A Patriot's Thanksgiving Reflections

A PATRIOT’S THANKSGIVING REFLECTIONS


By Miriam Raftery
(Liberty Belle)

As we celebrate Thanksgiving Day amid these troubled times, it is appropriate to reflect on our past. The first Thanksgiving, celebrated by the Puritan Pilgrims and Native Americans in 1649, was merely a temporary truce among settlers uneasy among their newfound neighbors. Although the Puritans came to the New World to escape religious persecution in England, they soon revealed bigotries of their own, resulting in the persecution of people with differing viewpoints and the slaughter of Native Americans who impeded Puritans’ expansion into the wilderness.

Beyond the Massachussetts Bay Colony, new colonies arose, including some founded by individuals seeking freedom from Puritan oppression. William Penn, Anne Hutchison, and others now viewed as patriots were considered heretics by their Puritan peers. Eventually, thirteen diverse colonies united to fight for their collective freedom against a common enemy. In 1776, after a hard-fought War of Independence against England, our new nation was born.

General George Washington declined suggestions that he be named monarch of America. Recognizing the dangers of concentrating too much power in the hands of any leader, he became our first President instead. In 1789, more than a century after the Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving, President Washington issued a Proclamation in 1789 declaring a formal day of public thanks giving and prayer. His prophetic words are as appropriate in our time as they were when Washington first penned them.

Washington acknowledged the providence of an Almighty God. Yet he also wisely recognized the importance of civil liberties--and a government that respects the separation of Church and State. After thanking the Lord for bringing an end to war and for blessing Americans with “tranquility, union and plenty,” Washington gave thanks for “the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been able to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge…”

I suspect that the Father of our Countryr would be deeply disappointed to learn of the efforts made by radical right wing fundamentalists to infuse Creationism into schools, or the corporate-dominated media’s narrowly-focused and often biased dissemination of modern news. No doubt Washington is rolling over in his grave at the so-called Patriot Act’s erosions of civil liberties and the religious fundamentalists’ efforts to crumble the wall separating Church and State that Washington himself helped build. Nor would Washington approve of the mean-spirited and ironically-titled “compassionate conservative” agenda that, in fact, has thrust more Americans into poverty than ever before, denied affordable healthcare for our citizens and restricted college access for the poor.

Washington, who warned against foreign entanglements and established the doctrine of isolationism in his farewell address, would never have condoned the launch of a pre-emptive war in Iraq, which to date has killed over 1,100 Americans and more than 100,000 Iraqi people. Washington would also decry the administration’s denial of science and stubborn refusal to accept scientific facts on even the most cataclysmic issue, global warming. For above all else, Washington believed that a government should benefit the people that it serves.

Indeed, Washington’s Thanksgiving address entreated the Creator to “enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually, to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have show kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord,” and to promote “the increase of science among them and us; and generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.”

If only our current leaders would follow Washington’s sage advice, we could all be thankful.

-- Miriam Raftery is a freelance journalist, author and editor. Publisher of the Liberty Belle Log and author of 100 Books That Shaped World History, she is also co-founder and moderator of the new Yahoo! Liberty Forum.


Copyright 11/24/04;

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