was an act of self-protection, not part of a pre-planned massacre. In later stages of the Pequot war, moreover, the colonists spared women, children, and the elderly, further contradicting the idea of genocidal intention.

All emphasis is mine.

Lewy contends that the Vietnam War was "legal and not immoral."
Lewy's suggestion that the Winter Soldier Investigation was dishonest and politically motivated was frequently cited to impugn John Kerry's reputation.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guenter_Lewy

of America's truly vile history.

How far back should we go to right every wrong?

for things I didn't do.

People are free to be miserable over crimes committed 500 years ago, but I refuse to. I had a wonderful day with my family and my neices and nephews.

I hope you naval-gazers felt suitably horrible all day. Such is choice.

Instead of brushing it away, like you do. Yes, you do ignore it. Because when somebody confronts you about it, like the starter of this thread did, you get in defense-mood and you don't really want to hear about it. You try to justify what happened by saying: "well, those-and-those did it too" and when you're called upon the fact that that is a bogus argument, you are resorting to name-calling ("naval-gazers") and you answer like a reactionary jerk ("I hope you ... felt suitably horrible"). I'm sorry if that is rude, but this is the way you come across. Nobody's forcing you to do what the starter of this thread does (fasting), but denying or ignoring or belittling historical events about your country that are not so wonderful is something the right-wing does, not us --at least we shouldn't.

Of course they're going to say their ancestors weren't grave robbers. :eyes:

I've studied a lot about Native American history at the graduate level, in New England in particular. What T.Ruth says is what I learned both in class and through my own research at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center and Harvard's Peabody Museum of of Archaeology and Ethnology. You did a quick Internet search, I wrote a 30 page paper. Which one of us is more likely to better informed? T.Ruth knows her stuff, I assure you.

Notice that Penn was able to peacefully negotiate purchase of land, as opposed to the Puritans, who took what they could by force.

http://www.quaker.org/wmpenn.html

William Penn, America's First Great Champion for Liberty and Peace
by Jim Powell

William Penn was the first great hero of American liberty. During the late seventeenth century, when Protestants persecuted Catholics, Catholics persecuted Protestants, and both persecuted Quakers and Jews, Penn established an American sanctuary which protected freedom of conscience. Almost everywhere else, colonists stole land from the Indians, but Penn traveled unarmed among the Indians and negotiated peaceful purchases. He insisted that women deserved equal rights with men. He gave Pennsylvania a written constitution which limited the power of government, provided a humane penal code, and guaranteed many fundamental liberties.

For the first time in modem history, a large society offered equal rights to people of different races and religions. Penn's dramatic example caused quite a stir in Europe. The French philosopher Voltaire, a champion of religious toleration, offered lavish praise. "William Penn might, with reason, boast of having brought down upon earth the Golden Age, which in all probability, never had any real existence but in his dominions. "

. . .


Penn's practices contrasted dramatically with other early colonies, especially Puritan New England which was a vicious theocracy. The Puritans despised liberty. They made political dissent a crime. They whipped, tarred, and hanged Quakers. The Puritans stole what they could from the Indians.

Penn achieved peaceful relations with the Indians--Susquehannocks, Shawnees, and Leni-Lenape. Indians respected his courage, because he ventured among them without guards or personal weapons. He was a superior sprinter who could out-run Indian braves, and this helped win him respect. He took the trouble to learn Indian dialects, so he could conduct negotiations without interpreters. From the very beginning, he acquired Indian land through peaceful, voluntary exchange. Reportedly, Penn concluded a "Great Treaty" with the Indians at Shackamaxon, near what is now the Kensington district of Philadelphia. Voltaire hailed this as "the only treaty between those people that was not ratified by an oath, and that was never infringed." His peaceful policies prevailed for about 70 years, which has to be some kind of record in American history.

(At least the Northern Part of the New Land) Went off and lived with the Native peoples.

This was a major bummer for the religious leaders who had planned on having large congregations to lord over.

So the Anti-Indigenous People's rhetoric came into being. Driven by the ambitions of the Pilgrim OverLords.

Native Americans = heathens. Equals "bad" people that the Good Lord wants killed.

Same thing is happening today within the RW congregations. Each Sunday they are instructed that the Muslims must be smited, so saith the Lord.

Not everyone who arrived on this soil had it out for the natives. A study of literature of the colonies will show you that people in Virginia in the Seventeen hundreds liked to go and sauna with
the tribes there. (What the tribal people called "sweats")

It is said that Benjamin Franklin took the wisdom of the New York tribes like the Mohawk and Seneca and imported it into the documents that became the Declaration of Independance and the Constitution.

In the early 1800's, Dolly Madison hosted parties and soirees to which the princes and princesses of various tribes were invited. Their presence was feted and they were mini celebrities of the era. This period of interaction did not last long - the visitors took influenza, small pox and other illnesses back to their tribes, which were then inadvertently wiped out.

People in the Carolinas lived side by side with the Native Americans. William Randolph Hearst's
biography talks about how the tribal people and their lives were interconnected with the whites. Everyone shared the land and the wildlife. This in the mid eighteen hundreds.

The Civil War hardened and corrupted the soldiers who survived. Many of them continued to need to be part of the Army - and joined with the Cavalry that was heading West to secure land for the settlers. Thus began the final extremely hostile and genocidal policies of our nation against the Native Americans.

And these programs were not necessarily supported by the liberals in New York City, Chicago, or Baltimore. Letters to the Editor pages always featured the opinion that the settlers and the Native Americans should live side by side. However, that viewpoint was not supported by the Federal Government. Our government wanted the Native AMericans exterminated, period.

Adolph Hitler would later say that it was a study of American history that led him to understand what could be done to any populace that a country needed to exterminate.

bookmarking your post

Yes, of course I knew what happened to the Indigenous people of (Latin-)America, but I never realized these kind of 'details'... It's gruesome. What's even more disgusting is the fact it was "in honor of Christ Our Saviour".

This is why I get angry when ignorant people just deny that the "five centuries" of oppression has nothing to do with the rotten state of a lot of Latin-American countries. These super-right wing assholes who say it's all the people's fault. The kind that gets mad at leftist leaders like Morales, Chávez, Ortega, Lula, Kirchner etc. who bring back power to the Indigenous people and kick "us" out.

I'm glad you started this thread. I never really knew what Thanksgiving was about. Now I know. Thank you.

Disgusting.

...in a discussion thread that was supposed to strike a blow against racism.

and other peoples of color always dominate any and all conversations regarding thanksgiving, and are absolutely NEVER shouted down by white people trying to tell them to "get over it" and to quit bugging them with the actual history of the holiday.

