Send the word to beware

Let’s close out the week with something that marked its hundredth anniversary yesterday. George M. Cohan wrote “Over There” on 7 April 1917, a day after the U.S. declared war on Germany, but it wasn’t published until 1 June of that year.

“Over There” was one of the iconic songs of World War I. It’s kind of pushy, actually—framing a typically brash statement about America’s first foray onto the world stage. Seriously: it’s totally the New World gearing up to sort out the mess the Old World has got itself into. (The Old World View? Ya took yer sweet time about it, didn’t ya? This dynamic repeated itself 24 years later as the U.S. wrapped itself in isolationist splendor until the attack on Pearl Harbor.) I mean, it absolutely announces that “ev’ry son of liberty” will have the Huns on the run in short order. This from a nation that holds military activity of any sort as suspect.

I can’t help but reflect that, 100 years on, and some 72 after the United States carefully crafted alliances and strategies to oppose totalitarianism, we’re looking at an administration that is taking a chain saw to all that and replacing it with a new form of homegrown isolationist totalitarianism whose sole objective is the aggrandizement of those already stupid wealthy at the cost of pretty much everyone else on the planet.

Hey-ho—we’ll have to labor steadfastly for the next year and a half to take back the legislative branch and begin the work of reclaiming democracy for ourselves and our posterity. It’s never over, either over there or over here.