11.23.5 - Home

Every year, Lorraine begins Thanksgiving dinner by going around the table, (no matter how many people we’ve invited over) asking each person to share what they have been thankful for over the past year. This tradition usually moves along quickly, as most of us are ready to dive-in and eat.

Our neighbor Jack, who comes over to eat with us every year, is the kind of guy who is keen on pronouncing himself—to anyone who will listen—as “pro-American” and patriotic. Last year, after Lorraine shared her gratitude for God’s gift of creation, Jack gave his own short, impassioned speech of thanks: for the American flag, bald-eagles, Dubya and our noble cause of fighting for freedom over in Iraq. I silently cringed, but held my tongue in respect and tolerance. That is...until dinner was underway.

All-the-while under Lorraine’s not-so-subtle stink-eye glare, I gave my own assessment of Jack’s thanksgiving gratitude, for better or worse. You can probably imagine how it went. Jack certainly seemed as if he had heard the speech before.

“That’s not very patriotic Tom,” Jack offered me with a smile. "It's almost anti-American."

“Ya know Jack,” I told him. “Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the 20^th Century.”

Jack (and Lorraine) stared back at me in anger.

“And flags are only bits of colored cloth that governments use to shrink-wrap people’s brains,” I went on, “and then, as ceremonial shrouds to bury their dead.”

Jack was not happy. He wiped his mouth, politely excused himself, wished everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and got up to leave. Lorraine rushed after him towards the front door, seeing him out while profusely apologizing to him. She returned apologizing to everyone still at the table.

“Honestly Tom!” she said to me harshly while sitting back down and she continued glaring at me throughout the rest of our Thanksgiving meal.

And I WAS wrong. I went over the next day and apologized to Jack. He accepted my apology, though he wasn’t sure he would be attending next (this) year’s dinner. Lorraine, as usual, was right because today, I look back at this event shamefully…basically, the Thanksgiving table is neither the place, nor the time for such a discussion. For such labels.

My blog however, IS the place for such things. And I want to be clear with y’all why I was wrong.

Those of us who express our revulsion for the war in Iraq, the incompetence of the Bush Administration and so forth, always seem to run smack into the Jacks of the world who in turn, are compelled to label us as “anti-American” and unpatriotic.

Of course, this is ridiculous: The term anti-American is usually used by the American establishment to discredit and inaccurately define its critics. Thus, an anti-American is a person who is against America and, by inference, is pro some other nation. Once someone is branded anti-American, the chances are that he or she will be judged before they are heard, and any arguments are lost in a sea of bruised national pride. This is why it is an extremely effective strategy in combating the free speech of discontent.

Does this anti-American label mean I’m anti-Jazz? Anti-Thanksgiving dinner? Anti-Ralph Waldo Emerson? Anti-Freedom of speech or anti-Martin Luther King? Does it mean I’m against Redwood trees? Does it mean I hate all Americans? Of course not.

To call someone anti-American is not just racist labeling, it’s a failure of the imagination; an inability to see the world in terms other than those the establishment has set out for you. If you’re not pro-Bush, you support terrorism. If you’re not good, you’re evil. If you’re not a blue state, you’re a red state.

And this is why I was wrong last year. I labeled Jack.

This is the problem we, as Americans, face this Thanksgiving here in America. We, who differ, need to stop labeling each other as “this or that”.

Is it possible that all of us are this AND that?

Today, I’m headed over to Jack’s to be sure he’ll be joining us this year, as he has every year prior. And I will promise him that I won’t label him anymore. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

-Tom