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Thanksgiving

Thu, 2006-11-16 23:03 — aaron
Teaser: 

Thanksgiving is next week. I'd forgotten about it. Sort of sad how the American government has tried to co-opt that holiday. It's been celebrated for probably thousands of years by cultures around the world, or at least in climates that experience winter. You have a big harvest, a hard winter on its way, and all the food that's not salted or canned is going to rot soon. What else should you do with it?

Read an article in Z-Magazine about it today. I knew that the "pilgrims" who landed at Plymouth Rock weren't the first English-speaking colonists, but hadn't realized the colonists at Jamestown had resorted to caniballism. No wonder we decided to celebrate the next colony in line. Of course, there was also the Lost Colony in Raleigh, but they went native on us.

Body: 

Even though in the US, most people don't have to worry about what to do with the extra food in the fall, and almost no one cans anymore, most still celebrate this festival. However, despite the attempts of government schooling, it's not about pilgrims and Indians for most people either. In a mobile society that brings their work home, it's a convenient time to visit family and celebrate each other and life on the planet. And that's what most people do, I believe.

So boycott? I'm not going to give that power to the pilgrims. I thumb my nose at them. A blood-thirsty, pig-headed lot. But I'll keep celebrating food and family and love. And keep on working to overthrow the system, or at least go native myself.

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