[lpkmckenna]

Up here in the Great White North, we celebrate Thanksgiving in October, giving me lots of time today to read the daily stupid. Of course, Rush Limbaugh telling his annual fairy tale about the "true" origins of Thanksgiving came up: Limbaugh attacks Obama for thanking Native Americans on Thanksgiving.

I first heard this fairy tale when I read one of Rush's books (back when I was a conservative). He seemed to make a lot of sense then, but I didn't read a scholarly counterpoint like this one in today's New York Times. It's amazing what you can learn once you step outside the partisan echo chamber and listen to what actual historians say.

Beyond the right-wing spin on the origins of Thanksgiving, Rush decides to make a racist joke about Native Americans, that their cultural contribution to the US is nothing but casinos. Rush denies being a racist, but he makes racist jokes on air to an audience of sycophants who don't know better.

And then this: "He says nothing about the Constitution in his Thanksgiving Day proclamation because he's got a problem with it," Limbaugh claimed. How does a man this stupid manage to dress himself every day?

If there is a God, he will certainly reward Rush with his own special torment in Hell, for earning million by selling lies, ignorance, and racist humour.

John Stossel tries to sell the Thanksgiving fairy tale too over at Fox News. His telling is less inflammatory, but no less wrong. The Tragedy of the Commons had nothing whatsoever to do with the hardship of the Pilgrims' early years in America.

The Tragedy of the Commons has plenty to do with our environment problems, however. No one owns the air or the water, hence "that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it," as Stossel himself quotes from Aristotle.

[Doofy]

Weren't the true origins of thanksgiving in the pre-Christian British Isles a couple of thousand years ago?

Oh, wait. You changed the name so it must be different.

[Railroader]

It's amazing how many more liberals listen to Rush Limbaugh than conservatives. And obsess with what he has to say. I guess that's why he gets paid so much, his liberal listeners are very dedicated and advertisers have a guaranteed audience.

[lpkmckenna]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

It's amazing how many more liberals listen to Rush Limbaugh than conservatives.

Says who?

And obsess with what he has to say.

You're right: people who spread hate and misinformation shouldn't be criticized. What was I thinking?

[screener]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

It's amazing how many more liberals listen to Rush Limbaugh than conservatives. And obsess with what he has to say. I guess that's why he gets paid so much, his liberal listeners are very dedicated and advertisers have a guaranteed audience.

It's the stupidity that gets reported that liberals pick up on, it can't be ignored.
Thinking liberals tune him in is, well, stupid.

[stupendousman]

I love that because liberals can interpret something differently, though still as debatable, the other interpretation is "fantasy" or "lies." Nothing like good old intellectual dishonesty to fight a difference in opinion!

The fact is that based on Bradford's words and actions, the "commons" way failed and was done away with. They went from a socialist system of food gathering (which Bradford himself described as causing "famine") to apportioned work/land management which was deemed a success. The rest is just spin.

You've got to really try hard to not see the forrest from the trees in this story.

The author of the NYT story seems to think that just because you are working for a company who mandates socialistic work/living practices instead of having the government mandate it, that it's somehow not socialistic. Doesn't make much sense really, but that hasn't always been the NYT's strong point to be honest.

[ghporter]

I see one problem in how much of history is taught. It's 'simplified' for little kids, but seldom expanded on when they get older. The "Thanksgiving Story" tends to be one of the most simplified and whitewashed of them all.

The Pilgrims were fleeing religious persecution throughout Europe and in particular in England. But they weren't "free thinking, open minded people." In fact, they were just as repressive as the people they were fleeing. They were beset with problems, both on the voyage and after reaching their destination-but one of the most important problems was that they were originally trying to sail to Virginia. They had no preparation for a hard Atlantic voyage, no concept of what they'd do when they finished the crossing, and apparently not much in the way of practical skills for farming, which didn't put them in a good position when they encountered a very rough winter after arriving. It does appear to be true that the whole Plymouth bunch would have starved if it hadn't been for the local natives helping out, but just how that arrangement came to be is of course quite fuzzy and the real truth is probably lost in history.

