Canon fodder

There have been various phrases added to our common language.  Sometimes these phrases can get lost in the mix, other times they can stand out.

Through the years, people forget when they were added or why they were added.  These phrases are repeated over and over until they become common and we forget about them.  Until someone wants to take them back out or omit the phrase entirely.

Take the latest Superman movie (2006).  People got their panties in a bunch when the editor asked if Superman still fights for “Truth, Justice and all that other stuff?”  People lost their minds because they remember “Truth, Justice and the American way.”  But that’s not how it always was.  Superman originally fought for “Truth and Justice.”  For two years (1942-44), during the darker days of WW2, he did fight for “Truth, Justice and the American way” but that was shortly changed to “Truth, Tolerance and Justice”.  Television, Communism and McCarthyism brought back the now familiar phrase “Truth, Justice and the American way”.  But in the 60′s is was changed again to “Truth, Justice and Freedom.”  When Christopher Reeves said it on film in 1978, “the American way” became how it had to be said at all times.

“In god we trust” wasn’t required to be on our money until 1955 (again, during the cold war and the remnants of McCarthyism)  As a motto for the United States, “E Pluribus Unum” served just fine until someone pointed out that it wasn’t the official motto and we got “In god we trust” in 1956.  Nothing like claiming god on your side as a way to impose your will on the rest of the world.  And it worked out so well for the expansion of the Roman Empire (Nobiscum deus) and the German domination of Europe (Gott mit uns).  “Establishment of religion” argument aside, is it really a good idea to equate your god with cash?  Wasn’t there an issue with some money changers and a temple?

McCarthyism is also partially responsible for the addition of the phrase “under god” in the Pledge of Allegiance.  People always get upset when someone refuses to recite the words “under god”.  It’s not like they were always there…  They were added in later but now that we are used to it we can’t allow them to be removed.  But we allowed changes along the way.  We even allowed a certain aspect of the Pledge to be removed.  The Bellamy Salute.
From it’s inception in 1892 until a full year after we were involved in WW2 it was customary to salute the flag by raising your right arm, palm out.  Just as the Romans did, just as the Italian Fascists did in the 1920′s and just like the German Nazis did in the 1930′s.  It was only dropped because propagandists would photograph people saluting the pledge from an angle that omitted the flag and claim they were Nazi sympathizers.

• 1892: “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all“
• 1923: “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all“
• 1924: “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all“
• In 1942 the pledge was officially adopted by the government and the Bellamy Salute was replaced with the hand over the heart.
• 1954: “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under god indivisible, with liberty and justice for all“  They considered adding the word “love” just before “liberty and justice”.  They kept god but they dropped the love.

So we used to allow changes to things as “holy” as the Pledge of Allegiance, why can’t we make changes anymore?

Look at the Christian Bible for instance…  How many revisions has this book gone through?  Translation errors, lost passages, changes in cultural meaning and geographical contexts.  And those are just the “honest mistake” changes.  What about the removal of books because they introduced glaring contradictions?  Why were these books counted as important holy scripture until King, committee and Pope decided that they were to be excised?  If I came at you with a newly revealed gospel or the Book of Jasher or even the Book or Mormon…  or if I suggested that we remove the Book of Job from the Bible, I’d be laughed out of the room.  But for 1500 years these kinds of things happened.  Some books were ripped out, some were altered, some were added.  And by the 1600′s all of the various sects of Christianity finally agreed on one thing; “if we keep changing this book, no one is going to believe a word in it.”  They closed the canon and now nothing can be changed.
Well that’s not entirely true…  You can’t add or remove books, but you sure can change the wording around.  In an effort to relate to us on a modern level, the wording is constantly being revised in new editions of the Bible every few years.  I think they’re doing it to revise it and clean up a few things that got left out in the rain.  If you can subtly change a few words here and there, you can make sure you were never wrong at any point in time.  The Bible; brought to you by the Ministry of Truth in Newspeak.  Control the language, control the thoughts.  Control the thoughts, control the people.

Seems I’ve gone slightly off topic.  Imagine that…  It appears that the phrases people get the most upset about center around god and country.  Two major stumbling blocks that keep us from treating people as we would treat ourselves.  We can’t see someone as our contemporary if they pray to a different god.  We can’t treat someone as our equal if they fly a different flag.  Anything to keep us focused on our differences, anything to keep us fighting amongst ourselves.  Whatever happened to embracing these “huddled masses yearning to breathe free?” or “there but by the grace of god go I”?

Again, until we get over these trivial differences, we’re not going to go very far as a race of beings.  We’ll need each other more and more as we develop.  Two elements of the Fermi Paradox postulate that either “It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself” or that “It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy others”.  I do not believe these two statements are mutually exclusive.  I think we destroy ourselves by destroying others.

I want my flying car and I want my Star Trekian “happy Earth” future.  And it doesn’t look like I’m going to get it until we all give up our tribal bullshit, stop acting like compartmentalized (White-Christian-American) men and we start acting like people.