Cher Savages Thanksgiving: ‘I Don’t’ Celebrate the ‘Beginning of a Great Crime’

[Tx4obama]

Cher Savages Thanksgiving: ‘I Don’t’ Celebrate the ‘Beginning of a Great Crime’

Cher told her fans on Wednesday that she does not celebrate Thanksgiving. In fact, she appears to deplore the American holiday, calling in the “beginning of a great crime.” Cher said that the American settlers were guilty of taking land from native Americans who had no concept of property ownership and also intentionally infected them with smallpox.

“You don’t celebrate the holiday I thought?” a fan asked Cher.

“I DON’T,” Cher replied emphatically. She said that, to her, Thanksgiving is a day to see family, eat food together and watch a movie. “Not 2 celebrate the beginning of a GREAT Crime.”

-snip-

When asked why she believed this by another fan, Cher explained: “Stealing Land, from a ppl, Who believed, Owning Land Was LIke Owning SKY!”

“We gave them Blankets laced w/ Smallpox,” Cher concluded.

-snip-

Full post here: http://www.mediaite.com/online/cher-savages-thanksgiving-i-dont-celebrate-the-beginning-of-a-great-crime/

[ForgoTheConsequence]

1. Possession of stolen property is also a crime.

Cher could do a lot of good by selling her 45 million dollar mansion and donating the money and land back to the natives.

[leftyohiolib]

4. people are great at pointing fingers at others yet are blind to the 3 pointing back at them

[U4ikLefty]

5. Tell that to the Israeli settlers

...oh never mind, that might make you "anti-Semitic"

[icymist]

15. Ah, mais au contraire Cher,

Les Indiens ont obtenu dans le lit avec les Français pendant la guerre française et indienne!

She may wish to do a little light reading before declaring that the settlers celebrating Thanksgiving are responsible for the plight of the NAs.

http://frenchandindianwar.info/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_War
http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/related/frin.htm

When you get in bed with the devil, you throw the future up to chance.

[Triana]

18. Looks to me that she's right still

From your first link:

". . .The West lay open, and the Indians stood alone and could no longer count on as being courted as allies, playing one nation against the other. It was inevitable that the Americans would expand into Indian lands."

[icymist]

43. I don't know what you are reading, but the first paragraph to the first link is:

The French and Indian War was the last of four major colonial wars between the British, the French, and their Native American allies for control of North America .As French New France and the English colonies expanded toward each other, they were destined to come into conflict. The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle which ended the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-8), where its North American operations were known as King George's War, did very little to set matters to rest in North America; it provided only a short breathing spell before the numerous unsettled treaty questions and gave rise to another and far greater war. The treaty did little or nothing toward marking out boundaries either at the east in Acadia, or at the west toward the Ohio valley, and it was in the latter region that the next great storm was to burst.
http://frenchandindianwar.info/

Besides, taking one sentence from a study of many articles and trying to prove some point that supersedes the entire study is a cop out argument. The Native Americans first fought amongst themselves for control of the area. Then, when they saw that the settlers were coming into their territory from both sides, decided to ally themselves with the French in a war that they knew nothing about its origins in Europe and India. Unfortunately, the French lost and the Indians were there after considered mostly hostile by the English.

[Triana]

49. “For the most part, Thanksgiving itself is a day of mourning for Native people"

“For the most part, Thanksgiving itself is a day of mourning for Native people, not just Wampanoag people.”

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/11/22/wampanoag-side-first-thanksgiving-story-64076

Native Americans (that would include Cher) feel (and not totally unjustly so) that Thanksgiving is a day of mourning - that they had their land taken from them (which they did) by English settlers.

Overtaken by the English and their numbers dwindled by a plague that killed thousands of them, their land - which they settled first - was lost to them.

[icymist]

55. I'm going to just leave it at that.

I'll come back later and read your link, meanwhile, have a good one Triana.

[roguevalley]

48. for gods sake. cher is NATIVE.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

79. Who seems to have made considerable sums from the non-natives.

And doesn't seem to do anything of note for those she professes to speak for.

