Sit Down, Mr. Greenwood

How did the dumbest song become so popular?

The first time I was criticized for being uncooperative was in a Sunday School class when I was in my early 20s. Before the class started, David, our teacher, a very likable man, a few years older than me, asked if anyone had a word of testimony or a blessing to share, something they were praising the Lord for. It was a “young marrieds” class with about 20 or so of us, all of us married within the last 3 to 5 years and in our 20s.

One of the women, Janet, raised her hand to praise the Lord. Janet said, “I just want to praise the Lord for taking care of us. We were driving home on the expressway when, up ahead of us, a bad wreck was happening. There were three cars involved, and it was terrible. We think some folks were seriously hurt, maybe even killed. It was terrible, terrible. We continued on our way, praising the Lord for looking out for us.”

Everyone said, “Amen.” But I didn’t. I had trouble with what Janet said. First, I didn’t understand why they just kept driving and didn’t stop to help. And second, I thought what she said about the Lord looking out for her and everyone in her car was wrong. What about those people in the wreck? Why wasn’t God looking out for them, too? What about them?

I raised my hand, and David said, “Tony, do you have a praise that you’d like to share?”

“Well, not really. I have a couple of questions,” I said. I was new to Sunday School classes, where you would just nod and say “Amen” and not ask difficult questions. I was misled by the words Sunday SCHOOL.

“OK, Tony, what are your questions?” David asked.

“Well, I’m not sure why Janet and them didn’t stop to help, and I’m confused about praising the Lord for her delivery, saying the Lord was looking out for them, but not looking out for the other folks involved in the wreck. What about them?”

Crickets.

Y’all, if looks could kill, I’d have been nearly dead! Plus, my wife sort of kicked my foot, indicating that I should shut up. But I didn’t understand. Wasn’t this a class to ask such questions? Wasn’t this school?

The answer is “NO! It is not!”

No matter how myopic, theologically flawed, and tone deaf the “testimony” was, the only proper response I should have offered up was “Amen.” You don’t confront people like that in a Sunday School class, I learned. You just let it go. I hadn’t learned that lesson yet.

To David’s credit, he recovered well by saying, “Those are good questions, Tony. We can discuss that in the next few weeks.” (We never did.)

In the days after that class, I had people in the class tell my wife that they were embarrassed for her because of my asking about such things. They felt sorry for her having to endure my inappropriate questions. She wasn’t happy with me either, actually. “Just say ‘Amen’ and move on,” I was told. “And quit analyzing the hymns in the hymnal, just sing it and say ‘Amen.’ And quit analyzing the sermons, just listen and say ‘Amen.’”

I never really learned to play along like that, but I did learn to keep quiet. But in my head, there were all kinds of objections and questions. So, I just wrote those things in my notebook, nodded, smiled, and said, “Amen.”

As you might imagine, I did the same thing with the lyrics of “contemporary church” songs. I just wrote my rabble-rousing questions and observations in my notebook.

In 1984, Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” became all the rage. You heard it everywhere. And as usual, I started having objections in my head about the song. What exactly is the song saying? What does it mean? What is it trying to say? Why is such a silly, meaningless song popular? Those objections became stronger when I returned to the US after 10 years in Japan. Blind nationalism is way easier to detect when you’ve been out of the country and living happily in another country.

In 1998, I casually mentioned to a co-worker how ridiculous that song was, after having heard it at halftime at a football game. He just looked at me with a puzzled expression. And then, after 9/11, the song was ubiquitous. It seemed to be playing on a loop everywhere. I can only imagine how much money Lee was hauling in from all of that. But since everyone was hurting and passionate about our country, I gave Mr. Greenwood a pass and held my tongue.

However, since Trump and Greenwood started working together in 2016, my reaction to both has grown in its malignancy.

Let’s take a look at Greenwood’s miserable little 40-year-old song.

If tomorrow all the things were gone I'd worked for all my life

And I had to start again with just my children and my wife

I'd thank my lucky stars to be livin' here today

'Cause the flag still stands for freedom, and they can't take that away.

This verse literally says nothing. Losing everything, no matter where you live—Japan, Australia, Canada—will result in the same response. You start over, you rebuild, you adapt, you improvise, and you overcome. None of that is exclusively American. People do it every day all over the world.

But probably the dumbest thing in that verse is the last line. There are about 100 sovereign countries in the world, and more than half of them have “American-style” freedom. Of the top 10 freest countries in the world, the United States isn’t there. We’re 17th. There are 16 countries whose freedom is superior to ours.

