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The colonial origins of Thanksgiving are not usually the first thing that Americans consider when celebrating today’s holiday. But they’re tough to overlook in a year threatening to repeat yet another indigenous genocide [ [link removed] ], while bearing witness to an accelerating ecocide [ [link removed] ] engineered by Wall Street and the Pentagon.
Personally, I struggle with maintaining hope given my dismal view of human nature, institutional cooptation, and the various threats facing the future. While there are plenty of reasons to mourn today’s holiday, however, it also offers a useful reminder to recognize blessings that we might otherwise overlook.
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First, I’ll offer a few general thoughts on today’s holiday articulated in a previous post.
Reasons we might all feel gratitude in 2023
Despite the multiple crises confronting our country and our communities, 2023 has witnessed some national milestones that are worth widely celebrating.
Most recently, a ceasefire in Gaza [ [link removed] ] has put a halt (for now) to a murderous bombing campaign by a nuclear superpower targeting a disenfranchised people who were violently forced to flee their ancestral homeland 75 years ago. That victory for peace and human rights was not the product of any official’s acumen, but rather the sustained pressure of a grassroots movement of millions [ [link removed] ] around the world who collectively forced Washington’s hand.
Historic strikes by workers [ [link removed] ] in the automotive and entertainment sectors brought major corporations to their knees, and secured better contract provisions for hundreds of thousands of workers. They might have also helped foster a new generation of labor militance informed by the broader potential of intersectoral solidarity [ [link removed] ].
Two federal agencies charged with enforcing antitrust laws [ [link removed] ] stepped forward more aggressively than they have in decades, filing major lawsuits against corporations [ [link removed] ] including Google [ [link removed] ], Microsoft, and Facebook / Meta. These lawsuits alone won’t restore any meaningful balance between the 1% and the 99%, but if successful, they could represent a leap towards reshaping the economy and curtailing corporate power.
Despite profound dysfunction [ [link removed] ] in Washington that has revealed our country’s regrettable weakness to the rest of the world, Congress recently managed to get its act together [ [link removed] ] and actually funded the government…for the next 3 months.
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Why I feel grateful in 2023...

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