Kids in U.S. schools get the "seeking freedom," the "first democratic government in the New World" and "friendly, happy relations with the natives" part, but none of the harsher stuff, and after about age 8, they seldom get exposed to the more important messages like "working through adversity pays off." And they seem to never get the more fact-based stuff about how poorly Europeans, Pilgrims included, behaved when they encountered native peoples in areas the Europeans wanted.

History has no political spin. One side may like certain aspects of an historical story while the other side may like others, but unless we focus on the whole story we lose out on what history really teaches and can be victimized by rhetoric-spewing loudmouths from either/both sides.

[ebuddy]

It seems to me the NYT article goes out of its way to perpetuate some ideal that the Thanksgiving story is really this contentious; pitting Tea Partiers against Socialists etc... I gave up right around the time Haliburton was invoked. Haliburton? Seriously?

egadz.

to stupendousman's point.

Happy Thanksgiving anyway... to the socialists and fascists alike.

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Kids in U.S. schools get the "seeking freedom," the "first democratic government in the New World" and "friendly, happy relations with the natives" part, but none of the harsher stuff, and after about age 8, they seldom get exposed to the more important messages like "working through adversity pays off." And they seem to never get the more fact-based stuff about how poorly Europeans, Pilgrims included, behaved when they encountered native peoples in areas the Europeans wanted.

WIth regard to early settlement, your public school education did not repeatedly cite the atrocities committed against the Native American? Maybe they saved it for the Trail of Tears then. What I can tell you is that we never read of any of the conflicts between the Native American tribes that apportioned land among them prior to the arrival of the Europeans as if territorialism was somehow an exclusively European construct.

If anything, the Thanksgiving story popularized for American consumption was an opportunity to site the fact that perhaps there is evidence of peaceful cooperation between Natives and the European newcomers; that maybe there were actual times of solidarity and thankfulness. I see little harm in the story as told, particularly when the alleged examples of revisionism are so debatable as to be little more than stick-in-the-mud divisiveness for the sake of it.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

All true.

Or how about that democracy itself - long self-attributed by the USA - was based on the practice of Native American societies, who had a well-oiled version long before? Or that the famous eagle with arrows and olive branch in its claw was actually lifted from the Iroquois Five Nations, who used five arrows in the claw (as opposed to 13)?

The list, of course, goes on. The ignorant might find it an interesting read.

greg

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

All true.

Or how about that democracy itself - long self-attributed by the USA - was based on the practice of Native American societies

δῆμος κράτος

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

Says who?

Me.

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

You're right: people who spread hate and misinformation shouldn't be criticized. What was I thinking?

Nice spin.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by screener 

It's the stupidity that gets reported that liberals pick up on, it can't be ignored.

Who reports it?

Originally Posted by screener 

Thinking liberals tune him in is, well, stupid.

Are you saying liberals don't tune him in?!?! Now THAT, is stupid.

[lpkmckenna]

I certainly don't listen to Limbaugh. Everything I heard about him is reported in the press. I'm sure that's where most liberals get their info about him.

[lpkmckenna]

My question for Limbaugh and Stossel would be: if "socialism" was the cause of pre-Thanksgiving Day starvation, how did the natives manage to survive? They didn't exactly have a capitalist system of private property.

[lpkmckenna]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

Or how about that democracy itself - long self-attributed by the USA - was based on the practice of Native American societies, who had a well-oiled version long before?

I hope you don't mean the US learned democracy from the Natives? Some elements of the US reflect native practices, like politicians not being active in the military at the same time. Most tribal/traditional systems have some elements of participatory governance, but they still tended towards authoritarianism.

