Happy ThanksBirthGiving Day!

(Part of this post has been cross posted at the site For Democratic Reform.  It’s time to get a new party started.)

Yes, it’s that odd alignment of the calendar where Thanksgiving falls on my birthday.  Yay!  Whoop! Whoop! Maybe *this* year, we’ll get fewer fauxber reflections  on where people were on the day Kennedy was shot.  {{yawn}}  (You know who you are. It’s boooooorrrrring and it ruins the birthday for millions of us so knock it off.) Well, a girl can dream.

One of the things I like about Thanksgiving feasts is that they are actually pretty inexpensive when you think about it.  The most expensive item on the menu is the turkey.    You can feed a bunch o’people for way less than $100 on turkey, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberries, stuffing*, green bean casserole and pie.  And if you assign a different dish to each guest, it might be the cheapest dinner party you ever threw.  Which makes me wonder…

Why do we only have Thanksgiving once a year?

So, what are your big plans today?

And do you remember this guy?  This is FDR giving his Four Freedoms Speech.  The Four Freedoms are Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Worship, Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear.

Not bad for a rich guy who didn’t have to worry about the 99%- but did anyway.  We live with his legacy today with the social insurance policies that he helped create and that president and both parties are busily trying to undermine with the urging of the pundits.

What exactly is it they hope to accomplish by allowing companies to reneg on their pension obligations while reducing the social insurance programs to the status of welfare programs?  Something about the sick arguments for killing these programs off reminds me of the dads who don’t want to pay child support because their former wives will just spend that money any way they want.  Like paying the rent or mortgage and feeding ourselves is some kind of frivolous luxury we can do without if we just tighten our belts.  Or that we’re too stupid to know that we can make a LOT more MONEY if we stash it in a 401K.  Wow. It’s like they think we just fell off the turnip truck and haven’t seen what happens to 401Ks when the smart young things play with our funds like its Monopoly money.  Don’t we have a right to say where we want to put our nest eggs?  Maybe we need a new Freedom.

I’m going to call it, the Freedom from Exploitation.  That is, the freedom of all working people, regardless of class, to reap the fruits of their productivity, to have their contracts and expertise honored, to have their success measured in terms other than how big their bonuses are, to be paid a living wage no matter where they live so that they might be able to afford a decent roof over their heads, healthcare and savings for their retirement, and to invest those savings in a guaranteed and safe retirement program that elected officials will regard as a moral obligation to protect as if it was a treaty between nations.

And anyone who argues against the Freedom from Exploitation or  for the dissolution of social insurance programs because they don’t feel an obligation to be honorable human beings, or simply in order free up those hard-earned savings as new funds for the global casino, should be hung up by their balls and ruthlessly shamed.

And now, for the greatest speech:

Have a great Thanksgiving!

*STUFFING.  Not dressing or filling.  As in, thaw the bird completely, stuff lightly and check the temperature. Jeez, get with the program. 😉