They’re bigger turkeys now than they were last Thanksgiving.
Enjoy your day!
Update: For your reading enjoyment:
Molly Ivins: Thanks—No, Seriously (and don’t miss the cartoon)
John Nichols: “Freedom, Brotherhood, and Justice…â€
Update update: I notice Pajamas Media is linking to Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” speech, delivered on January 6, 1941. PJM of Seattle excerpted the parts about God and national defense. Here’s another part that I have quoted in the past:
For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are:
Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.
Jobs for those who can work.
Security for those who need it.
The ending of special privilege for the few.
The preservation of civil liberties for all.The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.
These are the simple, basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world. The inner and abiding strength of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations.
And these are, without exception, things at which the Bush Administration has failed, utterly. In some cases the White House has not just failed, but acted aggressively to set us all back.
FDR continued,
Many subjects connected with our social economy call for immediate improvement.
As examples:We should bring more citizens under the coverage of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance.
We should widen the opportunities for adequate medical care.
We should plan a better system by which persons deserving or needing gainful employment may obtain it.
I have called for personal sacrifice. I am assured of the willingness of almost all Americans to respond to that call.
A part of the sacrifice means the payment of more money in taxes. In my Budget Message I shall recommend that a greater portion of this great defense program be paid for from taxation than we are paying today. No person should try, or be allowed, to get rich out of this program; and the principle of tax payments in accordance with ability to pay should be constantly before our eyes to guide our legislation.
If the Congress maintains these principles, the voters, putting patriotism ahead of pocketbooks, will give you their applause.
In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech and expression–everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way–everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want–which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear–which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor–anywhere in the world.
That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.
To that new order we oppose the greater conception–the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.
Again, consider how much of what FDR hoped for, and accomplished, has been lost by right-wing extremism. FDR’s corpse would do a better job running the government than the creature in the Oval Office now.
Sorry, I wasn’t going to rant today. It’s just that there’s something obscene about using the “Four Freedoms” speech to prop up imperialism, which seems to me is what PJM is trying to do.
Well, the turkey is in the oven. The Thanksgiving meal is the one I most love to prepare. Last year I served 26 relatives with four smallish organic turkeys and the trimmings. This year, lots of relatives couldn’t make it, so there will be six of us [if my son makes it in time from the east coast…he’s still on the road] and just one very plump bird with trimmings.
When I cook this annual meal, I try to do so with everything possible coming from my garden, as well as prepare all the food dishes from scratch. So the stuffing is made with homemade bread [kneaded and baked without a bread machine] mixed with celery and onion from my garden. The yams and potatoes are from the garden as well as the garden peas and roasted/with garlic brussel sprouts.
This summer, I had a surprise volunteer show up in the garden, which at first I thought was a cantaloupe because it appeared close to where I grew cantaloupe the year before. But, it turned out to be a pumpkin, and not just any pumpkin, but a rarity whose origin will forever be a mystery. This huge vine produced two orange pumpkins and a dozen or so white pumpkins! Those rare white pumpkins got to ride on the county Garden Club’s float in the fall parade before being returned to me. So last night I baked, from scratch, one regular pumpkin pie, and one white pumpkin pie. [Yes, homemade pie crusts, too, and always made with home-rendered lard, thank you very much.] That should be enough dessert, but I can’t refuse my son’s request to also make a cobbler of red raspberries and rhubarb also grown in the garden.
Lastly, I still have a dozen or so tomatoes that ripened late in the season, and are also a rarity. A friend brought me some seed of a variety that grows on an island off the coast of Spain. They have sort of pale orange exteriors, but are bright red inside and surprisingly tasty. I may slice one for folks to taste, but they really don’t belong on the Thanksgiving table.
So, I am personally thankful for my garden [and to whatever nature spirit planted that surprise pumpkin], I am personally thankful that the new roof is complete on my house, and I am thank for so much more of the abundance of life.
I am thankful, thankful, thankful that the Democrats took Congress, and I am thankful for Maha, who has the most consistently comprehensive and imformative and intelligent and fair blog on the net.
Oops, time to start the yeast rolls…..
Happy Thanksgiving to all. I have so much to be thankful for personally. My wife survived ovarian cancer this year; thankfully we have insurance. We are moving from a single-wide mobile mansion to a 4 BR home under construction, thanks to govt. assistance in the form of a first-time buyers program. We have a 3 YO daughter who is a delight.
Not everyone is so lucky. Perhaps, we are at the start of an awakening in this country. We all want the benefits of liberty and the freedom from want to spread. It starts at the individual level that we advance the concepts discussed here.
Barbara deserves credit for blending spiritual values with political activism. Her outlook is unique and I thank her sincerely.
Well, Donna has made me hungry. Doug, I wish you and your wife and little girl many, many more thanksgivings. I remember when ovarian cancer was an automatic death sentence. I am also thankful for Maha and her work. She makes me think and provides me with more info needed for important decisions. I am spending Thanksgiving alone with my two great cats, Nadine and Mazurka. I have a lot to be thankful for: good friends, a crazy twin sister, and other dysfunctional family members whom I love, and football. And, I am most thankful for retirement looming in the next two years. Every one have a great Thanksgiving!
