Thursday, March 20, 2008

Memory Hole, IOKIYAR Edition

We didn’t even have to dig too deep to find this one, either. While the mainstream media continues to attack Rev. Wright and even Michelle Obama for statements viewed as unpatriotic, last September a conservative church choir appearing at the “Values Voter Debate” rewrote the words to “God Bless America.” In the new version, the song condemns America:
Why should God bless America?
She’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back
On everything that made her what she is.

Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sin and heal our land

The courts ruled prayer out of our schools
In June of ‘62
Told the children “you are your own God now
So you can make the rules”
O say can you see what that choice
Has cost us to this day
America, one nation under God, has gone astray

Why should god bless America?
She’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back on everything
That made her what she is

Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sins and heal our land

In ‘73 the Courts said we
Could take the unborn lives
The choice is yours don’t worry now
It’s not a wrong, it’s your right

But just because they made it law
Does not change God’s command
The most that we can hope for is
God’s mercy on our land

Why should God bless America?
She’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back on everything
That made her what she is
Why should God stand beside her
Through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America
Forgive her sins and heal our land

Where was the outrage? What talking heads, columnists, pundits, newscasters have mentioned this as the Obama-Rev. Wright issue has hit the headlines?

*crickets*crickets*crickets*

This divide is a perfect example of what Atrios posted last week: that conservatives and the religious right have a distorted vision of the American past, which they believe has been corrupted by all things liberal. Liberals and the liberal church believe America's past contains deep flaws and injustrices, but the country can still be great in the future. This failure to agree on the American experience drives the competing narratives of right and left.

What I don’t get is the hostility toward one message and not the other. Why is it that liberals are called the “blame America first” crowd for pointing out the flaws of our history, while conservatives blame contemporary America for everything from natural disasters to acts of terrorism and they get a pass?

(h/t, Digby)