[Rozlee]

29. It wouldn't hurt her to cough up some of her millions to help the alleviate the suffering of

Native Americans. But, as far as donating the land back to them, isn't she part Native American herself? Or was that just Hollywood hype?

[BlueCaliDem]

45. No hype. She's part Cherokee on her mother's side.

From the wikipedia page:

Early Life:

Cher was born Cherilyn Sarkisian in El Centro, California, on May 20, 1946.[3] Her father, John Sarkisian, was an Armenian truck driver with drug and gambling problems, and her mother, Jackie Jean Crouch, was an occasional model and bit-part actress with Irish, English, German, and Cherokee ancestry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cher#Early_life

[MADem]

69. That's questionable at best.

She wasn't "Cherokee" until she released "Half Breed" and the Cherokee nation got pissed at her. Then someone (publicist?) said she had a small amount of Cherokee blood on her mother's side. Before the Cherokee nation got pissed off, no one suggested she had ANY Cherokee blood.

But there is absolutely zero, zip, nada, none, no documentation of that, anywhere.

http://ethnicelebs.com/cher

[hfojvt]

80. I might note

that the link does not say anything about the ancestry of her maternal grandmother Lynda Inez Gulley, born 1913 in Arkansas. And also that I cannot find that person either in the 1920 or the 1930 censuses, although I did find her husband Roy Crouch in both the 1940 where he was living with his brother and in the 1910 census.

I also found from other searches that even half native americans were not listed in the earlier censuses.

[Major Hogwash]

86. Furthermore

Not only were most native Americans not included in the federal census back then, but most were not allowed to vote in state elections.
Because the state did not include them as citizens of the state.
In Idaho, native Americans weren't given the right to vote for candidates for state offices until 1956.

[hfojvt]

90. but heck, these people were only about 1/4 native american

Dr. Milo Hoyt born 1800 traces his Hoyt ancestry back to 1644 in Windsor, Connecticut and before that to Dorchester, England in 1616. He married Lydia Lowrey, the daughter of George Lowrey, a Cherokee Chief whose father was said to be born - in Scotland. So Lydia was perhaps 3/4 Cherokee and 1/4 Scot.

His daughter Eunice, now 3/8 Cherokee married her cousin Amory Chamberlain, a white guy. Their son, Nelson Beecher Chamberlain is not found in the 1900 census or the 1910 census or 1920 census. Finally he shows up in the 1930 census in Vinta, Craig, Ok. His race is listed in that census as "Indian". He is 3/16 Cherokee, and 12/16ths English and 1/16 Scot. He's no more a true Indian than he is a true Scotsman.

In 1930 he was married to a white woman, but that was not his first wife (the 1930 census says HIS first marriage was at age 19 - 60 years before, it says HER first marriage was at age 20, only 43 years before.). His grandchildren are also listed as Indians. Lacking earlier census data, I cannot determine the ancestry of his first wife or the wives of his sons or daughters.

[erpowers]

31. Donate Money For Them To Buy Back Land

I get your point and I am not trying to be critical of Ms. Cher, but she, in my opinion, does not have to sell her home and give back the land. She could just donate money so Native American tribes can buy back their land. She could even start a petition to get the federal government to buy the land and give it back to Native American tribes.

A few months ago it was reported that a Native American tribe was trying to buy back some of its land in the Dakota region. The land had recently been put up for sale and this tribe wanted to buy the land. They were trying to raise money for the purchase. Later, Jonny Depp stepped in and said he was considering buying the land and giving it to the tribe. I do not know how the situation ended, but Cher could do similar things. Each time Native American land comes up for sale she could either buy the land herself and give it to Native Americans, or help with fundraisers that would provide Native American tribes with the money to buy back their land.

[Boom Sound 416]

38. Thank you

Thread over.

[madrchsod]

41. tribal warfare is as old as mankind.

[roguevalley]

47. cher is a native. helps to know stuff

[MADem]

58. The Cherokee don't claim her--she's not on their list of citizens.

Her mother "reportedly" has Cherokee ancestry...but it's a tough slog to find out who is doing the reporting.

