A new British bank holiday!

well, that's alright then. if you can't celebrate your holidays with your family then how on EARTH would you manage a decent drunken brawl?

 

ok, that wasn't even in English!

 

i had to add the quote to have it make sense. does it work better now?

(actually, though, our thanksgiving was a holiday based on cooperation and kindness from the native people's helping the settlers by bringing them food and they feasted together. probably the last time you europeans did right by them )

 

No, i'faith I may have been bullshitting....

 

Oooo Sorry KC, I was actually replying to a comment I'd made. It made no sense! But you'd posted before me, so now it makes even less sense! lol

 

no worries. even if it was for me, it made perfect sense. i'm not really prickly, except when i am.

 

True, though it was introduced by Lincoln (as I remember) at a time when the frontier was disappearing and the native way of life and the native lands were being ripped apart. In this sense, the Native Americans were doubly exploited. Not only were their lands taken and their way of life destroyed, but their cultural symbolism was appropriated to make Americans feel good about themselves while they were doing it by referring back to a time before they shat all over the indigenous peoples....

 

being part native, none of this is news to me. i think the advent of the thanksgiving holiday was brought about to REMIND people of the natives, not let them forget what was lost and what they gave us. whatever narrow minded people did with it for a while, people never forgot. when the society as a whole was ready to remember what REALLY happened, it was because of thanksgiving that it was even a topic. most americans have never seen a native american, at least not known it when they did. lincoln was a wise man, not perfect, but i like to think he had a certain idea by the end of his life, of the carnage and pain "victory" can cause. it's a bittersweet day for me, being native AND european. but having a simple holiday for remember what's GOOD in your life is never a bad thing.

 

that sounds so european ..........drunken brawls are what got this world in a mess in the first place .........we should all be toking on the peace pipe

 

that sounds so european ..........drunken brawls are what got this world in a mess in the first place .........we should all be toking on the peace pipe

 

i find a good fight with those you love is healthy, so long as they know it's all in a sense of love.

my dad's side is the native side. haven't seen them in YEARS. so so sad. just enough info to leave you feeling incomplete and a little lost.

now i'm going to get all maudlin and indulge my irish blood.

 

irish rover arty: let the brawl commence

 

we'll drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and FIGHT!

 

oppresion fight oppresion right on a moth just flew by and waved at me .

 

my daughter acted out the entire lifespan of a butterfly for me yesterday in modern dance. it was beautiful. she loves moths (butterflies).

 

It would have been better if the subsequent American governments had changed their continuing policies towards the native Americans, rather than creating a day to celebrate them whilst continuing to destroy them. I understand what you're saying. But at the same time, it is so much easier to oppress people by making the majority feel good about it. That's not to say that you guys shouldn't celebrate Thanksgiving, the importance of memory should not be ignored. But in its historical context, at the time is was established, the Native way of life was not a memory, it was being systematically wiped out by the very people who were creating a day to supposedly thank them for the opportunity to do so....

 

i know it. but hindsight IS twenty twenty. there were many who were trying very very hard to help and protect natives. our CURRENT governments continue to marginalize and rob the native peoples while undermining their lifestyles and their values. but without even those few people who i like to think had honest and heartfelt intentions, they were still a victim of the european mentality of white superiority. without ANYTHING given by powers wiser than our government (fate? the great spirit, god), there would have been next to nothing to introduce the plight of the natives to those schoolchildren except for cowboy and indian movies. this was just a STARTING point. and anyone whose ever had to change an entire psyche and an entire nation's attitude, starting small, with a little good PR, is a good thing.

 

i guess a little more clarification is in order. for most, if not all, american children, this is their first positive story regarding native peoples. everything else is the goodguys against the indians, or of them running away, or of them pathetically fading into non-existance. the sad thing is that this is the image many native people's get of themselves as children as well. not every native i've ever know has celebrated thanksgiving, for obvious reasons. but those who did celebrated it for being an example of people doing the right thing, the humane thing, for their common man, despite what happened to them after, it was still the right thing to do.

 

I don't like bank holidays very much.

 

The majority of us British don't like to be classed as Europeans. To many of us we're not Europeans. Just call us Brits/British. We take the piss out of Europeans.