[stupendousman]

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

My question for Limbaugh and Stossel would be: if "socialism" was the cause of pre-Thanksgiving Day starvation, how did the natives manage to survive? They didn't exactly have a capitalist system of private property.

I admittedly don't know all that much about the work methods of the native americans, but I'm pretty sure that they an indian brave who wasn't pulling his own weight work-wise wasn't getting the same things apportioned to him as those that did.. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by stupendousman 

I admittedly don't know all that much about the work methods of the native americans, but I'm pretty sure that they an indian brave who wasn't pulling his own weight work-wise wasn't getting the same things apportioned to him as those that did.. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

I suspect you're right. However, that's only proof that socialism doesn't automatically equate to people not pulling their weight.

[Shaddim]

I'm glad the Left is helping him pay his bills. Personally, I can't stand listening to him.

[stupendousman]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

I suspect you're right. However, that's only proof that socialism doesn't automatically equate to people not pulling their weight.

Socialism normally assumes equality or result regardless of productivity.

I'm pretty sure that the best hunters, gathers and warriors in Indian culture (producers) got elevated status and perks. It wasn't a question of those who exceeded expectations not seeing a reward. I would be willing to bet that the Chief of the tribe and those who held sway weren't non-producers and human nature being what it is, those in positions of power always benefit one way or another over those who don't.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by stupendousman 

I'm pretty sure that the best hunters, gathers and warriors in Indian culture (producers) got elevated status and perks. It wasn't a question of those who exceeded expectations not seeing a reward. I would be willing to bet that the Chief of the tribe and those who held sway weren't non-producers and human nature being what it is, those in positions of power always benefit one way or another over those who don't.

Best hunters get the best horses and the best tang! Which is essentially capitalism - the best capitalists still get the best horses and the best tang.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by stupendousman 

Socialism normally assumes equality or result regardless of productivity.

Only in it's purest form. Very few economies are 100% anything. Even the Soviet Union didn't have 100% equality.

[stupendousman]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

Only in it's purest form. Very few economies are 100% anything. Even the Soviet Union didn't have 100% equality.

The Pilgrims got nothing extra from working harder in the fields since they were assured a communal rationing.

The Indians wouldn't be left to starve if they didn't produce (and for the most part neither are most in a capitalist economy), but the most productive got benefits that those who weren't didn't.

That's why the Puritans were hungry at the same time the Indians had plenty to eat. The plan where you have shared resources with no incentives to produce (profit) failed and the plan where perks and status was given for added productive value worked. After the Pilgrims switched to a plan that required work to eat, they didn't have the problems they did before.

Any way you look at it, the debunking of the "myth" fails.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by stupendousman 

The Pilgrims got nothing extra from working harder in the fields since they were assured a communal rationing.

The Indians wouldn't be left to starve if they didn't produce (and for the most part neither are most in a capitalist economy), but the most productive got benefits that those who weren't didn't.

That's why the Puritans were hungry at the same time the Indians had plenty to eat. The plan where you have shared resources with no incentives to produce (profit) failed and the plan where perks and status was given for added productive value worked. After the Pilgrims switched to a plan that required work to eat, they didn't have the problems they did before.

Any way you look at it, the debunking of the "myth" fails.

Did you actually read the counter-point linked to by lpkmcenna? The first thanksgiving apparently occurred before the colonists did away with the "common course" strategy.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

WIth regard to early settlement, your public school education did not repeatedly cite the atrocities committed against the Native American? Maybe they saved it for the Trail of Tears then. What I can tell you is that we never read of any of the conflicts between the Native American tribes that apportioned land among them prior to the arrival of the Europeans as if territorialism was somehow an exclusively European construct.

If anything, the Thanksgiving story popularized for American consumption was an opportunity to site the fact that perhaps there is evidence of peaceful cooperation between Natives and the European newcomers; that maybe there were actual times of solidarity and thankfulness. I see little harm in the story as told, particularly when the alleged examples of revisionism are so debatable as to be little more than stick-in-the-mud divisiveness for the sake of it.

