Marc Estrin : Our Unsingable National Anthem

Bombs bursting in air…
Oh say can you sing?

By Marc Estrin / The Rag Blog / March 11, 2010

Oh, say can you see? o sa cn u c? When did we have to stand and sing this at hockey games? Revolutionary War? The War of 1812? Maybe the Civil War? Actually it wasn’t until this week in another Great Depression year, 1931, that President Hoover signed a congressional resolution creating “our national anthem.”

Originally a British drinking song, the octave and a half tune is quite unsingable — at least for the average Joe when sober — to the point that “the rockets’ red glare” or “conquer we must,” or even “freeeeeee” take on a grotesque crowd cacophony so beautifully illustrative of our drone attacks for democracy around the world.

In November of 2001, shortly after 9/11, along with the music to be played (one piece being Grieg’s Two Elegiac Melodies) the players found on their stands the music to The Star Spangled Banner. The orchestra board had decided that from here on, we would begin each concert, to a standing audience, with this hymn to patriotism. I stood up and objected, to glares from the other players, and did not participate in the short play-through.

At the next rehearsal, the players found on their stands a little manifesto:

A PERSONAL STATEMENT
For those who find perplexing the opposition to playing the Star-Spangled Banner.

At the present moment, the Star-Spangled Banner is not just the Star-Spangled Banner, but is also a clear, even fierce, political CODE. For those of us in the peace movement, here is what the code signifies:

— My country right or wrong.
— Rally behind the President, regardless of his agenda.
There are corollaries to the code, not as universally espoused:
— You are with America or against it.
— If you don’t support the war, you are a traitor.

As I stand daily at a Burlington peace vigil, I am acutely aware of a dangerously violent strain of jingoism, as some people yell obscenities at us, and advise us loudly to “Kill ’em all!” or “Nuke ’em.” One guy even swerved onto the sidewalk yesterday threatening to swipe the vigilers. Invariably, these cars are flying the largest possible flags on antennas and windows, and the comments often accuse us of not supporting America. [This was back then; mostly we get thumbs up now.]

There are those of us who believe that democracy involves multiple opinions, not unanimity, and that patriotism can require criticizing the government, especially in a thrust involving killing innocent civilians, skewing domestic budgets toward military spending, and tightening down on civil rights in the name of “security.” I personally — and I am not alone — believe that our current course, far from increasing national security, will seriously increase the odds of further attacks against hated Americans.

It would surely be appropriate to acknowledge the tragedies spinning around us, and to dedicate the Grieg elegiac pieces to the victims of terrorism — which I understand to mean ALL victims of ALL terrorism, individual, group and state terrorism, everywhere. But playing the Star-Spangled Banner transforms the sentiment into the CODE, and implies the orchestra’s support for the Bush/Cheney agenda. I think this inappropriate for us to do.

Sincerely,

Marc Estrin

By the first rehearsal of next spring’s concert, it seems all this had been forgotten — no Star Spangled Banner was on the stands or at the concert. Did I win? I doubt it. Probably the “good intentions” were just gobbled up by the memory hole.

But what wasn’t gobbled was the jingoist military muscularity — now enshrined ever more fiercely in our foreign and domestic policies — making any “national anthem” (much less the unsingable SSB) stick in the craw of peace-loving, humane singers except of course those who have substituted the far simpler-to-sing obsessive compulsive chant, USA! USA! USA! USA!

Franklin warned us as he left the Constitutional Convention in 1787. A reporter asked: “Well, Doctor, what have we got — a Republic or a Monarchy?” The good doctor famously responded: “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

When the bankers and political crooks seized on the opportunities offered them by the nation’s founding documents, the founders, whatever their differences, lamented:

Hamilton spoke of “the culpable desire of gaining or securing popularity at an immediate expense of public utility.”

John Adams: ”Oh my country, how I mourn over thy contempt of Wisdom and Virtue and overweening admiration of fools and knaves!”

Jefferson feared the onslaught of “pseudo-citizens infected with the mania of rambling and gambling” among those obsessed with commerce and moneymaking.

Madison had hoped that ordinary people would have the “virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom” as their representatives; if not, he warned, no government could “render us secure.”

Oh, say, could they see? You betcha. We, as a nation, are just beginning to understand what they saw.

[Marc Estrin is a writer and activist, living in Burlington, Vermont. His novels, Insect Dreams, The Half Life of Gregor Samsa, The Education of Arnold Hitler, Golem Song, and The Lamentations of Julius Marantz have won critical acclaim. His memoir, Rehearsing With Gods: Photographs and Essays on the Bread & Puppet Theater (with Ron Simon, photographer) won a 2004 theater book of the year award. He is currently working on a novel about the dead Tchaikovsky.]

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