Top ten things to be thankful for this year

Thanksgiving is a quintessentially American holiday, even though its origins can be traced back to Old World harvest festivals.  It is based in part on a romanticized story of the Pilgrims, which took on new life after Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation of a day of thanks intended to help reconcile North and South after the Civil War.   It is also celebrated in Canada, however, so Americans don’t have a monopoly on gratitude.

Still, if you’re an American citizen or a green card holder, you’ve probably got a lot to be thankful for, especially compared to citizens of a lot of other countries. But of course, we Americans often forget to be properly thankful for many of our blessings; instead, we seem to think we deserve them because we are So Darn Exceptional. With that thought in mind, here’s a slightly contrarian Top Ten List of Things Americans Should be Thankful For (But Often Aren’t).

1.  We have a state of our own. Americans could start by being thankful that the rebellious colonists won their war of independence, straightened out the Articles of Confederation, and built a strong state of our own. Having your own state means that you can protect yourself against enemies and there’s a government to go to bat for you if you get in trouble. By contrast, stateless peoples like the Kurds, Chechens, Palestinians, Romany, Tamils, Jews before 1948, and many others live at the mercy of others. Given our own revolutionary past, you’d think we’d have a bit more sympathy for peoples trying to escape oppressive foreign rule, but never mind. In any case, in the dog-eat-dog world of global politics, having a state of our own is clearly something to be thankful for.

2. There are no great powers nearby. Given our propensity to exaggerate global dangers, Americans often forget that they are remarkably secure. We haven’t had any powerful states near us since the 19^th century, and we haven’t had to worry seriously about defending our own territory against invasion. (This is what makes movies like Red Dawn so laughable). Or as the French Ambassador to the United States said back around 1910: "America is the most favored of the nations. To the north, a weak neighbor. To the south, a weak neighbor. To the east, fish. To the West, more fish. " This extraordinary level of territorial security explains why Americans are free to go gallivanting all around the world "searching for monsters to destroy" and trying to tell the world how to live.   We’ve forgotten what it is like to face a real threat to our independence, and that sort of amnesia is a luxury for which we should be very thankful indeed.

3.  We didn’t adopt the same austerity programs that Britain, Europe, and Japan did. A lot of Americans are still hurting from the after-effects of the Great Recession, and those who are still unemployed may not feel especially appreciative tomorrow. And it’s clear with hindsight that the governmental response to the financial crisis could have been more effective.  But compared with the other industrial democracies, the United States has done much better to eschew austerity and focus more attention on stimulus. So let’s give thanks for that.

4.  We got lucky when they handed out the natural resources. Americans like to attribute their rise to wealth and power to their virtuous and hardworking nature, embrace of capitalism, novel Constitution, and commitment to liberty. But just as important was the fact that the country happened to be founded on a continent with fertile soils, navigable rivers, abundant wildlife, and a temperate climate. It had lots of iron ore and other minerals, plenty of oil, and it turns out we’ve got more natural gas than we know what to do with.  (Good for us, if not necessarily so great for the atmosphere). This Thanksgiving, Americans ought to silently acknowledge that our privileged status today owes as much to good fortune as it does to any unique American virtues.  

And while we’re at it, let’s not forget that realizing our "Manifest Destiny" involved the deaths of millions of native Americans and taking vast territories from other countries by force. Recalling the uglier side of America’s rise to world power is a good way to keep overweening national pride in check.

5.  In (many) Gods we trust. I don’t know about you, but I for one am thankful that the Founding Fathers didn’t try to establish a state religion and instead celebrated theological diversity, including the freedom not to believe.  Over the past two centuries, the idea that free men and women could worship whatever gods they choose has protected this country from a powerful cause of civil strife in many other parts of the world. We can give thanks that anti-Semitism has been discredited and marginalized and Islamophobia confined mostly to far-right whack jobs and a few desperate politicians. 

Just look at the last presidential election: a Christian with a Muslim name got 70 percent of the Jewish vote, while his opponent — the first Mormon to be nominated — didn’t lose by that much (i.e., he had over 48 percent of the popular vote). That’s America.

And maybe one of these days we’ll have a serious presidential candidate who openly proclaims her or his faith in science and reason and rejects allegience to any unseen superhuman entity.   Amen.

6.  Another successful election. Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, you should give thanks that this country has once again conducted an election where peace prevailed, citizens voted, and the losers conceded, mostly with good grace. Some GOP leaders may be baffled by the results, but they didn’t take up arms or hire a lot of lawyers to try to reverse them.  Who knows? They may even start pondering why they lost in a serious way, and beging move their party away from some of its antideluvian notions. That would be something to be grateful for too.

7. Tolerance of diversity. In addition to religious freedom, Americans can be grateful for the progress we have made in embracing those who at first seem different. This includes immigrants, who are often viewed with suspicion yet consistently become some of our most ambitious, energetic, hardworking, and accomplished citizens. Consistent with our liberal ideals of individual human liberty, our country is gradually ending discrimination against gays. We continue to work to reduce the long legacy of racial discrimination. Our reward is a country whose cultural life has been enriched by diverse currents and whose society has managed to take advantage of the best the world has to offer. We are far from perfect, but the American melting pot remains a phenomenon that richly deserves our thanks.

8.  No war with Iran. Having wound down one losing war and positioned us to end another, at least President Obama has had the good sense not to start a third war with Iran. Keep your fingers crossed that he remains as wise in his second term, but be grateful that he didn’t succumb to all the fear-mongering, even in an election year.

9.  Health care for all Americans. I don’t want to go all partisan on you, but unless you’re one of the One Percent (and maybe even if you are), you ought to be grateful that we’ve finally taken steps to insure that all citizens get basic medical care. True, most of the industrialized world got there long before we did, but better late than never. It’s not a perfect system and it’s bound to need improvements over time, but we all ought to feel good about helping our fellow citizens feel good. And say a word of thanks, too.

10.  What about the rest of you? Here’s a suggestion: if you’re not an American, this Thanksgiving you might give thanks if you haven’t gotten a lot of attention from Uncle Sam lately. You might not want to be totally ignored (especially if the South China Sea laps your shores) but getting a lot of attention from the United States hasn’t been such a good thing in recent years (see under: Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, etc.) So if you’re citizen of one of the many countries that Americans like to visit but American troops and drones don’t, you can be thankful, too.