Poor white people just can't get a break.

Fight the Power.

I find it amazing how offended most people become when one mentions anything but happiness regarding this holiday. Most people can't handle the truth. Actually, holidays are nominal holidays in a generic sense. It's not really Thanksgiving. It's a day off of work. It's a meal. It's time with friends. It's supposed to represent a few good people who actually got along. A brief moment. It's meaningless.

I think. I don't just do as I'm told. And I see how this country has just taken whatever it needs and can't get. And I don't celebrate it.

I forgot to say that of course the holiday means different things to different people. And therein lies the conflict between those who celebrate it and those who cringe. I see this giant backdrop with a turkey sitting on a table. And I just can't overlook the obvious. I used to call it Nothanksgiving. I always will.

nor offended. And I can certainly handle the truth. I just don't agree that ignoring family on Thanksgiving actually accomplishes anything other than giving oneself a sense of satisfaction of not buying into the myth.

It really isn't accomplishing much. I think I'm really protesting the acceptance of the holiday, which to me translates to an acceptance of what happened. I can see that isn't really true.

Thanks. It gives me some insight into myself. I suppose I don't have to be so serious.

just offering my opinion. (Because I've always got one!) :)

Either way, if you have family or friends to spend the day with, even if you do fast, I hope you enjoy your day and can be appreciative of the good in your life. And if you are having a quiet day, enjoy that one as well! (Key word = ENJOY!)

Yeehaw. It's just the kind of thing I love doing. And on Monday I should be the proud owner of an amazing piece of property. I actually have a hell of a lot to be thankful for. :)

I hope it brings you many years of comfort, security, and happiness! :)

One can fast without ignoring family ...

I'm not fasting, myself, but I'm also not doing turkey, etc. I'm just not that into Thanksgiving as a holiday this year, and it's been a long time since I've bought into the whole pilgrim/feast biz. I know it doesn't accomplish anything on a grand scale, and other than giving family/friends something to think about while we discuss Thanksgiving plans, it probably doesn't accomplish anything other than, as you say, giving "a sense of satisfaction of not buying into the myth." But I think that's a worthwhile effort now and then.

that I shouldn't have made: that if one was fasting to protest the myth, they probably were not partaking in any other activities today, either. I shouldn't have assumed that. It was faulty logic on my part.

Regardless, I hope everyone has a lovely day today, whether they are celebrating Thanksgiving or not. :)

Regardless, I hope everyone has a lovely day today, whether they are celebrating Thanksgiving or not. :)

:hi:

just as every other Holiday celebrates death of some kind. And when I mentioned that to my native American fiancee, she almost ripped my throat out over it..
I simply asked her, "Why do you celebrate a holiday in which the White Man slaughtered millions of your ancestors?"
Answer, "Because it's about spending time with friends and family."

My Reply, "Whateva"

There is something very revealing about that. I'm very frustrated and offended by what is and has been happening. But that prayer is about thankfulness. And it comes from humility. It's that lack of humility, the flagrant and arrogant behavior of so many people, that has me being anything but thankful.

And after reading it, I realized that it's the humility that I am thankful for. I'm not sure I can explain it. I just went into a contract with a water well driller. Of all people. I think he's Native American. He has the look, at least. And I have not met someone as cool as him since a guy I met back in 1986. I'll never forget that one man. And I mean cool in the sense that things are ok with him. He's not pissed off. I have been overwhelmed with his attitude.

Now I haven't celebrated any American holidays for well over two decades. But suddenly I am realizing that I do have a lot to be thankful for. I'm thankful for silence. For good music. And like I was saying, I am thankful for those who are humble.

And this morning I realized something. I have to live with me. I don't know how much choice is involved in being offended, but maybe if I choose to also be humble, I can be thankful.

In a word, I sense that it has something to do with forgiveness.

before we destroy our selves. We desperately need to reconnect with the Earth, the problem as I see it, is that many people believe ever since the fall from the Garden of Eden that humanity should be separated from nature to the point of dominating it and I believe this mindset will be a self fulfilling prophecy, bringing about a human induced Armageddon.

I also believe we have much to learn from each other and that attitudes are changing toward the role of the Native Americans, but change is hard and I'm sure too slow for many.

As for what to be thankful for, I would suggest your ability to communicate your feelings and insight with the rest of us as a starting point.

Thanks for the thread, T.Ruth2power.

Kicked and recommended.

about the first "holiday" for Thanksgiving.

It is also true that agricultural societies, including many North American Indian cultures, had thanksgiving harvest festivals in the fall. In woodland societies, for example, this was one of 13 festivals.

My family prefers to concentrate on the positive aspect of Thanksgiving. That includes recognition of the full history of what the holiday represents.

I think the whole idea that Thanksgiving commemorates the mythical doings of early American colonists is pretty much to indoctrinate little kids. As we grow up and mature, some of us come to appreciate the fact that there's a holiday set aside that asks us to be conscious of what we have and to maybe share some of that bounty with others. I think that's a good thing. The whole over-eating-and-sports cliche is really just a cliche--not everyone does that.

This is not to say that we should ignore history; for me, that's very important in ways that are not relevant to this thread. But to turn your back on Thanksgiving because of that one aspect of it is, to me, kind of silly--much like having nothing to do with Christmas just because you're an atheist.

edit/typo

In Plymouth, even though a substantial portion of the colony was there for the sheer business opportunity, there was a subset that were there for the 'religious freedom' (for the timeframe, anyway) thing.

It's a distinction, certainly, if not a difference.

Bottom line--I'm with the people who like the food, my few small drops of native blood notwithstanding.

Because I see all the people who came to find a future for their children. I see the courage involved in getting on a boat and going to god knows what.

It is charming that you idealize the lives of the inhabitants we displaced, but let me know when you find a square inch of land on this planet that is NOT drenched in blood. Amerindians came, by language, in four different waves. You think Wave 2 was best friends with Wave 1? Have you seen the Mississippian fortifications? Do you get that pueblos were built because they were easy to defend and safe from attack? Yet we still find arrowheads in pueblo indian skulls?

Have you figured out yet how words like papoose and almost anything in Nahuatl have a clear indoeuropean derivation? How the Jomon pottery got to Peru? Why knot writing is only known in two places? China and Peru?

And then there are the indications of pre-amerindian first wave population. Whatever happened to them?

You've distorted the long and bloody history of the Americas to suit your simplistic notions.

So have fun starving yourself.

Thank you for posting this excellent post.

I am also revolted by the holiday known as Thanksgiving.

