I like Thanksgiving. Always have. Of course the turkey is usually dry, but everyone loves stuffing. Bringing up the whole thing about the Pilgrims wiping out the Indians always seemed a bit excessively guilt-trippy and overly specific to me. I never really related to the whole Pilgrim Fathers aspect to Thanksgiving in the first place. Awfully goyishe, for one thing. Why should I feel guilty for what they did? Thanksgiving isn’t about that for me. It only seems natural, healthy, a part of basic human culture to celebrate harvest, to be thankful, to overeat, and watch college football games you don’t care about.
But lately, when I think about what I’m thankful for, the question of guilt does seems a bit irrepressible. The current consensus seems to be that guilt is a pathetic, useless emotion, felt only by self-loathing wankers (otherwise known as liberals). Sure, feeling guilty because you’re having a good meal when someone else doesn’t have enough to eat is fucked up. Unless you having that meal is somehow responsible for the other person’s want. For instance, if you stole it from him. It seems to me that the question of whether one actually has something to feel guilty about might be germane. Let’s say you just brutally raped a small child and killed your own mother. Should you feel guilty about it? I would say yes. Maybe that’s just me, but I’d go on to say the issue isn’t really whether you FEEL guilty, but whether you ARE guilty. Are the things we feel thankful for things we might also feel (and be) guilty about?
So, what about the things I feel most thankful for this holiday season?
I’m thankful I’m not being tortured in Guantanamo or any other branch of the US “anti-terror” Gulag.
I’m thankful my home, my water supply and my electricity have not been blown to shit by US bombs.
I’m thankful that there is virtually no chance that any member of my family will be dragged out of my apartment in the middle of the night and interrogated.
I’m thankful than neither I nor any member of my family will be hit by white phosphorous shells that will liquefy our flesh.
I’m thankful that when on the street outside of my apartment building I don’t see foreign soldiers with automatic weapons, any of whom might mistake my hurrying home to use the toilet as a sign that I’m up to no good and fill me with 300 rounds of high caliber bullets.
I’m thankful that my entire country hasn’t been coated with depleted uranium dust.
I’m thankful that all of my friends and family are gathered around the table, and that none of them has been murdered by foreign soldiers or people trying to drive those soldiers out of the country.
Yes, we have a lot to be thankful for this year in the home of the free. And I will certainly enjoy my Thanksgiving dinner with friends and family, and overeat, and watch college football games I don’t care about. Guilt? What- me worry?