Rush Limbaugh: The REAL Story of Thanksgiving

[AnnInLa]

(The lesson of the first Thanksgiving? Capitalism and the Free Market System of course!!)

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_112106/content/eib_extra.guest.html

snip

"When spring finally came, Indians taught the settlers how to plant corn, fish for cod and skin beavers for coats." Yes, it was Indians that taught the white man how to skin beasts. "Life improved for the Pilgrims, but they did not yet prosper! This is important to understand because this is where modern American history lessons often end. "Thanksgiving is actually explained in some textbooks as a holiday for which the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians for saving their lives, rather than as a devout expression of gratitude grounded in the tradition of both the Old and New Testaments. Here is the part that has been omitted: The original contract the Pilgrims had entered into with their merchant-sponsors in London called for everything they produced to go into a common store, and each member of the community was entitled to one common share.

"All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belong to the community as well. They were going to distribute it equally. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belonged to the community as well. Nobody owned anything. They just had a share in it. It was a commune, folks. It was the forerunner to the communes we saw in the '60s and '70s out in California – and it was complete with organic vegetables, by the way. Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony, recognized that this form of collectivism was as costly and destructive to the Pilgrims as that first harsh winter, which had taken so many lives. He decided to take bold action. Bradford assigned a plot of land to each family to work and manage, thus turning loose the power of the marketplace.

"That's right. Long before Karl Marx was even born, the Pilgrims had discovered and experimented with what could only be described as socialism. And what happened? It didn't work! Surprise, surprise, huh? What Bradford and his community found was that the most creative and industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anyone else, unless they could utilize the power of personal motivation! But while most of the rest of the world has been experimenting with socialism for well over a hundred years – trying to refine it, perfect it, and re-invent it – the Pilgrims decided early on to scrap it permanently. What Bradford wrote about this social experiment should be in every schoolchild's history lesson. If it were, we might prevent much needless suffering in the future.

snip

"Do you hear what he was saying, ladies and gentlemen? The Pilgrims found that people could not be expected to do their best work without incentive. So what did Bradford's community try next? They unharnessed the power of good old free enterprise by invoking the undergirding capitalistic principle of private property. Every family was assigned its own plot of land to work and permitted to market its own crops and products. And what was the result? 'This had very good success,' wrote Bradford, 'for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.' Bradford doesn't sound like much of a..." I wrote "Clintonite" then. He doesn't sound much like a liberal Democrat, "does he? Is it possible that supply-side economics could have existed before the 1980s? Yes.

snip

Can you think of a more important lesson one could derive from the pilgrim experience? So in essence there was, thanks to the Indians, because they taught us how to skin beavers and how to plant corn when we arrived, but the real Thanksgiving was thanking the Lord for guidance and plenty -- and once they reformed their system and got rid of the communal bottle and started what was essentially free market capitalism, they produced more than they could possibly consume, and they invited the Indians to dinner, and voila, we got Thanksgiving, and that's what it was: inviting the Indians to dinner and giving thanks for all the plenty is the true story of Thanksgiving. The last two-thirds of this story simply are not told.

snip

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_112106/content/eib_extra.guest.html

[Aviation Pro]

1. Yes....

the drug-addled, fat, flatulent, draft dodging, Viagra-taking asshole really has harnessed his gasbag and produced a lot of value. /sarcasm

Major dildos up your ass, Rush.

[Bullshot]

6. Perhaps, Rush, a commune setting was the best way for a group to begin life in a new world.

After things get settled and roles are established, then you can experiment in capitalistic-type ventures.

Everything's so black-and-white to that Oxycontin/Viagra-induced idiot. That's why people of his kind are fading back into the woodwork.

[jpwhite]

2. not so fast

If the story was about socialism vs. capatalism then why did half of the original settlers in the Jamestown area die? It was because they weren't used to the weather and had very little experience in farming in the soil here in North America. It was the Native Americans who saved their butts, and they were grateful that fall. The celebration of the harvest is why we have a Thanksgiving, but now we add other reasons to be thankful.

Rush's story is as far fetched as the dumb stories that I was told as a kid about how all communists are bad and how Russia wants to take over the world. In the end they were just as scared of us as we were of them. It was a lot of propaganda.