The daughter of a truck driver, John Sarkisian, and an Arkansas-born mother, Georgia Holt (the former Jackie Jean Crouch), Cher was born in El Centro, California, on May 20, 1946. She and sister, Georganne LaPiere, are of Armenian heritage on their father's side, and of English and German, with more distant Irish, Dutch, and French, heritage from their mother's side. The father deserted the family when both were young and they were raised by their mother who later married Gilbert LaPiere, a banker. Cher's mother, who had aspirations of being an actress and model herself, paid for Cher's acting classes despite her daughter having undiagnosed dyslexia, which acutely affected her studies. Frustrated, Cher quit Fresno High School at the age of 16 in search of her dream. At that time, she had a brief relationship with actor Warren Beatty.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000333/bio

[roguevalley]

65. so she isnt entitled to state her ancestry. paging scott brown...

[MADem]

66. She didn't even try to suggest she had Cherokee heritage until she caught shit

for that "Cherokee" song she did with the bikini and head dress.

Nothing to do with Scott Brown.

You do know that it is very common in USA for people to claim NA heritage. In actual fact very few Americans have NA genetic code. They believe stories that their ancestors passed down, but a lot of "wishful thinking" is being debunked thanks to DNA testing, nowadays.

Skip Gates, out of Harvard (and Elizabeth Warren's former peer on that faculty) has done a lot of research in this area.

[napkinz]

2. song she did four decades ago ...

I don't know if she wrote it but from what I've heard the song does express her sentiments:

[MADem]

67. That's the song that pissed off the Cherokee nation.

She's half Armenian, and half European. http://ethnicelebs.com/cher

After (but not before) she got some noise from the Cherokees, someone --probably a publicist-- put out a story that her mother had a bit of Cherokee blood. Eh...that "Indian look" comes from her daddy, and he's straight outta Armenia.

[Major Hogwash]

74. Thanks, that's a great video.

I really liked that song when it first came out, and it still holds up today.

[BeyondGeography]

3. People bought 1.5 million copies of "Believe"

She has much to be thankful for.

[Democracyinkind]

10. Lol. No shit.

Thanks for that...

[U4ikLefty]

6. No genocide to see here!!!

Please mock the celebrity

[ForgoTheConsequence]

12. She's sitting on 305 million.

In a 45 million dollar mansion. She could buy thousands of acres of land in Wyoming and Nebraska and donate it back.

[Major Hogwash]

75. Wow, I didn't know that.

Last edited Sat Nov 30, 2013, 05:39 AM - Edit history (1)

That's about the same amount of money I would pay to move in with Cher to pour chocolate syrup on her ass every day and lick it off with my tongue!

Cher's my favorite!!

[yeoman6987]

63. Cher

Your post reminds me to make a turkey sandwich with mayo. Yummy. Happy Thanksgiving! It actually is my favorite holiday even more than Christmas which I love too, but I love to eat and thank God for our blessings. You are doing great.

[Cha]

7. Thanks for reminding us, Cher.. that it didn't

start out well at all. But, as you say.. now it's for family and the love that brings that together.



Tx

[leftyohiolib]

8. the pilgrims of our 1st thanksgiving did all that? or is she blaming them for something

someone else did

[niyad]

20. you might want to read through this post to see what that first "thanksgiving" really celebrated

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024105261

[Drahthaardogs]

9. The blankets laced with smallpox scenario is highly unlikely.

Interesting read from the WHO.

http://whqlibdoc.who.int/smallpox/WHO_SE_72.40.pdf

[U4ikLefty]

13. Scalping as well???

[rhett o rick]

14. Please expound on your question. nm

[Drahthaardogs]

16. Why does bringing epidemiology into the picture you threaten you?

Are you anti-science?

[bhikkhu]

23. Nobody back then had a good idea of what diseases were or how they were transmitted

From what I have read about the times, the most devastating aspect of disease was that it was all down to "the will of god". That's on both sides - the native americans apparently viewed disease the same way. So when a person was struck down, that was the will of god. When one people was devastated by plague and another people was untouched, that was the will of god. As the native american communities were progressively devastated by disease, the immigrant europeans were untouched. Viewed through those old glasses, one side appeared virtuous, the other side appeared wicked.

