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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.