James
[e-mail]

[Roland99]

3. PBS had a good documentary on the tragedy at Jamestown >>>>

Secrets of the Dead: Death at Jamestown
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_jamestown/index.html

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. Farming in the soil of North America?

They had no experience farming at all. They were city folks. Religious nutcases who were craftsmen and shopkeepers, who had just spent ten years living in the most industrialized mercantile city in the world, Amsterdam. They had no idea what they were getting into.

And, btw, they were living communally because they were trying to model the original christians and their communal enclaves. The "no work, no eat" rule was probably aimed at the pilgrims who spent their days reading the bible instead of trying to learn how to survive - which is why so many of them didn't.

[Nikki Stone1]

24. CORRECT: The original Christians in ACTS lived communally with "each according to his need"

ACTS, 2:44 All who believed were together, and had all things in common. 2:45 They sold their possessions and goods, and distributed them to all, according as anyone had need.


And the power of God killed at least two people who held back money and property from the common store:

5:1 But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira, his wife, sold a possession, 5:2 and kept back part of the price, his wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles’ feet. 5:3 But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back part of the price of the land? 5:4 While you kept it, didn’t it remain your own? After it was sold, wasn’t it in your power? How is it that you have conceived this thing in your heart? You haven’t lied to men, but to God.”

5:5 Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and died. Great fear came on all who heard these things. 5:6 The young men arose and wrapped him up, and they carried him out and buried him. 5:7 About three hours later, his wife, not knowing what had happened, came in. 5:8 Peter answered her, “Tell me whether you sold the land for so much.”

She said, “Yes, for so much.”

5:9 But Peter asked her, “How is it that you have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.”

5:10 She fell down immediately at his feet, and died. The young men came in and found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her by her husband. 5:11 Great fear came on the whole assembly, and on all who heard these things.


http://ebible.org/bible/web/Acts.htm

[spillthebeans]

4. It's like the indian genocide story

http://www.youdebate.com/DEBATES/rush_indian_population.HTML

PRO 1

Rush Limbaugh, "There are more American Indians alive today than there were when Columbus arrived or at any other time in history. Does this sound like a record of genocide?" (Told You So, p. 68)



CON 2

According to Carl Shaw of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, estimates of the pre-Columbus population of what later became the United States range from 5 million to 15 million. Native populations in the late 19th century fell to 250,000, due in part to genocidal policies. Today the U.S.'s Native American population is about 2 million.



PRO 3 Rush's answer to Fair

The facts support me. FAIR is repeating the liberal myth that American Indians were systematically wiped out by white genocide. In See, I Told You So (from which FAIR takes my statement), I myself point out that while "there were certainly atrocities against Indians by white people," the full picture indicates that "life was far from utopian for these people" and that "there were just as many -- and probably to a greater degree of savagery -- committed by other Indians" (p. 68). As for Indian population in the New World, Robert Royal, author of 1492 And All That: Political Manipulations of History, writes: "Estimates of pre-Columbian population figures have become heavily politicized with scholars who are particularly critical of Europe often favoring wildly higher figures. High starting points make Indian deaths by disease, warfare, and mistreatment all the greater. David Henige has dubbed this Native American Historical Demography as Expiation.' Yet despite their mistreatment by Europeans and devastation by European diseases (large numbers of Indians died as disease passed along trade routes, 80 percent without ever seeing a white man), some Indian groups are more populous today than in 1492. There are now more than 30 million Indians in Latin America alone, and there are several times more Iroquois in North America than at first contact." -- Robert Royal, "Hello Columbus: America Was No Paradise in 1492," Policy Review, Fall 1992, p. 44. As for instances of "genocidal policies," Royal asks: "Genocide? Where? I don't know of any instances of Indian genocide. Mistreatment, yes. Warfare, yes. Deaths related to diseases caught from Europeans, yes. But systematic genocide, policies of genocide, no. Where are these policies? Where is the proof? The fact is, activists who spout off such claims of genocide have no proof. It's amazing what they can get away with" .



CON 4
Unable to provide any evidence to support his claim that "there are more American Indians alive today than there were when Columbus arrived," Limbaugh quotes an article in the Heritage Foundation magazine that claims that "some Indian groups are more populous today than in 1492."