I'm part Cherokee and, as always, will be eating plenty on Thanksgiving. You know, English colonists and American Indians alike celebrated the harvest long before they met up - it was something they had in common.

I understand a bit of your anger. I hated what they tried to indoctrinate my daughter with last year in school, so I told her the other side of the story--that the Puritans killed a lot of people and weren't always nice to their hosts at that first feast later or to their children.

I keep the feast for family. That's it. Honestly, with hosting 21 this year, I'm ready to chuck the whole thing but can't. So, I'm trying to remember to get all four colors of the corn and have my own ways to respect those who welcomed my ancestors (first ones came around the Civil War but then headed straight west).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R9ulGK5nU8


Silent Warrior


Long ago, for many years
White men came in the name of god
They took their land, they took their lives
A new age has just begun

They lost their gods, they lost their smile
They cried for help for the last time.
Liberty was turning into chains
But all the white men said
Thats the cross of changes

In the name of God - the fight for gold
These were the changes.
Tell me - is it right - in the name of god
These kind of changes ?

They tried to fight for liberty
Without a chance in hell, they gave up.
White men won in the name of god
With the cross as alibi

There's no God who ever tried
To change the world in this way.
For the ones who abuse his name
There'll be no chance to escape
On judgement day

In the name of God - the fight for gold
These were the changes.
Tell me - is it right - in the name of god
These kind of changes ?

Tell me why, tell me why, tell why
The white men said:
That's the cross of changes ?

Tell me why, tell me why, tell why,
In the name of god
These kind of changes

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Denigrating and disparaging a uniquely American tradition in the name of honoring events that had nothing to do with the holiday is a guaranteed way of driving away voters, by the thousands. So, perhaps the best that people like me can do for the party is to show others that no, the Democratic Party is NOT made up solely of people truly are on the edge of serious medication needs.

Wouldn't want to alienate the white supremacists and nationalist, jingoist freaks.

Native American Holocaust

many of us are immigrants whose families never participated in ANY of the fucked up shit that this country has done. None of my ancestors persecuted any First Nations people. None of my ancestors owned slaves. Many of my ancestors were indentured servants themselves. So screw that. As an immigrant I want no part of this ridiculous nonsense.

Should all non-indigenous people pack up and leave?

My ancestors came here in a wave from 1890 to 1910. They got their asses kicked by the Irish who came here earlier. They got the shittiest jobs and lived in unimaginable conditions.

Just like most of the latin immigrants who come here now.

Migration happens. Populations change. Newer groups assimilate and then turn around and kick the asses of still newer groups. It's not nice, but humans seem to be wired for tribal loyalty.

that's a rowboat full of dumb, drifting aimlessly in a sargasso sea of 'tard.

Sad that few others realize it.

against the rules! :hi:

I've been here for a couple of years. My posts are consistently in favor of a strong federal government, and I have strong socialist leanings. I'm ridiculously pro socialized medicine, I support nationalized schools and universities, I support NCLB, and I'm opposed to the Iraq War (favoring immediate withdrawal) and opposed, even, to the idea of a strong national military. I dislike the ultra-rich and think that they should be made middle class through the taxation system. I frequently identify myself as being in favor of a powerful nanny state. I don't like the politics of a lot of baby boomers, especially those who believe that the universe revolves around them. But what really burns my boat is all of the horse shit from otherwise sensible people. EG trying to foist religion on anyone, trying to forward asinine conspiracy theories, believing in unscientific nonsense, or trying to send people on wholly imaginary guilt trips. This thanksgiving crap clearly falls into the last camp. A wholly imaginary guilt trip.

So yeah, that other poster can take those troll accusations and stick them where the sun doesn't shine.


PS I'm strongly in favor of Hillary and Obama as the ticket and think that it's the only way to beat Rudy. I also think that Kucinich ought to drop the nonsense now and withdraw. The Gore people should face reality, and the Edwards people should try to be civil.

the nom, the Ghoul will be president for the next 8 years. She's our best chance. She might not be the world's greatest choice, but she's better (eg more electable) than any of the alternatives.

not even if he ran against Mickey Mouse

and then the general population will vote him in, unless he faces an equally high profile opponent.

Thanksgiving Prayer
William S. Burroughs

Thanks for the wild turkey and
the passenger pigeons, destined
to be shit out through wholesome
American guts.


Thanks for a continent to despoil
and poison.
Thanks for Indians to provide a
modicum of challenge and
danger.

Thanks for vast herds of bison to
kill and skin leaving the
carcasses to rot.
Thanks for bounties on wolves
and coyotes.

Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until
the bare lies shine through.

Thanks for the KKK.

For nigger-killin' lawmen,
feelin' their notches.

For decent church-goin' women,
with their mean, pinched, bitter,
evil faces.

Thanks for "Kill a Queer for
Christ" stickers.

Thanks for laboratory AIDS.

Thanks for Prohibition and the
war against drugs.

Thanks for a country where
nobody's allowed to mind the
own business.

Thanks for a nation of finks.

Yes, thanks for all the
memories-- all right let's see
your arms!

You always were a headache and
you always were a bore.

Thanks for the last and greatest
betrayal of the last and greatest
of human dreams.

And thank you very much T.Ruth2power.

(From Europe) :hi:

edit: :-(

:eyes:

and spending time with people I care about doesn't make me oblivious to the wrongs native Americans suffered at the hands of English colonizers.

I also want to note that all cultures have mythologies that gloss over the bad and glorify the good. You simplify everything in your OP, and you reek of sanctimony.

We return thanks to our mother, the earth, which sustains us.
We return thanks to the rivers and streams,which supply us with water.
We return thanks to all herbs, which furnish medicines for the cure of our diseases. We return thanks to the corn, and to her sisters, the beans and squash, which give us life. We return thanks to the bushes and trees, which provide us with fruit. We return thanks to the wind, which, moving the air,
has banished diseases. We return thanks to the moon and the stars, which have given us their light when the sun was gone. We return thanks to our grandfather He-no, .., who has given to us his rain. We return thanks to the sun, that he has looked upon the earth with a beneficent eye. Lastly, we return thanks to
the Great Spirit, in whom is embodied all goodness, and who directs all things for the good of his children

There is a humility in that that I especially appreciate. One I see very little of these days, and in this society. This thread is turning my head around. I doubt they would support my attitude towards Thanksgiving, despite my valid reasoning. They just sound too kind and humble. Thanks for posting that.

http://bookstore.autonomedia.org/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=55&sort=1a&page=1

...On page after page Marx highlights passages wildly remote from what are usually regarded as the "standard themes" of his work. Thus we find him invoking the bell-shaped houses of the coastal tribes of Venezuela; the manufacture of Iroquois belts "using fine twine made of filaments of elm and basswood bark"' "the Peruvian legend of Manco Capac and Mama Oello, children of the sun"; burial customs of the Tuscarora; the Shawnee belief in metempsychosis; "unwritten" literature of myth's, legends and traditions"; the "incipient sciences" of the village Indians of the Southwest; the Popul Vuh, sacred book of the ancient Quiche Maya; the use of porcupine quills in ornamentation; Indian games and "dancing (as a] form of worship."