[RC]

25. The smallpox blankets scenario DID happen - and more than once.

Along with the white invaders taught the aboriginals to how to scalp, by scalping them.

Questions: How many treaties between the American Indians and the US government were kept? How many were broken?

[Drahthaardogs]

27. They may have GIVEN them blankets, but that does not meat it actually WORKED.

What the hell do broken treaties have to do with a damned ineffective if not impossible method of disease transmission? Infected blankets are more than likely a fairly tale as far as actually TRANSMITTING the disease.

Smallpox is relatively speaking, a hard virus to contract that requires a fair amount of person to person contact. It is also fairly fragile outside of the human body that breaks down readily via direct, indirect, and UV light. I am sorry the science offends you. Science here is good here on DU when it is anti-creationism or pro-global warming; but hit someone with the science that the smallpox blanket theory is likely a myth, and science goes out the window and people start talking about scalping people.

[RC]

30. You need to restudy your history and your science.

Dried smallpox spores can last for years. And is very contagious among adults who have never been exposed to it.
The broken treaties reflect the same attitude of the whites on the aboriginals. That the aboriginals were not human, that they were animals, savages that needed to be exterminated.
I don't know what they teach in school now a days, but you can be sure the history they teach does not hold the Caucasians in a bad light. Whitewash and all that, you know? WE won, so we get to write the history. Records from that time period reflect a different history from what we are being taught in school.
[hr]

Did whites ever give Native Americans blankets infected with smallpox?
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1088/did-whites-ever-give-native-americans-blankets-infected-with-smallpox



1. Medical information

A mild form of smallpox virus, Variola minor (also called alastrim), is transmitted by inhalation and is communicable for 3-7 days. The more serious smallpox virus, Variola major, is transmitted both by inhalation and by contamination; it is communicable by inhalation for 9-14 days and by contamination for several years in a dried state. For further medical information, see Donald A. Henderson, et al., "Smallpox as a Biological Weapon: Medical and Public Health Management," Journal of the American Medical Association Vol. 281 No. 22 (June 9, 1999).

Ann F. Ramenofsky, Vectors of Death: The Archaeology of European Contact (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1987), also discusses the question of communicability:

Among Class I agents, Variola major holds a unique position. Although the virus is most frequently transmitted through droplet infection, it can survive for a number of years outside human hosts in a dried state (Downie 1967; Upham 1986). As a consequence, Variola major can be transmitted through contaminated articles such as clothing or blankets (Dixon 1962). In the nineteenth century, the U.S. Army sent contaminated blankets to Native Americans, especially Plains groups, to control the Indian problem (Stearn and Stearn 1945). [p. 148]
http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/amherst/lord_jeff.html


On June 24, 1763, William Trent, a local trader, recorded in his journal that two Indian chiefs had visited the fort, urging the British to abandon the fight, but the British refused. Instead, when the Indians were ready to leave, Trent wrote: "Out of our regard for them, we gave them two Blankets and an Handkerchief out of the Small Pox Hospital. I hope it will have the desired effect."
http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/spring04/warfare.cfm


And lots more where these came from.

[Drahthaardogs]

59. Yes, because the World Health Organization is not a reputable source.

[RC]

64. I couldn't find much on smallpox and the WHO, except some basics about smallpox.

A link would help.

I did find where they knew that the dried smallpox spores could last at least 150 years. But other than that, they didn't know how long the spores would last.

Anyway...

http://www.immed.org/illness/bioterrorism.html

[Drahthaardogs]

71. Viruses do not have spores.

You are confusing anthrax with smallpox. However, since you stubbornly insist that blankets are an amazing delivery system for disease, let's break this down, shall we?

First of all, we have to understand the main transmission of smallpox is through airborne aerosols of infected people. Skin to skin transmission is much more difficult.

1) A blanket (a fomite) would have to be inoculated with smallpox virus, most likely by rubbing it on open sores.

