God (and capitalism) is good; God (and capitalism) is great. Thank God (and capitalism )for the food we eat.

It’s the new conservative Thanksgiving grace.

Ok I made that up.

Some people celebrate Thanksgiving as a family event, others as a day to mourn what’s happened to America’s indignous peoples, still more go for the Chinese food and movie option. And of course a whole sh*t ton of people see Thanksgving as the day before they go on a crazy shopping spree. But according to some sources, that shopping spree is probably the idea way to celebrate Turkey Day because that’s what it’s really about. Capitalism.

Capitalism was the lesson of the day from Commissioner Jay Boziviech (West Lane) at the Lane County Board of Commissioners meeting On Nov. 20. During the Commissioners Remonstrance Boziviech took the opportunity to tell the “real” story of Thanksgiving, which in this version (which seems to be taken directly from Rush Limbaugh’s book and the story he repeats each year on his show), basically: Thanksgiving is the celebration of a pilgrimic triumph over communism and a celebration of capitalism.

Here’s what he said:

I kind of want to remind people about the real story of Thanksgiving. There’s been a lot of myths around it: You know the Pilgrims and the Indians and the Indians taught the Pilgrims how to grow food and that’s what they were celebrating. That’s not the real story.

The Pilgrims, on the way across the ocean, developed a societal system that was basically a commune, long before Lenin was ever alive, they came to America, started this communal system of common property where everybody’s food that they grew was thrown in a common storehouse and taken out at will. And you know what? Over the first couple winters they starved because people had no incentive to produce and there was a lot of corruption and theft from the warehouse. So they finally decided to let people have ownership over a plot of land and keep the goods that they grew.

And you know what? That the following year they had a tremendous bounty they and held a celebration and that was the first Thanksgiving. Basically what you are celebrating in Thanksgiving is private property rights and being able to hang on to the fruits of your own labor. … Please remember why we celebrate it and that’s because it was about private property rights and capitalism.

America: We kicked communism’s ass before communism was even born.

You can watch it on video here. The turkey talk starts about 42 minutes in.

Google Pilgrim communists and you will get a lot of conservative and Tea Party website hits.The Christian Science Monitor did a nice historical look at Thanksiving that talks about how the Pilgrims’ journals discussed the whole Pilgrims and Native Americans thing.

In a letter to a friend, dated December 1621, Edward Winslow wrote: “Our harvest being gotten in, our Governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a more special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruit of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the Company almost a week, at which time, among other Recreations, we exercised our Arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest King Massasoit, with some 90 men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted and they went out and killed five Deer, which they brought to the Plantation and bestowed on our Governor, and upon the Captain and others.”

I figured the whole communism gets smashed thing had to come from somewhere. In fact, the Pilgrims came to the New (to white folks) World as a joint-stock venture, funded by London businessmen looking to make a profit. Joint-stock ventures were precursors to modern corporations. The Pilgrims did at first govern themselves under the Mayflower Compact, which called for a communal system. They did indeed switch to small individually owned plots of land. And the “communist” Mayflower Compact … was a founding document of the Constitution. The mind boggles.

I’m not entirely sure what the take-away lesson is here, but I’m going to suggest you not honor capitalism by becoming a human sacrifice when some Walmart opens its doors at o’dark thirty on Black Friday.