It's only fair. If we're going to have a holiday where we can give thanks for the stuff others have given us, we can damn well have one where we can accept thanks for trying to stop those who threaten to take what we've got away.
I call the holiday "Thanksgetting" and it goes something like this:
We'll start with the Occupy Wall Street/Portland/Any Old Place movement. Briefly, these folks are ready to fight the one percent who have methodically shafted the other 99% ever since the first robber baron was promoted from pageboy. The Occupy-ists, however, lack a focus. They want to tax the rich, but nobody has come up with a meaningful definition, since everybody is "rich" to people who have a lot less than they have. If 45% of the American people are tottering on the brink of financial disaster, then the 55% who aren't are rich. Sure, we can all agree that people who make a million dollars a year are rich (everybody, that is, except the Republicans in Congress), but how about the guy making $990,000? How about $800,000? $500,000? You get the idea. Thanksgetting is a time to define our terms.
Protestors also are furious at the huge, multinational corporations that are robbing us blind. They forget that these corporations get their money from millions of investors and none of those investors are in business to lose money. Show me one teacher, pension fund or investment banker who is ready to say "enough" when their portfolio swells to the size of a Volkswagen if the possibility exists for it to grow to the size of a Hummer. When a system is built on small greed, it's hard for it not to progress to big greed. We have to change our mental greedset.
Occupy-ists are also highly peeved at politicians, a target shared by members of the Tea Party, a group that is named for a bunch of socialists who destroyed private property in a fight for the common good. These people got hijacked along the way by the same kind of corporations that produced and shipped the tea. Now, they're on a crusade to dismantle regulations that protect the public in favor of businesses who are willing to do almost anything to assure a profit for their stockholders, with a big load of money going to their front offices. In other words, they feel we'd rather have businesses that screw us efficiently than government that protects us inefficiently. Thanksgetters would have to oppose this.
Thanksgetting would also be a time to tell the assorted hypocrites running for office that most of us would much rather have them tell us the truth, although distasteful, than lie to us about anything if they think they can get a few votes out of it. Although I disagree with a lot of what he says, I think Ron Paul is about as close as we're getting to that. If we are to deserve the thanks of a grateful nation, we have to have the guts to accept the fact that saying the country is doing the wrong thing does not constitute disloyalty, but in fact is the direct opposite. The same goes for our "friends and allies."
On this holiday, we don't have to eat turkeys; we just have to get rid of them. I propose we start with major advertisers whose job it is to convince us we need more crap. I'd add know-nothing talk show hosts, pompous asses wearing hairpieces and all "experts" who tell us what anyone with the brains of an artichoke would know anyway.
Thanksgetting Day, moreover, shouldn't just be a day in November. We should be ready to accept thanks 365 days a year - if we really deserve it. To do this, we have to keep telling everyone who will listen that what's really ruining this country is an economic system that puts human worth below net worth and ranks people according to the content of their wallets, not the content of their character (apologies to Dr. King).
I hope everyone will join with their neighbors in the observance.