2) Since smallpox breaks down rapidly in the presence of UV light, the blanket would have to be kept dark, like in a chest. In addition, the guy doing the inoculating would have to know it breaks down in heat and light, otherwise, he would likely just folded it up like normal.

3) Even exposure is no guarantee of infection. A sufficient viral load must be present to overwhelm the immune system. It is hard to get a sufficient viral load on a blanket. It would have to be concentrated enough to cause infection. You would also have to have someone rub that blanket pretty good.

4) Purposeful inoculation of smallpox was a common occurrence. They would try to give someone smallpox in an effort to provide immunity. This was done my scraping a pustule and placing it on other person. Even with this drastic measure, death from this method was only 1/10 of a normal infection and much less severe. If we add this and the poor transmission method, and you have a DIDN'T HAPPEN scenario.


THIS is a FOMITE-SPECIFIC study by the WHO

http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/67501/1/WHO_SE_72.40.pdf


It says the blanket shit did not happen...

[RC]

73. OK, I'll give you that, but...

Anthrax is an acute disease caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthrax

Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by either of two virus variants
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox Don't forget to look at the picture for how bedding can become infected with the smallpox virus.
No confusion there.


How is smallpox spread?

Smallpox normally spreads from contact with infected persons. Generally, direct and fairly prolonged face-to-face contact is required to spread smallpox from one person to another. Smallpox also can be spread through direct contact with infected bodily fluids or contaminated objects such as bedding or clothing. Indirect contact is not common. Rarely, smallpox has been spread by virus carried in the air in enclosed settings such as buildings, buses, and trains. Smallpox is not known to be transmitted by insects or animals.


Smallpox is an acute, contagious, and sometimes fatal disease caused by an orthopoxvirus
<SNIP>
There is no proven treatment for smallpox, but research to evaluate new antiviral agents is ongoing.
<SNIP>
The smallpox vaccine is the only way to prevent smallpox. The vaccine is made from a virus called vaccinia, which is another pox-type virus related to smallpox.
<SNIP>
The vaccine is made from a virus called vaccinia, another pox-type virus related to smallpox.
<SNIP>
The smallpox vaccine does not contain smallpox virus and cannot spread or cause smallpox.
<SNIP>

http://www.health.ny.gov/publications/7004/

The blanket shit was tried and people died. History keeps being rewritten. The white man was far worse at being savage than the American aboriginals at the time. The original inhabitants were defending their homes, their hunting grounds from a ruthless enemy, mainly us white people, bent on eradicating them.

I suspect you have no idea of the racism against the American Indians at the time. They were considered to be animals, savages, an infection of the land, to be eradicated, so their land could be 'settled'. Wiping out villages of women and children, while the men were away hunting for food was bragged about as something to be proud of. Everything was tried, including the smallpox contaminated blankets.

[Drahthaardogs]

78. It is really not my history.

My family immigrated to America in the 1920's from northern Italy. They brought both sets of grandparents over here with the promise of "streets laden with gold", then they worked them to death and paid them script. Hence the great coal wars out west. Rockefeller was a thug yet his name is still held in high regard in this country. I think it was pretty awful how the American Indian was mistreated, but then again, so were the Irish, Italians, Jews, and Chinese in America. African Americans did not exactly make out like bandits in this country either. There is not a paucity of atrocities committed against people by the Anglo Saxons in this country. The Indians are not members of an exclusive club. However, we have come a long way, and I am indeed Thankful for many things. The fact that my family persevered the hardship and prejudice and managed to carve out a good life here is one of them.

Anyway, all that aside (it is really not cogent to my argument, but lest you think I am ignorant of the plight of the indigenous Americans). I am pretty sure they TRIED like HELL to use blankets as weapons, and I am pretty sure it failed miserably. That is really my point.

[hfojvt]

81. the white people did not START out on eradicating

although many were quick to adopt that perspective after they were attacked.

You know who actually did a lot of the eradicating? Other Indians.

