The Republican War on Thanksgiving

In 1621, after the difficult, unrelenting labor of starting a colony, the Pilgrims, using planting techniques taught to them by the native Wampanoag tribe, celebrated their first successful harvest with a feast, which they shared with their native American neighbors (who we later almost wiped out, there being only about 400 survivors sixty years later, following King Philip's War).

This is the most important, most truly American holiday (the Canadians have a similar observance, but they're just our little northern clones anyway, right?). It's a day of forgiveness, a day when families travel from across the country to get together, eat our traditional meal, celebrate our mutual heritage, and nestle securely in the bosom of warmth and family.

Except, perhaps, for this year.

Because of the Republican insistence on "Free Market" capitalism and a winner-take-all mentality, now, with record unemployment around the country, the cost of the Thanksgiving meal is rising faster than inflation.

With the current annual inflation rate of 3.5%, the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner has risen 13%, and the cost of getting together with family and friends has increased even more than that.

The average airfare for travel to the top 10 most popular destinations in the U.S. for Nov. 23 to Nov. 27 has jumped 11% over last year, according to an analysis by Orbitz, one of the nation’s busiest travel websites. That means the average round-trip ticket for Thanksgiving rose to $373 from about $340.

Flights to New York for the holiday will rise the most, jumping 20% over last year, with an average round-trip price of $342, according to Orbitz. Round-trip flights to Los Angeles will increase 12% to $429, according to the travel website...

You won’t escape the higher prices by driving: Gas prices reached the highest levels ever in the week prior to Thanksgiving, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California. The average price of self-serve regular gasoline in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area was $3.82 a gallon last week, 66 cents higher than the same time last year.

With one in three Americans living at or below the poverty line, the GOP is trying to ensure that they cannot celebrate their own heritage. The Republican Party is trying to ensure that an Ayn Rand dystopia, with the richest living in luxury off the sweat of the working poor, is the model for American society.

The Republicans are trying to destroy Thanksgiving! And they're doing it in subtle ways, as well! The Christmas decorations, celebrating their dreams of commerce and overindulgence, come out earlier every year; the Christmas carols are already playing in all the stores; and the conservative-controlled media beats the drum, insisting that shopkeepers must say "Merry Christmas" instead of the more open, accepting "Happy Holidays," as if Thanksgiving didn't matter in the slightest!

This Republican War on Thanksgiving must be stopped! We must stride into the stores and demand that the carols be cancelled! "Turn off that crap! It's not even Thanksgiving!"

Websites are springing up devoted to bringing back our national holiday from the brink of extinction. We must support them; we must also support retailers like Nordstrom, who insist on celebrating each holiday in turn, and not skipping over the ones that can't be exploited by the greedy, and venal, and unamerican!

We must ask where the Thanksgiving displays are, and why they are overshadowed by some obese Germanic troll in a red suit! We must write letters to store owners, corporations, and our Congressfolk, demanding the return of our national holiday!

Radical conservatives must be stopped from destoying our heritage!



Please note: this is intended for satirical purposes only, and if you're stupid enough to take it seriously, you probably fall for that "War on Christmas" crap too, don't you?