CON 5
In 1763 British General Jeffery Amherst ordered blankets from a smallpox hospital given to the Indians. A epidemic soon spread among the Indians.

[nuxvomica]

7. So Ann Coulter's assertion of 300,000 pre-Columbians is false

She was fond of saying that Native Americans could only support a population of 300,000 in all of North America before the Christian Europeans came and turned the continent into a bread basket. I never bothered to research cuz I thought it was beside the point anyway but it turns out she's wrong.
Thanks for posting this, spillthebeans, and welcome to DU. :hi:

[spillthebeans]

Thanks

I think Coulter has never said anything that was remotely true

[Toots]

8. Rush also says there are more deer alive today than when the pilgrims landed

and more trees as well. I have heard his say those but not that there are more indians alive as well. Seems he thinks we have created more indigenous being with our pollution and blacktop than nature itself could do...

[RaleighNCDUer]

14. As for deer, it may be correct, because we have wiped out all the

predators that kept deer populations in check. As for trees, Wha???

The continent was one huge forest, from the coast to the Mississippi, with not a single parking lot. Where's he come up with that nonsense?

[Toots]

20. Well two things

Man is the biggest predator and we certainly have not wiped him out and if it was all forest then where the deer live and now there is little forest where do all the deer live now? Plus who was around to do the counting? so it is fairly moot except he has the gall to make the claim with no evidence what so ever, which actually is his style. Make bold faced lies without any accountability....

[RaleighNCDUer]

22. Deer thrive in second-growth conditions -- fallow fields and

forest clear-cuts. In old-growth forest they are more vulnerable to predators. Deer populations are far denser in populated areas than in, say, Yellowstone. But your primary point is taken - he does tend to just make shit up. On this, he just happened to be right, though for the wrong reason - over-population of deer is a sign of ecological imbalance.

[KSU Wildcat]

31. I am thankful to be living in America where we

can all have diverse opinions. I did not know Rush had so many listeners here on DU

[KSU Wildcat]

23. Did you ever hear of Jonathon Chapman aka

Johnie Appleseed. He went around the country planting apple trees because the vast majority of the land was prairie not forest.

Rush is right on this one. There are more trees in this country than when the pilgrims landed.

[RaleighNCDUer]

25. Sorry, but you and Rush are wrong on this --

The prairie didn't start until as far west as Illinois. Chapman never got that far. He worked in the northeast, across NY, western PA and into Ohio, all of which was heavily forested - read any accounts from the time. He wasn't planting to plant trees, he was planting to plant APPLE trees - orchards are not natural growth and productive fruit trees are rare in the wild. My understanding, in fact, was that he was in the pay of land speculators who believed that apple groves would be an incentive for people to move into wilderness areas. Apples meant the availability of fruit, fresh and preserved, cider and, of course, hard cider, all of which created commercial opportunities.

[Toots]

26. And you offer the same evidence as Rush

zilch. The land when the pilgrims landed was not surveyed nor were the animals counted. There is no way of knowing how much was timbered land or occupied by deer.While it is true the greatest predator of the deer was the fifty million Native Americans and we pretty much annihilated them it is also true that we destroyed their environment even more. To state flat out there are more deer today in America than there were in 1600 seems ridiculous at best..

[KSU Wildcat]

30. I am thankful to be living in America where we

can all have diverse opinions. I did not know Rush had so many listeners here on DU

[proud2BlibKansan]

27. No he's wrong on this

and on just about every other subject he blows his fat ass about.

There are links in this very thread you obviously did not read.

I also disagree with your avatar. I am a jayhawk. :)

[KSU Wildcat]

29. I am thankful to be living in America where we

can all have diverse opinions. I did not know Rush had so many listeners here on DU.

[proud2BlibKansan]

32. Which part of KS are you from?

Fort Riley?

[KSU Wildcat]

34. Sumner County

[proud2BlibKansan]

36. Wellington?

I went to college in Emporia. I had some friends from Sumner County.

Welcome to DU. If you don't praise rush you just may stick around awhile. :hi:

[KSU Wildcat]

38. Peck

It is between Wellington and Wichita in a rural community. I won't praise Rush but I do listen to both sides of the fence even Rush from time to time.

