Thanksgiving: The Celebration of God and Capitalism

“The Lord is the Help of My Life” – William Bradford

The first Pilgrims came to American so they could worship The God of Abraham, read The Gospel of Love and experience the second Baptism without being drowned in a wine barrel, be burned alive boarded up in your own home, or have your entrails slowly pulled out of you in the town square as government officials attempted to turn you away from your faith. They came to America to be able to speak God’s name in the town square in the court house, on the public streets, in the school houses – to live and voice their belief without fear of persecution.

In America, they discovered the rationing of socialism and the plenty of capitalism through the work of their own hands – not their neighbors. They broke the glass ceiling of class restriction – like the cranberries we eat on Thanksgiving that float to the top in the harvest when water rushes through the cranberry fields, so does hardwork, effort, talent – all based on individual gumption – not religion, not class, not government.

This year’s Thanksgiving Holiday is full of irony – a House and Senate have left Washington D.C. to celebrate a holiday founded on the success of Capitalism and faith in God, yet daily they work to strip God out of the very places Pilgrims sought to freely worship their God – the city streets, the court houses, the schools – they wanted God in every part of their lives, their community, and their government.

Yet daily, these government officials attempt to strip the foundations of Capitalism and reduce Americans to the once starving, frustrated, dying, struggling Pilgrims who started out in socialism – who died in socialism – hungry and frustrated. Until the American Spirit through a capitalist contract replaced the socialist creed to break the bonds of servitude unleashing individual potential resulting in the American Dream.

While Socialism binds the hands of flourishing enterprise, smothers the seeds of creativity from which inventions spring, and suffocates the very breath of freedom, Capitalism frees the hands of enterprise, allows individual creativity the independence to invent, and gives freedom breath to speak without recourse.

How ironic that today our government officials celebrate an event so diametricly opposed to their actions these last few weeks and months.

This book is sitting on my desk right now. My sons know the history of our country, but not through classroom textbooks because the full, real history of the birth of our country not taught.

My next source for further explanation might not be considered “cool” by some; however, it is one of the few resources that serve a full-bodied history of Thanksgiving at a time in when others try to serve fast-food history. I hope you will listen to the story and ignore the teller – if the teller interferes with the story. I, for one, am glad someone is willing to put the True Story of America’s Birth out there on Thanksgiving Day!

“Ladies and gentlemen, every Thanksgiving, there’s a tradition on this program, every Thanksgiving I go and grab my book, the first book that I wrote, See, I Told You So, hardback, two and a half million sold, counting the paperback, probably close to five million. On page 70, there’s a chapter on The Real Story of Thanksgiving. Now, how many of you grew up and how many of your children are growing up today being taught this: The Pilgrims arrived, and it was cold, and it was inhospitable in the New World. And they were ill-equipped to fend for themselves, and they were bedraggled and they were tired and they were hungry and they were thirsty and they were incapable of getting along, and finally the Indians, who they would later massacre, the Indians befriended the Pilgrims and showed them about corn and maize and created a big feast of turkey and dressing and cranberry sauce and maybe even some cheese broccoli. They all sat down and they had Thanksgiving together, and it was the Pilgrims thanking the Indians for saving their wretched lives. And then of course after all of this mercy showed by the Indians, these Pilgrims and their descendants went out and wiped ’em out and put ’em on revolutionaries where they became alcoholics and now they run casinos.

“That, ladies and gentlemen, is the traditional story of Thanksgiving, is it not? In fact, the Pilgrims and their descendants not only brought all of the plagues, they brought syphilis, they brought environmental destruction, racism, sexism, bigotry, even brought homophobia. Stole Manhattan for 24 bucks, they cheated the Indians, they cheated the Indians who had saved their lives by buying Manhattan for 24 bucks and some trinkets. It was the first ever subprime loan, ladies and gentlemen, the first ever subprime mortgage, 24 bucks. The Indians got screwed royally. This is what your kid is likely taught these days in the multicultural curricula in school. Do you know the real story of Thanksgiving? The Pilgrims arrived and they had to immediately find a way to make a living. They had to find a way to support themselves, and this is, by the way, all contained in William Bradford, he was the first governor, if you will, of the colony. William Bradford in his own writings, which I quote in my book See, I Told You So, William Bradford describes their first experiment.

They gave everybody a plot of land. Everybody produced what they produced and it went into a single store, it went into a communal store where everybody was then able to partake what they needed and what they wanted from what everybody else had produced. Bradford found that this led to a bunch of slackers, a bunch of slackers not producing anything. They just sat around and waited for what the others in the colony produced. It didn’t work! The first ever experiment with socialism on this country was undertaken by the Pilgrims in the 1600s. Bradford said this isn’t gonna work and got a different idea. He gave everybody their own plot of hand, he assigned them their own plot of land and said whatever you produce here is yours. You keep it. And he writes of the miracle that happened after that. The industriousness and the ambition that was utilized by the Pilgrims, that is when they became prosperous, that is when they had bounty, that is when they had more than they knew what to do with.

So they invited the Indians over, and the whole notion of Thanksgiving was William Bradford and the original Pilgrims thanking God for their blessings. It was not thanking the Indians for saving their lives and showing them how to make broccoli with cheese for Thanksgiving. They might have been grateful for the popcorn, I’m sure they didn’t have that over there in England, but nevertheless, that’s the story. The first ever experiment with socialism failed, and liberals have been trying to reinstitute it ever since. Read it. It’s on page 70, See, I Told You So, authored by me, the one and only El Rushbo.” Rush Limbaugh, 10/28/2008 http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_102808/content/01125109.member.html