November in retrospect: Neo-cons giving thanks & my six (6) Thanksgiving dinners

    What the freak is a neo-con, actually?  We're about to find out.  "Any person or persons who try to conquer the world at the expense of everyone else in it."  If you plan to turn the world into your own little fiefdom and put everyone else to work as your field hands and maids then you are probably a neo-con.  Neo-cons just wanna have fun -- at our expense. "What's mine is mine -- and what's yours is mine too."  https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2019/11/24/ukraine-trump-biden-the-real-story-behind-ukrainegate-part-2/

     And this year neo-cons are really having Big Fun -- especially in places like Chile, Palestine, Yemen, Bolivia, Iran, Afghanistan, Hong Kong and Flint, Michigan.  "But mostly we are happy, thankful and grateful that we have taken control of and completely colonized Washington DC."  https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/12/06/bolivias-coup-government-a-far-right-horror-show/

     But enough about them.  America gets what it deserves.  Let's talk about me. 

     For many of America's jobless and/or homeless and/or overworked and/or underpaid and/or bankrupt and/or educationally deprived and/or food insecure and/or medically uninsured citizens, there hasn't been much to be thankful for this past November.  Sorry about that.  But as for me?  Best Thanksgiving ev-ah!

     On November 26, the Golden State Warriors, the Oakland Athletics and City of Oakland sponsored a spectacular Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings for 1,500 low-income residents and seniors.  Seated at my table were two blue-collar workers, four kindly Chinese grandmothers, a homeless man, a handicapped man, a young woman down on her luck -- and me.  Instant family!  We didn't fight about one single thing!  Lovely.

     On November 27, my doctor's office sponsored a buffet table for all of us patients.  Guacamole, potato salad and Korean barbecue.  Not exactly traditional but it worked.  More instant family.  More gratitude.

     And even more special was a very very special family un-Thanksgiving dinner celebrated by the American Indian Movement over in San Francisco that night.  An elder from a tribe of American Natives spoke -- telling us all about how Trump's border wall had forced the separation of half his tribe into Sonora, Mexico and the other half into Arizona, a tribal family split apart by politics after having been together for thousands of years.  

     "What we all need to know are two things," he told us over green beans, dark meat, white meat and corn-bread stuffing.  "We need to know where do we want to go, and also what do we want to do."  Where to go and how to get there.

     He also said that our government is currently building Zionist-designed 100-foot-high spy towers on his tribal land in order to keep his family separated forever -- not just at each yearly un-Thanksgiving.  Neo-cons are gonna be grateful as hell for that!  https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/how-dreams-change-under-authoritarianism

     The next morning, everyone who had been at the un-Thanksgiving dinner sailed over to Alcatraz Island to celebrate the 50th year of the A.I.M. take-over there back in 1969.  Colin Kaepernick spoke.  Damn, I wish I hadn't overslept.  Colin K. is my hero.  https://www.thefader.com/2017/11/24/colin-kaepernick-unthanksgiving-alcatraz

     On November 28, an employee of our neighborhood CDB store stopped me on the street and gave me a to-go plate of gourmet turkey, cranberry sauce, candied yams, stuffing, green beans and asparagus.  Yeah, that's what I'm talking about!

     Then my friend down the street had me over for a huge family gathering for her friends and their children.  Cute little toddlers running around in party dresses!   I felt like I was in the very bosom of the wonderful happy family that I had always wished that I had.

      But, wait!  Thanksgiving wasn't over quite yet!  My friends Hayley and David took me down to the Long Haul community center and we celebrated even more as they served us yet another Thanksgiving dinner, this time consisting of tofu turkey with brown rice stuffing and umeboshi dressing.  Hey, I was totally grateful even though tofu turkey might not have been my first choice -- grateful as hell that there were still some Berkeley types still left in Berkeley.

     Then Hayley, David and I wandered home in the moonlight, drinking eggnog as we went and eating pumpkin pie when we got home.  Neo-cons may yet conquer the world and enslave us all if we aren't constantly watchful -- but in the meantime there is moonlight and friendship and pumpkin pie and eggnog that they haven't snatched away from us quite yet.

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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.   And while you're at it, please buy my books.  https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM