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Nov. 23, 2023 - The Matt Walsh Show

17:30

What I'm Thankful For This Thanksgiving

Genucel - Exclusive discount for my listeners! https://genucel.com/WALSHYT This is the reason we should all be thankful for Thanksgiving.

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	Well, you know, Thanksgiving is a wonderful time.
	It's my favorite holiday.
	It's a time for celebration, gratitude, time to gather around the table with your family, enjoy a wonderful meal, reflect on all the things that you're thankful for, unless you are a deranged leftist.
	Thanksgiving doesn't exist!
	We're going to raise our voices high that we are still here.
	In which case, you will insist that Thanksgiving is not so simple.
	There are nuances, as you like to say.
	The word is nuance.
	Thanksgiving is deeply problematic, and that's why every year around this time of year, you'll start seeing articles like this one, which was just published in The Nation, headlined, Should America Keep Celebrating Thanksgiving?
	Now, the article presents two competing perspectives.
	Both sides of the discussion are put forward, and you have to give The Nation credit at least for giving both sides of the debate.
	Hey!
	Good job, son!
	As dumb as you might think the debate is, at least they gave both sides.
	And, you know, that's honestly more than I would expect from this publication.
	So here's the first argument, presented by a guy named Sean Sherman.
	Quote, The sanitized version of Thanksgiving neglects to mention the violence, land theft, and subsequent decimation of indigenous populations.
	Needless to say, this causes tremendous distress to those of us who are still reeling from the trauma of these events to our communities.
	Thanksgiving's roots are intertwined with colonial aggression.
	One of the first documented Thanksgivings came in 1637, after the colonists celebrated their massacre of an entire Pequot village.
	I do not think we need to end Thanksgiving, but we do need to decolonize it.
	That means centering the Indigenous perspective and challenging the colonial narratives around the holiday and every other day on the calendar.
	By reclaiming authentic histories and practices, decolonization seeks to honor Indigenous values, identities, and knowledge.
	This approach is one of constructive evolution.
	In decolonizing Thanksgiving, we acknowledge this painful past while reimagining our lives in a more truthful manner.
	Now, by the way, in case this wasn't clear, that was the pro-Thanksgiving side of the debate.
	Yeah, right.
	So they have two sides of the debate.
	That's what the pro-side sounds like.
	Wait, are you serious?
	The Thanksgiving defender is a guy who thinks that the European settlers were evil, genocidal colonizers.
	So, if that's what he thinks, Here's what the opponent of the holiday has to say.
	You want to give thanks? Give thanks to Native nations who granted settlers some form of legitimacy
	by entering into treaties recognizing them to be in our homelands.
	Those treaties recognize that Americans are now under our spiritual custody and have
	rights to pass through our country.
	As soon as Americans were able to impose their will on Indigenous nations, the treaties were violated.
	Some indigenous nations do not have treaties.
	And legally, this means their nations should be intact.
	Those of us who have treaties have defensible legal claims to lands that are now occupied by private American settlers under U.S.
	law.
	November is already Native American Heritage Month.
	Thanksgiving could be something better.
	A day to appreciate the truth of Native American history and Native Americans' contributions to our lives.
	Let's tell a different story by dropping the lie of Thanksgiving and begin a truth-giving.
	Yes, let's tell the truth of Thanksgiving, he says.
	Let's tell the story that no one's ever heard before.
	And that's why every year around this time, there are dozens of articles and videos talking about the alleged truth that nobody is allegedly talking about.
	You find this narrative everywhere now.
	Even the website delish.com, which is usually a website where you post recipes and cooking tips.
	Well, they have an article titled, The Dark Truth Behind the Origins of Thanksgiving.
	The Real Story Isn't What You Learned in School.
	A few years ago, Teen Vogue celebrated the day by gathering around a group of sullen, surly Native American girls to scowl at us and tell us, quote, the real history behind Thanksgiving.
	Watch.
	Happy Thanksgiving, America.
	I'm Donna, and I'm here with my friends to tell you the real history behind this holiday.
	Growing up I knew that what they told you in school about Thanksgiving wasn't true.
	That's not the true story.
	The true story behind Thanksgiving was after every killing of a whole village, these European settlers celebrated it and they called it Thanksgiving.
	But it wasn't until Abraham Lincoln became president that it became an official holiday.
	Cheers!
	Cheer up, ladies.
	This is what you're celebrating, though.
	You think you're celebrating family, togetherness, and all that happy stuff, but that's not what you're celebrating.
	These unhappy Native American girls, they will tell you what you're celebrating, and they say that you are celebrating murder and death.
	Which I, I mean, you know, how many, I guess they're right.
	Like how many, how many times, countless times that we've all been sitting around the Thanksgiving table and someone says, you know, let's go around the table and talk about what we're thankful for.
