Who am I supposed to thank? Should I just be shouting “thank you” into the void, or feel generically grateful without cause or purpose, or be looking for some reason to feel I owe it to the universe to be praising it? Because I’m not feeling it.
This isn’t my kind of holiday. What day is Blamesgiving? Because I’d rather be snarling at a few evil bastards and punching them in face. Donald Trump, Ajit Pai, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, the Alabama Idjit Brigade that’s lobbying for Roy Moore, all the people who picket Planned Parenthood, Republicans in general, Betsy Devos, Ken Ham…my list is endless, and just thinking about them all is making my punchin’ arm tired.
It’s probably a good thing my wife is me clean house and confining me to the kitchen to cook today’s dinner, because otherwise I’d just be boiling in frustration and bitterness.
Maybe you can thank her for keeping me out of your face today.
It’s like the old joke:
Q: What is the biggest disadvantage of being an atheist?
A: You don’t have anyone to talk to while you are having an orgasm.
Forget Thanksgiving Day
Join my campaign to have the horribly named ‘Black Friday’
YOU’REWELCOMEGIVING DAY
You could thank those two Soviet officers who on different occasions prevented a nuclear launch -once during the Cuba crisis, once the the IR camera launch warning satellites got a bug and reported an American attack in prgress.
Unfortunately, both have passed away.
You could thank Svannte Pääbo for making old DNA available, and Emannuelle Carpentier for finding a DNA scissor.
And you could thank various artists like Kate Bush and those Liverpool guys for making life a bit more fun.
You can lighten up and be thankful that you exist for this tiny blink in time due to an infinitesimally small chance event.
Ray Moore?
Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to bad spelling. . .
You’re supposed to be thanking whichever appropriate deity for not fucking up your crops enough that you starve to death. Seems reasonable.
Thank goodness for your wife.!
Thank goodness for your kitchen.
Thank goodness for the food.
Thank goodness for the house.
Thank goodness for the clean house.
Thank goodness you are alive to enjoy it all.
Fuc everything else!
Perhaps you could settle for being hopeful. Hopeful that we are living through the dying gasps of Trumpism and the beginning of a sea change in America’s cultural zeitgeist. Change is really hard.
From the traditional celebration, it looks like you are supposed to be thankful for the opportunity to live here, as the Natives made possible for the Pilgrims. Since that has proven a generous mistake on their part, the better equivalent is probably appreciating the many privileges you enjoy now. “That’s great, now let’s get more people in on that” would be a nice direction for the holiday to take.
I think We™ should change all holiday names.
January Long Weekend, February Long Weekend, etc.
http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp11212017.shtml
I’m just waiting for Columbo Day.
My sentiments exactly. “Giving thanks” requires an entity on the receiving end, like your spouse, children or some special person or agency. Invariably, giving thanks today means that agency is God. I’m sure the country’s Native Americans of the early 17th century were having doubts when the settlers were gobbling down the Native’s food, all the while fearing what their next step might be. In a few more years, the settlers would be thanking God for the imported smallpox that would wipe out 95% of the native population. That’s gratitude for you!
You can be thankful for your loved ones for being there for you. You can thankful for your fans that appreciate your sanity in a crazy world. Gratitude feels better than anger and depression.
My daughter-in-law had appendicitis last week. Not so long ago that was a death sentence, but she’s fine and back home with my grandson.
I am thankful towards the Mexican farmworker who toil in the hot sun so we can have cheap food.
Thanksgiving…an American tradition, an excuse to eat things I’m normally not allowed to eat. It’s great to be full. Of course, I would be especially grateful to eat badly without all the house cleaning and cooking.
Call me a curmudgeon but I find the “Gratitude” movement to be a pernicious scheme to slip feel-good god-bothering into our lives. I’m skeptical of the psychology findings that being vaguely grateful for whatever to whomever is somehow beneficial to your health and sense of well-being. It strikes me as the inane posi-think philosophy of privileged white people who can afford to pull themselves out of a funk by tugging their bootstraps. Gosh! Doesn’t everybody feel great!
Meanwhile, millions of people live in poverty with untreated mental illness and find it difficult to get on the gratitude train.
@Dave Grain #11:
I know exactly how that day will turn out and yet I will still enjoy it immensely.
#8- procyon
Obama was a “sea change” that didn’t last very long. After Republicans were seemingly discredited and vanquished into oblivion, they used birtherism and hate of ACA to rebrand image into Tea Party revolutionaries. Trump merely rode on the coattails of tinfoil tricorns.
If there is a similar leftward “sea change” political reaction to Trump in midterms or next presidential election, it won’t last long. Repugs are adept at reframing and rebranding.
Calm down Doc ,else you won’t have any bile left for xmas .
We don’t have Thanksgiving over here in good old Blighty ,nearest thing to it is Harvest Festival
This sketch with Rowan Atkinson mentions a typical Harvest Festival.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGvxx9G0MqY
Black Friday has appeared over here during the last few years .
Re@19
Yes. Always remover waves pass, like tsunami. Huge wave comes ashore and destroys much. Then washes out and evaporates. I predict to midterms will be a Blue tsunami (oops jinx alert). And it must not be left at that or the Repubes will rebuild we need to keep the wave sustained at cleaning out the “unBlue”.
In short, no matter how large the resurgence of the progressive branch in the midterms, job not done. Keep plugging at it regardless of incidental successes.
Happy Fibonacci Day, the convergence of Turkey with the sequence 1 1 2 3
Typo @21
Remover —> remember
@11 Dave Grain:
I made this awhile back.
Something Positive had a good Thanksgiving strip this year: http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp11212017.shtml
What about Native American Genocide Remembrance Day?
PZ’s post reminds me of an old PEANUTS strip.
Setting: night, outdoors.
Charlie: What are you doing?
Linus: I’m carrying a candle to follow the admonition, “It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.”
Charlie: All right, but there will always be some who disagree.
Lucy: (to the night) YOU STUPID DARKNESS!
Blamesgiving? Isn’t that part of Festivus?
imnotspecial
“I am thankful towards the Mexican farmworker who toil in the hot sun so we can have cheap food.”
28% of Central/South Americans working illegally in the North American fruit/veg industry are not Mexicans, so please could they have a piece of your self-righteous thanks as well? Or are you happy to erase them in order to maintain the “illegal Mexicans” trope?
My bad editing: ignore the first “illegally” in my above.
Just change it to “notice the good things” day. Psychologically useful exercise and having a whole population do it has to be one of those good things.
You could then thank people for being among the good things you have noticed.