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Tuesday, September 25, 2007

But wait a minute...don't THEY call US "America-Haters"?
Posted by Jill | 7:26 AM
Now let me see if I have this straight...if you don't mindlessly support everything George W. Bush wants to do, you're an America-hater.

Then please explain this:





What do you think would happen if, say, a Democratic debate featured a "reworking" of God Bless America? You'd hear Limbaugh and Hannity and everyone who's currently having the vapors over the Moveonlorg ad screaming from here to Mars and back. So why is it acceptable for a Republican debate, featuring candidates who regard everyone who doesn't equate president with country, to start things rolling with lyrics like these (courtesy of the Carpetbagger Report):


Why should God bless America?
She’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back
On everything that made her what she is.

Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sin and heal our land

The courts ruled prayer out of our schools
In June of ‘62
Told the children “you are your own God now
So you can make the rules”
O say can you see what that choice
Has cost us to this day
America, one nation under God, has gone astray

Why should god bless America?
She’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back on everything
That made her what she is

Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sins and heal our land

In ‘73 the Courts said we
Could take the unborn lives
The choice is yours don’t worry now
It’s not a wrong, it’s your right

But just because they made it law
Does not change God’s command
The most that we can hope for is
God’s mercy on our land

Why should God bless America?
She’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back on everything
That made her what she is

Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sins and heal our land


Irving Berlin, like my grandparents and so many others, came to the United States to escape the pogroms when he was only five years old. In 1918, he wrote the song that would later become "God Bless America" as a war anthem for a revue he was writing. The song was put aside because it didn't fit with the show's light theme. In 1938, he was asked to come up with a patriotic song for Kate Smith to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the armistice that ended WWI, so he picked it up again as war was brewing in Europe and reworked it as a peace song. Kate Smith sang it on the radio on Armistice Day that year, and the rest is history. Berlin donated his royalties from the song to the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Campfire Girls, saying he refused to capitalize on patriotism.

If there was ever a gesture so antithetical to the spirit of this song as written by its author, and to archetypal early 20th century immigrant experience in which so many of us claim roots, it's this one. The Baline family came to this country seeking freedom from the persecution they faced in Russia as Jews. Irving Berlin, in writing this song, sought to celebrate this country without using bellicose rhetoric, for he'd seen what violence does. And he used his royalties to help children's organizations. When he wrote the WWII song "Any Bonds Today":





...he donated the proceeds directly to the Army.

Politically, Irving Berlin was a conservative, but his most famous song reveals an understanding that patriotism was not about mindless jingoism, nor was it about turning his beloved adopted country into a fundamentalist Christian nation. If he saw what these hatemongers have done to his song, he would puke.

(via TPM)
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