Give Thanks No More; It’s Time for a National Day of Atonement

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1121-22.htm

One indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulgent family feasting with a National Day of Atonement accompanied by a self-reflective collective fasting.

In fact, indigenous people have offered such a model; since 1970 they have marked the fourth Thursday of November as a Day of Mourning in a spiritual/political ceremony on Coles Hill overlooking Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, one of the early sites of the European invasion of the Americas.

Not only is the thought of such a change in this white-supremacist holiday impossible to imagine, but the very mention of the idea sends most Americans into apoplectic fits -- which speaks volumes about our historical hypocrisy and its relation to the contemporary politics of empire in the United States.

not? Let's just say that we're all a bunch of lying barbaric assholes and don't deserve to celebrate anything good in this lifetime, because no matter what we do we are all a victim of our history. Shit, lets just collectively open a vein and pay the price for acts our ancestors committed two hundred years ago. I mean, I know I feel guilty about being born here in the good ol' US of A. Regardless of the fact that human history is filled with stories of conquerors and the conquered. We can change all that's gone before by changing Thanksgiving into a day of collective national guilty conscience.

Jeez. Why not just say we're gonna make it a day where we promise to do better by our fellow man/woman/child and be grateful for what we have? Unless we're living on the streets and have nothing. (But then as long as we're drawing breath, we have a chance to make life better, don't we?)

I look on the day as one of reflection-a sort of "what if" scenario. What if Stephen Hopkins had not been hired by the Pilgrims to come and be the liason between the Natives and them? That glib talker (who once convinced the Governor of Burmuda not to hang him for mutiny)was the one Squanto befriended, who cemented the treaty of peace that lasted 50 years. His son married Massaoit's great niece and lived on Cape Cod and, like his father in law, Garbrial Wheldon (who was disowned by Plymouth colony), went native for a time.

I guess another thing I'm trying to say here is that not every European that came across in a boat, be it the Mayflower or any of the other "leaky tubs" that followed her was hostile to the Native American way of life. It's just too bad that their opinions about things weren't the ones that took hold.

So I'll be thankful on Thursday-thankful for all my relations. And sad, too, for those whose minds were so narrow that they caused suffering and sorrow.

Thanksgiving is a holiday that commorates the white-man coming to this continent and being too STUPID to survive the winter. When the native Americans generously shared their bounty with us, we repaid them by stealing their land, making and breaking treaties, killing their game, raping their women, introducing them to alcohol, and (later) providing them with malaria-infested blankets as we marched them from their native lands across the country to Oklahoma - which we later GAVE AWAY through a land-run.

I think a day of attonement makes a lot more sense than that stuff.

Now, I'm not saying that all the fighting and jealousy was just our fault, and I'm not saying we all need to be overly-guilt ridden for the sins of our fathers - BUT I even I find the idea of Thanksgiving quite obnoxious.

it was small pox, not malaria. Other than that, I agree with you. :-)

were greed merchants of the first order.They stole the land of the people that welcomed them.They did and continue to treat the natives of this land as they are the unwelcome guest.As sure as there is a God ,this country will pay for her evil ways.