A Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving

from BigThink, Bob Duggan, Nov. 22, 2011

You can have your Martha Stewart Thanksgiving(tm) with theAleppo pepper-rubbed roast turkey if you wish, but give me the good, old-fashioned, Norman Rockwell version any day. Rockwell’s classic painting (detail above, full picture here) of Grandma lugging in the gigantic bird on a platter as the patriarch awaits his carving duties and the surrounding adults and kids drool in anticipation will always be the quintessential image of Thanksgiving to me. And, yet, when Rockwell painted that iconic scene, it was March 1943—months away from Thanksgiving. The painting, titled Freedom from Want belongs to a series of works Rockwell titled the Four Freedoms after President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union address in which FDR outlined what he saw as the four essential freedoms that all people in the world should enjoy. When you look for the roots of the Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving, you won’t find it in the stuffing or the cranberries (and certainly not in an Aleppo pepper rub)—they’re in the simple idea of human, not just American, freedom.

In that State of the Union address FDR gave seventy years ago, he announced the following:

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called “new order” of tyranny....READ MORE

The Grand Rapids LipDub

When Newsweek magazine included Grand Rapids, Michigan, in a list of "America's Dying Cities" the people of Grand Rapids got together and created this response.  Filmed in one ten-minute continuous shot, this video has been called "the greatest music video ever made." There are appearances by the mayor, city councilmen and representatives of all sectors of the community. Without a doubt it is living proof of the American spirit and the refusal of Grand Rapids to be classified as a city with a "bleak future".
The people of Grand rapids were not afraid to enthusiastically disagree with the media when they considered that they had been wrongly labelled - after all, that's freedom of speech, and community loyalty all rolled into one! They fought back - not in anger and bitterness but with joy and pride,

Here we are. This is who we are and we are not dying.

Diversity

American Optimism

“ We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.” - Barack Obama


"Americans. What holds us together? What do all of us have in common?

Love of freedom? Of course. But even deeper than that, the one quality we share is optimism. Think about it. Haven't we always been able to imagine something better - freedom of religion, streets paved with gold? Land of our own for a split-level, a farm or a ranch? We not only imagined it, we had the guts to go for it. Admittedly, the people who came here were often leaving appalling conditions behind. But not everyone did leave. Did all Germany and Ireland empty out during the potato famine? Were the shtetls in Russia deserted after the Kishinev progroms? No. Most stayed.

So think what optimism it took for the people who did make the journey to uproot themselves, to start a new life here. And for so many of those who did not come freely: Look how they not only survived but prevailed. Whether it's nature or nurture that breeds this spirit, we Americans are the children of these rough critters. We have their genes and that quality of theirs that is either confidence or naivete. But we believe in happy endings. We root for the underdog, and if the underdog loses we say, Wait till next year. We truly believe we can discover a Northwest Passage, get to the moon, cure a disease, find true love. And when times are hard and we realize we ourselves will not reach our goal, we have an abiding belief that our children will." - Susan Isaacs, Red, White and Blue

“We're entering our third century now, but it's wrong to judge our nation by its years. The calendar can't measure America because we were meant to be an endless experiment in freedom, with no limits to our reaches, no boundaries to what we can do, no end point to our hopes.” - Ronald Reagan, 40th president.

American Identity

We Get Knocked Down, but We're Americans....

Resiliance and determination are themes throughout American history.

I Am America

Here is a visual representation of the poem "I am America" by Julie Redstone.

I AM AMERICA

Julie Redstone

I am America. I am blueberry muffins and eggs-over-easy in silverfoil diners        with blue neon signs and newspapers out front,        where the regulars come to fill up on warmth and               the everpresent feeling of family, I am picnic baskets made of straw, and tall grass with milkweed,        worn blankets to sit on, and the smell of new mown hay        drifting past from a farm nearby, I am playgrounds with rusty swings and ancient maple trees,        and water fountains with bubbly spouts        that little children gleefully reach toward               as they try to catch the moving water with their tongues, I am fourth-of-July parades, and lawn chairs, and iced tea on the front porch,        and the smell of chicken roasting in the oven,        and friends coming over for coffee and fresh-baked pie and a little talk, I am polka festivals and Saturday-night dancing        with Hank Tomarr and the Harmonics,        and clean white shirts at Sunday church,              and innocence, not arrogance, I am rolling hills, and dirty streets, and windswept plains,        and airless apartments in cities that are always lit,        whose elegance lies in ancient fire escapes              that are havens in the summer heat, I am chlorine-blue city pools, and laughter of children,        and washrooms that smell of disinfectant,        and young mothers with the eyes of eagles watching their young, I am the suffering of the lonely, of the hungry, of the dreamless        who live without hope, and who hope only to escape              from the dreamlessness, I am the icons of the fast-food world – hamburgers and cokes,        pizza and buffalo wings, french fries and happy meals, I am speed of life wanting more and more speed,        striving for more and more doing,        no time to sit, no time to listen, no time, And I am lazy days of going nowhere, of wondering what it all means,        of waking up, for a moment, beyond the things I do,              into a wondering of who I am. I am freedom. I am possibility. I am golden opportunity        knocking at the door at every moment, And I am also the closed and silent door for the many who strive        to hear the sound of opportunity but cannot, I am prayer and I am gratitude – to that which watches over freedom        and creates endless possibility – to the Source of life itself. I am America. I am strong, I am proud, I am weak, I am vain, I am childlike, I am brash, I am plainspoken, I am noble, I am wise, I am foolish, I am young, I am ancient, I am the flame of endless possibility –        the golden promise of an open-ended Life.