	We go around the table and say what we're thankful for.
	Oh, that's not necessary, Clive.
	I'll start.
	And then, you know, everybody says, well, I'm thankful for murder and death.
	I'm thankful for murder and genocide.
	Happens all the time, right?
	And that's why Thanksgiving has been declared by some a national day of mourning.
	Here's the ABC affiliate in Boston explaining this day of mourning.
	Watch.
	Raising their voices to be heard after feeling silenced for centuries.
	Why do we gather today?
	400 years later, we join to raise our voices high that we are still here.
	We are not conquered and we are not defeated.
	As many were enjoying the Thanksgiving parade, indigenous people of Massachusetts protested the holiday that for them is not one to celebrate.
	Plymouth is rich with history, but not the truth of the Indians.
	I don't know if you saw there, I think that woman's name was Chief Ladybug?
	And she was dressed as a ladybug.
	This is apparently what the Day of Mourning consists of.
	First of all, I don't think it's appropriate to dress up as a ladybug for the Day of Mourning.
	This is a Day of Mourning.
	The tonal shift there doesn't feel right.
	But you can do this.
	You can choose to sit at the table and eat delicious food and have a great time with your family.
	Or you can take part in the Day of Mourning, which means listening to various Native American people lecture you about alleged atrocities committed hundreds of years ago.
	Do you want turkey or do you want an ill-tempered lecture?
	It's a tough choice.
	Here's what the lecture sounded like at a different Day of Mourning event last year.
	Listen.
	The Pequot people were burned alive in the middle of their sleep at night in 1637.
	Mass Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, Providence Plantation, Mystic Seaport, all English colonies
	banded together to burn women and children while they slept in a village at night.
	They barricaded the exit.
	They did not allow anyone to leave.
	They wanted them to burn.
	They were proud that they burned.
	This country was proud to write.
	We could smell their burning, rotting flesh for over a mile away.
	It's written, folks.
	Please read it on your own.
	I am not making this up.
	I like how he's trying to convince the crowd.
	Listen folks, the white man, they're evil.
	I'm telling you.
	These are people that came to a national day of mourning on Thanksgiving.
	So I'm pretty sure they're already on your side.
	I don't think you need to convince them.
	They wouldn't be there if they didn't already agree.
	Now, he says that this country was proud to write that we could smell their burning, rotting flesh from over a mile away.
	This country wrote that.
	This entire country, which didn't even exist as a country at that time, apparently wrote that phrase and committed that alleged atrocity.
	That's all we need to have, a national day of mourning instead of a day of Thanksgiving.
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	Now, Let me make two points about all this.
	First of all, it's true that the traditional story of Thanksgiving that they used to tell young children in school decades ago is simplistic.
	And there's probably a certain element of legend to it.
	Every country has its legends.
	Every country has its foundational myths.
	There is nothing sinister about that.
	Stories are passed down through the generations.
	Details are lost over time.
	Sometimes details are added.
	All to preserve the central theme or message in the story.
	Every culture has its legends.
	And really, our understanding of all historical events from centuries ago is, at the very least, incomplete.
	We don't have camera footage to review.
	So we can only go by what people involved said happened.
	Or what people who talked to people involved said happened.
	None of this is revelatory.
	We all understand this.
	Okay, so every time they say, what, did you know, you know, what they told you in second grade about Thanksgiving?
	Did you know that wasn't the whole story?
	Of course it's not the whole story, you idiot!
	It was in second grade!
	I assume it wasn't the whole story!
	Um, duh!
	Exactly!
	None of that changes the basic meaning of Thanksgiving or undermines or debunks the basic central story of Thanksgiving.
	Besides, the old simplistic story of the holiday has now been replaced with a new simplistic story.
	In the new simplistic version, the native tribes were all a bunch of peaceful tree-hugging hippies in tune with the earth and nature singing kumbaya when they were viciously slaughtered by the white man.
	The pilgrims overtook the Native Americans and took everything that they had worked so hard for.
	The actual truth is that the Native tribes were in a constant state of war long before any white man set foot on these shores.
	Violence was an integral part of so-called indigenous culture, all indigenous cultures, because it was not just one culture.
	These were disparate tribes stretched out all over the hemisphere, and violence was an integral part of all of them, no exceptions.
	As for their contact with European settlers, sometimes the contact was peaceful on both sides.
	On some occasions, the settlers committed atrocities.
	On some occasions, the Indians committed atrocities.
	On some occasions, the atrocities on either side were basically unprovoked.
	On plenty of occasions, there was mutual combat between the two sides.
