Because invading Japan would have been more humane than bombing 2 cities. Got it.
apparently, the author has been living in a cave for the past 50 years or so. had he been among the rest of us, he’d know that, first of all, the biggest Thanksgiving myth of all is that the first one in the English colonies took place in Plymouth Plantation, it didn’t. the first English thanksgiving in the colonies took place years earlier, in VA, which had been settling since 1607, and survived, pretty much in spite of the greed and stupidity manifest in some of its ranking members.
Berkeley Plantation, on the James River, is the site of the first “Thanksgiving” celebration that was noted in writing, years before Plymouth had it’s “rock” (another myth) stepped on, by a bunch of obnoxious puritans, a group so bad, even the normally tolerant Dutch couldn’t stand them. the Dutch have been smoking pot ever since, in a national attempt to rid themselves of bad memories of the puritans. they’re still trying.
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the idea of “Christmas”, as related in the famous op/ed piece, is always a good thing, being decent to your fellow human beings. if some people need another myth to help them along, I’m good with that.
I have recently taken to calling it “Mithras,” as in ‘Merry Mithras’ as much of the Christmas legend seems to have been lifted from Mitras.
one of my favorite songs. Primus sucks!
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We should also revise our opinion of the pilgrims themselves, in terms of what sour pusses and killjoys they must’ve been, and how warmly they must’ve been admonished to not let the door hit them on the way out. Looking at Australia today, I can’t help but think they got the long end of the stick as a penal colony.
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This is as bad as the old myth. The author conflates the Separatists of Plymouth with the Puritans who came later. There was of course no landing at Plymouth Rock. He doesn’t understand their relationship with the native people. He doesn’t understand who was on Mayflower or why they came. Using words like ‘genocidal’ doesn’t help us understand what went on. Yes, it would help to shine some light on Plymouth but this isn’t it.
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Wow. Our historical foundations are so bloody! We have been a vicious bunch of bastards right from the start.
Not surprising. Nobody should be claiming to have an accurate version of the first Thanksgiving, as there were multiple thanksgiving events, none of which were well documented and none of which were recognized at the time as “the” Thanksgiving. So, as to the details, nobody can claim accuracy or inaccuracy in any useful sense.
What the myth refers to is the glow surrounding the popular image of The First Thanksgiving, a Thomas Kinkade aura in which the Pilgrims and local Native Americans engaged in friendly cooperation to prosper in the “new” land.
What the author takes issue with is not the depiction of the events of the first Thanksgiving, but with the fact that the surrounding glow has obscured the historical context and the full history of the establishment of European colonies on the Eastern seaboard.
I can second the recommendation. It was like learning the history of a continent I’d never heard of before.
Don’t do as I did and listen to the audio version, however. The production was good, but I kept wanting to see maps and refer back to earlier mentions of a topic.
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If by “we” you mean humans, that would be correct. If by “we” you mean European colonists in the Americas, that also would be correct, because they were humans, and doubly correct, because they were the humans with the upper hand overall in the conflicts with the existing Americans.
Good to see the U.S. cultural mythologies being exposed, one by one. Once uncovered, people will be able to form their own nationalistic views, unclouded by the stories of others thoughtlessly handed down from one generation to another. This form of freedom will truly be freeing.
But but but … Today…
At least there has been some assimilation of the local tribes.
Located in in Ledyard, Connecticut and operated by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe and earning $1.5 billion,
~OGD~
Well. That totally absolves American slave traders and slave owners, then. [/sarcasm]
Mr. Comments is an ethical vacuum.
While everything you say is true. However, you leave out that the Puritans really didn’t have a choice other than to leave. They faced certain death in England. My Puritan ancestor who shared my maiden name was arrested in a raid on a Puritan worship service in London as a teenager. It was a capital crime. After spending at least part of a winter in a frigid English dungeon, he was deported to New England. Of course, he had to pay the Crown back for the expense of deporting him. He was sold into years of servitude, ironically, to the Governor of the New Haven Colony who shared the religion he was being punished for practicing. That Governor made sure he served the full term of his captivity. Then he was released, allowed to marry and earn his own way. He lived a few years, had 4 children, and died. This is not to excuse the offenses against the Puritans, but to make it clear that they had no choice. They came to establish new homes here under immense difficulty.or die.
“Jump cut” – I do not think it means what you think it means.
<This is a problem, because a nation’s foundational mythology determines its self-image and deeply affects the behavior of its government and citizenry.>
Hence you persist in spreading poison. We get it
fuggedaboudit. ET is right. If you don’t suck on my lies, you are trampling my freedumbs.
Puritan clerics confused the Indian deity Kiehtan with God, and they conflated Hobbamock, a fearsome nocturnal spirit associated with Indian shamans, or powwows, with Satan.
Where is Shiva when you need him? Oh, pardonez moi.