Posts RSS Comments RSS

eric on Nov 28th 2008 at 6:52 am Friends, Politics

Thanksgiving vs. Anti-Thanksgiving: A Political Analysis

Yesterday, we had a great Thanksgiving dinner at our place. Ryan and Jaime and the kids showed up. There was much food and fun and general hanging out. We had a great time spending time with each other, sharing each others company and conversation. I truly am thankful to have them.

Also yesterday, I received the obligatory anti-Thanksgiving MySpace bulletins. Being a vegan anarchist and having friends who are mostly vegan anarchists, I find myself running into some pretty angry folks.

My favorite was:

who calls Thanksgiving a holiday:

FUCK YOU.

Read a fucking book.

Seriously? Someone seeing Thanksgiving as a holiday deserves a “fuck you”? And what would reading a fucking book do to help this situation? I guess it depends on the book. I just finished one on the Oregon Trial. Really good book, but I don’t think it would have changed my opinion of Thanksgiving one way or the other. Please, angry people, be specific!

The person who sent it claims to be an anarchist and a vegetarian (I don’t think she’s vegan, but maybe she is now – goes back and forth a lot). And really, even at the most uber-annoying height of my in-yo-face style of pissing people off to the very thought and idea of anything I believed in I don’t think I was this angry/ridiculous.

Sure, Thanksgiving is a silly holiday. It’s one based upon killing birds for no real reason and a historical inaccuracy. Thanksgiving wasn’t even first celebrated at Plymouth Rock in some wacky festival thanking the natives for all the help. It was celebrated in Florida by Spaniards. What good can come from Florida (except the first couple Against Me 7″s)?

You know, being all pissed off and yelling “FUCK YOU” to people isn’t going to make them be all like “gee, you’re right, let me re-examine my entire lifestyle.” It’s going to make them say “pass me a turkey leg and fuck you too.”

But even above all of this, why not just celebrate it? You know traditional Thanksgiving is a crock. And I bet all of your friends know it too. So why not just get together, cook up some amazing vegan dishes and have fun? You can even dumpster dive the food if that makes you somehow feel better!

What’s the harm in co-opting Thanksgiving for our own means? What’s wrong with making Thanksgiving our own holiday? Sounds fairly revolutionary to me. Certainly more revolutionary than a MySpace bulletin. Just sayin’.



Related posts:

  1. Anti-War? Voting for Obama?
  2. Happy Thanksgiving!
  3. Happy Thanksgiving! (aka Happy Ritual Sacrifice with a Slice of Pie Day!)
  4. I’m sick of books about horses and dogs
  5. A quick realization… (peppered with curse words)

14 responses so far

RSS feed

14 Comments

Comment by ZacNo Gravatar
2008-11-28 10:33:28

“pass me a turkey leg and fuck you too.”

That made me laugh out loud, in fact I am still chuckling at it 10 minutes later. And this year I got to call Thanksgiving a holiday, I didn’t have to work, although I have to work today, which I am not looking forward to, retail you know, or if you don’t you are lucky.

Zac

Comment by ericNo Gravatar
2008-11-28 20:25:25

I’m glad that I could help! And I definitely know retail. This is the first year that I haven’t worked on Black Friday in well over a decade. Woo!

 
 
Comment by scottNo Gravatar
2008-11-28 16:13:47

Today is the 1st time in 15 years I’ve had the day off after Thanksgiving. That meant I can actually go visit family. Egads! Man I love teaching.

Comment by ericNo Gravatar
2008-11-28 20:26:48

HA! YES! Me too! So what did I do? I hung out at a really cool downtown place (Ballard) and it was weirdly not busy. Just like a normal Friday. I even bought another XTC album (Beeswax). It was a fun day. Hit Archie McPhees too!

 
 
Comment by Ryan BeggarNo Gravatar
2008-11-28 18:38:10

amen herc!

and we had a great time. maybe we should make it a toast– like “FUCK YOU! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!”

i never understood why anarchists bitched about a holiday that gives us a day off work and tells us to eat. i agree: make some awesome vegan food and have a great time!

Comment by ericNo Gravatar
2008-11-28 20:27:52

I think we definitely should. “FUCK YOU! MERRY CHRISTMAS!” is a good one too.

I don’t really get it either. Maybe she got confused and thought it was Columbus Day? It’s really hard to figure out.

 
 
Comment by CalderNo Gravatar
2008-11-28 19:40:00

I had Thanksgiving with two Australians in a British run restaurant in Hanoi Vietnam. Really I was the only one who had a history of Thanksgiving, let alone an ability to “Fuck” it or you or them. Plus I don’t see how a book singular is going to help. Does that mean I can tell people to sod off after reading Goodnight Moon? Besides, the Pilgrims were some of the biggest drunkards on the continent, I have to celebrate them as America’s first functioning alcoholics.

Comment by ericNo Gravatar
2008-11-28 20:28:31

All well said. This whole thing made no sense at all.

 
 
Comment by Ryan BeggarNo Gravatar
2008-11-28 20:36:35

There is that part of goodnight moon with the pilgrims. “Goodnight religious fanatics fleeing your homeland! Goodnight native peoples who are totally fucked!”

I usually skip that part when I read it to the kids.

Comment by ericNo Gravatar
2008-11-29 13:36:21

My favorite part of the book is the blank page that says “Goodnight Nobody.” Really. It makes me smile.

 
 
Comment by Ryan BeggarNo Gravatar
2008-11-29 08:28:47

I’m heading out to the library with the kids. “Seattle Public Library: FUCK YOU, Read a book!”

 
Comment by scottNo Gravatar
2008-11-29 12:45:55

After all, I took your friends advice. I fucked off and read a book. Very satisfying. I’m reading Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right by Ann Coulter. Odd that an Anarchist would recommend such a thing.

Just kidding, I’d never read Ann Coulter but I really do hate smug people on both sides of the political spectrum. One of my family members is way on the right and decided to give us a lecture on why the left is hiding the “real” meaning of Thanksgiving. Jeez, I hate it when people bring politics into holidays.

Plus it bugs me the whole thing about people calling themselves anarchists when they really aren’t. Way to often they are statists that think if only a benevolent state apparatus was in place we’d all be free. Argh.

Comment by ericNo Gravatar
2008-11-29 13:35:33

I am quite into history, so I love finding out the real origins of holidays. However, I’m also smart enough to know that the origins of thing won’t always be the reality of things. Christmas started as a pagan holiday co-opted to celebrate the birth of Christ. Now it’s really neither (though still kind of both).

I’ve also got a feeling that this “anarchist” would give me a lecture for not voting for Obama. hehehe.

Incidentally, what *is* the “real” meaning of Thanksgiving? I mean, historically, it was meant to give thanks (way back in the 1500’s). I don’t think it’s really changed all that much. It’s still widely celebrated as just that. Now, the accepted historical origins are a bit on the side of fantasy and that is something that should be taught (in a nonpolitical way). But still …

Comment by scottNo Gravatar
2008-11-29 16:42:07

I always thought the pilgrims got the idea of Thanksgiving from Sukhot or the Feast of the Tabernacles. It’s not horribly far off meaning wise and they were pretty darn familiar with their old testament.

My family on my moms side has been here since the very early 1600’s. We really don’t have any old family Thanksgiving traditions like we do for Christmas. Still, it wasn’t until really Norman Rockwell came up with that image of a “traditional” Thanksgiving that we started observing what we do today. So what if the specifics change. It’s just a holiday. People make what they want of it. I’ve heard the holiday being used a both a brilliant defense of capitalism as well as socialism. It’s a Roarshach test of sorts.

 
 
 

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.