Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Happy Thanksgiving!

By

I, like every candidate running for office in the history of the world, am thankful for family, friends, and good health.  I can’t top Charley’s 100-year-old grandfather, but I am having dinner today with three nonagenarians!

Also, on behalf of your three editors, I’m thankful for your continued interest in and support of this site.  We foolishly let our 5-year anniversary pass without notice eight days ago (oops).  Frankly, I don’t think any of us thought this little project would still be operational five years later, much less that a surprisingly large number of people would read, post, and comment.  Just a couple of numbers to contemplate: in the last five years, we’ve recorded almost 10 million page views, and almost 4 million unique visitors (we should hit both of those milestones in the next couple of months).  Well over 200,000 comments have been posted here, and the total number of posts (by us and, since we started using Soapblox in early 2006, other users) is nearing 20,000.

So, from us and ours to you and yours, Happy Thanksgiving, and thank you!

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Comments

  1. …this site and the work David, Bob and Charlie — and the posters and readers on this site — do in maintaining Blue Mass Group and improving the level of discourse around Democratic politics in the state of Massachusetts. Thank you.

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    p>Happy thanksgiving.

  2. If you build it, they will come.  

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    p>David, Bob and Charley have all worked very hard on this effort.  Without them, there would be no BMG.  Thank you!

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    p>But the posters and commenters make it a community.  I often think of lolorb.  BMG was a big part of her life.  Charley made the comment at the time that the blog was more a part of some members’ lives, than it was of the editors.  

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    p>Community can be hard to find in our society.  It is great that we have BMG for a community that is available to us, whenever we want it, if we want it.  

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    p>I’m off to another of my communities.  Thanksgiving dinner at my Mom’s.  David, I’ll tell Kumi that we were talking. (Then there is the singer community; my sister-in-law, Kumi, is a good friend of David’s in that community.)

  3. And the receptiveness of Charley Blandy, who obviously was guided to graciousness in life by his Republican grandfather, when I first began to heckle here.

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    p>So – the crazy uncle in in the attic (really, the fifth floor with the peeling yellow paint in The Building) lifts a glass of cranberry jiuce to you all in thankfulness!

  4. …and especially those of us active in politics, Thanksgiving history has added significance.  The settlers in Plymouth, both true Pilgrims and “strangers”, by necessity and opportunity, brought self-governance to these shores.  Before they even went ashore the men of the community drafted and signed the Mayflower Compact:

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    In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are under-written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, etc.

    Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the eleventh of November, in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Dom. 1620.

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    p>To this day both towns and Congregational churches (many, not coincidently, located in the center of said towns) pride themselves in a degree of local autonomy and Town Meeting governance.

  5. Many thanks to my friends and family who wished me a great thanksgiving and still love me even though I couldn’t come back home this year because of flight costs. Greatful to my girlfriend’s family for taking me in this holiday and especially greatful that the refugee’s from their church they invited over are here safe and sound in the states. Thankful for our troops serving all over the world and I pray that they may come safely home and soon. Grateful to live in a country as free and diverse as ours and where most people treat each other, especially around the holidays, with decency and kindness. And of course thankful to our Creator for all He has done for us as well.  

  6. Thanks David, Charlie and Bob for keeping BMG going for five years! And thanks to my fellow posters here at BMG. A very interesting political year ahead and BMG is sure to continue to be a part of the dialogue.

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