Holiday rant

[pandora_parrot]

So... there's this thanksgiving thing going on tomorrow. I really like the harvest festival and everything that goes with it. Food. Family. Fun. LOTS OF FOOD. Did I mention food?

It's a tradition that has existed since the dawn of the agricultural age 10,000 years ago. The last of the year's food is all ready to go, so we all dig in for one last feast as a hurrah against the cold winter that's about to come and kill half the village. And then we'll hurrah again throughout the winter to grit our teeth against the cold and declare ourselves to be alive and victorious even in the midst of our struggle.

Okay. So that all makes sense to me. But the way we celebrate it in the US is just weird. We celebrate the near genocide of an entire race of people that were indigenous to this land with a brutal massacre of millions upon millions of birds.

I mean, when it comes to brutal and horrible treatment of animals, you can't do much worse than the horrific treatment that turkeys and chickens get. It's disgusting and horrible.

And we're doing this to celebrate an event which, from the perspective of the remaining native people, was the beginning of the end of their people and the coming onslaught of the whites come to claim this land and murder its inhabitants.

I suppose its fitting really. Celebrate genocide with a massacre. Hooray.

So lets give thanks for living in a modern society with a massive meat oligopoly that makes eating animal flesh incredibly cheap at the cost of incredible suffering on the part of the animal and reduced quality of the meat, reaping in the cash for the few bigwigs that run their massive mechanized animal "farms" while driving out independent and local farmers. Joy of joys.

Give thanks that our ancestors murdered millions of indigenous people in this country so that we could bring our religion, philosophy, values, and industrial technology here to consume the vast untapped resources of this country and give us all the beautiful and wonderful consumerist culture that we now live in. Hey! Don't forget to head out on Black Friday to celebrate how rich you are for living in this amazing country by spending your wealth on unnecessary crap to give to your loved ones. Happy Happy Holidays!!!!

I give thanks that I'm aware that my behaviors and activities contribute to the suffering and death of conscious, emotional, intelligent, complex living beings around the world, both human and otherwise. I give thanks that I'm doing things, here and there, to try to improve the situation. And I give thanks that others are listening and trying to do their own part to make this world a better place for us, especially in the whole making/eating of food department. It doesn't take much to try to make a difference, and you don't have to do it the way I do it. Hell, you can do a whole lot better than I if you put your mind to it. But do *something* okay? Don't accept this crappy world and everything it tries to sell you.

Comments

[maestrodog.livejournal.com]

I'd like to skip the holiday entirely this year.

[paradox-puree.livejournal.com]

That's not a bad idea.

Except, well, I've got a soft spot for family get togethers around holidays, I have fond memories of "Thanksgiving dinner," I have some time off work, and everyone else is making dinner and inviting me over.

The only thing that I can think of doing, besides completely opting out, which is hard for the reasons above, is throwing an "anti Thanksgiving" party with vegan/vegetarian fare and meditating on the suffering of the native people of America. I've done that every year up until now, and I plan to do it again in the future. This year, however, I'm letting my girlfriend run the show, and she's *not* doing the vegetarian thing.

[pazi-ashfeather.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

I think the scariest part of it, for me, is the way so many people, regardless of politics and beliefs, can hear what you've just said and shrug their shoulders about it. The idea that just by not buying into the sappy "pilgrims and indians" myth we're half-heartedly given in primary school, we can make all the rest of that cultural baggage go away. Individual acts of willful inattention, apathy or personally choosing to focus on something else trumping any sort of collective, public acknowledgement or, perish the thought, attempt at restitution. And then some of them have the audacity to suggest they're reclaiming the holiday.

When the conservatives defend it on the grounds that it's traditional, and the liberals all just try to divorce themselves from the whole mess and enact the tradition (while telling themselves it's really different this way because they're not thinking about any of that), the end result is:

*wait for it*

Status quo! Nobody has to face up to any of the racist, genocidal skeletons in our collective cultural closet, or consider the system in which we live on any ethical grounds.

[voiceofanangel.livejournal.com]

so how does your celebration of the harvest differ from the "thanksgiving dinner"?

[pazi-ashfeather.livejournal.com]

You're presuming I celebrate it in the first place...

[pazi-ashfeather.livejournal.com]

To be more open, I don't pay it much attention, and I try to unpack this stuff with friends and loved ones I may see on this day. I'd like to find something that feels more productive to me.

