Happy 250th Birthday, America, You Don't Look A Day Over 237!
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From One Tin Soldier to Charlie Daniels, a dual citizen's take on why the mother country will survive its latest midlife crisis.
When I think of where the United States of America is headed today on its Semiquintennial, I am reminded of two songs that define us. The first is the 1970s folk song One Tin Soldier. You’ll only remember it if you’re Of A Certain Age. It was the theme song to the insanely popular 1971 movie Billy Jack—a movie that introduced one of America’s earliest examples of the modern action hero.
Now the valley cried with anger “Mount your horses! Draw your sword!” And they killed the mountain-people So they won their just reward Now they stood beside the treasure On the mountain, dark and red Turned the stone and looked beneath it “Peace on Earth” was all it said
Uber-folk-hippie music and all that. Okay. ‘Peace on Earth’ is totally cliche today. I get it.
But, doesn’t it sound like America? Don’t negotiate with others for their resources, take their land. Destroy their country. And their people. Threaten to make everyone the 51st state. La plus ça change.
But there’s a far more important song I’m reminded of, and it sounds even more relevant for America today:
“Well the eagle's been flyin' slow And the flag's been flyin' low And a lotta people sayin' that America's fixin' to fall Well speakin' just for me And some people from Tennessee We've got a thing or two to tell you all”
I don’t know what will happen to my beloved mother country, and I do love it despite the way it’s acting right now, but I am quite sure about this:
We will survive! (I will resist adding another video.)
Here’s why: We survived an actual Civil War less than 100 years after the Founding Fathers flipped the middle finger to King George III, who pissed himself blue with rage, and declared independence from England.
Civil wars ain’t funny, McGee
Less than a century after the Revolution, the Civil War pitted brother against brother. Sometimes literally. Americans vs Americans over the right to own other human beings, or not. Don’t let the descendants of the sore losers tell you it was over ‘states’ rights’. It wasn’t. One side wanted uber-cheap labor, and the other, more Christian side, were willing to free them, but not marry them.
Nobody alive today can fathom just what this meant for the long-ago severed Union. We make jokes or speculate about another ‘civil war’, but ‘it t’ain’t funny, McGee’, as my mother would have said. Civil wars are fucking brutal. You have no idea. All the South had to deal with was famine and Yankee rape.
Just try living in the 21st century with that, plus your Internet, broadcasts, healthcare, gasoline, clean water and your food supply cut off.
Remember that scene in Gone With The Wind where they have to cut off a man’s leg without anesthetic? That could be you, or your family member—your child. How will you get to the hospital without gas? What will they do for you without electricity? How will you like watching one child die of some common infection because the penicillin was long gone? Or your grandfather die because they ran out of his medication at Walgreen’s?
“This lady may have stumbled But she ain’t never fell. And if the Russians haters don’t believe that They can all go straight to hell!”
If you think I’m exaggerating about modern civil war risks, listen to a turkey-talkin’ Republican, Adam Kinzinger:
So let’s please stop it with the civil war talk.
Life may get far worse before it gets better, but I still believe, at the end of the day, much like the aftermath of World War II, America will stand tall, still. Although everyone will be picking a lot of debris out of their asses for years to come.
I’m not convinced the ruins won’t be extensive, but I don’t think we’ll be devastated.
I’m not sure if Xpocalypse will be from World War III or just plain dang stupidity and pigheadedness (I’m almost entirely certain it won’t be nuclear war), but I think a lot of Americans will die in the process. They already are, with their food aid cut off. Maybe famine. Maybe war. Massive inflation. Destroyed supply and logistics chains. Economic destruction, via the President’s inability to give a shit about Americans while he funnels money to himself, his family, and his rich friends (thank you, Grandma for sacrificing your SNAP, and R.I.P.!). Maybe it will be Civil War, Part Deux: Red vs Blue, rather than Blue vs Gray.
That’s likely the worst-case scenario, unless I’m wrong about nuclear war.
My money’s on self-inflicted economic devastation, but I beg my fellow Americans to prove me wrong. Because you’ll drag the rest of the world down with you.
The cycle of pulling together
I believe in my people, because we survived a real Civil War. We united again, and we got over whatever we needed to. Including the ‘inherent inferiority’ of other human beings, one of the most common and universally human moral faults.
Here’s another reason why I believe we will survive today’s American national division.
Our next big challenge, after the Civil War, was two World Wars, the latter of which being when we fought a guy so hideous his name still stands as the symbol of all things evil.
The weird thing was, before that last war broke out, we all hated each other. Just like now.
Yet eventually we pulled together by putting aside our differences. Once World War II ended—listen up, America haters!—everyone was pretty much sick to death of war so we rebuilt Europe, rebuilt Japan, built our highway infrastructure, passed civil rights legislation, funded the G.I.s to go back to school and learn new skills that didn’t involve killing people, eliminated smallpox, prevented polio, put men on the moon, launched massive social and civil rights campaigns for blacks, women, gays, migrant workers, and others, and, oh yeah, we had sex a lot leading to the Baby Boom.
We will do it again. Even the sex.
From the Bicentennial to the Border Patrol
I was thirteen at America’s Bicentennial. My mother pointed out, like the thirteen original colonies. I was born on June 27th, one week before the Fourth of July. I pointed out that if she hadn’t been in such a hurry to have me that she’d had me induced, I might have been an Independence Baby. Mom pointed out I was already three weeks overdue and she was getting very, very tired of lugging that big load around, struggling to get in and out of her car.
I was old enough to care about the Bicentennial. I was proud that I was alive when our country was celebrating its 200th anniversary and I loved our Bicentennial quarters and Minutes.
I remember thinking ahead to the 250th in, what, <calculates in teenage head> 2026 and what that would be like. Never would I have dreamed, nor anyone I knew at the time, that I would be living in Canada, driven out partially by the slide towards authoritarianism under George Bush II, and that I would be afraid to cross my mother country’s border to celebrate the 250th there.
Which I would have done otherwise.
I’m not paranoid; I know what the law says: The border HAS to let me over, eventually, because I’m a U.S. citizen. But. An administration that acknowledges no commitment to our laws or our Constitutional rights. So sue us, bitch!
While the chances are pretty slim, I can’t risk winding up in a foreign shithole prison or in whatever replaces Alligator Alcatraz. I’m disappointed I can’t be there with the rest of you, but I’m staying home. I can’t risk it.
But a beer for me, kids. I’ll be back. I can ride out this crazy old coot and his clown car of MAGAts.
And I do believe in you!
“We’re gonna put her feet back On the path of righteousness and then God Bless America again!” - Charlie Daniels Band, 1980
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