Due To The State
Of Our Society, Thanksgiving Name To Be Changed
To Selfish-Taking
by Roger Freed
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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