Thanksgiving, a Very Difficult Good Day

As a citizen of USA I have very ambivalent feelings about today, Thanksgiving Day.  I affirm gratitude and aim to live with a sense that I am fortunate to enjoy the more than adequate supply of food, clothing and shelter which I have.  

But I am at least dimly aware of my USA neighbors who struggle  to survive, and equally pained by the oppression suffered by neighbors around the world.  They are oppressed by imperial powers, and mostly by the imperial power of the USA, with its 800 military bases over the globe.  Bases for what purpose?  To enforce US hegemony and access to the world’s resources in a proportion far beyond anything deserved.  Presumed entitlement is a description far to benign to characterize this reality.

So today when I eat turkey and enjoy family and friends I will also think of our larger human family.  And I will think of this visual depiction of the experience of indigenous peoples in Palestine and North America  https://www.fosna.org/the-fosna-blog/thanksgivingambivalence