	The Pequot people, mentioned in that last video, were not helpless victims.
	They were at war with the colonists.
	They lost the war.
	They were conquered.
	Such is the way of history.
	Such is the law of conquest, which the Pequot, like all Indians, well understood.
	They had done plenty of conquering themselves.
	In fact, and this was a very common occurrence, The colonists had Indian allies in their fight against the Pequot, and the tribes allied with the colonists were the ones that the Pequot had previously conquered and slaughtered.
	And so they were a little bit miffed at the Pequot.
	Of course, the Native American dude up on stage for the Day of Mourning festivities, or any of the rest of them, they don't mention any of this.
	They never do.
	They never acknowledge even one of the many, many, many countless instances of Indian tribes inflicting horrific, savage violence on innocent colonists, including women and children.
	And on each other.
	They never acknowledge it because they don't want you to realize that this land was not stolen, it was conquered fair and square.
	The previous conquerors of this land were then, themselves, conquered.
	That's the way it goes.
	Second, you know, even if it's true that most of the settlers were peaceful, and that oftentimes they were the victims of brutal violence by the Indians, and that there was mutual combat between the two sides, and the Indians simply lost the battle, they lost the war.
	See, it was a war and they lost.
	Sorry, but you lost.
	Even if all that's true, does it justify whatever actual atrocities the settlers committed?
	No, of course it doesn't.
	Do I deny that such atrocities were committed?
	No, of course I don't.
	But here's what I do say about those cases.
	And I'll put it as gently as possible.
	Get the hell over it.
	Move on.
	Just, just, yeah, move on.
	Are you saying we should just get over and move on atrocities that were committed hundreds of years ago?
	Yeah.
	Basically, just, like, get over it.
	Um, the guy in the last video was complaining about something that supposedly happened in 1637!
	That's nearly 400 years ago!
	You cannot actually be angry about something that happened 400 years ago!
	If you are, then you are insane!
	You are an insane person if you're actually mad about stuff that happened four centuries ago!
	I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!
	That is 16 generations.
	We are as close to the Pilgrims today as the Pilgrims were to the Crusades.
	That's the amount of time we're dealing with.
	And yet we have people in this country so young that 9-11 is ancient history to them, pretending to be distraught and devastated by events that occurred 150 years before the Declaration of Independence was written.
	Do you realize how crazy that is?
	Pretending to be actively traumatized about stuff that happened centuries ago is psychotic.
	Imagine if you found me in the corner, sobbing, and you asked me what was wrong and I said, I'm just really upset about the burning of the Library of Alexandria in 48 BC.
	By the way, I've got news for you.
	400 years ago, almost everybody's life was brutal and tragic.
	If we're supposed to be sad about misfortunes suffered by people we never met way back in the distant past, then we will never stop being sad.
	Almost everyone everywhere suffered greatly back in those days.
	There are plenty of people still suffering greatly today.
	If you want to empathize with people's pain, maybe choose people who are currently living, not people who were decomposed in the ground 400 years ago.
	Not people who died 300 years before the automobile was invented.
	Now, in final analysis, history contains an essentially infinite amount of suffering and atrocities and outrages and injustices.
	It also contains heroism and sacrifice and courage and achievement.
	It is up to us to decide which of those things in our national history we will focus on.
	I contend that the healthiest category to focus on, the thing that you focus on if you want to be a thriving and happy and healthy society, is the latter.
	Which isn't to say that we outright deny and never discuss the former.
	Of course we acknowledge that bad things were done in our history.
	We shouldn't try to erase that from the history books, and nobody is.
	But ultimately, you will look back on your history with pride and gratitude or with resentment and despair.
	You will focus on the triumph or the tragedy.
	The people of all other nations across the world, or at least the non-Western world, they choose to focus on the triumph of their ancestors, which breeds national pride and patriotism and gratitude.
	In the modern West, we are the only ones who have decided to basically ignore all of the positive and concentrate almost exclusively on the bad.
	So much so that even our day of Thanksgiving has become, at least in some corners, times of mourning.
	And what has that strategy gotten us?
	It's only made us resentful, sullen, depressed, ungrateful.
	It has made us worse people and our country a worse country.
	That's why I will not partake in this harsh historical self-flagellation.
	Instead, I celebrate the incredible valor and intrepidness of my ancestors.
	I take pride in this country's history and those who made it possible for this country to exist in the first place.
	I am happy that they came here and that they conquered.
	I am thankful for their conquest.
	I will give thanks for it on Thanksgiving.
	And for so much else.

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