Thanksgiving is an alarming federal holiday. The beloved first presidential proclamation had Geo. Washington pretending to be a religious leader, and exhorting Americans to ask God to bless the government. Abe Lincoln issued the most famous diktat, calling Americans to thank God for the Union and its bloody war. Geo. Bush calls on Americans to thank God for the current warfare state and its federal employees.
It was Lincoln who first used the federalday as war propaganda, spreading the myth of America as founded in Massachusetts in 1620, i.e. the North. In fact, the first English Thanksgiving was in the South, at Jamestown, Virginia. The real first Thanksgiving, however, antedated Jamestown and was held by the Spanish in Florida. So Feliz Dia de Accion de Gracias.
UPDATE from Evin: “Don’t forget FDR, who moved thanksgiving to expand the holiday shopping season, nor the silly turkey pardon charade.”
