How thankful I was for Thanksgiving 2010

Thanks giving came and went. I haven’t been to any large gatherings without hearing that someone has a son or boyfriend, fiancé or someone else in Afghanistan.

I should be thankful that someone else besides my son or I are over there defending our right to drive oversized cars on cheaper gas. I get sick and tired of hearing that those young people are fighting to save our “freedom.” It’s a lie, pure and simple! I’m not thankful for that.

With the news that North Korea shelled South Korea, it was not that surprising to me to find, days later, that the first shot actually came from the South. That news came from a foreign news agency in Russia. So while the rest of the world worries about a new Korean war, this country and its lap dog press have convinced people here that the US just needs to act tougher and show the North Koreans who’s boss.

The majority of people, especially those who vote, seem to believe we need this modern empire, where our children are traded for a life of over abundance. This year some of us can be thankful there are large spacious McMansions for people to live in, large oversized cars which won’t look “lame” to our children and the fact that we don’t have drone bombs killing our children as the parents in Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan must endure.

We don’t really have to see the children who lack electricity, running water, cars for their families or decent schools to go to. Our mighty army keeps those people poor so we don’t have to live like that. We do have poor people, homeless, hungry and dying from lack of health care, but that is not a way of life for the majority of us. We don’t get our water out of the mud puddles in the streets.

We can be thankful for all of that. We can also be callous and uncaring. We can talk of how “God blessed us” and not question why he wrecked such misery on so many of the other people of the world. We can care only about ourselves, vote that way and make it clear that our right to kill someone with a gun is more important than helping our neighbors. Our recent elections point to such an attitude.

And for that I’m not so thankful.  

- សតិវ អតុ

Life in America.

Life in Afghanistan.