LOL did you see the turkey pardon bush yesterday?A close call for little georgie to be sure….I can almost hear him wail”NOOOOOOOO you can’t impeach me, I have already been pardoned!”
How very far this great nation has fallen from grace when our president stands next to a turkey who crapped on the table and was totally out classed by it.
Guess what? I am the big 4-0 today….Turkey and birthday cake anyone?I bet I am the only person on the planet whose bithday wish will include the ICC.But don’t feel left out because you don’t get to blow out birthday candles.Get those wish bones out of those turkey’s folks and get busy!!!!
Happy Thanksgiving to Maha and to all her readers(and Ms. Lucy)
It’s good to know ovarian cancer is no longer an automatic death sentence. May the husband and daughter long enjoy the company of the wife and mother. May we all enjoy the comfort of each other in a sharing world.
What a wonderful post; that damn PJ attempt to claim FDR and in particular his Four Freedom speech almost ruined my morning; you have made it okay. Thank-you Barbara.
Lovely comments, too. A day to be thankful that none of us face the good fight feeling as alone as we did through-out the nineties and especially in 2000.
Mr. Heretik, when is your book of poetry going to be available?
It’s becoming predictable and inevitable that the wingnuts try to appropriate the words of past great leaders, many of them liberals, to their own ends. This is because they have no one of greatness in their ranks, and few great ideas of their own. Their adoration of Saint Ronald the B actor is the best they can come up with.
FDR in particular fought the same type of regressives we’re fighting today – “economic royalists” – he called them – and so it’s a very old battle, with themes and strategies worked out a long time ago. We need not reinvent the wheel, we only need to study what FDR and others said about the regressives of his day, and how they were fought back then.
There was an article along these lines, presenting a speech FDR gave about the economic royalists of his time, posted on Booman Tribune some months ago, here, My point is, what we’re seeing has, in some form appeared before, and was fought back then. We only need to learn from leaders like FDR and apply the lessons to today.
justme, believe it not, I suspect there are many whose birthday wishes include the ICC. Best wishes on your big milestone! and I hope your critters are doing well.
Does anyone remember the story that broke about a month before the 2004 presidential election? The story about the missing 342 tons (684 thousand pounds) of high explosives from the Al Qa’qaa Industrial complex in Iraq? Remember the Bush’s administration’s denials and the dog ate my homework excuses at the time? And despite this and all else that lead up to the 2004 election, bush somehow got “re-electedâ€? In October 2004, Time Magazine reported the sequence of events: “In late April IAEA’s chief weapons inspector for Iraq warned the U.S. of the vulnerability of the site, and in May 2003, an internal IAEA memo warned that terrorists could be looting “the greatest explosives bonanza in history.” Seventeen months later, on Oct. 10, in response to a long-standing request from the IAEA to account for sensitive materials, the interim Iraqi government notified the agency that al-Qaqaa had been stripped clean. The White House learned about the notification a few days later.” Evidence that has emerged since the 2004 election has indicated that the explosives were most likely removed after invading US forces captured the facility. The looting was witnessed by U.S. Army reservists and National Guardsman from separate units as well as officials of the new Iraqi government’. Like the looting, the disbanding of the Iraqi army, the firing of the Bathist government workers, the Dubai Ports World fiasco, the Palestinian disaster …I was before democracy before I was against it…not to mention the lies that lead to war and the missing weapons of mass destruction, Katrina back here in North America, the tens of thousands of innocent dead and injured; the continuing assaults on nature through the gutting of the EPA , the incompetence of these people is now legion. The stolen explosives event stands as “Exhibit A” on their list of colossal mistakes. In today’s Washington post, in a story by Sudrarson Raghaven and Nancy Trejos we hear that: “At least four parked cars, packed with as much as 220 pounds of explosives, detonated in three sections of the vast slum, including a crowded market place, said police and witnesses. Residents grabbed the driver of another car before he could detonate a bomb near a police station, Jihad al-Jabri, an Interior Ministry commander in charge of defusing bombs, said on state television. As of Thursday night, police were still searching for three more cars filled with explosives that were part of the same plot, said Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Kareem al-Kinani.†As bad as it is now in Iraq I believe the ultimate cost of this fiasco will be much worse unless the US is able to get Iraq under control and fast in order to salvage some measure of influence in the Middle East. Iran will soon be the default winner of this war and the new regional superpower after neither spending national treasure nor sacrificing a single soldier. Iran will have a free hand to do as it pleases. The specter now exists that Bush maybe tempted to do something rash because such a large portion of the American economy is at risk because of its energy dependence on that region…which by the way is yet another consequence of their vast ignorance and hubris. This administration cannot be trusted to do what is right or just in this matter….the American People must understand that in many respects they have been manipulated and lied to by their government in the most grievous and shameful way imaginable and that it is they, through their government, who will be held responsible by the rest of the world for any further atrocities if Bush continues to get his way. Bush would like everyone to forget the theft of those explosives in 2004 because people might remember and make the link between his incompetence then and what happened today. Bush has made America less safe because of what happened in Iraq today. Bush has brought the day closer when a radicalized majority Muslim humanity will be willing to consider almost anything.