It's hard to be a patriot these days.
I'm not being sarcastic, o my faithful and best beloved readers. Above and beyond all those pesky, problematic flaws in our national narrative like racism, genocide, sexism, slavery, labor wars, and so on, love of country for all too many Americans means living a certain way and no other. Country music over folk, evangelical over mainline churches and synagogues, monolithic thought over reasoned dissent, white and male over black/Asian/Native/female, straight over gay, conservatism over liberalism...the list goes on and on.
Worse, patriotism itself has become so associated with one way of life (rural, conservative, ostentatiously Christian, avowedly straight, male-dominated, white-dominated) that it can be very hard to find common ground. Our very national symbols, from songs to flags to buildings to books, have been claimed by one faction with such fierce and unrelenting strength that flying a flag or singing the National Anthem can be read as supporting one set of beliefs over another, even though these symbols are supposed to unify us.
This is especially true on the left. We may love America - why else do we stay? And why else do we fight so hard against the forces that would dismantle our Constitution and our way of life - but when flying Old Glory on the 4th of July, or singing My Country 'Tis of Thee, or growing a bit misty-eyed on Veterans' Day, can look like making common cause with those who would disenfranchise all but the wealthy and the powerful, something is seriously wrong.
I mean, consider this:
[There is a sudden noise at the window. ELLID whips around and stares as three people in jumpsuits, two black, one dark blue with muted silver accents, bust through the screen, leap over the cedar chest, and stride up to her as she sits at her computer.]
[ELLID'S cats, peacefully asleep on her bed, come awake. DIAMOND GIRL takes one look at the intruders and bolts for parts unknown. GIL THE WONDER CAT yawns and blinks at the chaos.]
[ELLID claws for her phone to call 911. One of the intruders shoves a manuscript into her hands before she can do so.]
["Post this tomorrow night," she says in a husky voice, her bright red hair half-concealing her face. "The future of humanity depends on it!"]
[One of her companions snorts, only to be shushed by the third. The latter signals to the woman, and they all rappel back out the ruined window.]
[SPRING PEEPERS in the yard peep.]
[ELLID stares at the manuscript, opens it and reads. Her eyes widen, then she hastily turns on the combination printer/copier/scanner/fax machine that probably qualifies as vintage even though it's less than ten years old, shoves the manuscript into the feeder tray, and hits SCAN.]
["Oh boy," she says as the process begins. "Oh boy - "]
[GIL THE WONDER CAT washes his butt.]
As you can see from the above, I was gearing up for a long, thorough examination of how America's symbols of patriotism have been coopted by the Right. Then I received the following manuscript from sources unknown, although I can confirm that one was a slender red haired woman with an intense gaze, one was an African-American man who kept humming Marvin Gaye under his breath, and the third was a tall, earnest blond man with a what appeared to be a very large Frisbee strapped to his back.
I have read this manuscript. I have thought about it, and the red haired woman's insistence that I post it. And after much consideration, I have decided that my midnight visitors are right: this needs to be shared. Because the conspiracy it unveils is so monstrous, so appalling, so un-American, as to make one's tears turn to gin and one's socks soggy with anxiety.
The manuscript itself appears to be a partial transcript of some sort of planning session, date and location unknown, and is on ordinary office paper, no watermark. There are numerous food stains, at least one coffee ring, and a few traces of a white powder that the Sophonisba Stepford Kwik-ee Chemical Analysis Laboratory, LLC (“Results in an hour, GUARANTEED!!! Or WE pay all your medical expenses!!!”) of Prescott, Massachusetts, stated was similar in composition to either Oxycontin or the powdered sugar from a dozen stale Krispy Kreme powdered sugar doughnuts, take your pick.
Attached were several photographs of that appeared to show two men in white lab coats, three ninja-like figures that looked amazingly like my midnight visitors (even down to the blond man's Frisbee), and a truly grotesque creature that was not only hideously deformed, but seemed on the verge of stroking out from uncontrolled high blood pressure. I have omitted them in the interests of everyone’s sanity, since only a mind honed by years of toiling in the farther reaches of Badbookistan could possibly view them without going into violent convulsions and catarrh of the intellect. The fact that Gil the Wonder Cat, who also viewed these photographs, merely yawned before attempting to pull down my bedroom curtains in pursuit of a stinkbug I put down to the fact that his brain is roughly the size of a walnut.
Read the following only at your own risk. Management is not responsible for mental damage, lost wages, or catarrh of the tooth enamel.
You have been warned.
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UNKNOWN VOICE: …and just how are we going to co-opt the original’s message of liberty, freedom, and equality? Just calling him names won’t do it, Cosmo.
