Thursday, November 25, 2010

Thanksgiving. Different things to different people.


left. The Haitian workers thanksgiving day.

Haitian workers fighting against the corrupt Haitian state and the arrogant NGO's as the cholera epidemic rages.

When I was growing up in Ireland I used to hear about thanksgiving. I was told it was a day when Americans gave thanks for getting to the country safely. But as I got a bit older I felt there might be a wee bit more to this picture. I became aware that there were many different peoples in the Americas and they did not all have the view of things or the same experiences or be in the same mood to give thanks to the same things. Specifically the same experiences in getting to the US. The "middle passage" became a phrase with which I became familiar. This was so horrific that this phrase alone - the middle passage- was sufficient to tell the story. The description of the slave ships also. HHmm. Thanksgiving?? Yes it was a bit more complicated.

I came to feel there was something wrong with the picture with which I was being presented. Too much was being left out. Again what about the black people? They did not come voluntarily. Did they celebrate being captured and held as slaves for centuries? They were the victims of the middle passage. A holocaust. What about the native American people? Did they appreciate having their lands stolen and their way of life and culture destroyed? What about the Latin American people did they appreciate having what they had accumulated over the centuries stolen and in the main shipped back to Europe? I came to be inclined to think the answer to these questions was no. Maybe thanksgiving needed a bit more looking into.

Yet in spite of all this horror we do have this very widespread holiday in which most people participate. That is if they have the money and if they can get the day off. There are a number of reasons for this. Just about all of us have a generous and warm and giving side to our natures. We want to give and share. Unless we are badly damaged this side of us is an important part of our make up. Here is where capitalism comes it. They see this as a weakness to be exploited.

US capitalism is addicted to profit. Like a drug addict it must get more and more profits, it must get its fix and its fix and its fix, and it must do so again and again and again. There is no stopping it. It is a sick addicted system where the hard drug is profit. This addiction directs capitalism to the positive generous warm giving sides of our natures. It tells us with massive advertising and propaganda that if we are real friends to people, if we are really to be kind to people, we have to go to the stores and buy gifts and give them. And not only that the more expensive the gifts the more we appreciate our friends.

And of course the bottom line is this. By exploiting our better natures in this way capitalism is getting us to take our money from our wallets and purses and put it into their tills, take our wages and give it to their profits. This is what thanksgiving means to capitalism. Exploiting our better natures to maximize its profits. What a rotten system. So in spite of workers being off work on many occasions on thanks giving day and the bosses do not like this, the other side of the issue and which takes precedence for capitalism, is that capitalism wants a giant shopping bonanza to be built around thanksgiving. Sales upon sales. Get out there and do your patriotic duty and shop. Fill the corporations tills with all you have. Profit drives love a one day holiday.

Get out there and shop and buy a present for all your friends. This is a particularly nasty one. If you are some body's friend this can only be shown by buying them something. Going to the store and buying them something. So friendship equals giving money to the corporations, making profits for the corporations. Marx explained this. That personal relations under capitalism tend to get reduced down to the dollar bill. This is good for profits. This is the main motivating factor behind thanksgiving day. Profit. Capitalism rules okay.

In its drive for sales and for these profits capitalism exploits all the most positive emotions of the working class. We have very strong positive generous warm tendencies in our emotional make up. We want to be kind and to help people. Using their mass media, using their advertising organizations, using their education system, capitalism hammers their propaganda home. Get out there and shop. This is how to show you are a good person. This is how to show your kindness, generosity and love.

Thinks about the shopping issue a bit more. When the planes hit the twin towers what did Bush, the commander in chief say. He had omitted to scramble the fighter jets to shoot down the airliners as they approached New York and Washington, he had failed to act on the information he had received from other country's intelligences to cut the attacks off at source, but what did he say when it was whispered to him where he was reading to some children in their school class? He announced to the country that they should go about their daily activity and especially keep shopping. Keep Shopping!!! Yes working people buying the capitalists products is pretty high up there on the capitalist's priorities. After all if we do not buy, demand will collapse and the economy in spite of the prop of credit and debt in which it now rests will plunge into the abyss.

Back to thanksgiving day. We the organizers of this blog wish everybody a relaxing day off. We hope you do not have to rush out for any forgotten items. We hope you can just lie back and relax. Like myself hang out with my family and the pups. Take a walk by the lake later. And try and resist eating too many spuds. We would ask you to give thanks however. Not to the ideas and creatures that capitalism offers up. But give thanks to all the people who have struggled in a collective way to make life better for us all. To the men and women who have led strikes, and struggles and movements which have improved all our lives. We also on this thanksgiving would ask that we more energetically reach out to the men and women who for one reason or another have ended up in the nightmare of Iraq and Afghanistan and seek to help these soldiers build unions and opposition movements inside their armed forces with a view to pulling the US military out of all and any military involvement anywhere in the world. Bring the troops home.

Sean.

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