[Mb-civic] Thanksgiving And Taking: How the media spins Thanksgiving

[Mha Atma Khalsa]

 http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051124/thanksgiving_and_taking.php 
  
  Thanksgiving And Taking
  Norman Solomon
  November 24, 2005
  
              
  Norman Solomon is the author of  War Made Easy: How Presidents and  Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. For information, go to:  www.WarMadeEasy.com
  
  When Thanksgiving arrives, the media coverage is mostly predictable.  Feature stories tell of turkeys and food drives for the needy. We hear  about why some people, famous and unknown, say they feel thankful. And,  of course, holiday advertising campaigns launch via TV, radio and print  outlets.
  
  Like our own responses to Thanksgiving, the repeated media messages are  apt to be contradictory. Answers to basic questions run the gamut: How  much time and money should we spend on the holiday dinner, compared to  helping the less fortunate? Is this really the time to count our  blessings—or yield to ads that tell us how satisfied we’ll be after  buying the latest brand-new products and services?
  
  Under the surface, some familiar media themes are at cross-purposes  this time of year. Holiday celebrations that speak to the need for  compassion and spiritual connection are frequently marked by efforts  and expenditures that point in opposite directions. Within the media  echo chambers, a lot of the wallpaper is the color of money.
  
  In its unadorned state, the idea of being thankful is on a collision  course with “Thanksgiving,” the commercialized media phenomenon. To  explore the genuine realms of giving thanks is to pause and mull over  good fortune—dwelling on it while hopefully mustering at least a bit of  humility and gratitude for life along the way. But the prevalent  emphasis on goodies for dinner-table consumption and the big-hype  kickoff of the holiday buying season are media cues with widespread  effects.
  
  As a practical matter, in the media world, late November brings a  ritualized frenzy that makes cash registers ring (or whatever they do  these digital days). Anyone who takes Thanksgiving seriously as a  potential activity for reflection is likely to sense a disconnect with  profuse media content that seems to be unclear on the concept.
  
  Whether seen in religious or humanist terms, the deeper approaches to  “giving thanks” are distant from what has become the expected from mass  media this time of year. Actual thanksgiving might bring the  recognition that many people have at least all they really need—and are  damn lucky, too, given the circumstances of many human lives on this  planet. In contrast, a wide array of media messaging tells us that we  don’t have what we need—and if we can just spend money the right way,  we’ll get it.
  
  Television commercials are constantly making the case that we should  not—must not—be content with what we have. And the ads offer  innumerable ways that spending money can remedy the situation. In that  sense, much of media keeps stoking the hot coals of  unthankfulness—dismissing what we already have as woefully insufficient.
  
  It’s easy enough for media outlets to supply something for everyone at  Thanksgiving time. We can choose to focus on replicas of some heartfelt  sincerity along with facile sentimentality in news coverage. There are  plenty of human-interest stories and recipes, plus the obligatory tales  of gobblers that encounter or evade the guillotine. But overall, the  commercialism pegged to Thanksgiving provides the most powerful  undercurrents for the holiday.
  
  Meanwhile, the barrage of publicized attention to Thanksgiving gives  very short shrift to the original Thanksgiving: Newly arrived settlers  in their new world, we’ve been told, gratefully received help from  savvy Indians who generously shared their food and knowledge of how to  prepare for the oncoming winter. And that oft-neglected story, in turn,  is rarely examined as a parable for how Europeans who arrived in North  America several centuries ago were glad to take from native people—and  then proceeded to plunder and kill with a zeal that became genocidal.
  
  Today, some people have bountiful tables while others have very little.  On the rhetorical surface, Thanksgiving marks a time of appreciation.  But meanwhile, most of all, media outlets encourage us to buy—and  forget.
  
  
  

		
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