IT: ⛴ Shipping delays, and... Is it time to rethink Thanksgiving?

Dejoy still has a job. Post office will be in ruins by next year Supreme Court was bought and paid for Women are set back 50 years POC are set back 100 years-boebert walked without so much as a censure I’m disgusted

I for one can fully honor the ideal of setting aside a day with family and closest friends to look at the most positive aspects of our relations, to focus on what is good in life, and give thanks for all of that. I can also recognize that our ‘popularized’ and self-serving history of how and why Thanksgiving came about is wrong - and accept that we must do a better job in remembering the facts of our history and not the fairy-tale idealizations that we often use to justify otherwise good things to do to support positive ideals. … … … I see Thanksgiving as an apolitical and non religious practice of taking at least one day a year for the therapeutic exercise with those closest to us to recognize how much we share and care for one another and to give thanks for all the positive things in our lives - and for that, I give thanks. … … … The ideal of what Thanksgiving represents is most important. It is an ideal that helps mend the wounds from a non-ideal and often unfair world. Recognizing that the world is often unfair is also important and that is why the historical facts must be honestly represented - if for nothing else than to be thankful for those societal changes that have been made to correct some of the errors of the past. … … … I see Thanksgiving per se, and the actual history behind it as being two separate things. Correct history is needed but that does not mean that we should not set aside a formal day to just say thanks for the ‘good stuff’ in our lives.

I think one good thing that came out of covid, is that stores are closed again on Thanksgiving! It’s no longer about shopping and more about giving thanks again! And yes, Abraham Lincoln wanted to commemorate Thanksgiving as a day of thanks to unite our nation after the civil war. This day isn’t so much about the first “Thanksgiving” as it is a day to be thankful and reflect on all the things we have to be thankful for, and share our blessings with others, unite, and take stock of the things that are the most important, and recalibrate our priorities.

Never rethink Thanksgiving. It’s a Holiday of Thanks.

Deleted and redid the Trucker post. See https://www.causes.com/comments/1510148 The last US Census showed 3.5 million self listing as truck drivers. NYS alone has over 12 Million licensed truck drivers. CA over 600K! So, what's up? The "shortage" is false. Jobs go unfilled due to decades-old systemic issues, and it's not just COVID. Typical annual turnover is estimated to be 90%! Corporate America is using the same approach it uses all the time: Keep on churning and turning over. Use up drivers like paper tissues. I strongly recommend digging into the issue. In any case, At least don't repeat the superficial reporting until you gain a fair understanding of the problems. (Disclaimer: I had cousins running a Trucking Company. Long before COVID, they struggled to keep drivers. After the husband passed, the wife kept on for some years. She eventually sold the business when she turned 65. Too much stress from both the companies and the drivers. Plus, she didn't have the needed drinking skills and good ol' boy charm he had. She claims she has more take-home pay and less stress as a partner/hostess/waitress at a nice high-end Italian Restaurant / Catering Hall in New Jersey. )

I wasn’t going to comment until I read some of the comments about Thanksgiving. Telling the TRUTH about history, is NOT about SHAME & GUILT!!! It’s about knowing the truth. It’s about acknowledging the pain and suffering of an entire nation of peoples who were here before the Europeans claimed the land. It’s about RESPECT. If you know better, you do better. You can still celebrate, gather, eat turkey & be grateful! Just ACKNOWLEDGE the TRUTH about our shared history.