The lack of coverage of inter-tribal warfare and atrocities among Native Americans in primary/secondary education in the United States is part of a larger phenomenon: teaching early American history from a European perspective. For example, when we do find out about inter-tribal warfare, it's all in the context of shifting allegiances around the French and Indian War or the American Revolution. This is not necessarily a bad thing by itself, but to address the criticism about under-covering violence in Native American societies and be at all consistent in motive, then one needs to open up the entire curriculum to revisionist views.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

Did you actually read the counter-point linked to by lpkmcenna? The first thanksgiving apparently occurred before the colonists did away with the "common course" strategy.

Fact checking would ruin his point, then ebuddy wouldn't have anyone to agree with.

[finboy]

Originally Posted by stupendousman 

I love that because liberals can interpret something differently, though still as debatable, the other interpretation is "fantasy" or "lies." Nothing like good old intellectual dishonesty to fight a difference in opinion!

The fact is that based on Bradford's words and actions, the "commons" way failed and was done away with. They went from a socialist system of food gathering (which Bradford himself described as causing "famine") to apportioned work/land management which was deemed a success. The rest is just spin.

I think maybe that "Tragedy of the Commons" just involves too many words or something, so those unfortunates on The Left can't assimilate the idea. Seems pretty straightforward to me - I explain "Tragedy of the Commons" and the free-rider problem for a living.

Just because something is hard to understand doesn't mean that it's based on fantasy or lies or whatever. It could just be hard to understand or grasp to one particular group of people, that's all.

[finboy]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

Even the Soviet Union didn't have 100% equality.

Pretty close - about 98% of the people were poor as hell.

But they had free healthcare! Yippee!

[Orion27]

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna 

Up here in the Great White North, we celebrate Thanksgiving in October, giving me lots of time today to read the daily stupid. Of course, Rush Limbaugh telling his annual fairy tale about the "true" origins of Thanksgiving came up: Limbaugh attacks Obama for thanking Native Americans on Thanksgiving.

I first heard this fairy tale when I read one of Rush's books (back when I was a conservative). He seemed to make a lot of sense then, but I didn't read a scholarly counterpoint like this one in today's New York Times. It's amazing what you can learn once you step outside the partisan echo chamber and listen to what actual historians say.

Beyond the right-wing spin on the origins of Thanksgiving, Rush decides to make a racist joke about Native Americans, that their cultural contribution to the US is nothing but casinos. Rush denies being a racist, but he makes racist jokes on air to an audience of sycophants who don't know better.

And then this: "He says nothing about the Constitution in his Thanksgiving Day proclamation because he's got a problem with it," Limbaugh claimed. How does a man this stupid manage to dress himself every day?

If there is a God, he will certainly reward Rush with his own special torment in Hell, for earning million by selling lies, ignorance, and racist humour.

John Stossel tries to sell the Thanksgiving fairy tale too over at Fox News. His telling is less inflammatory, but no less wrong. The Tragedy of the Commons had nothing whatsoever to do with the hardship of the Pilgrims' early years in America.

The Tragedy of the Commons has plenty to do with our environment problems, however. No one owns the air or the water, hence "that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it," as Stossel himself quotes from Aristotle.

Why don't you read the actual diaries of these pilgrims? It's obvious you have not.

[SpaceMonkey]

Frankly, the significance of the difference between the "common course" strategy and later strategies to the actual prosperity of the early colony has been overblown in this discussion. The Plymouth colony, which began in December 1620, had a difficult period leading up to the original 1621 harvest feast that benefited from help from the Wampanoag indians primarily because they landed in the middle of winter (they couldn't grow anything) and half of them died from illness by the spring.

For a subsistence colony of some 50 people, many of them infirm, I'm sure it made a lot of sense to pool their resources. The decision to shift away from the "common course" model probably had to do with the arrival of new settlers and some livestock beginning in 1623 as much as anything else.

