I was watching Jon Stewart's Daily Show tonight and found that Faux News apparently was incensed about President Obama-Fail having left god out of his meaningless Thanksgiving Day address. Of course, I missed all of the holiday celebrations as I was overseas last week. Evidently, the clear intent of this sermonizing masquerading as news reporting was to provoke even more negative feelings about our President within that group of right-wing ideologues who actually watch and believe what they see on Faux News - sort of preaching to the choir, that. More justification for liberal-bashing and demonizing the heathen Democrats? Is there some crying need by Rupert Murdoch (who pulls all the strings on his Faux News marionettes) to increase polarization in America still further?
As much as I dislike all the religious pontification during the christian holidays (Christmas and Easter) about the secularization of these apparently religious celebrations and the canard of christian persecution in the process, I'm simply astonished at the need some folks have to bring the subject of god up on the clearly secular holiday of Thanksgiving. If believers want to thank their deity for their blessings, that's fine by me, but I see absolutely no reason to force that requirement on the rest of us by means of making it politically necessary that the President do so. [Apparently, according to Faux News, even GWB left god out of his Thanksgiving address to the nation one year out of his eight, but apparently this wasn't considered newsworthy by them at the time. Can they not see their own grotesque hypocrisy? Guess not.] The President is the titular head of a secular nation, despite the revisionist, false American history the religious reich wants to force down our throats.
Of course, Christmas and Easter celebrations are not actually religious events - as holidays, they predate christ. These particular holidays originated as pagan festivals associated with the winter solstice and vernal equinox, but were co-opted by the christian church hundreds of years ago, who inserted their own self-serving mythology into heathen celebrations and claimed these occasions as their own. Hence, all of this weeping and gnashing of teeth over the putative loss of christian religious significance during the christmas and easter holidays is misguided: they weren't christian to begin with!
I don't necessarily enjoy the crass commercialization of holidays, either. Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are just marketing tools to get more people to buy more stuff they don't need and can barely afford, just to keep the big corporations rolling in cash to give to their grotesquely overpaid management. If there ever was a "true" meaning to these celebrations, it was to be happy that (a) the days would begin to get longer again [winter solstice] and (b) the end of winter [vernal equinox] - these are Earth-centered celebrations about getting through the tough times of winter. Given our economic situation, there may be even tougher winters to come ...
Thanksgiving is a time when Americans recall that "First Thanksgiving" when heathen savages (native Americans) helped the Pilgrims celebrate their harvest in 1621. This despite the Pigrims having stolen their land. Of course, in the years to follow, the new European settlers would be consumed with the hubris of "manifest destiny" as justification for committing genocide on the native Americans who participated in the first Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving was proclaimed a national holiday by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, in the midst of a tragic Civil War. Although the Civil War era was also characterized by deep religious fervor on both sides (each believing sincerely in the clearly delusional thought that the same god was on their side, of course), this was a secular holiday. It should remain so. The religious reich seems determined to push their beliefs into every corner of American life, but to do so would be eventually to destroy this nation.
Winter Solistice
2 hours ago
1 comment:
Chuck--I find it amusing that those on the right always feel justified in pointing out how evil and heathen those who disagree with them are. However, this is the same crowd who can't correctly remember historic facts about the nation they so love--case in point Michele Bachman confusing Concord, NH with Concord, MA or Sarah Palin turning Paul Revere's ride against the Brits on 04/18/75 into an argument for the second amendment. Don't you know that the founding father's so loved and feared God that they created this Christian nation in his image--or they would have if they didn't intend to create a nation based on religious freedoms! The right is also the same crowd that preaches family values and most often gets caught doing anything but practicing what they preach. You have to realize that what they say applies only to the opposing team--not themselves. So if "We" say God belongs, those who disagree damn better include him in all speeches and events related to holidays or other days of national importance. And it's OK that GW "forgot" to include God in his speeches. He had more important things on his mind--like protecting us from terrorists and other "evildoers!"
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