"But with all their boldness, it is of significance that those Conquistadors who won usually did so with some Indian help. As a rule those who lost, such as the leaders of the first two expeditions to Panama, who met utter disaster and left hundred of Spaniards dead in the jungles and sand dunes, had none." "Indians" 1961 p 95

From the first, outbreaks of Indian rebellion had been fought with the help, often substantial, of Indian allies. But by the end of the sixteenth century the Spaniards were beginning to find a new and even more urgent use for Indian alliances - as buffers against other European encroachment in the New World. 129-31

It must be pointed out again that many individual settlers and Indians were not only peaceful neighbors but close friends. 173

In the dead of the following winter, in March 1649, an overwhelming army of no fewer than 1,000 Mohawk and Seneca warriors suddenly invaded the heart of the Huron country in the area of lake ASimcoe and Georgian Bay, north of modern Toronto. 188

The Tobacco people living at the western door of the Huron country were blasted by the Iroquois thunderbolt in December of 1649. These people seem to have been Hurons in everything but name, and were famous for cultivating, besides tobacco, immense fields of corn and large quantities of hemp, used for making fish nets. They seem to have been a larger nation, in population, than all of the Five Nations put together. Each of the opponents the Iroquois demolished, one after the other, was a Goliath in size compared to the Five Nations, whose combined population at this time probably did not exceed 12,0000. 189

The war party of about 150 Sioux warriors from Wabashaw's village tracked them deep into the territory of eastern Iowa. The Sauk fugitives may have numbered as many as two hundred people ...Fearing the viciousness of the Sioux, they traveled fast, moving by both night and day. But on the seventh day of their flight, the Sioux caught up to them and fell violently on their camp at sunrise...for they only brought back sixty-eight scalps. "Black Hawk - The Battle for the Heart of America" by Kerry A. Trask 2006 p 289



The Susquehanna, armed with the best guns and tall from easy conquests among their unarmed eastern neighbors, the Delawares, gave a humiliating beating to the Seneca and Cayuga and very obviously prepared to sweep the Five Nations from the face of the earth.
Something intervened ...The Susquehanna lost staggering percentages of their people in a sudden epidemic. Europeans along the borders of the Maryland and Virginia settlements took the opportunity to attack the crippled nation - in contravention of the policy of their colonial governors, who valued the Susquehanna as a frontier buffer. 191

[Warpy]

33. Good luck, I've been trying to destroy the meme for years

The only way smallpox can be transmitted by inert items is very quickly. They'd have had to rip a blanket covered with pus from open sores off the patient and throw it down to a waiting "hang around the fort" Indian for the disease to be transmitted and it wasn't particularly effective even then.

Smallpox likely wiped out much of the indigenous population but they were all susceptible to the usual childhood diseases like measles that they had never been exposed to and didn't have a partial immunity to in their genetic makeup. TB undoubtedly was a great problem, also, albeit a slower one. All have relatively long prodromal stages when a person can infect other people but isn't sick yet, himself.

I'm sure they gave nasty blankets to the Indians. It just didn't work as intended. What worked on the Plains tribes was slaughtering the great herds of bison. Starvation did what the blankets were incapable of.

[Drahthaardogs]

57. They just do not want to accept reality do they?

I am a toxicologist and I know more than a little about chemical and bio weapons. If this is so common, don't you think it is strange that they cannot provide one INCIDENT of TRANSMISSION that was successful?

[Warpy]

70. I've noticed that while it's fairly easy to change an opinion

it's nearly impossible to change a belief. People cling to beliefs with a death grip that defies all attempts to prove it wrong.

This isn't the only one but it's one of the more persistent.

[NaturalHigh]

50. I have told people that too.

It usually gets me a tongue lashing. Hard to convince people that long-repeated notions just aren't true.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. This seems apropos...

[adieu]

17. She always look good in her native american costume

Like this one:

[Warpy]

34. I love having an excuse to post this. My NA friends love it.

[countryjake]

19. Their article headline is grating...

but I guess it's supposed to be cute or wry or something.

I say, GOOD for Cher!

[niyad]

22. thank you for that image

[countryjake]

44. You are very welcome!

Here's something for you to listen to as you try to make it thru most of the other responses on this thread.

Peace to you.

