God Bess America

June 29th, 2004

At the Reagan funeral in the National Cathedral they played a superb arrangement of The Battle Hymn of the Republic with a mixed chorus and orchestra. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s wonderful words once more called upon our nation as they had when they were first written during the Civil War. “In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,” she wrote, “With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me: As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.” Although I thought five days of Reagan funeral celebrations had principally a political intent, this particular moment brought tears to my eyes.

We have done a lot right as Americans, more right than wrong. On occasions like this it is fitting to celebrate the right and leave the wrong to be acknowledged on another day. Ronald Reagan was a nice man, a very popular president and is somewhat mis-credited for the fall of the Soviet Union. In my view, he had his limitations and made his share of mistakes, but as the old Latin saw goes, de mortius nil nisi bonum [of the dead speak only good], especially at a funeral. The analysis of Reagan’s presidency and his place in history is not the subject here, although I confess that the recent polls indicating that the public would put him right up there with Lincoln and Washington are a little much.

I am proud to be an American. Saying that does not make one a jingoist or an apologist for what we, or the president, or some of our troops have done in Iraq and elsewhere. I am proud that despite the mistakes, we have a democracy that is among the best in the world, at least where freedom is concerned. Our problem today is that our democracy is under attack from both foreign and domestic sources.

Those of us who are aghast at the actions of President Bush and his cabal are often accused of being unpatriotic and not supporting the brave men and women who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nothing could be further from the truth. We support them by trying to ensure that they do not make the supreme sacrifice for a bad reason.

The essence of democracy is the right to criticize the government. To exercise that right in good faith is to confirm that democracy. To suppress it by branding opponents as unpatriotic is, charitably, to misunderstand ones political adversaries. A case in point is the right wing characterization of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 as unpatriotic because it is unfavorable to the President of the United States. I have not seen the picture nor have most of these critics. Yet, if criticism of a sitting president is unpatriotic, then almost half of the electorate has been unpatriotic from the time of John Adams on.

These critics are motivated by ideology, not facts. Another case in point is that of Deputy Defense, Paul Wolfowitz. Recently he testified before the House Armed Services Committee saying, “Frankly, part of our problem is a lot of the press are afraid to travel very much, so they sit in Baghdad and they publish rumors.” Wolfowitz later apologized for the statement, noting that “since the beginning of hostilities in Iraq, 34 journalists have given their lives; many others have been injured while bring us that story.” It is evident that Wolfowitz made his original statement because it fitted with his ideology bias—that the war was being inaccurately portrayed in the media—rather than his knowledge of the facts. It is well that he corrected the record, but the illustration is apt.

Many have noted that political divisions in this country have become more personal than they ever before; that political opponents find it impossible to work together and inevitably accuse each other of bad faith. I rather doubt that is good history. The era leading up to the Civil War was certainly not an example of civilized political debate. Whatever the history, we are in an era where political opponents are characterized as bad men as distinguished from men who may be well motivated but are simply wrong. A recent correspondent accused me of having hoped that the terrorists would harm President Bush. This was because I suggested that a good president would have insisted on returning to Washington immediately after learning of the attacks on 9/11 to rally morale if nothing else rather than flying off to Omaha for protection sake. That is exactly what I mean. He characterized me as an evil man rather than merely wrong, if that was what it was.

President Bush may have committed all sorts of misfeasance and malfeasance but I do not accuse him of hoping to create a 9/11 or acting in some way which he thought to be harmful to our country even in his invasion of Iraq. To say that I believe Bush to be a product of his class, with the limited vision that implies and the confusion of his class’ interests with those of the country’s that attend it, is not to say that I believe him unpatriotic. To paraphrase Lincoln, he has faith in the political right, as God gives him to see that right. Unfortunately Lincoln’s phrase, while it served Lincoln’s noble purpose at the time, is not much comfort now. More people have met unnatural deaths in God’s cause than any other. Don’t be offended. You get the point if you understand the various names by which God is called: Jehovah, Christ, Allah, Buddha, The Great Spirit, etc.

Liberals like me are entitled to stand proudly when the flag goes by and do. We recite the Pledge (with or without the words “under God”) and display our national banner on July 4th. In fact it flies on its flag pole every day at my house. We need not concede patriotism to our political enemies. They may use patriotism to blatantly advance their interests more than we do, but the defense of the kind of rights for which we stand is, dare I say it, a higher patriotism than theirs. We, not they, have protected this country from revolution both on the right and the left. During the depression, the conservative programs would surely have led to a revolution by desperate people seeking to relieve their desperation. It is the liberals who put into effect programs which ameliorated that desperation and saved the country.

Liberals have fought for the well being of ordinary Americans against the interests of the super rich who control the major corporations. And now liberalism seems to be at its nadir. Even the Democrats are centrists, although the Republicans often characterize them otherwise.

Tom Paine was traveling with the Continental Troops under Washington as they fled from the disasters of the Battle of Brooklyn and New York. Starting by the light of a campfire in Newark and continuing through camp after camp as the continually diminishing American forces were chased through New Jersey, Paine wrote The American Crisis. As David Hackett Fischer puts it in his wonderful history Washington’s Crossing:

The first sentence had the cadence of a drumbeat. Even after two hundred years, its opening phrases still have the power to lift a reader out of his seat. ‘These are the times that try men’s souls,’ Paine began. ‘The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.’

Paine’s The American Crisis, according to Fischer, revitalized the American cause and made it viable. As Fischer puts it again:

This great revival grew from defeat, not from victory. The awakening was a response to a disaster. Doctor Benjamin Rush, who had a major role in the event, believed that this was the way a free republic would always work, and the American republic in particular. He thought it was a national habit of the American people (maybe all free people) not to deal with a difficult problem until it was nearly impossible. ‘Our republics cannot exist long on prosperity,’ Rush wrote. ‘We require adversity and appear to possess most of the republican spirit when most depressed.’

These are indeed times that try men’s souls and we are at our most depressed. Let us not shrink from the service of this country. We liberals must have the courage to stand and fight the forces that are destroying our democracy and may lead to the destruction of our country as well. If Benjamin Rush was right, in the end we will triumph.

God bless America.