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Thanksgiving 2002

I like to add something to my website for each American holiday as part of my way of commemorating the day. Thanksgiving is that time of year when we look back over the past year or more and reflect on those things for which we give thanks. Beginning with things I am thankful for for the sake of my country and working my way downward to the things for which I am thankful as an individual, here are some of the things I give thanks for:

I am thankful for the brilliance of our founding fathers who reflected deeply on the nature of government and humanity and who debated the pros and cons of various options before writing our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Together they produced a document that is much better than the product of one mind alone could ever have been. Together they produced a form of government by which men could rule themselves, without recourse to a strongman or a sovereign. Together they dreamed of a world in which the Rights of Man were widely respected. They knew that they failed to live up to the standards which they set for their government in the Bill of Rights, but they nonetheless gave us very high standards by which to judge them and to which we should hold our own government accountable, standards which most Americans still aspire to live by.

I am thankful for America's earliest leaders who set America on the right course – Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and other less well known men in the presidential cabinets, judiciary, and Congress.

I am thankful for the great leaders of our country who came to the fore in the time of America's greatest need – Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon Baines Johnson. Somehow whenever our country has need of such a man, such a man rises to the occasion and takes possession of the most powerful political office in our country.

I am thankful that war and the most violent forms of public insurrection, such as civil war, have been kept from America's shores for almost one hundred and forty years. I am thankful that when the world has been wracked by war, my homeland has been largely free of violence. Unfortunately, it seems that American has been so long without the death and destruction of war on our homeland that Americans have become complacent about war in other lands. I wish that the peace and freedom that is a part of my heritage and my live could be shared with all people around the world.

I am thankful for the technological and engineering marvels of the past 100 to 150 years – the development of the transcontinental railroad; the invention of the telegraph and telephone; the creation of public sewer and water systems to rid our communities of refuse and to deliver fresh, clean water to every American's home and workplace; the invention of the light bulb and labor saving devices for the home; the development of new methods of food preservation such as refrigeration; the advances in transportation and medicine, especially the humble anti-biotic that turned pneumonia and like diseases from a childhood killers to temporary inconveniences and new vaccines, which made scourges like polio, measles, and smallpox a thing of the past; the implementation of the Green Revolution that enabled America's farmers to feed the American people at a reasonable cost; and the invention of central heating and central air conditioning keep our homes and offices comfortable. American's often forget just how wealthy this generation is compared to other people who live in other countries and compared to the vast majority of people who have inhabited planet Earth. So many people would have thought any one of those advances was a great gift from God – to be able to routinely and reliably drink fresh, clean water; to eat food that was not spoiled; to have plenty of food to eat; to spend a life largely free of pain and in good health – miracles all. Yet, American's complain because they can't afford designer sneakers or vacations to the in-spot or the newest electronic gadget to come to the market. Americans forget about the 30,000 people, mostly women and children, who die of starvation each day, about the women who have been trafficked into sexual slavery, and about the many places on earth where clean water to drink, let alone to bathe in, is a middle-class and upper-class luxury. Now, it seems, that our country, with the mightiest military machine on earth, is about to go to war with one of those pitiable countries because our leaders lust after that country's natural resources, especially oil. May God have mercy on this land.

I am thankful for a lifetime of love and affection from friends and family.

I am thankful to be able to write this message to you – to have my eyesight and my fingers so that I can type, to have my mind so I can form the ideas I have written here, to have a computer and access to the Internet so that I have a place to send my words.

I am thankful to be able to look up from my computer and to look out my window to a beautiful view of trees in full fall foliage, green grass, a few hardy late-blooming plants and a bright, sun-shining, blue sky – a land that is green because the rains fall reliably. The city water here is especially good to drink – the municipal water department owns the entire watershed for the city's reservoirs and none of the watershed is developed, giving us some of the best water in the country.

I am thankful for the opportunities that were extended to me, often by good men, despite being a woman coming of age in a time when women were taught to aspire to be nothing more than stay-at-home mothers, or maybe a nurse or a teacher to get by with for a few years until I married some man.

I am thankful for the feminist women and men who came before me and who opened the doors of opportunity for me.

I am grateful to the progressives who came before me and pushed through legislation like minimum wage laws, anti-child labor laws, mandatory elementary and secondary schooling, labor laws, worker protection laws, anti-discrimination laws, health and safety laws of all sorts, and basically that potpourri of laws that protects the "common American" from the worst excesses of corporate greed.

I am thankful that a generation of feminist scholars gave a rebirth to women's learning and exhumed from the dustbins of history the knowledge of so many strong women who came before us. We are living through Women's Renaissance.

My birthday is coming up soon and I am thankful that I am here to celebrate another one.

I am thankful that I have been permitted to add my mite to women's quest for dignity and equality. I hope Sunshine for Women has brought a ray of Sunshine into your life. Remember the women who came before you and take strength from them.

Happy Thanksgiving 2002

Sunny

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