Thursday, November 27, 2008

Thanksgiving Day 2008


Thanksgiving in America is a time to be thankful for so many things, but for each of us it may mean a slightly different thing. The pilgrims that came those many years ago, came to this new land in pursuit of religious freedom. I certainly can understand that. I come from a tribe that has been kicked out, beat up, driven out and murdered from several countries over the last two thousand years. It goes back further than that, but after a few centuries who counts. The United States of America is not perfect, but for me, it is about as perfect as perfect gets for a country. Yes, we have a lot of problems right now, but we will solve our problems. For over 200 years we have had an orderly change of government and in just a few weeks, we will have our 44th president. When you look back at history over the last 2,000 years, there are few if any countries that compare with our record of self government. Mother England, where so much of our heritage comes from, has had a democracy just a bit longer, but we do it better.

I would like to wish all my readers of MONEYTHOUGHTS a Happy Thanksgiving.

Stay tuned.

1 comment:

Michael said...

Sir,

I heartily share your sentiments. In my own life, and because of the nature and opportunities presented by our society, I have overcome the xenophobic paranoia and bigotry of many relatively recent immigrant families.

Today, I gratefully celebrated Thankgiving with members of several "tribes" - your own, my own (the Irish), my darling's (the Chinese), my new President's, the mainstream Protestants', and the Eastern Europeans', to name a few. I would not likely have this precious and diverse group of friends in many other societies. Nor would I have experienced the personal liberty, upward mobility, and intellectual freedom that I gave thanks for today.

To be sure, we do have many vexing problems, and we continue to fall far short of our potential. Still, we have been given much, and we continue to make progress. And that, sir, is indeed a lot to be thankful for today.

Hsppy Thanksgiving!