My Country 'Tis of Thee

 

Sitting here on a foggy July 4th morning, I'm well aware that patriotic fervor will parade through the streets of America today.  

There will be flags, uniforms, the brandishing of weapons. Then, as the sun sets from sea to shining sea, the night skies will explode with fireworks.

At this moment, though, I can't imagine singing "America the Beautiful" without breaking into tears.  

As I pause to try to describe my relationship to the United States of America, the first thought that emerges is: "it's complicated."  

When I breath in and open my heart, marriage vows come to mind.  For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, I'm wedded to this country.  I've now touched the earth and breathed the air of 49 of it's 50 states.  I love this land and it's people.  The vision of American Democracy that I grew up with still stirs my soul -- and it drives me to tears.

True Love is like that.  It breaks your heart.  

My patriotism, though, is not blind.  The veil was pierced when I was a child.  Watching the Civil Rights movement emerge on the evening news, I knew.  The American Dream was laced with nightmares all along. There was more work to be done.

I'd wager that many of those who claim "my country right or wrong," is their bottom line never read past the semi-colon in the original quote.  A German immigrant, journalist and public servant, Carl Shurz spoke these words on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1872:

"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." 

(italics added)

 

Over the years, along with countless millions of other Americans, I've tried to do what I can to set it right.  My heart has led my body into action, again and again, to protest the failure of America to live up to its own professed ideals.  I've sat in, stood up, marched forth, and rallied for these ideals. I've knocked on doors, staffed phone banks and web campaigns, written letters, essays, and songs.  I've attended meetings. I've listened to speeches. I've delivered others. 

Apparently, it hasn't been enough.  

 

Yet, at age 79, I ain't done.  For all it's flaws, America is my beloved community.  It's "til death do us part."

Back Then

 

America was a different place when I was growing up.  

 

After unbridled capitalism hurled the world over the edge in 1929, a new consensus had been formed.  The mainstream Republican Party that emerged after World War Two had accepted that the government had a crucial role in "establishing justice and promoting the general welfare." It still had a sense of common decency. 

In fact, in 1952, the newly elected Republican President, Dwight Eisenhower, labeled those who opposed the New Deal as "stupid!" He later put the power of Federal troops behind the Supreme Court decision that segregation schools were unconstitutional.  

Although his foreign policy was still largely dominated by Cold War hawks, the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in World War Two knew well the horrors of war.  In his farewell address to Congress, popularly known as his Guns and Butter speech, he decried the impact of allocating resources that could be used to build schools and houses and hospitals to the military. Coining the term "military-industrial complex," he warned that its wealth and power would endanger American democracy. 

A couple of decades later the next Republican President, Richard Nixon, signed landmark environmental legislation, OHSA, and the Medicare Act into law, famously claiming, "we are all Keynesians now." 

It wasn't a perfect world back then, of course.  Large numbers of people had to hit the streets in protest during the civil rights, anti-war, and environmental movements of the 1960's and 1970's to "bend the moral arc of history toward justice."  Yet, there was a sense that the course of human history was basically progressive.  It seemed that we, as a people, were basically decent.  Although there was resistance, at times violent, from the fringes of society, it seemed we were in the process of increasingly "setting it right."

And Now...

After decades of well-financed and pervasive right-wing organizing throughout all the major institutions in society, viewpoints that were once considered aberrant, crazy, even un-american when I was growing up, are now mainstream.

Since the early 1970's, Organized Wealth (the term used by the late broadcast journalist and public servant, William Moyers in 2012)  has bankrolled a mean-spirited and arrogant cadre of television personalities, radio talk show hosts, so-called Christian broadcasters, and print pundits to reshape the way that Americans viewed the world.   Some of these figures joined others, often wealthy and/or well-financed, into public office. 

One is now President of the United States,

Over the course of my lifetime, I've seen ideologies, attitudes and behaviors that were decidedly uncool when I was growing up, seize center stage.  The "kill a commie for Christ" fringe, became the Moral Majority.  A former KKK Grand Wizard became a U.S. Senator.  A marginalized John Birch Society (they believed that Dwight Eisenhower a communist) was joined in far right propagandizing by the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council , AIPAC, and a myriad other millionaire-financed think tanks to generate a concerted attack on Progressive values. The left was demonized.  The norms of respectful civic discourse were ridiculed. 

Over time, authoritarism became cool to more and more people.

  And today, with the Trump 2.0 operating system in place, after four more years of well-financed MAGA manipulation and Project 25 planning during the Biden Administration, we have the bully in the presidential pulpit ruling through executive (dis)order and deceit. 

 Claiming he would make Americans safer by deporting criminals, ICE has swept down on honest, hardworking immigrants drawn to this country by its promise of liberty. Men, women, and children are being jailed and deported without due process.   

Posturing as a man of peace, he's doubled down on warfare.  American missles and warplanes -- without a declaration of war passed by Congress -- have bombed Yemen and Iran.

Through it all, Trump continues to demonize or mock those who oppose him.  He threatens those who challenge him -- even within his own party -- with ruin.  A razor-slim Republican congressional majority cowers and passes legislation that will harm millions of the nation's oldest and poorest citizens.

On his first watch, we saw the unimaginable emerge.  Now, it's become commonplace.

So, today, July 4, 2025, I'll allow myself to grieve.  Tomorrow, perhaps, I'll focus on gratitude for all those champions of peace and justice who have graced our history.  I'll bow to all those who continue to resist tyranny.  I'll open my heart in gratitude to the One Love that sustains all Life.  Then, I'll  roll up my sleeves and continue to do what I can do about setting it right.

How about you?