US Confirms Saddam's Capture

Op U Almag vas vertrouend het ons vadere gebou:
Skenk ook ons die krag, o Here! om te handhaaf en te hou
Dat die erwe van ons vaad're vir ons kinders erwe bly:
Knegte van die Allerhoogste, teen die hele wêreld vry.
Soos ons vadere vertrou het, leer ook ons vertrou, o Heer
Met ons land en met ons nasie sal dit wel wees, God regeer.

 

Re: God bless America

It also sounds rather parochial and arrogant to me as well. I theorize that it has alot to do with the USA being so huge and well off. It allows many to hold a self-centered view of the USA. When people say "God bless America" I believe they usually mean that they appreciate the life they have here and in a way are giving thanks. It still sounds rather parochial and arrogant though.

 

Re: What?

You are being too analytical, Angela.

"God bless America" is similar to a phrase like "God damn you".

Both of them are emotional ejaculations. Neither of them have precise meanings.

"God damn you" means some mixture of anger, frustration, resentment, hostility etc.

"God bless America", when said at a moment of national success, means applause for that success, group solidarity, national pride and so on.

If the words are said in a moment of crisis or threat, they are probably meant as a plea for good fortune, and as an appeal that the nation remain resolute.

"God bless America" is also commonly said with an ironic tone of voice, meaning that the speaker thinks that the country screwed up.

I agree that the phrase highlights a difference between the United States and Europe, but being American, my spin on it is rather different.

Most contemporary Europeans grew up in the shadow of World War II and the Iron Curtain. They live in geographically small countries in close proximity to one another. Those countries have a history of destructive competition and war. Contemporary Europeans react against that violent history, associating nationalism with the devastation that almost destroyed their continent. For Europeans, nationalism is a dangerous atavistic force that they must strive to overcome. (The French seem to be an exception at times.)

Americans live expansively on millions of square miles and feel no threat from their immediate neighbors. Americans believe themselves to be the righteous victors of World War II and of the Cold War. Americans believe that their nation stood up for principle and emerged stronger, not weaker, for doing so.

It's useful to remember that Europeans had plenty of national pride prior to World War II, at a time when not so coincidentally, they were still world powers. When they were actors on the world stage, their actions were tremendously important in their own eyes.

But today the European nations are no longer first-rank world powers, coming to resemble states in a federal Europe more and more with every year. And simultaneously with the loss of their own world dominance, the Europeans believe that they have discovered that national pride is something for children (like Americans) and has no real meaning.

I suppose that if the European Union ever becomes a superpower in its own right, and if Europeans come to identify with that Union more than they do with their own particular state, pride will no longer seem quite so foreign to them.

I suppose that's true in many cases.

But I say "God bless..." and "God damn...", despite the fact that I'm a religious agnostic with vaguely Buddhist tendencies. To me the phrases are emotional ejaculations, not prayers to a deity that I don't believe in. I guess my saying "God bless America" is like one of those stereotype 19'th century Englishmen saying "By Jove!". I doubt that they were literally announcing that they were adherents of Roman paganism.

To me the word "God" implies ultimate principles, most-important things, unconditional oaths, and similar ideas such as fate and fortune. That's why I have sworn "So help me God", despite my believing that the particular Gods of the religious traditions are literally myths. It's because I think that those myths are symbolic, pointing beyond themselves towards things that are very important.

 

I agree with you.

 

Baie dankie, oxp.

 

God bless America

Sorry for being so analytical, but that what you'll get on a DL site...

I understand the use of GBA in a reflexive, "By Jove" kinda way. I also realise that the citizens of an empire seem to associate thier collective fortunes more closely with divine intervention than do the rest of us poor souls (e.g. the Romans, Spanish, Britsh and latterly the Americans).

But I gather that America has quite a strong religious "element" (grouping, culture, whatever), from what I've read in books by travel writers, esp recently in "Chasing the Red White and Blue".
Of course, "strong" is relative to the seriously secular Western Europe. Interesting a a country that separates church and state, and yet one where presidents dare not appear even non-practising, let alone agnostic.

 

Did someone forget to wink when they gave orders to take him alive?

 

Relativism

The trouble with him being alive, is that you have to try him. And against whose standards? That of the neighbourhood? Those that went along with the glorious alliance have their share of dirty laundry, so what will the charge be? You were a bit more extreme than us? You were too stupid or meglamaniacal to collaberate and thereby keep power? Or the US can put its money were its mouth is and charge him with possessing WMD

 

Re: Relativism

The 300,000+ bodies in the mass graves is a good starting point.

 

Angela, have you met Jeff?