THANKS AND GIVING

American Thanksgiving Day can be seen through many lenses. Before the ascendancy of Halloween as the great national holiday, Thanksgiving represented a non-sectarian day of American unity. Halloween may better suit the current Clown World culture in America, but Thanksgiving used to be a day of acknowledgement that it was a blessing to be born in the U.S.A., no matter what individual challenges you were faced with.

The current trendy obsession with "decolonizing" among those brainwashed by social science teachers misses the point entirely. We are born unintentionally into the flowing current of history and time. It is a choice to look backward against the current of history or look forward to where we might make our own safe landing without getting lost or drowning. 

The early European invaders of North America were doing just that. They were trying to find a safe place after being oppressed or held back by the class hierarchies of their native lands. In fact, they were more like refugees in our frame of reference than invaders. Their profound ignorance of this continent prevented them from having any ethical insight into the dire repercussions of their arrival and settling here.

I described their ignorance as a lens, not as an excuse, for examining their methods of coping. We can look back down the raging river of history and take time to narcissistically compare these settlers and founders to ourselves. But does that really help us swim with the current we now find ourselves in? Mightn't we drown in our obsession with what might have been or what should have been? Would that be learning from history and applying those lessons, or would it be simply crying in the dark for fear of having the responsibility to create our own future?

How many of those who angrily reject the notion of being thankful for being born American are really contributing to the fabric of America right now? I myself find that gratitude and generosity are entwined human qualities. Ingratitude and selfishness are as well. 

An obsession and resentment over what you are owed by history can become a convenient excuse for not contributing to the present and the future.

Today's wailing mobs on college campuses and on the streets of some American cities cry for safe spaces and intersectional accommodations. They cry for reparations and free everything for everybody, except the perceived evil ones, The Whites. The (non-Hispanic) Whites, of course, still comprise about 62% of the U.S. population in 2019. A sizable majority who live at all levels of economic poverty and affluence.

So, a small subset of 38% of the American population have been trying the tactic of using race guilt  to turn Americans away from the concept that we are all fortunate to benefit from the terrible mistakes of history.  These misguided folks seem to believe they have not. That is simply a delusion, propagated by politicians, teachers and professors with their own agendas.

Thanksgiving Day can still be a day of celebration, gratitude and generosity without belittling the sacrifices which have brought us our tremendous prosperity, relative to all of human history and many current human conditions on our planet. 

America's baseline prosperity is reflected in available food, available education, available medical care and available housing for any adult in this country who makes an effort. All these benefits of being American are not rationed out on the basis of race, religion, marital status, sexuality or gender identity, contrary to the hysterical myths being fostered in certain quarters. These elements of prosperity need only be earned through some form of work.

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BONUS CONTENT: OUR THANKSGIVING MENU

I have been out of the roast-turkey loop for decades. Each Thanksgiving meal has been a chance for experimentation or an excuse for eating at a fine restaurant. You know, the kind of restaurant that gives you a bill that makes your head swim for a moment. This year, I'm cooking in.

First Course:

• Cheese plate, pears tossed in balsamic vinegar, olives, avocado and a chiffonade of lettuce and radicchio with a lemon-mayonnaise. (If you want to be French, serve this last.)
• Falafel with spicy lemon yogurt dressing.

Main Course:

• Deep fried lemon-rubbed turkey breast fillets in a spicy crust.
• Deep fried thin potato-shallot pancakes with sour heavy cream.
• Butternut-squash-with-four-cheeses souffle, spiced with garlic and dried chipotle.
• Belarus baked stuffing, comprised of sauteed chicken livers, onions (caramelized in salt pork), cracker meal and lots of butter.
• Homemade cranberry sauce.

Dessert: 

Double chocolate ganache layer cake with French vanilla ice cream and fresh whipped heavy cream.

Beverages:

Sparkling apple cider. Cuban-style (brewed with brown sugar and served with hot frothed whole milk) espresso-roast coffee.