One indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulgent family feasting with a National Day of Atonement accompanied by a self-reflective collective fasting.

In fact, indigenous people have offered such a model; since 1970 they have marked the fourth Thursday of November as a Day of Mourning in a spiritual/political ceremony on Coles Hill overlooking Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, one of the early sites of the European invasion of the Americas.

Not only is the thought of such a change in this white-supremacist holiday impossible to imagine, but the very mention of the idea sends most Americans into apoplectic fits -- which speaks volumes about our historical hypocrisy and its relation to the contemporary politics of empire in the United States.

Anyone who thinks that if they had lived 300 years ago that they for certain would live, act, and think the same way they do now has their head in the sand. It's very likely that any one of us could have been on the forefront of the "Crush the Indians" movement. Who knows?

The fact is that regardless of how things went down in colonial America - none of us would likely exist had events not occured as they did. I am certainly not going to apologize for my existance.

I'm part American Indian. But you don't see me crying over the past. Two cultures collided and the strongest culture won. That's nature's way. Always has been, always will be.

Get over it.

UPDATE: Oh, and I refrained from wishing my e-mail correspondent a Happy Thanksgiving in my response. Wouldn't want to cause offense.