Carefully, and for one tribe after another, Marx lists each each the animals from which the various clans claim descent, No work of his is so full of such words as Wolf grizzly bear; opossum and turtle (in the pages on Australian aborigines we find emu, kangaroo and bandicoot). Again and again he copies words and names from tribal languages. Intrigued by the manner in which individual (personal) names indicate the gen, he notes these Sauk names from the Eagle gens: "Ka-po-na ('Eagle drawing his nest'); Ja-ka-kwa-pe ('Eagle sitting with his head up'); Pe-a-ta-na-ka-hok ('Eagle flying over a limb')." Repeatedly he attends to details so unusual that one cannot help wondering what he was thinking as he wrote them in his notebook Consider, for example, his word-for-word quotation from Morgan telling of a kind of "grace" said before an Indian tribal feast: "It "was a prolonged exclamation by a single person on a high shrill note, falling down in cadences into stillness, followed by a response in chorus by the people." After the meal, he adds, "The evenings devoted to dance?"

Especially voluminous are Marx's notes on the Iroquois, the confederation of tribes with which Morgan was personally most familiar (in 1846 he was in fact "adopted" by one of its constituent tribes, the Seneca, as a warrior of the Hawk clan), and on which he had written a classic monograph. Clearly Marx shared Morgan's passional attraction for the "League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee?' among whom "the state did not exist," and "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, though never formulated, were cardinal principles," and whose sachems, moreover, had "none of the marks of a priesthood?' One of his notes includes Morgan's description of the formation of the Iroquois Confederation as "a masterpiece of Indian wisdom," and it doubtless fascinated him to learn that, as far in advance of the revolution as 1755, the Iroquois had recommended to the "forefathers Americans, a union of the colonies similar so their own."

Many passages of these Notebooks reflect Marx's interest in Iroquois democracy as expressed in the Council of the Gens, that "democratic assembly where every adult male and female member had a voice upon all questions brought before it," and he made special note of details regarding the active participation of women in tribal affairs, The relation of man to woman-a topic of Marx's 1844 manuscripts-is also one of the recurring themes of his ethnological inquiries. Thus he quotes a letter sent to Morgan by a missionary among the Seneca: "The women were the great power among the clans, as everywhere else. They did not hesitate, when occasion required, 'to knock off the horns,' as it was technically called, from the head of a chief, and send him back to the ranks of the warriors. The original nomination of the chief also always rested with them" And a few pages later he highlights Morgan's contention that the "present monogamian family… must…change as society changes...It is the creature of a social system... capable of still further improvement until the equality of the sexes is attained." He similarly emphasizes Morgan's conclusion, regarding monogamy, that "it is impossible to predict the nature of its successor?'"

In this area as elsewhere Marx discerned germs of social stratification within the gentile organization, again in terms of the separation of "public" and "private" spheres, which he saw in turn as the reflection of the gradual emergence of a propertied and privileged tribal caste. After copying Morgan's observation that, in the Council of Chiefs, women were free to express their wishes and opinions "through a" orator of their own choosing?" he added, with emphasis, that the "Decision (was] made by the (all-male) Council" Marx was nonetheless unmistakably impressed by the fact that, among the Iroquois, women enjoyed a freedom and a degree of social involvement far beyond that of the women (or men!) of any civilized nation. The egalitarian tendency of all gentile societies is one of the qualities of these societies that most interested Marx, and his alertness to deviations from it did not lead him to reject Morgan's basic hypothesis in this regard. Indeed, where Morgan, in his chapter on "The Monogamian Family?" deplored the treatment of women in ancient Greece as an anomalous and enigmatic departure from the egalitarian norm, Marx commented (perhaps here reflecting the influence of Bachofen): "But the relationship between the goddesses on Olympus reveals memories of women's higher position?"

Marx's passages from Morgan's chapters on the Iroquois are proportionally much longer than his of his excerpts from Ancient Society, and in fact make up one of the largest sections of the Notebooks. It was not only Iroquois social organization, however, that appealed to him, but rather a whole way of life sharply counter-posed, all along the line, to modern industrial civilization. His overall admiration for North American Indian societies generally, and for the Iroquois in particular, is made clear throughout the text, perhaps most strongly in his highlighting of Morgan's reference to their characteristic "sense of independence" and "personal dignity?' qualities both men appreciated but found greatly diminished as humankind's "property career" advanced. Whatever reservations Marx may have had regarding the universal applicability of the Iroquois "model" in the analysis of gentile societies, the painstaking care with which he copied out Morgan's often meticulous descriptions of the various aspects of their culture shows how powerfully these people impressed him. Whole pages of the Notebooks recount, in marvelous detail, Iroquois Council procedures and ceremonies:

at a signal the sachems arose and marched 3 times around the Burning Circle, going as before by the North… Master of the ceremonies again rising to his feet, filled and lighted the pipe of peace from his own fire; drew 3 whiffs, the first toward the Zenith (which meant thanks to the Great Spirit...); the second toward the ground (means thanks to his Mother, the Earth. for the various productions which had ministered to his sustenance); third toward the Sun (means thanks for his never-failing light, ever shining upon all). Then he passed the pipe to the first upon his right toward the North…

This passage goes on in the same vein for some thirty lines, but I think this brief excerpt suffices to show that the Ethnological Notebooks are unlike anything else in the Marxian canon.

More -
http://www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/marx_iroquois.html

Karl Marx's Ethnological Notebooks, and now shall certainly read more...

they don't celebrate it for that but as a family holiday where they can all get together.

Edit: spelling

over 700 men, women and children of the Pequot Tribe had gathered for their annual Green Corn Festival which is our Thanksgiving celebration. In the predawn hours the sleeping Indians were surrounded by English and Dutch mercenaries who ordered them to come outside. Those who came out were shot or clubbed to death while the terrified women and children who huddled inside the longhouse were burned alive. The next day the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared "A Day Of Thanksgiving" because 700 unarmed men, women and children had been murdered.

