Thanksgiving 2010

Everything about our lives and about the well-being of our nation has been put in question by the nagging recession that has cost so many jobs and our belief in the banking system and even our belief in our ability as a nation to overcome economic adversity.

With Thanksgiving upon us, we agree there is much to be pleased with about our existence in this nation at this time in our lives.

We have suffered an economic setback but we have not lost half our population as did the Pilgrims during the first winter in the new land.

The Promise of America remains alive and well.

We won’t soon be marrying any royals.

We don’t yet need a bail out from the rest of the world, which we can be sure would be reluctant to help out if the American narrative came to that point.

We continue to be the world’s bright light where the struggling poor want to be, and where they delight in coming and are able to carve out for themselves new lives and where the sky, indeed, is the limit for a great many of them.

The turmoil we are now experiencing as a nation questioning ourselves about every aspect of our existence shows the depth of introspection and the love of public debate about a frenetic the society struggling to change itself to meet the imperatives of the new age that is upon us.

During this Thanksgiving, there will be lots of talk around the holiday table about where we are heading and of how the challenge of the future will be met.

The Republicans are gearing up to save the Bush tax cuts – even if it means $4 trillion less the US Treasury will collect.

And why not?

The US national debt is, in reality, an illusion to most of us running through our lives and trying to do what we can to sustain our businesses and families.

What difference in our lives will be made by the national debt being lowered?

Even if it disappeared not much would change.

On this Thanksgiving we need to make a harsh reassessment about participating in extremely costly foreign wars that go on without an end in sight and for people who care nothing for us – in fact – who wish death upon us and our children s part of their religion.

On This Thanksgiving it would be meaningful if all Americans began to think seriously about making the kind of sacrifice the Pilgrims made in 1620 when they left a relatively easy life in England for the unknown in the New England.

They put everything on the line to begin a new day for themselves.

This is what we need to do in order to remain the world’s brightest light and strongest nation.

Thanksgiving 2010 isn’t all about food or football.

Thanksgiving is always about thought.