The Cynic Express(ed) 3.01: Time for a New National Anthem

     Every couple of months, I hear about some group trying to convince Congress and the American people, or at least the present earnest representatives of the local television station's Crack Human Interest Investigative Team, that we should change our national anthem from the "Star-Spangled Banner" to something more innocuous, like "America the Beautiful" or "America" or "God Bless the USA." The reporter furrows his or her brows and voices over the lack of progress that the group has made. Typically, I pooh-poohed the idea, as much as a cynic typically pooh-poohs anything. After all, "The Star-Spangled Banner" reflects America.

     I was at a hockey game with the love of my life a few weeks ago, and I epiphanied how out-of-touch the national anthem really is.

     After all, they played it before a hockey game. I mean, I don't think the players really appreciated it. After all, the St. Louis Blues feature the all-Slovak line backed two All-Star Canadian defensemen and a Canadian goalie. None of the American youth in the audience had the sense to face the flag as the anthem was sung-some of them even talked to each other. At least no one ordered a beer.

     As I listened to the words again, I thought about the circumstances behind the song's composition.

     In 1814, the fresh-faced United States faced invasion from the north as the British decided to stage the American War of Independence II. Francis Scott Key visited the British fleet to retrieve one Dr. William Beanes, who had been captured by the British as they burned Washington, D.C. Key ended up spending the night in the Chesapeake Bay. The British spent the night shelling Fort McHenry, a fort protecting Baltimore.

     The next morning, Key delighted in seeing that the American flag still flew over the fort. Hence, he saw, by the dawn's early light what he had hailed at the twilight's last gleaming. After watching over the walls and having a steady night's precipitation of rockets' red glare and bombs bursting in air, the Americans held on. Key probably found it an inspirational metaphor for the young republic. Sometimes I still do, too.

     Although more often I am struck by the distance we have come. Whereas I respect the tenacity and the we're-tough-and-we-hang-on tenacity the song celebrates, I am hard pressed to find anything resembling it in today's foreign policy. Whereas we fended off invasion and subjugation in the War of 1812, I do not see anything in the last couple of miniwars-The Persian Gulf War, Haiti, Somalia, Panama, or the Kosovo crisis-that matches that level of courage and stick-to-itness.

     Oh, sure, the rockets' red glare and the bombs bursting in air seems especially apropos in the flickering light of the air war over Kosovo right now. Some commentators and opposing foreign governments decry the United States for its gunboat diplomacy. A suitably bankrupt metaphor. The United States is participating in slingshot democracy, wherein the we pedal our husky little bully selves by a European neighbor's house, throw a couple of rocks through the window, and pedal safely to our block as fast as our stubby little B2s can carry us.

     No, the United States foreign policy resolve has been a little lacking in the last decade. Certainly, we expelled Iraq from Kuwait, but we have also compromised and backed down from Iraq whenever we could make a threat. That regional dictator remains in power and as powerful as ever. We've also invaded Somalia and seized a warlord there, but not without the cost of a couple of American casualties. When our enemies dragged their triumph through the streets, we did not get justifiably angry and level Mogadishu, we formulated an hasty exit strategy, complete with our collective tails between our collective legs, and left, subsequently releasing the warlord a couple of weeks later.

     No, military action in the nineties and probably well into the aughts is about exit strategies instead of victories. Damned if we do and damned if the public opinion sways unfavorably, we first cry, "Hold, enough!" Unlike the men of Fort McHenry, we bear little national resolve around the crises that our government and media create for us, where our only stake is some moral high ground proffered by the same forces who would have us not judge others and tolerate cultural differences.

     So I guess the time has indeed come for a new national anthem. Perhaps something by Jim Croce, like "Leroy Brown" or "Don't Mess Around With Jim," which warn of being the baddest superpower in the whole damn world but in trouble when messing with oil burning pains named Saddam Hussein. Something modern, something today. Something which even if we did not know the words and did not respect the implications of, at least we it would have a nice beat and we could dance to it.