As an individual, there's only so much I can do, which is the essence of the problem -- the idea that individual acts (to ignore or "reclaim" the holiday, or support it at face value) trump any sort of public, collective action (to attempt some sort of truth and reconciliation process), which basically precludes anything that'll really solve the problem.

This is an issue far bigger than myself and I am still looking for ways to respond to it. Talking about this stuff, not just today but in general, and trying to persuade others is about the best I've come up with so far. It doesn't seem nearly good enough, though.

[paradox-puree.livejournal.com]

Yeah. For now, all I'm doing is talking. I'd really like to do something more, but I'm still trying to figure out what that "something more" could be.

[danaelaurm.livejournal.com]

The harvest is a month earlier?

[voiceofanangel.livejournal.com]

lol good point! We've been having an "indian summer" this year, so it still doesn't feel like anything resembling winter.

[danaelaurm.livejournal.com]

Heh yeah, I'm always a bit surprised that US thanksgiving is so late since a) there's actually a canadian thanksgiving at harvest time and b) I usually care about neither (to me US thanksgiving is "that week I too often skip because my american friends have vacations" and Canadian thanksgiving is "a poor excuse for a harvest festival, give me a proper Calan Gaeaf" (Samhain for the gaelic/Eve of Slaughter for the litteral english translation)
I didn't really know the historical reasons until my teens.

[paradox-puree.livejournal.com]

the liberals all just try to divorce themselves from the whole mess and enact the tradition (while telling themselves it's really different this way because they're not thinking about any of that), the end result is:
I'm not sure what you're referring to here but I want to point out that the origin of "thanksgiving" has its roots in a harvest festival that exists in most agricultural societies for the past 10,000 years. If we could celebrate *that* I think that's a change.

But no, in the US, we're celebrating genocide. Yippee.

[pazi-ashfeather.livejournal.com]

I'm referring to the US tradition there, without broader comment on harvest festivals in general.

[voiceofanangel.livejournal.com]

So I guess you won't be having the turkey? lol

I totally get what you're saying. My cousin is part Native American (Tsalagi tribe). Did you know this is Native American Heritage Month?

[paradox-puree.livejournal.com]

GEnerally, I throw an all-vegetarian party as an anti-thanksgiving. This year, however, my girlfriend is throwing the party, and there will be a dead bird at the table. I just didn't have the strength to throw my own party this year. Too tired and exhausted, emotionally.

[paradox-puree.livejournal.com]

What you're describing is how I envision the "harvest festival" that I believe "Thanksgiving" to be based on.

What I'd like to see is us drop the bullshit and become aware of what's *actually* going on here, instead of just blithly closing our eyes and pretending that nothing bad ever happened.

[cyberspice.livejournal.com]

As an outsider the whole Thanksgiving thing is a little bizarre. But are we any better? November 5th is actually a celebration of religious persecution.

I was introduced to the realities of farming as a child. A cheap family vacation was an out of season one on a farm with the caravan (trailer). Whilst everyone else was going abroad to the sun or to holiday camps we were in staying in fields next to farm yards (or in one case since it was too snowy to park up in the field in the yard itself). I've seen pig-pens and held piglets which still had their umbilicals. I've watched a lamb being born. When I was a little older I ended up helping look after some ex-battery hens. There are good farmers and bad. And the bad are damn awful. As an accountant I got to audit abattoirs so I've seen the other end as well.

I still eat meat. But I am aware of the realities of meat production. So I require full traceability. I know, for example, that the lamb being provided by the family run butcher I buy our meat from is from an Ann Robinson and I know where her farm is. I could go and look at it. And I stay well clear of mass commercial production.

[paradox-puree.livejournal.com]

I don't know what the answers are on how to "make this better." I don't think I even put enough effort forth to make a difference. But I do try to think about this stuff and get other to think about it. I am (mostly) a vegetarian as my personal way to try to make more of a difference, but I am all for *any* effort towards change.

My hope is that if we can get enough people thinking and talking about this stuff, we can collectively come up with some better solutions than "being a vegetarian" and "throwing anti-Thanksgiving parties."

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

Nods, I agree.

It would be good if there were a mainstream celebration of harvest which didn't have historical roots in Native persecution, and which didn't involve the killing of more innocent creatures.

The squash and yams and cranberries and other fruits of the land should merit celebrating in their own right.

[paradox-puree.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

Of course, I'm still participating in this because, well, my friends throw parties and I have a few days off work... I'd love it if I could take the time off earlier in the year, say around Samhain, and do this in a way that wasn't so sucky.