[malokvale77]

54. Beautiful

Thanks for posting.

[GreenPartyVoter]

26. It's a terrible headline.

[Comrade Grumpy]

37. Who is Cher Savage, and why did they forget the apostrophe?

[bhikkhu]

21. Whatever the details, its a harvest festival in essence

and always has been. Pretty much every culture has one, and ours could easily have been developed without any mention of Native Americans if people had wanted to. I don't see any reason to not celebrate the holiday as a regular civilized human being, with gratitude for everyone involved.

[niyad]

24. uh, no, this particular celebration actually has nothing to do with harvest festivals:

(and, by all mean, let us just ignore the indigenous peoples--that way, we do not have to account for the european invaders treatment of them.)

most of the earth religions celebrate various harvest festivals, and give thanks thanks. gratitude is not a concept inherent to one belief system only.

having read this part of the history is enough to make one eliminate the day as one of celebration:

. . .



In 1621, though the Pilgrims celebrated a feast, it was not repeated in the years to follow. In 1636, a murdered white man was found in his boat and the Pequot were blamed. In retaliation settlers burned Pequot villages.

Additionally, English Major John Mason rallied his troops to further burn Pequot wigwams and then attacked and killed hundreds more men, women and children. According to Mason’s reports of the massacre, “We must burn them! Such a dreadful terror let the Almighty fall upon their spirits that they would flee from us and run into the very flames. Thus did the Lord judge the heathen, filling the place with dead bodies.”

The Governor of Plymouth William Bradford wrote: “Those that escaped the fire were slain with the sword; some hewed to pieces, others run through with their rapiers, so that they were quickly dispatched and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire...horrible was the stink and scent thereof, but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them.”

The day after the massacre, the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, William B. Newell, wrote that from that day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanks giving for subduing the Pequots and “For the next 100 years, every Thanksgiving Day ordained by a Governor was in honor of the bloody victory, thanking God that the battle had been won.”

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/11/28/6-thanksgiving-myths-share-them-someone-you-know-152475

[bhikkhu]

36. We all come from a more or less savage past

...but a good harvest festival is still ok with me. If we give thanks for our indigenous brothers at the same time, so much the better.

How should we honor and remember the past?

[NaturalHigh]

51. "We all come from a more or less savage past..."

No doubt. I am amazed that our species has lasted this long.

That said - I love Thanksgiving.

[niyad]

53. it is almost mind-boggling how you can dismiss the near-genocide by the european invaders as

"we all come from a more or less savage past", and continue insisting on the "harvest festival" myth. wow--NOW you have no problem giving thanks for our indigenous brothers? in your previous post, you wanted to ignore them.

as for honouring the past? I do not honour genocide and terror. nor, as a non-indigenous person, would I presume to tell our indigenous sisters and brothers how they should remember or honour the past.

[bhikkhu]

61. Thanks for friendship, thanks for good food

That's about as simple as it gets.

History has its place, and its very good to know where we come from and how we got here, and that many were less fortunate. If justice were to be done in full, beginning to end, I'm not sure we'd even exist as a species.

Its still fine to have one day where we humble ourselves a bit, take the chip off our shoulder and say "thanks for the friendship, thanks for good food". I hope I never get so far off track that I can't do that.

[niyad]

72. actually, no, it isn't that simple. it really helps to know what the background is on things.

and I will point out that various earth-based religions have, not one, but THREE harvest festivals, not one of which is attached to an act of near-genocide. we know how to have gratitude, to give thanks, to share.

[Packerowner740]

82. Every culture was either invaded or invaded someone else over time so

It's rather difficult to try to talk about anyone else as invaders and try to stay holier than thou. The victors always get to write the history books.

[niyad]

83. have you actually read the account of this holiday, which is what some of us are discussing?

comments about "every culture does it" are not useful.

[Packerowner740]

84. Do you really think modern Thanksgiving has anything to do with

The original settlers coming to this country and celebrating their survival with the help of the native Americans?

Comments about invaders are not useful.

[niyad]

85. thank you for answering my question.

