 "Thanksgiving is a typically American holiday. In spite of its religious form (giving thanks to God for a good harvest), its essential, secular meaning is a celebration of successful production. It is a producers’ holiday. The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production. Abundance is (or was and ought to be) America’s pride—just as it is the pride of American parents that their children need never know starvation." - Ayn Rand
See also:
Thanksgiving: The Producer's Holiday -- By: Gary Hull, Ph.D.
Thanksgiving Is Designed to Celebrate, Not Faith and Charity, But Thought and Production
"Thanksgiving celebrates man's ability to produce. The cornucopia filled with exotic flowers and delicious fruits, the savory turkey with aromatic trimmings, the mouth-watering pies, the colorful decorations -- it's all a testament to the creation of wealth."
http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?id=526...
And also:
"Even if one earns goods and services by productive labor and free trade, what one's labor can purchase today is infinitely greater than what it could buy in the past. And that difference is not something that one has earned. The sheer fruitfulness of today's economy as compared to the economy of the past, the sheer abundance of capital and knowledge that lie at our disposal, is a product of those who have gone before. It is a gift from our forebears, and gifts need to be acknowledged as such.
Thus, the first answer to the question "Whom should we thank on Thanksgiving?" is: All of those who, down through the centuries, have advanced civilization by means of their productive achievements. For it is they who allow us to live in the luxuriant world of the twenty-first century." -- Roger Donway here:
http://www.atlassociety.org/whom-should-...
(Originally posted to John Aglialoro's Message for Thanksgiving here:
http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/21d794a/happy-thanksgiving)
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