...Or Am I Just a Failson

Bellyaching for Thanksgiving

It was never my intention for this project to be an exercise in prolonged bellyaching, but it’s easy to wallow in the stew of both the personal and political doom and doubt. Like I tell my daughter when her anxiety manifests into a tummy ache (usually when it’s time to go to school)—step out of your feelings.

But that’s often all we have—feelings, intuitions, faith and hope, fear and regret. As many in the Daily Wire circus of creeps like to say, “Facts don’t care about your feelings,” but that doesn’t make the feelings go away.

This is all to say that, with Thanksgiving approaching, I figured it was a good opportunity to show some gratitude for what I do have.

I’m thankful for my wife, who, though enslaved by debt—a serf in the great corporate Fiefdom—always puts us first. She’s worked for the same giant coffee corporation for nearly a decade. She’s dedicated herself, and even sacrificed her right shoulder for its success which required a $20,000 surgery that she now has to work overtime to pay off.

Shit, I’m bellyaching again. Be thankful, you stooge!

She’s an amazing mother and wife, and I’m lucky to have her. If it weren’t for her, I’d still be microdosing mushrooms on my couch and binge-watching Below Deck (see, I’m human. I indulge in the best muck our reality show industrial complex has to offer).

And my daughter, I’m thankful for her. She’s taught me more about life than anyone has, even if she’s inherited her mother’s attitude (I love you, Dani Jean!). With joy, she’s also brought a previously unknown strain of anxiety. She doesn’t do this on purpose, of course, but I worry about her in a way I’ve never worried about anyone before. I worry about what those active shooter drills are doing to her psyche and hope she never has to use the skills those drills teach her. I worry what will happen when she gets sick in the approaching cold and flu season, considering we still don’t have a primary care physician, though not for a lack of trying. Her doctor abruptly stopped accepting our insurance and the closest pediatrician who accepts both our insurance and new patients is over 45 minutes away, not to mention we’re still waiting for her old doctor to send her medical records so she can be seen.

Damnit! Bellyaching son of a bitch!

I am thankful that my daughter’s compassion is her most prominent feature, and that she loves art and spends her days writing stories, the most recent of which was titled “Goodnight Goon”.

And of course, I’m thankful for my parents and siblings, who, without their support, the world would not know the Comrade Dad.

It was under my brother’s tutelage that I came to appreciate the arts and specifically literature. To this day he feeds me books whenever I see him, including this past Saturday when he gifted me “Swift to Chase” by Laird Barron.

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Ah, Thanksgiving! The pilgrims, or, as my stepfather reminds me every time I use that misnomer, the separatist puritans who landed at Plymouth Rock those many years ago would certainly have something to say about our decadent consumer culture, but their puritanism lives on, even on Facebook. Recently, a high school classmate of mine posted the meme above. And yes, there is some truth in it and in the virtues of gratitude, but it’s also this line of thinking that has allowed the ruling class to use our own morals and ethics to steal our wages all the while preaching this bull shit protestant work ethic.

I think, like many Millennials, I often attribute what I don’t have to a lack of personal ambition, drive, and character. I often find myself asking, am I just a failson? Did I drop the generational ball when my attorney father and nurse mother provided me every opportunity this country had to offer? I don’t know, maybe that’s true. Maybe I should have gone to law school instead of getting my master’s in fine arts. Maybe I should have gone back to law school when given the opportunity to by my current employer, but to paraphrase Melville, I’d simply prefer not to. Perhaps that’s the only defiance I can afford—to choose when not to participate, when to understand that I am defined by more than what I do to earn a wage and what products I choose to purchase with those wages.

It’s true I have much to be thankful for, but this time of thanksgiving also calls for historical reflection.

Growing up in New England offered dual historical realities—the first is clad in funny hats and buckled shoes, and the other shrouded in cold death. The remnants of our bloody colonization lay in plain sight, in the names of towns, and rivers, and condominium complexes; in the casinos and mascots and municipal seals. It’s true we’re living in a time where we are forced to reckon with the many ugly realities of our past.

This self-reflection and examination is required if we’re to preserve our democracy (if not strengthen it) and create a thriving pluralistic society. It does at times seem as if such debate only leads to further polarization; that it creates an opportunity for corporations to gain more influence all the while co-opting identity politics to sell more products, but what else are we to do? Some would argue that, perhaps, democracy isn’t all what it’s cracked up to be. For some, this reaction has led to embracing the likes of Trump, who has explicitly stated he alone can solve our problems. And this is not strictly a domestic issue—Hungary, Turkey, and now Argentina, are all grappling with this reactionary trend.

What’s more, Israel is currently dealing with this same issue and not just of a hyper-reactionary rightwing government, but of a historical reckoning.

As calls for a ceasefire grow, Israel must reckon with its past, and not its ancient past, but it’s recent past, the history of its state.

As someone living in a country with a similarly complicated and messy history, I urge you to embrace this reckoning, this reflection while there is still time, as it often feels that task is too tall for our country. We’ve seen small steps toward acknowledging our past in this country. Mascots have been changed, statues toppled and replaced (my daughter says crisscross apple sauce when referring to sitting cross-legged on the floor, though we said something very different as kids) but many of these changes have been superficial, and in many cases implemented not in an honest attempt to understand the past and change our future, but rather to sell more products or stop the profit bleeding.

I’m not so cynical as to think these changes are completely without meaning, but in order to implement serious political change and equality, we must form more pluralistic coalitions that understand identity politics so often undermines the building of such coalitions. We must keep in mind that these changes are strictly cynical and superficial if we’re willing to accept them as victories and not merely steps in the right direction. Acquiescing to these changes only helps if you first identify as a consumer and still believe the current system of capitalism can solve the very problems it has created.

Israel, like Germany after World War II, when they were forced to reckon with their state’s crimes, must do the same. It is something that our country failed to do, time and time again, perhaps most notably after our Civil War when, instead of harshly examining ourselves, we allowed the ruling class to simply exploit Black Americans more creatively while continuing to use race to keep poor and working-class people from forming coalitions based on capital instead of race.

I’d like to believe, and I hope it to be true, this realization is next. There’s evidence of progress, and not just on this country’s co-called left. Candice Owens recently invited Norman Finkelstein to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian cluster fuck, and even Tucker Carlson ran segments about class warfare during the height of the BLM protests in the summer of 2020, and although neither Owens nor Carlson deserve much praise, having done a lot more harm to many more disenfranchised demographics of people in this country, I believe we must cling to these instances for hope.

If conspiracy theories are the socialism of fools than the culture wars are revolutions of idiots.

But, wouldn’t you know it, I’m bellyaching again.

I’m thankful for my loving wife and daughter; I’m even thankful for my employer, who allows me to work from home and at my own pace and schedule, and although it may not seem like it, I’m grateful to be living when and where I am, not because it’s perfect, but because the conditions are perfect to make positive and progressive changes to our society.

So, as was my brother’s tradition to post this every year on Thanksgiving, I’ll leave this here for your pleasure, dear reader.

Be safe,

Your Comrade Dad.