COSMO: The same means we used to subvert the Pledge of Allegiance, the Statue of Liberty, and “America the Beautiful,” of course. They’re so associated with 100% Americanism that no one remembers that the Pledge was written by a Socialist, the Statue bears a poem written by a immigrant advocate and early Zionist, and the song was written by a lesbian. It’s so easy, Damian, I swear –
[loud commotion, followed by a thumping bass line that sounds extraordinarily like the opening chords of “Ohio.”]
STENTORIAN VOICE: WHAT IS THIS? MICROMOUTHS PLANNING ON THEIR OWN? IMPOSSIBLE!
DAMIAN: Micromouths? Huh?
[creak of door hinges]
What – oh my God! What is that?
COSMO: Damian, calm –
DAMIAN: It – it looks like a giant mouth! With a tiny little head –
COSMO: - down, you don’t want to upset him.
DAMIAN: - and a great big gut and –
COSMO: Damian. I said, calm down.
DAMIAN: - teeny little arms and legs and a OH MY GOD IS THAT A MAP OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC? Can it possibly be -
COSMO: Damn it, Damian, I said -
STENTORIAN VOICE: PUNY MICROMOUTH! DON’T YOU RECOGNIZE THE MIGHT OF RUSHBO WHEN YOU HEAR IT?
DAMIAN: RUSHBO? I thought you’d moved to Costa Rica when the ACA passed! It can’t possibly be -
[sound of explosion and a faint whimper]
COSMO: Crap. I knew this would happen.
STENTORIAN VOICE: YES, IT IS RUSHBO! THE RAMPAGING UNINFORMED SONOROUS HAM-FISTED BLATHERING ORGANISM! ALL MOUTH, NO FACTS!
[whirring sound]
MICROMOUTH! ARE YOU PLOTTING AGAINST MY MASTER PLAN TO SCREAM MY WAY TO WORLD DOMINATION?
COSMO: No, no! Nothing like that! We were just going over your plans to subvert the image of Captain America.
RUSHBO: COMIC BOOKS? YOU WASTE YOUR TIME ON COMIC BOOKS?
COSMO: Far from it, sir. I’m sure you’re aware that Captain America has served as a powerful symbol of freedom, liberty, and equality ever since his first appearance in 1941?
[rustle of paper]
Here’s a copy of the first issue, showing him socking Adolf Hitler in the jaw. What better representative of American patriotism and might than someone who punched out the greatest dictator of his day?
RUSHBO: THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW! OBSOLETE CARTOONS WILL NOT PREVAIL! JUVENILE! JUVENILE!
COSMO: Perhaps that’s true today, but back in the 1940’s it was a different story. The character’s creators, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, were from Jewish immigrant families. Originally named Hymie Simon and Jacob Kurtzberg, they were worried about the Isolationist movement that was determined to keep America out of World War II.
[groan in the background]
Shut up, Damian - sorry, sir, just a mouse.
As I was saying, Simon and Kirby believed that America would eventually enter World War II, but they were concerned because of the influence of men likeCharles Lindbergh, one of the most famous men in America. Lindbergh was in favor of America staying neutral even though Nazi Germany was opposed to everything America stood for.
RUSHBO: HOW IS THIS RELEVANT TO MY PLANS? EXPLAIN! EXPLAIN!
COSMO: Superhero comics were popular among children, teenagers, and young working class men, so Simon and Kirby decided that a patriotic superhero who fought the Nazis would be just the thing to get their message across. So they pitched the character to Timely Comics and started work.
[sound of pages turning]
Like most superheroes, Captain America had a secret identity: a frail, sickly man named Steve Rogers who’d seen what was happening in Europe and wanted to do his part to stop the Nazis. He tried to enlist in the Army several times despite being turned down as too weak to fight, then was recruited for a government medical experiment. The experiment worked, and he was transformed from a skinny little asthmatic to a super-soldier. He was now the greatest fighter of the war, a master spy and tactician who socked Hitler in the nose and thwarted Nazi plans thanks to an inexhaustible serum that made him –
DAMIAN (whispers): The Aryan wet dream.
COSMO (whispers back): I said shut up, you idiot.
[clears throat, then speaks in a normal voice]
the peak of human physical and mental potential, strong, muscular, fast, and smart. Does anyone really think that him being blond and blue-eyed is a coincidence? Or that he turned out to be an artist, just like Hitler, only a good one instead of a hack?
RUSHBO: CONTINUE. YOU INTRIGUE ME.
COSMO: Simon and Kirby were right. The first comic featuring Captain America sold over a million copies and was so popular that the pro-Nazi Bund started threatening them and their co-workers at Timely Comics. Eventually the Mayor of New York had to order police protection for Timely’s staff to ward off the Bund.
DAMIAN (whispering): Tell him about the immigrant stuff.