Cheered by their "victory", the brave colonists and their Indian allies attacked village after village. Women and children over 14 were sold into slavery while the rest were murdered. Boats loaded with a many as 500 slaves regularly left the ports of New England. Bounties were paid for Indian scalps to encourage as many deaths as possible.

Following an especially successful raid against the Pequot in what is now Stamford, Connecticut, the churches announced a second day of "thanksgiving" to celebrate victory over the heathen savages. During the feasting, the hacked off heads of Natives were kicked through the streets like soccer balls. Even the friendly Wampanoag did not escape the madness. Their chief was beheaded, and his head impaled on a pole in Plymouth, Massachusetts -- where it remained on display for 24 years.

The killings became more and more frenzied, with days of thanksgiving feasts being held after each successful massacre. George Washington finally suggested that only one day of Thanksgiving per year be set aside instead of celebrating each and every massacre. Later Abraham Lincoln decreed Thanksgiving Day to be a legal national holiday during the Civil War -- on the same day he ordered troops to march against the starving Sioux in Minnesota.
http://www.manataka.org/page269.html

http://hnn.us/articles/7302.html

We may examine representative incidents by following the geographic route of European settlement, beginning in the New England colonies. There, at first, the Puritans did not regard the Indians they encountered as natural enemies, but rather as potential friends and converts. But their Christianizing efforts showed little success, and their experience with the natives gradually yielded a more hostile view. The Pequot tribe in particular, with its reputation for cruelty and ruthlessness, was feared not only by the colonists but by most other Indians in New England. In the warfare that eventually ensued, caused in part by intertribal rivalries, the Narragansett Indians became actively engaged on the Puritan side.

Hostilities opened in late 1636 after the murder of several colonists. When the Pequots refused to comply with the demands of the Massachusetts Bay Colony for the surrender of the guilty and other forms of indemnification, a punitive expedition was led against them by John Endecott, the first resident governor of the colony; although it ended inconclusively, the Pequots retaliated by attacking any settler they could find. Fort Saybrook on the Connecticut River was besieged, and members of the garrison who ventured outside were ambushed and killed. One captured trader, tied to a stake in sight of the fort, was tortured for three days, expiring after his captors flayed his skin with the help of hot timbers and cut off his fingers and toes. Another prisoner was roasted alive.

The torture of prisoners was indeed routine practice for most Indian tribes, and was deeply ingrained in Indian culture. Valuing bravery above all things, the Indians had little sympathy for those who surrendered or were captured. Prisoners. unable to withstand the rigor of wilderness travel were usually killed on the spot. Among those—Indian or European—taken back to the village, some would be adopted to replace slain warriors, the rest subjected to a ritual of torture designed to humiliate them and exact atonement for the tribe's losses. Afterward the Indians often consumed the body or parts of it in a ceremonial meal, and proudly displayed scalps and fingers as trophies of victory.

Despite the colonists' own resort to torture in order to extract confessions, the cruelty of these practices strengthened the belief that the natives were savages who deserved no quarter. This revulsion accounts at least in part for the ferocity of the battle of Fort Mystic in May 1637, when a force commanded by John Mason and assisted by militiamen from Saybrook surprised about half of the Pequot tribe encamped near the Mystic River.

The intention of the colonists had been to kill the warriors "with their Swords," as Mason put it, to plunder the village, and to capture the women and children. But the plan did not work out. About 150 Pequot warriors had arrived in the fort the night before, and when the surprise attack began they emerged from their tents to fight. Fearing the Indians' numerical strength, the English attackers set fire to the fortified village and retreated outside the palisades. There they formed a circle and shot down anyone seeking to escape; a second cordon of Narragansett Indians cut down the few who managed to get through the English line. When the battle was over, the Pequots had suffered several hundred dead, perhaps as many as 300 of these being women and children. Twenty Narragansett warriors also fell.

A number of recent historians have charged the Puritans with genocide: that is, with having carried out a premeditated plan to exterminate the Pequots. The evidence belies this. The use of fire as a weapon of war was not unusual for either Europeans or Indians, and every contemporary account stresses that the burning of the fort was an act of self-protection, not part of a pre-planned massacre. In later stages of the Pequot war, moreover, the colonists spared women, children, and the elderly, further contradicting the idea of genocidal intention.

"The violent collision between whites and America's native population was probably unavoidable." and "In the end, the sad fate of America's Indians represents not a crime but a tragedy, involving an irreconcilable collision of cultures and values." Gee, substitute Negoes for Indians and we can have a cottage industry justifying all sorts of crimes against humanity.

Lewy uses a very narrow and self-serving definition of "genocide" to state his case. This is true in the particular situation here with the Native Americans but he repeats his methodology elsewhere (Armenian genocide).

This is a guy who's historical version of Viet Nam influenced Norman Podhoretz.

But rather were persecuted because of their separatist, outsider behavior. He also doesn't think the Turkish slaughter of Armenians constitutes genocide because it wasn't directly operated by government authorities, according to government documents he didn't actually translate himself. In fact, he doesn't believe anyone other than the Jews have been victims of genocide in the Twentieth Century. Most Holocaust scholars completely reject this view.

(for before meals)

This food is the gift of the whole universe- the earth, the sky, and much hard work.

May we live in a way that is worth of this food.

May we transform our unskilled states of mind, especially that of greed.

May we eat only foods that nourish us and prevent illness.

May we accept this food for the realization of the way of understanding and love.

-Thich Naht Hanh
-----

every day should be a day of thanksgiving...

I fast on Thanksgiving, too, for the last couple of years but this is the first year I'll be thinking about our Native Indians as part of my day of being grateful. It just worked out that way and then I see your post tonight. Thanks so much for the article and the link and have a wonderful Day of Thanks in your way.

I think our Nation is paying some of its Karmic Dues by having this sick sick person telling us that he's "The Decider".

You go ahead and starve yourself if it makes you feel better.

I will celebrate our health and well being with my family, whom I love very much.

isn't related to starvation. Fasting is usually done for spiritual reasons or for health reasons. It is also used for political protest.

Starvation is a forced condition whereas fasting, even to the death, is done from deep place where one chooses to acknowledge a grave injustice. Do you not respect that?

Would you have also said this to Gandhi:
"You go ahead and starve yourself if it makes you feel better"

Not suggesting any comparison here just thinking that reactionary statements such as that aren't conducive to healthy dialogue and understanding.

And of course Thanksgiving does have to do with the people you refer to even if you don't acknowledge this.

When Lord Takanobu was at the Battle of Bungo, a messenger came from the enemy camp bearing sake and food.

Takanobu wanted to partake of this quickly, but the men at his side stopped him, saying, "Presents from the enemy are likely to be poisoned. This is not something that a general should eat."