[Orion27]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

Frankly, the significance of the difference between the "common course" strategy and later strategies to the actual prosperity of the early colony has been overblown in this discussion. The Plymouth colony, which began in December 1620, had a difficult period leading up to the original 1621 harvest feast that benefited from help from the Wampanoag indians primarily because they landed in the middle of winter (they couldn't grow anything) and half of them died from illness by the spring.

Yes, we know why they gave thanks. This is what I was taught, 50 years ago. Do they teach something different today"? I was not taught with any particular political motivation as I remember. But the idea of sharing and commonality of humanity certainly was part of it. Without vetting the entire diary here I offer an interpretation with quotes from the diaries. I have no dog in this fight, and it bothers me we politicize this tradition, which I remember as being worthy of the traditional sentiment. Power Line - Paul Rahe: America's first socialist republic

[SpaceMonkey]

No, I don't think they teach anything different today. But I don't think that the historical record can be read as an indictment of socialism, as some apparently want to do. I see no evidence that "socialism" was what brought the colony to the edge of survival (nor did it impede them economically, in fact -- their loan repayment resumed on schedule in 1621). The later problems that Bradford referenced in his writings seem to me to have more to do with property and labor allocation issues that came about when there was an influx of newcomers that had different ideas.

[Orion27]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

No, I don't think they teach anything different today. But I don't think that the historical record can be read as an indictment of socialism, as some apparently want to do. I see no evidence that "socialism" was what brought the colony to the edge of survival. The later problems that Bradford referenced in his writings seem to me to have more to do with property and labor allocation issues that came about when there was an influx of newcomers that had different ideas.

When I read Bradford, the sentiment did seem to ring true. I'll live by and pass along the sentiment I was taught. Ugly American that I am.

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

The lack of coverage of inter-tribal warfare and atrocities among Native Americans in primary/secondary education in the United States is part of a larger phenomenon: teaching early American history from a European perspective. For example, when we do find out about inter-tribal warfare, it's all in the context of shifting allegiances around the French and Indian War or the American Revolution. This is not necessarily a bad thing by itself, but to address the criticism about under-covering violence in Native American societies and be at all consistent in motive, then one needs to open up the entire curriculum to revisionist views.

Good point. meh I probably should have been more pointed in my complaint. (which makes it a rant)

I'm just annoyed that something as harmless as Thanksgiving is made out to be just another highly contentious issue as if this hasn't been perpetuated in some form by any other interest.

[stupendousman]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

Did you actually read the counter-point linked to by lpkmcenna? The first thanksgiving apparently occurred before the colonists did away with the "common course" strategy.

....and?

They were alive. They had much to be thankful for. God gave them what they needed to survive.

Bradford however made it clear that while they were thankful at the time, they were even more thankful when they changed course and things really got better.

[SpaceMonkey]

And so organizing along communal lines was not causing them to starve. Otherwise they wouldn't have been able to devote the resources to the three day harvest festival. In fact, Bradford and others, in describing that harvest period, remark specifically about how well the remaining population of the colony had fared in the spring and summer of 1621, following their first winter.

From William Bradford's history of the Plymouth Plantation

They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl there was a great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to the proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports.

What did get them concerned was the unexpected arrival in November 1621 of a ship carrying a new group of settlers who were similarly ill-equipped. This effectively doubled the population, stretching their resources and leading to another harsh winter. There were further arrivals in 1623 that suddenly increased the population of the colony further (about four times the nadir in early 1621). If your point is that the governing of the colony needed to change due to these social shocks, I agree, but that's hardly an argument about socialism per se.

[stupendousman]

Accidentally deleted my post. Will repost when I've got a second.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

The sub-point on all of this is that the Native Americans were so incredibly weakened by massive population drops because of disease, and you've got the reason why Plymouth even became anything at all.

The Natives were tough SOBs, no doubt!

greg