COSMO (whispers back): I’m getting to that, keep your shirt on. Serves you right if you end up dead, you idiot.
[clears throat]
Anyway, Captain America was really, really popular. Some of his early adventures were pretty stupid or racist, especially in the depiction of Asians, but by and large he stood for good old fashioned American values like equality, liberty, freedom of speech and thought, and all that anti-fascist mickeymouse. There were Captain America fan clubs, costumes, comics, toys, even a movie serial. Captain America was big, big business, and about as patriotic as it’s possible to get.
Of course it couldn’t last. The war ended in 1945, Nazis became a memory, and Timely finally cancelled the book in 1949. They attempted to revive him as an anti-Communist a few years later, but between mediocre stories and a backlash against McCarthyism, the book sold so poorly that it was cancelled within a year -
RUSHBO: NOT POSSIBLE! NOT POSSIBLE! THE CHARACTER CONTINUES TO THIS DAY! THERE IS A MOVIE! THERE ARE MANY MOVIES! EXPLAIN!
[thumping bass line increases in volume]
COSMO (hurriedly): That’s because Marvel Comics, successor to Timely, revived the character in 1964, sir. The way they did it was, well, ridiculous –
DAMIAN: That’s putting it mildly. He was frozen in a glacier, worshipped by Eskimos, and unthawed by the Avengers. So frickin’ stupid I’m amazed anyone took it –
[three second pause]
Oh crap, sorry to interrupt –
[sound of electrical shock and a yelp, followed by a tiny voice saying ow, that smarts]
COSMO: Serves you right, you big dummy.
RUSHBO: THAT IS LUDICROUS! WHY IS THE CHARACTER STILL POPULAR? ILLOGICAL!
DAMIAN: No one ever went broke underestimating the –
[sound of kicking]
Okay, okay! Ow, my ribs!
COSMO (sighs loudly): As you just heard, sir, Captain America was revived in the 1960’s as the “man out of time” who had to somehow remain true to his roots while adapting to the modern age. Subsequent writers have fleshed out his background, making him born on the Lower East Side to Irish immigrant parents, working for the WPA as an artist, and idolizing Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal.
RUSHBO: NEW DEAL? ROOSEVELT? THIS CANNOT BE BORNE!
COSMO: That’s not all. As a recent blog post by Steven Attewell pointed out, someone from Steve Rogers’ background – an Irish-American from New York in the early 20th century – would almost certainly have been exposed to the Democratic political machine from childhood. Add in that Rogers was revealed to be an artist for the WPA during the 1930’s and thus would have rubbed elbows with the likes of Berenice Abbot, Jackson Pollack, and all the radicals, liberals, and even Communists who were part of the Popular Front -
RUSHBO: ARTISTS? MICROMOUTHS! THEY DO NOT SCREAM! THEY THINK! UNACCEPTABLE!
COSMO: - and I think you can see the problem, sir. Captain America himself has never actually endorsed a political party, but it’s quite clear that out of uniform, Steve Rogers is and always has been an unreconstructed New Dealer.
RUSHBO: PATRIOTS ARE NOT LIBERALS! IMPOSSIBLE! IMPOSSIBLE!
COSMO: If that weren’t enough, over the years Captain America has been shown defending interracial marriage, dating a Jewish woman instead of a fellow Catholic, and welcoming a childhood friend who turned out to be gay as a picnic basket back into his life with nary a qualm. He even resigned as Captain America over the comic book equivalent of Watergate –
DAMIAN: - and wore the dumbest costume in comic book history, I mean my God he looks like a pole dancer –
COSMO (loudly): - and told an American general that his loyalty was to the Dream of America was she should be, not as she is.
If that weren’t bad enough, not long ago Captain America led an underground protest movement during Marvel’s Civil War event to protest the registration of superheroes as a violation of their civil liberties and constitutional right to privacy.
RUSHBO: IT IS A STORY! WHAT DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH MY PLANS?
COSMO: The Civil War was an obvious jab at the Patriot Act and the War on Terror, sir, especially since it ended with Captain America first surrendering to the government rather than harm civilians, then being assassinated by a neo-Nazi.
DAMIAN: Yeppers, he ended up splattered all over the steps of the federal courthouse in Manhattan, wearing that same stupid flag costume –
COSMO (whispering): Who the hell do you think you are, Tim Gunn?
The character was later revived –
RUSHBO: NOT A SURPRISE. COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS WHO ARE NOT NAMED “BEN” OR “GWEN” ALWAYS ARE.
COSMO: - and is now starring in popular films. These include a retelling of his origins -
RUSHBO: I HAVE SEEN IT. THE RED SKULL IS A STUD.
COSMO: - a film about the Avengers superteam –
DAMIAN: Screw the Red Skull. Loki was the stud.