Takanobu heard them out and then said, "Even if it is poisoned, how much of an effect would that have on things? Call the messenger here!"

He then broke open the barrel right in front of the messenger, drank three large cups of sake, offered the messenger one too, gave him a reply, and sent him back to his camp.

http://www.rosenoire.org/archives/Hagakure.pdf

( http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/9/samurai.html )

:toast:

:hi:
Hope to see more from you.

No person can speak for another. I will tell you about my holiday. On this day, many of my family have the day off, so we use this opportunity to get together. We give thanks for each other. We celebrate the new babies in the family and listen to the great-grandma's stories. We celebrate the opportunity to be together.

It is our Thanksgiving.

Edit to add: I understand all too well the difference between hungry, starve and fast. The fact is, go ahead and fast yourself just doesn't have quite the same ring to it, but thanks for your concern.

We are all connected.

The sooner we realize that the more meaningful and valuable life is for all of us.

for Thanksgiving and any other day you get off associated with the holiday.

That sends a message.

Working.

With gratitude in my attitude!

or because your employer is making you? There is a big difference.

:popcorn:

:beer:

Is there a smilie for wallowing in guilt?

Harvest festivals are older than the European invasion of North America.

I enjoy the day, not as a celebration of pilgrims, but as a day to celebrate the harvest of the year as we head into the dark, frozen winter.

To be honest, if I had my way I would celebrate the harvest on the last day of October. It seems to be a better fit there. I often do just that, not being a big fan of commercial Halloween, either. I'd love to move the TG holiday back to the last week of October and give myself a little more breathing space before the modern xmas madness, anyway.

Autumn is my favorite season. It makes sense to celebrate it when I already have the day off for that purpose, whether or not I buy into the modern Thanksgiving holiday.

It's appropriate to spend a day taking stock of our lives, and giving thanks for our blessings, if we believe that we have been blessed in anyway. Inside my home, it doesn't have to have anything to do with pilgrims.

I believe that there were, and are, many versions of harvest festivals among the native population before the first English colony was established. Autumn is my favorite season; I choose to enjoy my own personal harvest festival.

While I choose another road, I understand and respect your choice for the day.

Thanks for posting and I'd love to hear more about that.

it's just not an option for my family.

Boycotting holidays doesn't fly when you have kids.

I know because I tried to see if we could skip Christmas this year and save the money to have a nice vacation instead.

To which my kid said, "But mom, isn't not having Christmas against the law?" :rofl:

Three hundred fifty years after the Pilgrims began their invasion of the land of the Wampanoag, their "American" descendants planned an anniversary celebration. Still clinging to the white schoolbook myth of friendly relations between their forefathers and the Wampanoag, the anniversary planners thought it would be nice to have an Indian make an appreciative and complimentary speech at their state dinner. Frank James was asked to speak at the celebration. He accepted. The planners, however , asked to see his speech in advance of the occasion, and it turned out that Frank James' views — based on history rather than mythology — were not what the Pilgrims' descendants wanted to hear. Frank James refused to deliver a speech written by a public relations person. Frank James did not speak at the anniversary celebration. If he had spoken, this is what he would have said:


I speak to you as a man -- a Wampanoag Man. I am a proud man, proud of my ancestry, my accomplishments won by a strict parental direction ("You must succeed - your face is a different color in this small Cape Cod community!"). I am a product of poverty and discrimination from these two social and economic diseases. I, and my brothers and sisters, have painfully overcome, and to some extent we have earned the respect of our community. We are Indians first - but we are termed "good citizens." Sometimes we are arrogant but only because society has pressured us to be so.

It is with mixed emotion that I stand here to share my thoughts. This is a time of celebration for you - celebrating an anniversary of a beginning for the white man in America. A time of looking back, of reflection. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People...

the rest of his words:
http://www.puddingbench.com/uaine.htm

Thanks

of the bigoted replies to this post.
Makes me wonder which website I am on.

They practiced torture, cannibalism, terrorism, and mutilation of the dead. The thing that really offends me is they cannot deal with the fact we were here first. The evidence speaks for itself. The proof of the Maritime Archaic culture is buried deep underwater, but it is implausible to consider it other than northern european and therefore Caucasoid.

or against locking people up in prison for more than 30 years. You would be in for a treat!

It may be 'DemocraticUnderground', it sure as hell isn't 'LiberalUnderground'.

so it's an ordinary workday for me. My only Thanksgiving ritual these days is to post the lyrics of one Buffy Sainte-Marie song on my livejournal each year. Last year it was 'Now that the Buffalo's Gone'; this year it's 'My Country 'tis of Thy People You're Dying', which I just used to start off American history for my classes (compare with 'My Country 'tis of Thee'.)

:hug:

:kick: & Recommended

Thanks!

For the past 10,000 years or so, man has been using force to displace other peoples. Before that, Cro Magnon displaced Neanderthals. Brutal conquest has been part of the human experience for as long as there have been humans. Due to an evolutionary dice roll (our large-ish brains), Cro Magnon is the fiercest predator to have ever stalked the planet. Darwin and all that.

I choose to look at Thanksgiving as day to spend time with my family and enjoy the relative good fortune we have today, not to stew over crimes that were committed in the past. There is a time and a place to teach little children the truth about the colonization of America, but I see absolutely no upside to bumming out kids on a day of great joy for them.

Enjoy your fast, but there will be no bitterness in my household.

and those damned puritans murdered women, calling them witches.

To be proud of your country, really proud, you must be honest. White settlers committed genocide. It's a sad truth, but I'm big enough to deal with it, I suppose. Dealing with it is the first step to making your country a better and prouder country.

for writing about the Truth.

I was thinking about Thanksgiving last week and discussed my thoughts with my family. I said that I was grateful everyday and why should I have to prepare all of this food and be thankful JUST BECAUSE THE GOV'T SAYS I SHOULD on this particular day. And aren't we celebrating the fact that we massacred millions of Native Americans?

I am not cooking. I am using this day to ask for forgiveness and to mourn those who were slain in the name of colonialism and greed.

It really bugged me as child to see all the women in the kitchen working so hard and all the men sitting around watching TV. And what really pissed me off was none of the men said 'Thank you' for the meal and all of the hard work.

I'm with you T.Ruth. Thanksgiving is crap....and all of the posters who say they love the food, I hope they at least pitch in and help or at the bare minimum say 'thanks.'

Hopefully your post planted a seed in their minds and they will look at Thanksgiving in a different way.

Why We Shouldn't Celebrate Thanksgiving
By Robert Jensen, AlterNet. Posted November 22, 2007.

