Thanksgiving, once a proud cornerstone of our traditional American holidays with roots harkening back to our Pilgrim forefathers, is now comatose on the border of rigor mortis.
At one time it was considered to be the most family oriented of celebrations, a quiet, low keyed, non-commercial affair centered around rejoining with loved ones and a day of relaxing and feasting.
But, with quiet, low keyed, non-commerciality and families themselves being out of vogue, Thanksgiving is about to pass into history without hardly a tearful eye at its passing.
The once proud holiday is being pummeled from both sides of the calendar by the more famous holidays that can rack in big bucks- Halloween and Christmas.
It is hard for big business to make money off of a day which is concerned with getting together with family and friends and only adds revenue to the turkey and cranberry farmers.
The intrusion began decades ago when television, already an established intrusion into the sanctity of the family home, decided that people sitting at home on a day off was too good a financial mark to pass up and started hosting football games on that day to tear father away from the table and from wife and kids and glue his eyeballs to the TV screen for a good five hours of the day.
This also brought beer into the Thanksgiving diet due to the ubiquitous suds commercials that go along with the macho game.
Now retailers, ever greedy for as much dough as they can squeeze out of consumers for the holidays, have all but thrashed Thanksgiving to death with their huge Halloween and Christmas merchandising. Walmart last year and Sears this year have decided to force employees out of their warm homes on Thanksgiving to work when they should be having the day off (Last year the Walmart in our area didn’t pay anyone extra for working that night, just the usual minimum wage.).
As a result of this and the general attitude in the country of ‘all that matters is me’, the Federal Government has voted to change the name ‘Thanksgiving’ to ‘Selfish-Taking’ to more correctly reflect the true reality of the holiday. Certain Corporations are pushing their Washington lobbyists to get it renamed ‘Walmart Day’, ‘Sears Day’, ‘Kmart Day’ since there is little thanks or giving left in the holiday anyway.
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Editor’s note and commentary (rant):The graphics below—courtesy of ThinkProgress.org, along with the corresponding article published on 11/13/2013 —reminds us that the destruction of the holiday is also being extended to the employees of these companies, and their families, as well. It shows that there are several sides to this decadent, greed-laced equation.
Who or what is at fault here? The problem is multi-faceted, but the “bottom line,” so to speak, should be quite clear. It is all being perpetuated by big corporate retailers, who through their ever-present slick marketing schemes—schemes designed to dangle the “carrot-of-potential-savings” in front of our faces, while serenading us with the siren song of gratuitous materialism—attempt to entice us to drop everything in order to robotically pass through their doors without a momentary thought.
These marketing contrivances are being sold to us 24-7 through their well-compensated handmaidens, their messenger service, the consolidated corporate media. In many cases, both the mega retailers——along with the increasingly fewer and fewer huge companies filling their shelves—and the handful of immense companies who control all media, have interlocking boardrooms. Shared VIP board members simultaneously direct, build, and stage this illusion-of-choice from plush seats at multiple corporate headquarters.
I realize that I went a bit astray in that last paragraph as my rant progressed, but it all ties into the point I’m striving to make. If you delve deep enough into this greed-induced wreckage, you’ll find much more than just the killing of a holiday. ~M.J.C.
Disclaimer:The previous statement contained views expressed by the image editor (that would be me) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the article’s author. Thank you. Buy bonds where you work or play!
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On the other hand…
Have a happy Thanksgiving despite it all.
And truly be thankful. I will as well.