COSMO (whispering): You really have a death wish, don’t you? Gaaah –
RUSHBO: YOUR FRIEND IS NOT WRONG ABOUT LOKI’S STUDLINESS!
[five second pause, followed by murmured wow, I was not expecting that]
COSMO: Now, of course, Captain America is starring in another film. This one, which is avowedly a political thriller, blatantly criticizes the modern American security state, from the CIA’s Operation Paperclip program and the Cold War assassination of left-leaning political figures to drone strikes and preemptive warfare. It advocates data dumps like those perpetrated by Chelsea Manning –
RUSHBO: BRADLEY! BRADLEY! HE IS MALE!
COSMO: - sorry, sir, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, and argues that dismantling American intelligence services and starting afresh is a viable course.
RUSHBO: NOT ACCEPTABLE! THE WAR ON TERROR MUST INCLUDE TERRORIZING OURSELVES!
COSMO: The very first words in the film, spoken by Captain America himself, are “On your left.” What could be more obvious?
DAMIAN: You’re forgetting the “driving while black” stuff. Plus Cap doesn’t have sex with a gorgeous chick with big bazooms and –
[sound of laser beam and a shriek]
COSMO: Now will you shut up?
DAMIAN: Ow.
COSMO: God. Why do I even bother?
Anyway, sir, I think you can see the problem. Captain America may be an old time superhero in a cheesy flag costume, but if even a tenth of the people who see this movie start to think about what they’ve seen, things could get pretty ugly. We were drawing up a campaign to subvert the character to make him more of a traditionally patriotic figure, sort of like William Burnside, the McCarthyite Captain America of the 1950’s. We were thinking of calling it “Captain America, Socialist Scum!” and subtly pointing up the character’s background as an artist who palled around with radicals and gays and -
RUSHBO: SUBTLTY IS OVERRATED! I WILL USE THE MEGAMOUTH! CAPTAIN AMERICA IS SCUM! ANTI-AMERICAN! SUBVERSIVE! MAKE IT SO! MAKE IT –
[whizzing sound, followed by a meaty thunk and the thumping bass line turning briefly into Sensurround]
AAIIIEEE! WHAT IS THIS? WHO DARES –
MAN’S VOICE: Sorry, but I can’t let you do that. Got a reputation to uphold, you know.
[sound of rustling papers]
You know, the last time I met up with someone like you, we ended up disagreeing. Guess nothing’s changed in the last seventy years.
WOMAN’S VOICE: What did I tell you?
[sound of papers being scooped up]
Come on, let’s get out of here before we’re –
DAMIAN: Cosmo? You seeing what I’m seeing?
COSMO: This can’t – you aren’t real! Neither are you! Or you!
WOMAN’S VOICE: - so much for not being recognized. You just had to throw that thing, didn’t you?
RUSHBO: IT BURNS! IT BURNS! AAAIIIEEEEE -
SECOND MAN’S VOICE: You expected anything less from Trouble Man over here?
MAN’S VOICE: Sorry. It’s kinda instinctive.
[squelching sound]
You know, whining isn’t very attractive. It’s just a scratch.
RUSHBO: YOU HAVE ATTACKED THE MEGAMOUTH! THIS CANNOT BE BORNE! SOCIALIST SCUM! TRAITOR! DIE DIE DIE –
[metallic clang, then the thumping bass line abruptly ending]
MAN’S VOICE: Like I haven’t heard that before.
Come on. Let’s get this out to the public before it’s too late.
WOMAN’S VOICE: Copy that. I know just the person, too.
MAN’S VOICE: Cold, I mean great –
SECOND MAN’S VOICE: You mean “cool.”
MAN’S VOICE: Right, I got that reference.
[sound of retreating footsteps and a window being cracked open]
DAMIAN: Stop them! They have our plans! Don’t let them get away!
RUSHBO: MICROMOUTH SHUT UP! SHUT UP! HELP ME! MEGAHIVES ARE FORMING! MY ALLERGIES! MY ALLERGIES!
[smashing sounds, followed by high-pitched yelps]
COSMO: Damn it, Damian. Not again.
RUSHBO: WHERE IS THE BENEDRYL?
DAMIAN: I should have been a plumber like Mama wanted. This world domination stuff isn’t worth it.
COSMO: I need a drink. A really, really big drink.
DAMIAN: You and me –
[transcript ends]
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This is all I have tonight, my friends, but surely this is enough to convince you that foulness is afoot? That we must all combat the evil plans of RUSHBO and his minions by supporting Captain America, Liberal Patriot, and going to see his most recent film? I know that it’s only a movie, but isn’t a few dollars at the Heck Piazza Dodecaplex worth it if we can help reclaim a symbol of American freedom that has stood since the Depression from the forces of reaction? Your ideas are welcome, so share!
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