My thoughts on this national holiday, this Thanksgiving Day, thinking of our nation, what do we give thanks for today?
Do we give thanks for two wars being conducted in places where most Americans haven't been or that they could even locate on a map?
Do we give thanks for having supported a money-focused idealism, a Los Vegas-type gambling mentality that has led us to the edge of an economic depression?
Will we go over the edge by next Thanksgiving Day?
I might, perhaps, if I were a preacher say, that we've become a nation that has lost its way.
The saints, or better, the idols we worship, in what has become a moneyed culture are billionaires and as a result we've become a nation without leaders, without a sense of reality and without a sense of the uncommon common man.
That sounds “high and mighty.” I could also say that as a nation, we must re-assess our goals and objectives and therefore look for new directions again and that we must evolve a new national religion other than one based on money.
But how do we determine these new directions and where do our leaders come from? How do we separate the hopes of a living democracy from the cynicism of a dysfunctional market place? The billionaries can't led us. They are the result of the problem.
We have a need to re-examine our values even at the local level.
These are some of my thoughts and questions on Thanksgiving Day, as I listen to reports of terror attacks in India.
On my desk are two partially read books that I'm reading interchangeably. “Hot, Flat and Crowded” and “The Ascent of Money,” both relatively “hot off the press,” examples of a mature man's “up-datedness.”
As I try to keep up with the times, I'm also trying to be thankful, but for what?
Keeping up becomes rather difficult, especially trying to keep up my optimist-self this Thanksgiving day.
