Pat Taub
GUEST POST by TOM SANTULLI
I woke up Thanksgiving morning thinking of Picasso’s astounding and revolutionary masterpiece, “Guernica.” It depicts horrors in the Spanish Civil War.
Guernica being hung, 1937, Spanish Pavillon of the Paris International Exhibition
What would you see if he painted, “Thanksgiving 2024?”
In the US: 700,000 unhoused waiting in soup kitchen lines.
37 million in poverty, many working two and three jobs to buy turkey “trimmings.”
Waiting in line for free food, Brooklyn, NY, February, 2024
80 million on holiday, most traveling by plane through hundreds of comfortable airports.
In Ukraine: not a single civilian airport functions fully for 38 million, many of whom freeze as Russia batters the fragile power grid, and where the average age of a soldier is 43.
Ukrainian woman wrapped in a sleeping bag trying to stay warm
And, in Europe all live under the growing threat of a “tactical weapons” nuclear war.
Yet central in this disorienting tableau, the US-funded annihilation of Palestinian people and culture, “defense” contractors’ profits growing.
A resident of Gaza City amid the rubble of residential buildings after Israeli airstrikes. (Guardian)
Then, after dinner, look again: the day originally set aside for reflection and gratitude is now the starting gate for frenzied consumption – wallets and pockets are flung open: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and don’t forget the “after Christmas sales starting on Christmas Eve.”
“How Did This Happen And What Does It Now Mean?” [the title of Joan Armatrading’s latest album]
Growing up my world view was eurocentric, anglocentric. Young Churchill – later rescuer of Europe, defender of monarchy – chronicled his South Africa and India heroics. “A Roving Commission” was required reading.
Colonization was noble.
A sanitized image of colonial settlers: Standing Elk, Native American chief, accepting a peace settlement, c. 1892
Segregation, slavery, inequality were problems, but elsewhere.
I knew little of the extraordinary history of Russia and the Ukraine, nor of the motives for carving up the Middle East. The subtleties of 1962’s “Lawrence of Arabia” were lost on me.
Israel was “like us,” only somewhere else. Its “special legacy” preserved in 1948 with creation of the State of Israel in a vast desert of only nomads, and annually celebrated.
The 6-Day War confirmed this.
The Ehrlichs’ 1968 “The Population Bomb” introduced the idea that human activity and the environment were entwined. It was criticized and quickly “disproven.”
More recently, I’ve learned from historians:
Victor David Hanson’s study of the sudden collapse of seemingly prospering ancient civilizations, and Ilan Pappé’s analysis of the Middle East conflicts; from Edward Said’s classic, “Orientalism,” and from John Mearsheimer’s neorealism in international relations theory, with its special relevance to persistent European and Middle East discord.
And this perspective is especially helpful:
Philosopher John Berger some years ago addressed doctors’ growing disillusionment once their “abstract idealism had grown thin;” the cause: they “live in and accept a society which is incapable of knowing what a human life is worth.”
Think of most of us today. Ask yourself, are core values and long established cultural norms – concern for others, cooperation – disappearing in progress’ rearview mirror?
Blink a few times, look again at “Thanksgiving 2024,” what more will you see?
Growing isolation, a de facto result of the rapid growth of faceless electronic access – “when you’re face to face with somebody… body language and eye contact stop us from doing certain things. That doesn’t happen on social media…” and dehumanization spreads into the real world.
Growing hate speech, misdirected anger.
Neighbors losing the will – ‘I don’t have time’ – or the ability to see one another as human.
Increasing reliance on technology to tame the natural world.
Next steps?
Acknowledge that ‘business as usual’ is dysfunctional and unsustainable.
Recognize as Tom Morello and many others have that ‘the system cannot be fixed by the system.’
A simple example: the once proud, meaningful Democratic Party.
Reinvigorate our participation in all that we inhabit, connect with, use.
Thoreau saw the natural world and human spirit as one – “in wildness is the preservation of life” – each replenishing the other.
What if wildness includes the energy and wisdom of youth, a willingness to explore and correct?
The natural world sustains itself and thus each of us by continual regeneration. Society corrects by human-centered discovery, by nurturing ideals, and by making ethical and practical choices to sustain the individual and itself.
The world’s young are both the catalyst and key ingredient of that correction.
They deserve our most energetic support.
Tom Santulli finds strength in the sea, solitude, Rievaulx Abbey, in growing humility regained as a physician…embraces Frost’s directness, black and white photography’s elegance, Hawksmoor’s audacity, Turner’s mystery, Merwin’s soul, the natural world and Berry’s grace… is thankful for curiosity, Buddhist wisdom, the generosity of others, and especially for children everywhere.
