Opinion: Three Views On Thanksgiving

Opinion: Three Views On Thanksgiving
By Richard Cohen, Washington Post

The dinner was delicious, no matter what some people wrote later in Zagat, and after the football game, Miles Standish brought forth Jonathan Edwards, Puritanism's leading motivational speaker, who energized the crowd with his famous talk, "Cower Before God's Wrath, Ye Slimy Pusballs of Sin!"

And Governor Bradford reminded his flock that all honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, which must be overcome with answerable courages, and all ignored him because "CSI: Salem" was on. But all Americans owe much to those brave folk who supped that day.

For it is from those Pilgrims, the last WASP's to truly look good in black, that we have inherited the essential elements of the American character - our ability to look honestly at ourselves and find other people less intelligent; our ability to endure moments of amazing hardship before resorting to litigation; our ability to build this nation, so broad and strong, which the Chinese will one day be proud to own. --David Brooks, NY Times

***

The banquet room reeks and coils and sighs. It is full of bleak energy and missed opportunities, spiritual paranoia and repressed desire and dishonest laughter. The turkey comes out dry. There is not enough pie for Dubya. Rumsfeld slurps his scotch, drunkenly. Dick eyes the dark thigh meat. Condi has to pee. There is little to be thankful for, inside this room.

Outside, however, among the nation's awakening throngs, gratitude and hope are beginning to swell and grow anew. Only three years left. It's long but not that long. Every person in that gloomy room will be gone. History. Nothing left but an ugly stain, oily residue, scar tissue. The room will be refreshed. The turkey will be moist. There will be more cranberry sauce. This dark, warmongering chapter will finally end. Pie all around. --Mark Morford, S.F.Chronicle

***

The one thing I cherish about Thanksgiving is that it has remained commerce-free. Almost all the other holidays, especially Christmas, have been corrupted by commercialism. Even Thanksgiving is threatened by its proximity to Christmas -- with the sinisterly named "Black Friday," when shoppers arrive before dawn to save a buck or two. But as they stampede through the doors, as they elbow one another out of the way, as their greed distorts their faces, I have to remind myself that this is about the Christmas that is coming and not the Thanksgiving that has passed.