My Country, Now of Thee--Sweet land of bribery!

By Lee Russ

Sunday, January 08, 2006 at 08:09 AM

It's a sad day when I feel this sad after reading the words to "My Country 'Tis of Thee".  Its a song of pride, one that most of us learned by heart during grammar school. As written by Samuel Francis Smith, the song is a celebration of several concepts that I cherish: liberty, freedom, pride in being part of good things, love of the beauty that this country's varied geography provides us all, free of charge.

It's especially galling to have come across the song again, after years of not hearing or reading it, during this weekend of stories on how the right wing of the Republican party has raped and pillaged this country and its coffers--Abramoff, DeLay, the NSA warrantless spying fiasco, the president's Saturday radio address that worked so hard to spin the economic news, the initial news coverage of yet two more Republican congressmen (John Doolittle and Richard Pombo, of Calif.) who appear to have helped DeLay help one of his rich Texas buddies....

So here's how I think we should sing the song now, and until we finally take back the country from those who would give the original song all the lip service in the world while violating every principle it actually stands for.  And for those analytically and logically challenged trolls out there who will undoubtedly try to spin my rewrite as a desecration of the original, no, you have it wrong as usual; it's the political right which undermine the original song's values that I mock, not the original values. My Country, Now of Thee

My country is now of thee,
Sweet land of bribery,
Of thee I sing.
Land where our ideals died!
Land of the lobbyist's pride!
From every mountain side,
Let greedom ring.

My native country, be,
Land of the rich tax free,
Thy name I love.
I love thy scams and shills,
Thy cons and crumpled bills;
My heart with avarice fills,
Like that above.

Let spin docs swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees
Sweet greedom's song.
Let moguls tongues awake;
Let all that sneak partake;
Let cash their silence break,
The sound prolong.

Our father's God must be,
the only one you see,
so join our song.
Long may our plan be bright
So all doth vote far right,
Protect us from the light,
Great spin, our King!