Thursday, November 26, 2015


Thanksgiving



I think Thanksgiving is becoming an occasion mainly for conservatives.  Being grateful for our blessings is normal for conservatives (See here and here and here and here) whereas Leftists focus on problems.  And extreme Leftists of course say that the occasion celebrates a takeover of the territory of others by invaders and is therefore nothing to be celebrated.

Nonetheless, a lot of liberals do sit down with others to share a Thanksgiving meal. And where the gathering is politically mixed there can be tensions. The Boston Globe, writing from the heartland of self-righteousness, however, has a new twist on such dinner tensions.  They say:

"For years, the major Thanksgiving stressors have been set: politics and religion. But as a growing number of Americans go vegan, vegetarian, organic, local, grass-fed, free-range, wheat-free, or Paleo, a third flash point has been added — the divide between those who favor comfortable Thanksgiving fare and, well, food snobs."

And they go on to give examples of the real tensions that can cause.  So once again conservatives are blessed.  They may often have their own food beliefs but their appreciation of tradition would usually come to the fore -- so they would be very unlikely to make an issue of food disciplines on such a happy day.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).


3 comments:

Doom said...

Oh, I am a bit of a food snob, in one sense. However, mostly related to quality, rarity, and such. Though that is something I keep to myself, and for special occasions prepare or offer myself. Should I be invited as a guest, I am simply thankful, whether on Thanksgiving Day or some random Tuesday. If I can't eat it, that's one thing. I won't choke down vegan food, for example. Can't, really. Nor can I eat food that is done poorly or in an excessivelly off sectionalistic manner (rotted fish heads or fish fermented for years etc). Though it is rare that I have happened upon such. Most who server poor food do not offer it as they often can't afford to do so.

Wireless.Phil said...

My grandmother was full blood Blackfeet tribe.

'It was a massacre': Native Americans reveal how they REALLY feel about Thanksgiving and its stereotypes, branding Christopher Columbus 'the first terrorist in America'
www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3334208/It-massacre-Native-Americans-reveal-REALLY-feel-Thanksgiving-stereotypes-branding-Christopher-Columbus-terrorist-America.html


Wireless.Phil said...

Despite Obama's comment that the refugees coming to the 6SA was like the Mayflower, he has no idea what those people faced.

In part from PBS: Pilgrims: American Experience

In the months after their arrival in the New World in 1620, the Pilgrims would face rampant starvation, disease, and death; their relationship with the indigenous population was complex. Living in a former Wampanoag village, whose inhabitants had been killed years earlier when European settlers brought disease to the region, the Pilgrims' first months were marked by a skirmish with the native Wampanoag people. But in their first spring, out of mutual desperation, the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags agreed to support each other. Tisquantum, the sole survivor of the former Wampanoag village the Pilgrims now inhabited, lived with them to act as an interpreter and help them plant their crops.

By 1675, Metacom, the son of Wampanoag chief Massasoit, led an armed effort to drive out the colonists from Wampanoag land. In the end, more than 600 colonists and approximately 3,000 Native Americans, including Metacom, were killed.
www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/introduction/pilgrims-introduction/

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