Thanksgiving Day should be turned into a National Day of Atonement to acknowledge the genocide of America's indigenous peoples.

After years of being constantly annoyed and often angry about the historical denial built into Thanksgiving Day, I published an essay in November 2005 suggesting we replace the feasting with fasting and create a National Day of Atonement to acknowledge the genocide of indigenous people that is central to the creation of the United States.

I expected criticism from right-wing and centrist people, given their common commitment to this country's distorted self-image that supports the triumphalist/supremacist notions about the United States so common in conventional politics, and I got plenty of such critique. But I was surprised by the resistance from liberals, including a considerable number of my friends.

The most common argument went something like this: OK, it's true that the Thanksgiving Day mythology is rooted in a fraudulent story -- about the European invaders coming in peace to the "New World," eager to cooperate with indigenous people -- which conveniently ignores the reality of European barbarism in the conquest of the continent. But we can reject the culture's self-congratulatory attempts to rewrite history, I have been told, and come together on Thanksgiving to celebrate the love and connections among family and friends.

The argument that we can ignore the collective cultural definition of Thanksgiving and create our own meaning in private has always struck me as odd. This commitment to Thanksgiving puts these left/radical critics in the position of internalizing one of the central messages promoted by the ideologues of capitalism -- that individual behavior in private is more important than collective action in public. The claim that through private action we can create our own reality is one of the key tenets of a predatory corporate capitalism that naturalizes unjust hierarchy, a part of the overall project of discouraging political struggle and encouraging us to retreat into a private realm where life is defined by consumption.

Here's the whole article:
http://www.alternet.org/story/68170/

GRRRRRRRRRRRRR. Some people are just looking for something to complain about or crusade for. Oh well. Takes all kinds, I guess.

Bon appetit!

I have posted images regarding the text below on my blog: http://livinnthebigtime.blogspot.com/

In the late 1970s, my grandfather, Jack Siverly, purchased some property in the foothills of Squaw Valley, California. The property is approximately 5 acres across, located roughly 45 minutes below Sequoia National Park.

Adjacent to the property’s creek is a large boulder which contains several depressions on its top surface. These were due to a Native American process of preparing acorns for consumption. A sizeable rock was held in hand and used to split an acorn by crushing it. The repetitious gesture involved in crushing thousands of acorns eventually created deep depressions in the boulder. After at least one hundred years of neglect and amidst the dirt, moss, and layers of leaves in varying states of decay on the boulder, it was easy to miss these depressions’ subtle presence. However, after engaging the site more thoroughly, I desired to clean the area of debris. Moreover, I decided to represent an impression of how the site might have appeared two hundred years ago.

In order to do so, I set out to find a large quantity of acorns. One California Blue Oak on the property recently released thousands of acorns. I sat down with a five gallon bucket by my side to collect them. The acorns needed to be separated from grass, leaves, and other stuff. Having only handled a few acorns in my life, I first was very deliberate in examining each handful of items I picked up in order that I would not place anything in my bucket that was not the desired acorn. After a few hours of this, however, I was able to carry on with both hands simultaneously without looking, easily feeling the contrast between the silky smooth acorns and the other textures of grass, leaves, etc. In other words, I had gone on “autopilot” as it were, like when one drives several city blocks without being aware of the details of having done so, thinking of other matters entirely. I became immersed I suppose in what Heidegger would call “the referential totality of significance” within his overall idea of “Daseining” .

In any event, after gathering acorns from a few different California Blue Oaks on the property , I took some 20 pounds of acorns to the site and placed them in the center of the boulder. I located nearby the appropriate sized river rocks for each of the depressions. Taking a stab at the whole process for a couple of hours, I found the experience of splitting acorns rather monotonous, but entertaining as well. It is thoroughly amazing to me that this one simple step is merely the first amongst many time-consuming events in the process before the acorn meal can be consumed.

Marvin L. Keintz notes that most likely the Native American Yokut Tribe lived in Squaw Valley, and the Mono Tribes resided in higher elevations like Sequoia National Park . If anyone would like to share information regarding the Native Americans who lived in these parts or has any other interesting anthropological information concerning what I have described here, please e-mail such comments to my Gmail account: diran.lyons@gmail.com.

My entire environment has been taken over by acorns from the pinion oaks on my No California property. They are on the floor of the deck and the porch and cover several paths.

I have been wondering how to deal with them and thinking that I really should invest some time and effort into de-hulling them (See - I don't even know the name for it!) from the shells so that I could eat their meat.

I know that the Native Americans used to boil the acorns once de-shelled into mush. But don't know much about that.

I might be outside later, grinding away.

You have inspired me!

paying some respect to the Native Americans who were in the region here in central CA, but also the Native Americans overall. This Thanksgiving thread really made me feel like I should pass the project I did on to everyone here.

The research text I mentioned explores the entire process of making the acorn meal. Crushing the acorns is step one in something extraordinarily tedious and time-consuming!

Thanks for your input, and I hope that you put those acorns on your deck/porch to good use, symbolic or otherwise...

And I feel that it would be pathetic of me to feel a kinship with the Native Americans (I think th e Pomo in this region) and not attempt to do as they do. I mean, at least over a holiday that offers some free time.

Then you have to leach the tannins out. This is ESSENTIAL or it will taste disgusting.

Then you re-mill the meal and make flour.

It's a process. :hi:

Naturally to me, as sometimes those who know me say I LEACH, but in terms of the acorn thing,
I would love advice. If you have it.

I've never done it. :blush:

I don't know why I don't like it...there is a sort of religious piety that my family attaches to the day that makes me uncomfortable. I much prefer Christmas :)

I'm really super thankful that I wasn't born in England like my parents were. I'm really super thankful for living in North America. And I really don't even feel a little bad about taking First Nations' lands. It was 400 years ago and I just don't give a shit.

would you like a list of other things that happened 400 years ago that you might want to feel guilty about? do you even know anything about the political history of 400 years ago? I'm betting that you don't.

They introduced sexism, racism, anti-lesbian and gay bigotry, jails, and the class system to these shores.

Ummm... yeah.... none of those existed among the First Nations...

:sarcasm:

every country that exists has a history drenched in blood. Just about every settled land was stolen from another, and the indigenous people massacred or relocated.
It happens again and again, because people are pigs.
It sickens to read about being done in the past by my ancestors...
However, I don't really see the point in what you are doing.
And T.Ruth2power, that name makes my head ache...no offense or anything but >_<

n/t

The languages, myths, art, spirituality, and cultural practices of the Native American culture is fading into history to be lost forever; to be mused over in later years by the historically curious as a novelty.

