Fear is the foundation of most governments.
-John Adams
Saturday, April 29, 2006
BACCHUS' VINE
KEEP SHOVELING
"Explain it as we may, a martial strain will urge a man into the front rank of battle sooner than an argument, and a fine anthem excite his devotion more certainly than a logical discourse." -Henry Tuckerman
The latest manufactured spectacle of race-hatred for political gain is the debate concerning a Spanish translation of the Star-Spangled Banner.
Yes, rather than allow our nation to concern itself with causes of Justice or seeking to contain the encroachment of the Executive on our privacy, we have instead chosen to make a mountain from a hole in the ground. The President, always willing to be a divider when the Republican Party demands sacrifice, agreed that the anthem should remain in English.
When the words were written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key, it was commonplace to recycle melodies. So Key used the melody from To Anacreon in Heaven, a somewhat bawdy (for the time) song created for the Anacreontic Society, a club of amateur musicians.
The anthem wasn't officially adopted until 1931.
There are four verses. Most Americans only know the first verse.
America the Beautiful is considered more popular, and a better song, than the national anthem. We agree with this sentiment.
You can check out this kos Diary for a Yiddish translation and the text of a Polish translation made in the late 1800s.
Or, if you enjoy your irony mind-shattering, you can venture over to the US State Department online, where they have not only a whole section in Spanish (along with four translations of the national anthem), but five other non-English languages - Including traitorous French!
The wave of immigrant-bashing nationalism is unsurprising given the current level of tension and dissatisfaction. The resurgent wave of Know-Nothings/Do-Nothings are little more than the Bowery Boys reborn, exploiting political trends as conduits for tribalistic atavism.
Freedom Fries was ridiculous enough, a self-satirical rerun of Liberty Cabbage. Now we've reached the point where the President must condemn a pop-music reworking of an official song with obtuse lyrics, an impossible melody and a long history of being translated into other languages as a nod to our multicultural heritage. Absurd bigotry makes a mockery of us all.
