Thanksgiving 2023

A dilemma for Marxists and atheists

Some of us are old enough to remember when the US was not a functionally atheistic country. That would have been before the school prayer decisions of the early 1960s, and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which was intended to fundamentally transform the fabric of America. Recall that in those halcyon days, we still had Christmas and Easter school vacations, no one ever said “Happy Holidays,” and nativity scenes were everywhere during the Christmas season.

Now, we have Winter and Spring breaks from school, even if the “Spring break” always seems to coincide more with the date of Easter, than some chronological marking of Spring.

Words, of course, are vitally important. Except in formal liturgical discussions, no one refers to Christmas as “The Nativity of the Lord,” or Easter as the “Resurrection of the Lord.” Christmas has long been overcome by commercial forces, and even though Easter is the greatest holiday in Christianity, egg hunts and chocolates are not particularly exciting.

Consider, though, the word “Thanksgiving.” The inescapable question is “Giving thanks to whom?” No amount of family, food, and football can hide that nagging query. Nay-sayers can attempt to ignore this, of course, but there IS that question, hiding in plain sight. Fortunately, things have not yet deteriorated to the point that Marxists and atheists could push “Big Brother” as the reply.

Another benefit of our Thanksgiving holiday is that it conjures up details of our nation’s early history, cooperation with the native population, and the Pilgrims’ abandonment of socialism, to save their troubled Plymouth settlement.

Finally, I do get a nice sense of schadenfreude examining what few reactions to Thanksgiving can be found on behalf of Marxists and atheists…

Communist Party USA member Joe Sims must confine himself to discussing food preparation, while snarky atheist Pamela Paul devotes 800 words to a laundry list of virtually everything East Coast liberals hate about the rest of us. While Paul’s self-absorbed piece is only a year old, it did not age well.

You should read Paul’s entire essay, but this quote is especially clueless: “The Republican right has been catastrophizing about an alleged war on Christmas for over a decade, though nobody has alerted the pharmacy chains whose aisles are already laden with red-and-green candy.”

You’re right, Pam. Nothing says “Nativity of Our Lord” better than red-and-green candy.