Face it America, we have become a profligate nation, full of self-indulgent, self-absorbed, unreflective, religiously intolerant fatties! I hope the Pilgrims, God rest their souls, are turning over in their graves at what they have wrought. The spirit of their journey to Plymouth Rock undoubtedly gave to this nation and all those who fell upon her shores--either by choice or chains--a sense of creative innovation and self-reinvention. For years, these traits, have served America well, if not so much her native peoples. But "too much of a good thing is good for nothing." As we spread out from Plymouth Rock, cutting, burning, slashing and paving our way into a post-industrial-modern-digital future, we became blinded and bloated by our prosperity. We shed temperance and good sense for continuous re-invention and progress. Now we stand at the tipping point of self-destruction. We have laid the foundation for an unsustainable lifestyle and an unliveable environment. Our future, like our vast oceans now smothered by indispensable and indestructible plastic, is being choked by the output our own history and behaviour. In our race to the future, we failed to see how we were undoing its very foundation today.
So on this Thanksgiving day, I think about how those Indians saved those Pilgrims from starvation and certain death. And what did those Pilgrims and their offspring do to return the favour? Just look at what we've done to this planet and you will have your answer.
