Remember a few years ago, when there was a whole flap about the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance? Certain atheists and other non-Christian groups pushed to remove the words, not merely because they are antithetical to the principles of this nation, but also because they are a corruption of the original Pledge (which did not contain the words) and were added as part of one of the more distasteful episodes in our recent history, the McCarthy communism witch hunt.
The common refrain from the Right Wingnuts at the Fox Nuisance Channel, on this and just about every other liberal issue, is to condemn the proponents as "hating America".
Two words, added to the Pledge, but to even dare suggest that perhaps it should be restored to it's original glory (strict constructionism of the Pledge) gets that kind of reaction.
How about the flap over the National Anthem, when certain liberal groups wanted to sing it in Spanish among the Latin-American population? No one even suggested changing the words (except to the extent that the translated words needed to fit the essential rhythm of the song), just translating them into Spanish, and to hear the extreme Right Wing water carriers tell it, to even suggest it was to shake babies, kick puppies and urinate upon the Constitution.
So imagine the response from that crowd if anyone had, even in jest, parodied one of those songs into an anti-war number. Imagine hearing
America the Beautiful sung with lyrics of "ebon waves of oil" or references to Abu Ghraib or Haditha. You can just hear Bill O'Reilly screaming at how this just proves that liberals hate America, right?
So why doesn't this get so much as a mention?
2 Comments:
The things I learn from you!
I feel quite embarrassed that I don't follow the news much anymore. Heck, I turn to your blog to learn the latest. It could be I'm lazy. It could be I've hit a stretch of not wanting to watch the news. Afterall, when I moved, I elected to save money and not buy cable, and as a happy consequence I get only 3 channels. Maybe I just don't want to follow the long drawn out political race. But I'm considering throwing my television out the window, after viewing the frequent ads of soldiers and their families pleading with us to support Bush and the war in Iraq.
So whatever you do, don't stop you blog, it's now my source of news (how sad is that?). lol
Ok, back to my point (do I have one?). I think you should write your own song parodies. You're a creative dude.
Sunday, September 23, 2007 9:37:00 PM
I completely understand your feelings. If you look back at this blog, you'll see there's been a long dry spell, mostly since the last election last November.
It gets very tiring after a while seeing how this country could be so much better and not seeing any of it come to fruition.
Then again, in some ways we're safer when things don't change very fast, because while it means things don't get BETTER quickly, it also means they can't get WORSE quickly, either. Inertia ain't all bad. :-)
And as to the song parodies, I've actually tried. The sad thing is that I can do a passable job, but they always feel forced to me. The ability to be funny in time to the beat does not come naturally to me, and so I find I can either come up with words that fit the rhythm of the music... but aren't that funny, or words that are funny... but don't fit the music.
Still, nice to hear from you again!
Liam.
Sunday, September 23, 2007 10:00:00 PM
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