Comments | john_b_cannon: Do socialists celebrate the Fourth of July, and other important questions

john_b_cannon

Do socialists celebrate the Fourth of July, and other important questions

Jul 06, 2008 21:56

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national-popular, family, holidays

Comments 9

The Farce of July socialisthobo July 7 2008, 18:13:06 UTC

So there's a lot here to reply to, I'll try to keep it to a minimum, at least at first ( ... )

Re: The Farce of July john_b_cannon July 8 2008, 02:22:50 UTC

I haven't heard of "No Thanksgiving," actually, though a lot of people out here celebrate Indigenous People's Day on the day of Thanksgiving. I like that tradition, actually, as it is something positive to celebrate, unlike just refusing a holiday. One year I went to Alcatraz before dawn for a pretty cool ceremony. (I realize Columbus Day is also Indigenous People's Day....) We still went and ate turkey afterwards. I'm not sure if that was contradictory or not ( ... )

Re: The Farce of July socialisthobo July 8 2008, 19:08:48 UTC

Now that you write it, I'd read Thanksgiving calls for a national day of mourning instead of thanks...

Re: The Farce of July john_b_cannon July 8 2008, 21:11:03 UTC

Yeah, Thanksgiving as such is probably less salvageable than the Fourth of July in my opinion for the Left. Although there's that funny religious / familial slide - people who are primarily giving thanks for being with family or friends and for whatever they have to be thankful for in their lives, rather than colonial expropriation. I know tons of leftist and left-leaning people in the Bay Area who "celebrate" in this way.

Thread 5

ex_lunchmak July 7 2008, 20:36:28 UTC

june 25 is really close to most pride celebrations, which would make it hard as a stand-alone day for the left.

but i like the idea of tying it to reconstruction.

ex_lunchmak July 7 2008, 20:42:22 UTC

though it does seem to also replicate juneteenth

john_b_cannon July 8 2008, 02:08:54 UTC

Those are good points. Perhaps the calendar is too crowded in and around that time. (I thought of July 9, which is at the end of the cycle of state readmissions I mentioned, but doing a Reconstruction-focused holiday right after the Fourth seems like it would be hard to pull off energy-wise.) And though the obvious choices would be birthdays or death anniversaries for Frederick Douglass or John Brown, I like the idea of having it not be focused on an individual. Well, back to the drawing board date-wise, but I still like the concept.

And hey, happy birthday tomorrow!

Juneteenth anonymous July 8 2008, 13:11:16 UTC

In the South we celebrate Juneteenth, which is in a way the beginning of Reconstruction