"A Celebration of the Real America"

My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. Eduardo once was surprised that I said I would choose Thanksgiving dinner as my last meal.

Recently I wrote about how much I missed the late great blogger Steve Gilliard. Christy Hardin Smith from Firedoglake wrote this morning how much she was missing him also and she linked to a great post he wrote last Thanksgiving:

But the reason I bring this up here, and not as a food post on my blog is this: Thanskgiving is the celebration of the real America.

It allows every American to define his or her citizenship, his personal beliefs and desires and celebrate their culture while celebrating America.

You have the turkey and the stuffing, but everything from noodle kugel to soba noodles can stand beside it. Italian fish dishes and Mexican rice are equally at home.

The strength of the American identity is that you can keep your heritage and share the values of our country.

Which is why the move to deny children of illegal aliens citizenship is such a horrible mistake.

We don't really care where you come from, but what you do. When people want to destroy one of the founding blocks of what an American is, your birthright, because of their myopia or racism, they don't seem to understand what America is really about, which is unity in diversity.

There is no religious barrier, Muslims and Jews can celebrate along with Christians, blacks and whites and Asians, even illegal aliens and the homeless can take part. The only thing required is living where Americans live. The military tries to send a Thanksgiving meal to every serviceman overseas, even those in combat. That is what the day means, not only emotionally, but to our national identity.

We have a day, not to celebrate a political or religious event, but our identity as a country, and as a people. A people unified by a roast, or fried or smoked turkey. Or tofurky.

Well said Steve.