Nick Revell

I was doing a bit of anti-war stuff at a gig recently and prefaced it by saying that I didn't want to imply that all Americans were war-mongering morons ­ but that these were smart gags and like smart bombs, they sometimes do collateral damage despite what the makers claim. Couple of gags in, I got heckled by an American. I kind of lost my temper.
His heckle was "God Bless America."
There was vocal objection from the crowd, but I stopped them. And then improvised this put-down.

God Bless America?
Well that depends on what you mean. If you mean God Bless the America of Woody Guthrie, Martin Luther King, Bob Dylan, Franklin D Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, then yeah, God Bless America.

Frank Capra, Mark Twain. Jay Leno, Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Bill Hicks ­ then, God Bless America.

If you mean God Bless the magnificent idealism contained in your Declaration of Independence and your Constitution ­ what a testament to faith in human nature and understanding of its limits - based incidentally as I'm sure you know, largely on the ideas of Voltaire, Diderot and Montesquieu ­ who were French. Or Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys as I believe you so wittily term them now... and we accuse you of having no sense of irony: There you are hurling insults at the French on the relative merits of your diets. That seems pretty fucking ironic to me.

If you mean God Bless America ­ all men are created equal and have an equal and common right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness ­ then yes, God Bless It.

If you mean God Bless America of Emma Goldman ­ "Bring me your poor, bring me your tired and huddled masses" ­ then yeah, God Bless It.
Those words of course, inscribed on another present to you from the French­ unless the original statue was melted down by Oliver North into bullets for the Contras as some rumours have it.
And by the way, is it just another rumour that the lines go on now? "Bring me your tired and huddled masses and I will make them work for minimum wage and live in appalling fear and poverty while they wait for all that wealth to "trickle down"?

If you mean God Bless the America of people like Rachel Corrie­ young, beautiful, and with her whole life ahead of her- who chose- chose- to live and protest in the ghetto called Gaza that your government and their barbaric Israeli allies sustain while traducing and staining the memory of the Holocaust victims with their disgusting and indeed counter-productive brutality. If you mean people like Rachel Corrie, crushed to death by an Israeli Defence Force bulldozer (Defence Force? There's another fucking irony) protesting for justice and liberty and fighting without weapons for the idea that all are equal and entitled to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then God Bless America. If you mean God Bless that America, then ­ as I believe they say in Philadelphia ­ then, fucking-A, God Bless America.

If you're talking God Bless America about the Americans that I know from Georgia to Oregon, from Boston to California­ from sea to shining sea ­ generous, delightful, newspaper-reading, democratic and caring ­ then God Bless America.

If you're talking about all the millions who risked and often gave their lives for civil rights and gay rights­ God Bless America.

If you're talking about the servicemen who fought and died against the Nazis, then God Bless America.
Although ­to be unfair - you did take your time didn't you? ­ So don't fucking give me any of that "If it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking German", 'cause we stuck it out for two years on our own, getting the equivalent of the twin towers nearly every day for eighteen months.
And by the way, I do speak German. And French. And Spanish and Italian. And a little bit of Swedish, Greek, Welsh, and Hungarian. And enough to be polite in Arabic and Hebrew. Just threw that in to show it's not just Americans and Germans who can be arrogant.

If you're talking about the America of Steve Earle and John Steinbeck and Maya Angelou and Lisa Simpson, then God Bless America.

But, on the other hand, if you say God Bless America and you're talking about the self-serving cabal of war-mongering gangsters and religious hypocrites who run your wonderful country as an arrogant blundering profit-hoovering war-machine - without even being elected, then fuck you and everyone else in the ring-fenced muddy hole at the shallow end of the gene-pool you crawled out of.

And by the way­ if there actually is a Supreme Being to carry out the blessing, I'll bet my last... Euro that when Dubya and his team of plundering robber barons get to the Pearly Gates, then that Supreme Being will shove them off the cliff and into the lake of fire so fast, He wouldn't be able to piss on them to put out the flames even if He wanted to.

So Peace and Love and let me get on with my work.

I'll take the First Amendment; you take the Fifth.

contact:
Gail A. Stocker
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