It’s almost like liberals don’t love America.
Via Newsbusters:
On Monday night’s All Things Considered, NPR interviewed Sheryl Kaskowitz, the author of a new book on the “iconic” song “God Bless America.”
While NPR has no trouble excluding conservative views from their programs, the taxpayer-funded radio playground always enjoys highlighting the unpatriotic view, namely, that Woody Guthrie thought it was “a whitewash of everything wrong in America” and that some people (NPR listeners, surely) felt it was a “tune of syrupy nationalism and trivialized faith.”
The song’s story sounds interesting. Anchor Robert Siegel declared the song “has not only endured, it has become a statement of patriotism, of home-front support for troops at war. In the Vietnam era, it was an anthem of counter-protest. And while it has brought a lump to the throat of many an American, it has also annoyed many who hear it as a tune of syrupy nationalism and trivialized faith.” The song was originally composed in 1918, then reworked for Kate Smith in 1938:
ROBERT SIEGEL: In the original lyric, the singer beseeches God to stand beside her and guide her to the right with a light from above, not through the night with a light from above. That had changed by 1938.
SHERYL KASKOWITZ: Yes, that’s right. In 1938, that sense of something being guided to the right had an association with fascism.