Our Capitalist Sickness

Thanksgiving is not, by any means, my favorite holiday. In fact, it is one of my least favorite. I am not fundamentally opposed to a day where families gather to "give thanks" but the general subtext of the holiday has never set well with me. In fact, in many ways I think it is exactly what is wrong with our American Culture.

Let's start with the fact that the holiday is in many ways the celebration of the massacre and genocide of an entire nation of people. We like to incorporate the iconography of the friendly American Native showing the Pilgrim's how to survive in the new land, but the fact is, we committed mass murder and stole the land from the rightful inhabitants for "better use". I just don't know that is something that is to be celebrated.

As families gather, huge meals are prepared to the extent that we consume entirely too much food, over indulging in calories, alcohol and tryptophan. Then stuffed to the gills we sluggishly retreat to our sofas where we watch foot ball setting the stage for the next step of this great holiday... Black Friday.

After a day of gorging ourselves, Americans nationwide rise long before dawn (sometimes the night before) to line up and participate in our favorite pass time... shopping. Now I am a fan of shopping, and believe that a certain amount of consumerism is healthy for us all, but restrained consumption is not what Black Friday is about. We can't get a national holiday for elections, but companies are more than willing to give employees the day off to spend as much as they can, as early as they can, on products which don't really give us any greater quality of life.

This Black Friday, our consumerism proved fatal, and the pitiful irony is not lost on me. In this economy, at this point in our history we need to take a serious look at our consumption. We are a seriously sick nation, and until we realize that our illness will bring about our demise, we are doomed to fail killing ourselves and each other as we choke on our consumption.