The Native Americans are faced with either being totally assimilated by the Western Culture - or dying out on the many reservations, kept there, out of the way and out of mind, by supposedly beneficent governments; ignored and forgotten by the citizens of those nations. The highest rates pf poverty in the nation are on the reservations.

It is spiritual and cultural genocide, as the great civilized masses of North America - and indeed the world - scurry pell-mell into the future, focusing on gadgets and consumer goods as "save the whales" and "save the children" and "save the earth" become the battle-cries of the various subcultures... not that those are bad things; they aren't, and they are needed.

But - the American Indian Cultures from southern-most tip of South America to the northenmost tip of Canada and Alaska are left behind, an afterthought, a mote of dust caught up in the tornado of "progress."

Relegated to symbolic and denegrating mascots for sports teams, insulting icons for various holidays, and stereotypical villains for the movie industry; shoved off - out of site and out of mind - to die out on reservations.

It is spiritual and cultural genocide by default and by intent, by marketing and media pressures, by willful and knowing ignorance. It is so easy to turn aside while saying "not my problem."

And; nothing has been done, nothing is being done...

all the Indians here have MASSIVE casinos where they make money HAND OVER FIST.

It's hard to be sympathetic towards Indians when they each make over 2,000 a month.

$2,000 a month is only $24,000/yr but even so if that is happening at certain casino's where you live in California (Indio, Palm Springs perhaps?)
that does not reflect the reality of the Native American population across the continent.

To use a singular example to illustrate a broader reality is not good methodology.

Would it be easier for you, or even possible?, if you were presented with the indisputable evidence that "Indians" (as you call them) are the most subjugated and oppressed peoples of this land?

2,000 a month for every man, woman, and child isn't a lot, but it's enough to change quality of life.

it takes courage to post something like this here, because any hint that we might not be acting in a culturally sensitive way is sure to be met with mocking here. It's as predictable as the sun rising each day. It's easier to justify my own overconsumption and celebration of a day of genocide if everyone goes along with that as well ... those little rips in the universe that shine some light on the real implication of what we are celebrating are something we don't like to see. It makes us angry to be confronted with that, and we lash out with snide comments with anyone who dares to remind us of such unseemly things.

I did have a meal with my in-laws, because not going would be perceived not as a political protest of any sort, but rather an excuse not to get together with them, and in truth, I'd be relieved not to have to go, so it's almost more self-serving to stay home.

But I have a great deal of respect for how you are observing the day, and I wish I were in a position to do that without ulterior motives of avoidance of family, resentment from the husband if I didn't go through the motions, all of that. :)

There was a thanksgiving when I was in Moscow, and we had butter and tomato sandwiches for dinner. I was content. The americans I was traveling with were outraged that the Russians didn't have enough cultural sensitivity to prepare a thanksgiving meal for us, they thought it was unbelievably rude. I'm still at a loss to understand what they were thinking. The Russians are supposed to help us celebrate genocide our ancestors committed? If you are that angry about the menu, it's not about being thankful for anything, and it wasn't about being with family. It was just an incredibly superficial sense of outrage that it was their right to eat a specific menu, and overeat at that, on this specific day.

My own parents are just having a normal day, eating tacos for dinner. They said the only turkey that was served was for their pet parrot, who demanded turkey sticks for lunch. Seems creepy to me, but that bird loves to eat other poultry.

I just posted about fasting on another thread.

Are you okay with the fact that maybe no one else knows or even cares that you fast?

As a fellow faster, I'm fascinated by the question of whether or not fasting (other than for health reasons) means anything anymore in this sick world where people laugh at methods like fasting and non-violent protest.

And we're doing the "event" tomorrow (Friday) and I'm cooking spaghetti and meatballs.

Garlic bread and salad.

Spumoni for dessert.

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Ohen:ton Karihwatehkwen
"Words Before All Else"

This prayer is a gift from the Haudenosaunee People (The Iroquois Nation) for you to remember perhaps at your Thanksgiving table - and especially with children. The real observance of the first Thanksgivings by first peoples has been all but forgotten by American culture. It is time to remember.

Let us greet the world in Thanksgiving as if we were sharing one mind, one heart, and one body. Today we have gathered and come from many different places. We have arrived safely at this place to share with each other our gifts from the Creator. So we bring our minds together as one in Thanksgiving and Greetings to one another.

We now turn our thoughts to Earth Mother. She continues to care for us and has not forgotten her instructions from the beginning of time. Now we bring our minds together in Thanksgiving for the Earth.

Now as one mind we turn our thoughts to the Waters of the Earth for they too have not forgotten their instructions from the Creator of Life. The Waters continue to flow beneath the ground, in little streams and in rivers, in lakes and in wetlands, and in the great seas. They quench our thirst and help keep us clean so we can fulfill our duty to Creation. We now bring our minds together in Thanksgiving to all the Waters of the Earth.

We now address all the Beings both seen and unseen that dwell in the Water for they too have not forgotten their original instructions from the Creator of Life to provide for us in many ways. With one mind we send our Thanksgiving and Greetings to all the Nations who dwell in the Waters.

Now we direct our thoughts to the many kinds of plants that live upon the Earth- for they too have not forgotten their original instructions. Many members of this Nation sustain those who walk upon this Earth, and many others who continue to fulfill their duties to take away the sickness of the human family and elevate human consciousness. With one mind we send our thoughts and Thanksgiving to the Plant Nations.

.......

Everything we need is provided for us and all we have to remember is to give thanks. With one mind we send our Thanksgiving and Greetings to the Creator.

We have now become like one being. We send our Prayers and special Thanksgiving Greetings to all the unborn children of the future generations. We send our thoughts to the Elders and the Children for they give us guidance and purpose to live in a good way. We are thankful to all the Enlightened Teachers who have come to help us throughout the ages. We send our thoughts to the many different beings we may have missed during our Thanksgiving. With one mind we send Thanksgiving and Greetings to all of the Nations of the World.
Now Our Minds Are One.

http://carolynbaker.net/site/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=225&pop=1&page=0

I did not include quite a bit of the middle part. At the above link you can read the entire prayer. I wasn't sure if it was okay to post the whole thing.

As a National Holiday had jack squat to do with Pilgrims and Natives, it was to give THANKS for the new Constitution. Celebrate that and ignore all the idiot mythology.

I like Thanksgiving. I don't consider it a day of mourning.

Whenever we shine light on those who have been severely abused, neglected and betrayed we give hope stength, and we contribute to making the world more appreciative of others, their uniqueness and we validate all that is good, fair and sacred on the planet.