[erpowers]

32. Give Thanks For Family, Friends, and Fans

Considering Thanksgiving is a holiday based on giving thanks for the things we have she could just give thanks for family, friends, and fans. It seems that is what most Americans do on thanksgiving. Most Americans do not celebrate the loss of Native American land. They celebrate the fact that they can be with friends and family on that day.

[Dreamer Tatum]

35. The greater crime was her SHITTY music

I can avoid a blanket easier than I can avoid her shitty music.

[NaturalHigh]

39. Yeah, there is that.

I've noticed that a lot of has-been "celebrities" occasionally say stupid things in an effort to return to relevance.

[Warren DeMontague]

87. She pretty much single-handedly laid the fucking autotune on us.

speaking of the beginning of a great crime.

[countryjake]

89. Roger Troutman on the Talkbox

and before that:

and even before that:

Cher's got nothing on these guys.

[NaturalHigh]

40. I had a wonderful Thanksgiving lunch with my family.

That had nothing to do with anything that happened centuries ago.

Oh, and my family and co-workers actually donate to try and make the holidays a little better for the less fortunate. What does Cher do, I wonder.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

42. It sounds nice Cher

but it was hardly a grand conspiracy on the part of all Caucasians everywhere to cheat the NA's of the land and spread disease and promote alcohol consumption. My ancestors were kicked off their land by the British. There is an unfortunate fact of human historical life; the dominant culture prevails and with that comes all kind of crap......

[Puzzledtraveller]

62. Best reply

and most truthful and honest.

[cherokeeprogressive]

46. I savaged a plate of food...

And didn't think about Cher for a SINGLE MOMENT while I was enjoying the company of my loved ones.

[BlueStreak]

52. It is the only holiday that hasn't been hijacked by the war mongers or the Christians (or both)

Well, OK, MLK day hasn't been hijacked ---- YET.

And considering both Thanksgiving and New Years have been hijacked by the retailers, MLK Day is the only real holiday left.

[treestar]

56. Showing off in some way?

that's just silly.

there's no place that hasn't been overrun by others at some point in ancient history.

our existence and living here is a great crime? That's just overdoing it.

[LWolf]

60. People have celebrated with harvest festivals

all over the world, before and after the events she refers to. While our legal, national holiday is based on that misunderstood history, I have no problem with harvest festivals, and that's what I'm celebrating, not the U.S. interpretation/version.

I wish it would happen the last week of October, though, commercial aspects aside. It's too close to xmas for me. I'd rather have a harvest festival, and end with a day of the dead or all hallows. Then some time before the next big holiday.

I also celebrate christmas. I'm not a christian. I recognize the seasonal/cultural solstice/yule tradition, with the christian version being just one version of a celebration older than that christ. I don't reject it because of one religious group's interpretation. I even love christian christmas music, along with secular and pagan seasonal songs.

[JI7]

68. i don't think anyone is celebrating that, for most it's about Food, being with Family

etc.

[Vattel]

76. Good for Cher!

One cannot reasonably expect Indians, or those who have Indian blood, to celebrate Thanksgiving.

[msanthrope]

88. She's Armenian, not Native American. nt

[Major Hogwash]

91. I just came back from Twitter. I asked Cher if she was Armenian or American.

She said she was American, "it says so right on my birth certificate".

I guess that ends this falderal.

[msanthrope]

92. Well, I suppose that's better than falsely claiming Native American ancestry. nt

[Major Hogwash]

93. She was born in America, which means that she could have native American ancestry.

Just as much as anyone else born here.

[msanthrope]

94. No--she tried claiming that when "Half-Breed" came out, but she couldn't prove that.

Cherilyn Sarkisian is of Armenian, not Cherokee heritage.....

[Major Hogwash]

95. Yes, it could happen.

That's how it happens when people are born in this country.
She wasn't born in Armenia.

[krispos42]

77. She needs to read "Guns, Germs, and Steel".

Which, incidentally, makes me very nervous about space aliens visiting us.


Fortunately, I also read "If the Universe is Teeming with Aliens... Where is Everyone?", so now I'm pretty sure we're alone in the Galaxy, either in truth or in practice.