Since ICE has started indiscriminately arresting and deporting people without due process, those last six words ring especially hollow. Unless you’re a middle-aged white man. If you’re a person of color, or a woman, or a member of the LGBTQ community, those six words are a lie.

And I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free

And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me

And I'd gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today

'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land

God bless the USA.

I’ve already addressed the meaninglessness of the first line. The second line begs the question. Which men died to make you free, Lee Greenwood?

No American has died for the freedom of other Americans since 1865. Every war and conflict since then has been to free and liberate other people, to advance American foreign policy, or to keep Americans safe, but not free.

From 1861 to 1865, Americans died to make other Americans free. The Americans who were not free were in bondage to other Americans. So, one group of Americans fought another group of Americans to free another group of Americans.

Lee says there’s no doubt that HE loves this land. Lee is a privileged white man who’s never had to worry about things women and minorities worry about every single day. Lee, you don’t love freedom, you love privilege, and jolly good for you, old chap!

God bless the USA? Why not “God bless this whole wide world?” Why not “God bless Mexico, or Brazil, or Kenya, or Japan?” On the question of God’s blessing, what evidence do you have, Lee, that America is more highly favored by the Almighty than other countries? Remind me how many children have been slaughtered in their American classrooms over the past 25 years. That only happens in America, Lee, where we offer up thoughts and prayers and call that legislation. Tomorrow, there could be another massacre in another school because we love our guns more than our children. Is that the blessing of God, Lee?

Our churches, at least most protestant ones, have both the Christian flag and the American flag on display. Blasphemy! I told a guy that one day, and he launched into the most common lie told and retold, that America was established as a “Christian nation.” There is absolutely no evidence that this was, or is, the case. In fact, the Founders made sure to keep Christianity OUT of the founding documents. Neither God, Jesus, the church, nor the Bible is found in the Constitution. You are free to believe or not to believe. You have both freedom OF religion and freedom FROM religion. I asked that guy if he thought it would be OK for Christian churches in Japan to display the Japanese battle flag in their churches. Or how about churches in the old Soviet Union to display the hammer and sickle in their churches? What kind of message is that? In Nazi Germany, the swastika flag was on display in the churches.

The third verse in God Bless the USA is just a travelogue of American places. Greenwood recorded a similar song for Canada, and he included a Canadian travelogue in that one too.

The rest of the song is just a repeat of the other verses.

And that’s it.

But it’s a catchy tune, I won’t deny that; there’s nothing in it to suggest that it’s strictly American except the travelogue. Greenwood’s Canadian version is just about word-for-word the same.

But Tony, what’s the harm?

It’s bad enough that Greenwood is selling “God Bless the USA” Bibles. For $60, you can get a Lee Greenwood King James Version of the Bible signed by Lee Greenwood. Or you could just ask the Gideons International, and they’ll give you one. Or, you could help yourself to a copy at Motel 6.

What’s the harm? Well, the song is just stupid, for one thing. It’s mindless. But the real harm is blind nationalism. Combine that with Christian nationalism, and we’ve got the ingredients for disaster.

Extremism never ends well. Never. Extremists, by their very nature, do not negotiate or compromise. They insist on their way. Every confederacy of extremists gets rid of those that the whole gaggle opposes. And after that, they go after one another.

Here in the south, you’ll find a church on every street corner. In one neighborhood here in Memphis, TN, there are six churches in a short half-mile. None of them agrees with one another. Faction is part of the Christian Church DNA.

These evangelical fools who think they want a Christian theocracy are the worst of pseudo-theological nincompoops. They’ll do their worst and then act confused when the whole thing blows up in their faces. And their heretical support of Donald Trump erased all of the goodwill that might have been nurtured along the way. No one trusts Trump outside of his personality cult, and the American church has done more to set the message of Christ back a hundred years or more. One thing Trump and his evangelical Elmer Gantrys have in common? No one trusts either of them.

“I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.” ~Alexis de Tocqueville

Trump’s version of Joseph Goebbels, Stephen Miller, said, "Children will be taught to love America. Children will be taught to be patriots. Children will be taught civic values for schools that want federal taxpayer funding." Wow. Nothing fascist about that, is there?

The America that Miller, Trump, the Evangelical knuckledraggers, and the community college dropouts who wrote Project 2025 want is an America that has never existed and never should. A pox on the house of every fool who voted for this administration. We’ll be lucky to survive it.

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