The heated controversy over the Star Spangled Banner inspired thought. The lyrics of My Country 'Tis of Thee are by Samuel Francis Smith (in England the tune is God Save the Queen.) The last verse of the American song is biased and neglects respect for the separation between church and state. But its other verses are perfect, music that John Stafford Smith wrote for an old English bar song that was turned into the battle poem of Francis Scott Key. In fact there are other songs that would also would be better than the lyrics of Francis Scott Key, a slave owner who was bigoted even in the words that became the national anthem. We are proud of our nation's beauty and majesty. Americans already know the tune of My Country 'Tis of Thee.. The world has become weary of futile wars celebrated by more fireworks in the sky on the Forth of July. Revengeful futile wars are endless with toxic chemical emissions forever circling Earth with child-deforming and cancer-causing diseases. President Hoover endorsed the Star-Spangled Banner Anthem in 193l because one man had introduced it for a bill presented to the House. Meanwhile lawyer Key was quite contradictory. With hatred he opposed the abolition of slavery, but defended a 1783 law supporting African Americans. At the same time Key wanted to send them back to Africa to a land that became Liberia. He had slaves and desired slavery to continue. He believed that Africans were "intellectually and morally inferior to European constitutional rights." As a result his statue in Baltimore was defaced. Regarding football players refusing to stand for the national anthem, we must know our history.
The third verse lyrics of the Star Spangled Banner contains a vicious racist false claim about Africans. There is no law that requires a person to stand for such bigotry of which the United States has a history of cops killing those who have more pigment than the law does. Remember Jonny Gammage who a gang of Pittsburgh cops smothered to death for no reason? The Star Spangled Banner has a history of racism. Meanwhile we honor our flag as we should by flying it, not shredding it by needless windy tyrannical laws that reminds us of stretching a hand out and saying "heil" in public. That's not for America. Nationalism often is the next step to fascism.
The American flag does not celebrate the war of 1812 or the First World War that was supposed to end all wars. The United States flag celebrates peace, justice and freedom, not that the material from which it was made was tattered and withstood barbaric bombing of people whose leaders are deaf to negotiation and talking together through reasoning power.
World Enlightened News, W.E.N.
Helene Smith, writer, musician and artist