[proud2BlibKansan]

39. I used to listen to rush once in awhile

but he always made me so mad. Then 2 years ago I got satellite radio and now I listen to AAR.

[nebenaube]

16. I think the word 'genocide' was created during WWII...

prior to that the term used was 'extinction'.

[TheCowsCameHome]

5. Hey fatso, Your supply of Oxy is in - meet me at the AmocoMart in 15 minutes. Love, Wilma

What a jerk.

[opihimoimoi]

9. Since when did the FAT ONE possess Credibility? Who the fuck believes the dude?

I for one don't even read his shit.

[1monster]

10. As usual Rush Limbaugh has it ALL WRONG!

The first Thanksgiving in this country took place in what became St. Augustine Florida in early September 1565, a few days after Pedro Menendez and his ships landed.

This was a real Thanksgiving for having made it safely to shore because Captian General of the Ocean Seas Pedro Menendez set out from Spain with THIRTY-SIX ships full of people. They encountered a hurricane which hit them twice and lost all but nine ships.

The people who survived were very THANKFUL.

Any attempt settling an area where there is not shelter other than what the settlers build, no food supplies other than what the settlers brought with them, not anything other than what they brought with them, is going to be a communnal effort out of absolute necessity. Otherwise the attempt will fail bringing hardship up to and including death to all of the settlers.

Once there is basic security, then some parts of a communal program will no longer be needed and those will fall by the wayside.

[NOLADEM]

12. .

[Deja Q]

13. And incentive is money. Now, Mr. Rush, explain offshoring to us.

:shrug:

[AnnInLa]

15. Exactly. Dear Lord, we give thanks for

Dear Lord, we give thanks to you here today for

Our family and friends who are gathered around our new $3,000 English Classical Dining Room table.

We give thanks for Becky's successful knee surgery, and that we can afford the health insurance to pay for it....unlike the Smiths down the street who have to use the emergency room at the Charity Hospital.

We give thanks for allowing Junior to attend college....unlike the Smith boy who had to go to work because the family couldn't afford to send him.

We give thanks that none of our kids are in Iraq, unlike the Smith girl who joined the military to find a way to pay for college.

We give thanks for our good paying white collar jobs, unlike Mr. Smith's manufacturing job which went to Bangladesh.

We give thanks for our banks, who issue us so many credit cards and never discriminate against us....unlike the Smiths who are of a different color and had to declare bankruptcy.

We give thanks for our moral superiority...unlike the Smith's who have a gay uncle and a grandchild who was born out of wedlock.

We give thanks that we are one of the "haves"...unlike the Smiths who show no initiative to move upwards out of their "have not" class.

We give thanks that we were able to send a turkey, sweet potatoes and green beans to the Smiths...we hope they are properly appreciative.

[Selatius]

17. They practiced an early form of what would become Christian Socialism at Plymouth

I believe this was also true to a certain extent in the neighboring Massachusetts Bay Colony to the north, since many of them were also disgruntled with the state of the Anglican Church. They were Puritans in that they wanted to purify and reform the Anglican Church. Pilgrims, on the other hand, said that it was beyond reforming, and they felt the best option was to abandon the Anglican Church.

Living conditions were, from what I can tell, better than the economy operating in the Jamestown Colony after Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colony became firmly established. Life expectancy down in Jamestown was 40, and most of the folks down there were not farmers but regular workers who were brought in to mine gold or silver. Because none were found, they were forced to farm, and many simply didn't want that, especially some of the land-owning nobility that had come over. Because many in both Plymouth and the Bay Colony practiced mutual aid and an early form of socialism, life expectancy was around 70. (I wish I had my history text here to cite this out, but I don't at this time)

When the Mayflower Compact was signed for Plymouth, which was established first before the Bay Colony, it laid down the idea that they were bound not just to each other's mutual aid and benefit but to the Will of God. By signing the contract, you essentially pledge allegiance to God and your fellow believers. It was both a spiritual contract and a social contract, but the social aspect of the contract laid down the framework for the electing of a governor, for a "common store" from which food would be dispersed to members of the colony for mutual survival.

Because the original Mayflower Compact was lost, we have only William Bradford's journal Of Plymouth Plantation to reference with respect to what the document read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower_Compact

William Bradford's page is there to the right. If you don't believe me, click on his scribbling twice to get the full-sized text and then read it for yourself. The text is archaic, but you can clearly see that the Compact laid down the election of a governor as well as the establishment of a "common store."