Trucker Shortage? What’s up with that? What’s up with that? Ooo Weee!* Not enough Truck Drivers? That’s a such a Lie! That’s a such a Lie! There is no shortage of Truck Drivers! I repeat, There is no shortage of Truck Drivers. In fact it’s very much the opposite. The US Census states that there are more than 3.5 million people self described as truck drivers in the U.S., making driving one of the most popular occupations in the United States. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/06/america-keeps-on-trucking.html Please do some reading. Do not believe the corporate line. Its going for for cheap pay & horrible conditions pay. It's about lies and cover up. Read beyond the headlines! (Probably better not encourage your nieces and nephews. At least do your due diligence first before paying for Trucking School and the Licenses. There is a 90% turnover rate ever year. COVID or no COVID.) I can forgive some repeating the Trucker Shortage BS but others here? Not so much. So, what is going on? Start here: Fact: In California alone, there are 640,445 people who hold active Class A and Class B commercial driver’s licenses. HOWEVER, there are under 200,000 California based Trucking jobs! FACT: As of 2018, New York State had over 12,014,823 licensed drivers. https://dmv.ny.gov/statistic/2018licinforce-web.pdf And... regarding COVID, long haul truckers' are safer than many. Regular truckers are no more dangerous than most jobs. Unless the drivers are total COVIDiots. Some articles to get you started: Is There Really A Truck Driver Shortage? : Planet Money : NPR https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/05/25/999784202/is-there-really-a-truck-driver-shortage ...is there actually a "nationwide shortage" of truck drivers? The lobbying organization for the nation's big trucking employers, the American Trucking Associations (ATA), has been making this argument since the 1980s, yet store shelves somehow remained stocked. In a capitalist system, where you can pay people to do basically anything, how is it even possible to have a worker shortage for multiple decades? ... The real problem, Spencer (the president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association) says, is not a shortage but retention. According to the ATA's [own statistics](https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=cf38eb07217083b5ee322fc19a1f60ed8df038c066cd78ab1a77894c1fca5d2f14d47776d3e8f755f090238666662d0c02b63ca39640eedb) , the average annual turnover rate for long-haul truckers at big trucking companies has been greater than 90% for decades. That means, for example, if a company has 10 truckers, nine will be gone within a year or, equivalently, three of their driver positions will have to each be refilled three times in a single year because so many new drivers leave within a few months. “The Great American Trucker Shortage Isn't Real | Time” https://time.com/6116853/truck-driver-shortage-supply-chain/ In reality, there is no shortage of people who want to get into truck driving, nor is there a shortage of people who have obtained commercial driving licenses (CDLs). ... The stories inevitably cite a report from the American Trucking Association that says the industry is [short 80,000 drivers](https://www.trucking.org/news-insights/ata-chief-economist-pegs-driver-shortage-historic-high) and quote experts who blame the alleged shortage on a lack of people interested in these difficult jobs. Yet, in California alone, there are 640,445 people who hold active Class A and Class B commercial driver’s licenses, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles. Meanwhile there are only 140,000 “truck transportation” jobs in the state, according to the state Employment Development Department. *What’s up with that? The Song: https://youtu.be/IHvLhviwK30 Samuel L. Jackson Edition https://youtu.be/sqpnRyfz_aY Morgan Freeman Edition https://youtu.be/Vv98ceYutgQ

Stop the Pathetic Efforts At Thanksgiving Myth-busting! Come At Accurate Historical Remembrance From Another Direction. So, there's the holiday of Thanksgiving and two historically correct narratives: The Squanto, friend of the Pilgrims narrative and the early settlers butchered the natives narrative. The Holiday has taken on a life of its own: Families gather and share a meal with all that entails. Growing up, I cannot recall ever hearing a discussion about the early settlers and the Native Americans at the dinner table. I remember discussions about the Macy's parade, movies released, how dry turkey can be, and the best way to make sweet potatoes. People got caught up on each others' lives. There was always some discussion of current events; it was rarely heated but occasionally a time to express disdain for one thing or another. Sometimes football came into the foreground but we were never a sports centric household. The only time history came up directly was in school. I tell you, it was more fun in the lower grades because it was time for arts and crafts. First, in kindergarten, we learned how to draw turkeys tracing over our hands, later we made little dolls, then in the upper grades, we learned how to make dioramas. Yes, the basis was the Squanto narrative. (Bear in mind that the people who specialize in teaching the lower grades do not need to have majored in American History (some like my Fifth Grade Teacher may have be History Buffs) As we got older, we did learn about how we *give* meaning to holidays. We also learned something of the cruel nature of many of the early settlers. I cannot recall if we learned about Lincoln's role in promoting Thanksgiving in school; I doubt it. I see no reason to eliminate a treasured holiday and major family event over a belated outrage of how many early settlers mistreated the Native Americans. Yes, if they choose, families can make the rembrance of the horrorible acts of cruelty part of the ritual (some mention of the kindnesses on both sides would be in order); perhaps using the Passover Narrative as a model might make sense. However, there would be much to lose if we eliminate Thanksgiving, and, we would gain very little. ###

Honestly, I’ve never shipped a turkey for Thanksgiving. I didn’t realize thanksgiving was a big shipping holiday we should be pondering. (I know, I think? they are referring to supply chain issues, but that doesn’t change this was a dumb and poorly worded question among the many dumb and barely relevant topics.)

Thanksgiving, like most of the propaganda Americans believe about themselves, is total bullshit. My (adult) kids and i recognized “indigenous peoples genocide day”. We reminded ourselves of the sins of our ancestors. That Europeans stole this country simply because they could. Because they had what amounted to a 150 year lead in technology, and a rather flimsy moral framework. That the number of people that we killed hasn’t even been accurately counted, that estimates range from 20,000,000 to 130,000,000 in the course of a decade or two. We remind ourselves that they perverted their already perverse religion to justify these actions. We reminded ourselves that not all of these people were evil to their core but that all of them were willing to compromise their values to “get ahead“. We reminded ourselves that it is the responsibility of every thinking person to strive for humanity, to strive to be better than those in the past, and better than most of those that surround us. We remembered Kings and Obamas words: that everyone of us has a responsibility to reach up to the arc of the moral universe, put our hands on it, and bend it towards justice just a little bit. Are these ideas pompous? Yes. Arrogant? Yes. But if we don’t, at the very least, strive to be better then we never will be.

Is it time to re-think Thanksgiving? I think it is time to re-think listening to the people that come up with these questions.

As a Senior citizen that gets my meds through ChampVA, I think something needs to be done about the time span in shipping. Important drugs can sit at the post office when they need to be refrigerated. Dejoy has already delayed important medicine deliveries,

I’m sure turkeys would really appreciate it if we approach this holiday from another angle.

Gratitude and giving thanks is never and should never be out of style

Nick, the anger and condemnation of America in your writing is revealing.May I suggest Mathew 7 will guide you on your journey. NIck,there is good and evil in the world and in the hearts of every human being. We are called to be virtuous and choose good rather than evil. These choices result from our Creator given, individual freedoms,our free will. If,in all things we look for the good and choose it,we will find the Truth. Our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian principles embodied in our Constitution and our system of self governance is designed to protect the People from the tyrannical judgements of others. This nation is as imperfect as it’s People,as is every other nation and government in the world. The difference is when you look for the good in America,you will find the freedom to choose and defense against evil in a system of self governance. You will find a nation of immigrants,that to this day,choose this country over all others. Our Founders understood that human frailties,the potential for evil to undermine these principles. They warned about political parties and the potential for conflicted loyalties and gave us a Constitutional Republic with the caveat “if you can keep it”. Nick, I hope you can appreciate a different perspective.

Didn’t Abe Lincoln make Thanksgivings a national holiday as a way to unite our country? For those of you that hate America, news flash. EVERY NATION WAS BORN IN BLOOD. Now SUFI and eat some turkey.

I didn’t kill any Native Americans. Their DNA survives in about a third of my own make up - way more than Liz Warren’s. I won’t carry other’s guilt. I propose to live by the Golden Rule toward Natives and all of my neighbors. Leave Thanksgiving alone!

Re-think Thanksgiving? What? Thanksgiving is for giving thanks—for our lives, people in our lives, et al, and celebrating. I am so sick and tired of people whining about what happened in the past— yes it was a horrible thing!!! But, IT IS IN THE PASTi!!!! If Native American Indians can forgive our ancestors (if they even are our ancestors.. Personally, mine didn’t even get over here until the early 1900s when immigration was handled properly), then you people who actually have absolutely nothing to do with it, shouldn’t even say a thing let alone whine about it!!! Grow up! I was an Activist and Advocate for 8 years in the 1980’s for the Native American Indians…what have you done!?

This comment leaves me feeling sad, that Nick’s opinions are so strong, when I do believe that most of them are so wrong. I wish that conversation could at least modify them. Is this possible Nick?