Ho Hum, Thanksgiving Is Under Attack

There are those with little understanding of American history and even less of the values prompting the gratitude for the untold blessings we celebrate at Thanksgiving. Nevertheless, they raise their heads each year at this time spewing inanities. It's as predictable as the fact, well, that Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday in November each year, that political grumblers and malcontents rev up with their holiday buzz-kill rhetoric. While most Americans celebrate this country's blessings and share with family and friends, on the far left, sanctimony and outrage bubble to the surface. For most of the holiday detractors, it's a zero-sum game. I can't be happy unless I know I've made you unhappy. Or, more accurately, I'm unhappy, so you must be unhappy, too.

There is no end to the invective flying about during this Thanksgiving. "This week, millions of Americans will be celebrating Thanksgiving with family and friends, eating a good meal and watching football. But a creeping vilification of the popular holiday has spread across media outlets and schools, claiming that Thanksgiving is about 'genocide' and 'imperialism,'" Scott Whitlock wrote in a Fox News article. Whitlock also referred to a Native American activist called Gyasi Ross, who appeared on a far-left cable network with a viewing audience trailing by some significant margin Fox News. "Instead of bringing stuffing and biscuits, those settlers brought genocide and violence,” Ross said.

Activists Go After Thanksgiving

Let's put aside for the moment no one has ever heard of Gyasi Ross (besides the seldom-watched cable network), nor is there a record of his significant accomplishments in furthering adult discourse on useful subjects. Looking at what the Native American activist asserted, a quick review of the historical record, the settlers did not bring "stuffing and biscuits" to the first Thanksgiving, known at that time as "a harvest gathering" in 1621. Instead, the meal consisted of venison, corn, shellfish, and roasted meat—no record of stuffing and biscuits on the menu. Of course, Ross is being dismissive, but his attitude belies an unfounded arrogance that smacks of ignorance.

In fact, as History.com explains, following a brutal first year where 78% "of the women who had traveled on the Mayflower perished that winter, leaving only around 50 colonists" to attend the harvest meal. The remnant of the first pilgrims did share the occasion with the local Native American Wampanoag tribe, whose numbers exceeded the newcomers by two-to-one. "[M]any of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men," one of the early colonists, and presumably an attendee, Edward Winslow, chronicled. We have eyewitness accounts of the first settlers' and local tribes' celebration. Smart-aleck revisionist activists playing the victim card can do their best to protest and mischaracterize Thanksgiving, but the facts lay out a more accurate story.

Turkeys Now the Target of Killjoys

It's not just the attempts to change history to fit the progressive liberals’ narrative that ooze up during traditional holidays. Last year the assault was on turkey dinners. "Every year, Americans breed, kill and eat around 46 million turkeys on Thanksgiving – and there's really no reason for this cruel and unsustainable tradition. These days, there are so many vegan alternatives on the market," offers Sophie Hirsch from the website Green Matters, a climate change activist crowd. Leave the turkeys alone. They have a higher calling than to be replaced with vegetable matter. Besides, the White House reveres turkeys and the tradition they stand for at Thanksgiving. Didn't President Biden just pardon two of the plump feathered fowls? Yes, he did. Though reports from the presidential residence explain the pardons were redundant since the birds were already free on cashless bail.

Regardless of the views of the relentless whiners and complainers, Americans are blessed. The remarkable bounty available for those of us living in a country that provides more freedom and riches than any other is worth taking a special day to be grateful. Giving thanks to God and those around us for what we have goes to the abiding character of a nation both appreciative for what it enjoys and generous in giving back to others. The United States "has been the most generous country in the past decade," according to Leslie Albrecht, writing for Market Watch. "Knowing that a good life cannot be taken for granted and that happiness and comfort can be robbed from you at any moment enables you to appreciate life whenever it shines benevolently upon you," is how Liberty Nation portrays what we reflect on as Americans. Happy Thanksgiving.