Years on, the Compact fell by the wayside as food security became less of an issue, and in time farmers became free to sell their goods in the open market for whatever the market would allow; however, it's important to note that if they hadn't practiced mutual aid, it is likely a lot more people would've died in Plymouth and the Bay Colony than actually did of disease and starvation. Nevermind Indian attacks.

[MrPrax]

18. OMG "with organic vegetables"!!

I am surprised just how stupid this guy is...I mean if he wanted to slam Thanksgiving and liberals, he could have just as easily went for the fact it was est. as a national holiday by FDR and sarcastically referred to as 'franksgiving' and many states' resented it.

But then again that wouldn't help out old Rush, because FDR standardize the date and promoted as a leg up to businesses suffering during the Great Depression. That's not something this idiot would likely volunteer -- he much rather make shit up.

[lpbk2713]

19. That self-admitted liar, comedian Rush Limbaugh....

He has a long weekend ahead of him. He's probably hanging out with the boys in the Dominican Republic.


And when Limbaugh hangs out with the boys, he really hangs out with the boys.

[slaveplanet]

21. Didn't the first American

annual Thanksgiving start during the Lincoln administration and have little to do with the English pilgrims nor their harvest festivals?

It was a day set aside to give thanks to the bounties of the field and the source from which they come, and for deliverance from the brutal strife of the civil war.

It was never consistently and nationally observed before this point...There were also other days of thanksgiving proclaimed by some earlier presidents but they usually were in conjunction with military battles. Washington made such a proclamation for the 26th of November, 1789, but it was thanks in remembrance of the new constitution and many congressmen were against it: The House was not unanimous in its determination to give thanks. Aedanus Burke of South Carolina objected that he "did not like this mimicking of European customs, where they made a mere mockery of thanksgivings." Thomas Tudor Tucker "thought the House had no business to interfere in a matter which did not concern them. Why should the President direct the people to do what, perhaps, they have no mind to do? They may not be inclined to return thanks for a Constitution until they have experienced that it promotes their safety and happiness. We do not yet know but they may have reason to be dissatisfied with the effects it has already produced; but whether this be so or not, it is a business with which Congress have nothing to do; it is a religious matter,and, as such, is proscribed to us.
The colonials celebrated one in 1777 when Burgoyne surrendered. But it was never made into an annual national holiday celebrated on the third Thursday of November, later moved to the fourth Thursday of November (by FDR).
During the 1700's days of thanksgiving had little to do with big feasts, they were usually days of fasting and observance.

------------------------------------------------------------

Also Rush is being racist when he says "It was the Indians that taught the white man how to skin animals" White people farmed, trapped and skinned for centuries in Europe, the indians taught them the idiosyncrasies of the new world climate, a climate they were not used to. The reverse would happen if you took a group of citified indians and plopped them down in the wilds of Europe.
-------------------------------------------------------------
and Rush...they weren't communists, they were subjects.
-------------------------------------------------------------

Proclamation of Thanksgiving
Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863

This is the proclamation which set the precedent for America's national day of Thanksgiving. During his administration, President Lincoln issued many orders like this. For example, on November 28, 1861, he ordered government departments closed for a local day of thanksgiving.

The holiday we know today as Thanksgiving was recommended to Lincoln by Sarah Josepha Hale, a prominent magazine editor. Her letters to Lincoln urged him to have the "day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival." The document below sets apart the last Thursday of November "as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise."

According to an April 1, 1864 letter from John Nicolay, one of President Lincoln's secretaries, this document was written by Secretary of State William Seward, and the original was in his handwriting. On October 3, 1863, fellow Cabinet member Gideon Welles recorded in his diary that he complimented Seward on his work. A year later the manuscript was sold to benefit Union troops.

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State

[upi402]

28. "Rush tastes like chicken" -anonymous Dominican Republican sex worker

:puke:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

33. Donald Trump was on the Mayflower???

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

35. What's with the amateur male modeling pics on rush's link?

the one with the flag-how does anyone take such a complete dork so seriously?

[donheld]

37. Tell Rush to take 12 oxycontin and call me in the morning

:grr: