A Thanksgiving for Giving
For many Americans, this Thanksgiving arrives with pain, loss, isolation and hardship. Covid cases and deaths are skyrocketing. One in eight adults report not having enough to eat in the past week; the figure is one in six for households with children in them. The situation in numerous other nations is yet worse.
For folks much more fortunate, Covid and Trump’s legacy (even in defeat) still make this a time of grief and ambivalence. In view of the unprecedented plight of so many in 2020, it might be particularly appropriate for the more fortunate to mark Thanksgiving with giving to worthy causes this year. So, for those able and interested…
Some Groups to Consider
Here are two good organizations that would merit donations to help alleviate hunger here:
Your local food bank. Via the link to Feeding America, the national network of local food banks.
Meals on Wheels. Provides meals for homebound seniors.
For those of a political bent, the most important thing to do is help the two Democratic candidates, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, prevail in Georgia’s January 5 senatorial run-off election and thus secure Democratic control of the Senate. You can donate to either the candidates themselves or the get-out-the-vote efforts there:
Fair Fight. Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’ voter registration, mobilization and anti-suppression organization, which very arguably was responsible for Joe Biden carrying the state.
Given my international development background, folks sometimes ask me about good groups to contribute to for overseas impact. I can recommend the following:
Doctors Without Borders. An organization that does excellent humanitarian work and policy advocacy across the globe.
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Because investigative journalism is one of the best vehicles for exposing and correcting corruption and injustice in any country.
Human Rights Watch. Because, in an age of increasing repression, the leading human rights group’s work is more essential than ever.
And Getting Back to Giving Thanks
As bad as this year has been, and as worse as the winter will get while Covid soars and Trump still stews in the White House, this can also be a time of unique thankfulness for our medical and political blessings.
Vaccines are on the way. Their delivery will be coordinated by an administration driven by science and professionalism rather than narcissism and sycophancy. The fact that Joe Biden rather than Donald Trump will oversee these and other anti-Covid efforts will save tens or hundreds of thousands of lives.
Biden won convincing popular vote (a margin of more than six million) and electoral college (306-232) wins, even as we dodged a collective bullet: If fewer than 44,000 votes had shifted Trump’s way in Arizona, George and Wisconsin, he’d have been re-elected.
After four years that have seemed like forever, come January 20 we will finally have a competent, decent, experienced person leading the country, aided by an array of similarly able and well-intentioned officials.
For all of our troubles, that change is cause for pride and gratitude. A friend who attended Joe Biden’s introduction of three top foreign policy appointees on Monday summed up a moving segment of Secretary of State-designate Antony Blinken’s remarks, as well as her own reaction:
I had such a great feeling today. Tony Blinken told this story about his stepfather surviving the holocaust by making a run for it from a death march. After hiding for a few days, he heard a tank. He looked out and saw it had a white star and not an iron cross so he ran to it, waving. The hatch opened and an African-American soldier popped out. Blinken says his stepfather fell to his knees and said the only three words of English he knew, words his mother had taught him before the war: God Bless America.
I had that feeling of pride in my country that I have been missing for four years, without even realizing it. Biden said, today, his team reflects the fact that “America is back!” And I felt it. It was a wonderful thing.
Amen.
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