Summary: On Thanksgiving let’s give thanks for something greater than our peace and prosperity – for the spirit that built America. It is something within the hearts and minds of those before us. Let’s prey that spirit still lives in us. With it we can overcome our challenges and ensure many more happy Thanksgivings for America.
Thanksgiving is one of America’s few meaningful holidays in a nation that has been blessed with incredible natural resources and even more incredible good luck at key points in our history. But our greatest resource is one we have built for ourselves: America’s strong social cohesion. Our ability to stand together has carried us through the severe crises of the past two centuries.
Now a new time of crisis begins, and – as always – centrifugal forces appear to alienate us both from our past and from each other. This makes us easy to lead.
Thanksgiving offers an opportunity to remember who we are. We come together to celebrate and recall our shared history. Let’s remember that America belongs to us. No matter how powerful our foes, foreign and domestic, we are responsible for America.
See the work of the late Christopher Lasch for an analysis of our situation, especially his last and greatest work: The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy
Best wishes for a wonderful Thanksgiving Day!
Lyrics to “The Egg”, one of the many great songs in 1776
Adams:
It’s a masterpiece, I say!
They will cheer every word, every letter.
Jefferson:
I wish I felt that way.
Franklin:
I believe I can put it better
Now then attend, as friend to friend
On our Declaration Committee
For us I see immortality.
All:
In Philadelphia City.
Franklin:
A farmer, a lawyer, and a sage
A bit gouty in the leg
You know it’s quite bizarre
To think that here we are
Playing midwives to an egg.
All:
We’re waiting for the chirp, chirp, chirp
Of an eaglet being born
We’re waiting for the chirp, chirp, chirp
On this humid Monday morning in this
Congressional incubator.
Franklin:
God knows the temperature’s hot enough
To hatch a stone, let alone an egg.
All:
We’re waiting for the scratch, scratch, scratch
Of that tiny little fellow
Waiting for the egg to hatch
On this humid Monday morning in this
Congressional incubator.
Adams:
God knows the temperature’s hot enough
To hatch a stone.
Jefferson:
But will it hatch an egg?
Adams:
The eagle’s going to crack the shell
Of the egg that England laid.
All:
Yes, so we can tell, tell, tell
On this humid Monday morning in this
Congressional incubator.
Franklin:
And as just as Tom here has written
Though the shell may belong to Great Britain,
The eagle inside belongs to us!
All:
And as just as Tom here has written
We say to hell with Great Britain!
The eagle inside belongs to us!
For More Information
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about ways to reform our politics, and especially these about Thanksgiving…
- Looking back on USMC thanksgivings, reminding us of things for which we should be grateful.
- Let’s give thanks for America’s luck, and try to deserve it!
- For Thanksgiving, Walmart shows us the New America.
- Make this a special Thanksgiving: take a first and easy step to reforming America.
- Lies about Thanksgiving have consequences. That we’re so easily fooled has even more.
- Have a different Thanksgiving conversation with the family about politics.
- Debunking a right-wing myth about Thanksgiving.
The book version
1776 by David McCullough.
From the publisher …
“America’s beloved and distinguished historian presents, in a book of breathtaking excitement, drama, and narrative force, the stirring story of the year of our nation’s birth, 1776, interweaving, on both sides of the Atlantic, the actions and decisions that led Great Britain to undertake a war against her rebellious colonial subjects and that placed America’s survival in the hands of George Washington.
“In this masterful book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence – when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper.
“Based on extensive research in both American and British archives, 1776 is a powerful drama written with extraordinary narrative vitality. It is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no-accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers. And it is the story of the King’s men, the British commander, William Howe, and his highly disciplined redcoats who looked on their rebel foes with contempt and fought with a valor too little known.
“Written as a companion work to his celebrated biography of John Adams
