"Over There," was written by George M. Cohan in 1917 after hearing the US was going to fight a war in Europe, now known as World War I. Mr. Cohan viewed Americans crossing the Atlantic Ocean to fight and die in a foreign war as deeply patriotic. The song earned Mr. Cohan a Congressional Gold Medal in 1936. In 1942, his view of American duty was further immortalized in the movie, Yankee Doodle Dandy. Above excerpt of 'Over There' lyrics from You Tube.
Above, Cagney sings, "the Yanks are coming," with US soldiers in movie, "Yankee Doodle Dandy," 1942
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May 2011 article, song, "Over There" intended to instill American pride in fighting a foreign war:
5/25/2011, "Over There, Over There, Send the Word, Send the Word To Beware," Huffington Post, Norman Horowitz
"These are some of the words to the George M Cohan song published in 1917. The very patriotic song was written, I expect, to instill pride in a nation that was going to war by joining the fight in Europe....
Ninety years ago, it seemed like a good idea to fight and die “over there.”"...
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3/2016, ""Over There,"" about.com, Jennifer Rosenberg
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""Over There" was an instant success, selling over two million copies by the end of the war. Perhaps the most popular version of "Over There" was sung by Nora Bayes, but Enrico Caruso and Billy Murray also sang beautiful renditions.
The song "Over There" is about the "Yanks" (i.e. Americans) going "over there" (i.e. across the Atlantic) to help fight the "Huns" (i.e. the Germans) during World War I.
In 1936, Cohan was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for writing the song."...
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Comment: Endless wars and activities "Over There," ie, anywhere but here, are the only ones on which Americans have been allowed to focus. The current notion of US as global fixer is of course insane. The idea that Americans might be allowed to care first about their own country has been considered scandalous.
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"“We
will not be ripped off anymore. We’re going to be friendly with
everybody, but we’re not going to be taken advantage of by anybody.” Donald J. Trump, whose view of the world is “America First.” Read the edited transcript or just the highlights.
3/26/16, "In Donald Trump’s Worldview, America Comes First, and Everybody Else Pays," NY Times, by David E. Sanger and Maggie Haberman (March 27, 2016 print ed., page A1, New York edition with the headline: FOREIGN POLICY, IN TRUMP’S VIEW, IS ABOUT DEALS.") (parag 9): "Mr. Trump’s views, as he explained them, fit nowhere into the recent history of the Republican Party: He is not in the internationalist camp of President George Bush, nor does he favor President George W. Bush’s call to make it the United States’ mission to spread democracy around the world. He agreed with a suggestion that his ideas might be summed up as “America First.”
“Not isolationist, but I am America First,” he said. “I like the expression.” He said he was willing to reconsider traditional American alliances if partners were not willing to pay, in cash or troop commitments, for the presence of American forces around the world. “We will not be ripped off anymore,” he said."...
(parag. 1): "Donald J. Trump,
the Republican presidential front-runner, said that if elected, he
might halt purchases of oil from Saudi Arabia and other Arab allies
unless they commit ground troops to the fight against the Islamic State
or “substantially reimburse” the United States for combating the
militant group, which threatens their stability.
“If Saudi Arabia was without the cloak of American protection,” Mr. Trump said during a 100-minute interview on foreign policy, spread over two phone calls on Friday, “I don’t think it would be around.”
“If Saudi Arabia was without the cloak of American protection,” Mr. Trump said during a 100-minute interview on foreign policy, spread over two phone calls on Friday, “I don’t think it would be around.”
He
also said he would be open to allowing Japan and South Korea to build
their own nuclear arsenals rather than depend on the American nuclear
umbrella for their protection against North Korea and China. If the
United States “keeps on its path, its current path of weakness, they’re
going to want to have that anyway, with or without me discussing it,”
Mr. Trump said.
And
he said he would be willing to withdraw United States forces from both
Japan and South Korea if they did not substantially increase their
contributions to the costs of housing and feeding those troops. “Not
happily, but the answer is yes,” he said."...
(parag. 7): "Mr. Trump struck similar themes when he discussed the future of NATO,
which he called “unfair, economically, to us,” and said he was open to
an alternative organization focused on counterterrorism. He argued that
the best way to halt China’s placement of military airfields and
antiaircraft batteries on reclaimed islands in the South China Sea was to threaten its access to American markets."...
(parag. 25): "Throughout the two conversations, Mr. Trump painted a bleak picture of
the United States as a diminished force in the world, an opinion he has
held since the late 1980s, when he placed ads in The New York Times and
other newspapers calling for Japan and Saudi Arabia to spend more money
on their own defense."...
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Added: Same Trump views observed in August and Sept. 2015 articles by Diana West and Julius Krein:
Krein: "Trump shows that what is most in demand...is not ideological purity but patriotic zeal....Trump alone appears to understand that politics is more than policy and ideology."...
8/18/2015, "Trump: Giving Voice to the American "Subconscious"," Diana West
"To say the Media-Political Complex has really lost its cool over Donald Trump, also every marble, is barest understatement....
Before Trump, the American "subconscious," circa 2015, would never "originally think" a US border was possible, let alone a wall; immigration restriction was possible, let alone a halt; immigration law enforcement was possible; the deportation of illegal families was possible; restoration of American citizenship as a privilege, not a stolen good, was possible; jobs for Americans were possible; and the rest. Donald Trump, bless him, has changed the American subconscious, giving voice to Americans long conditioned into silence by this same Media-Political Complex. And there is nothing, but nothing, they can do about it now."
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Sept. 2015 Julius Krein article:
9/7/2015, "Traitor to His Class," Julius Krein, Weekly Standard
"What Trump offers is permission to conceive of an American interest as a national interest separate from the “international community”....
Nothing is more terrifying to the elite than Trump’s embrace of a tangible American nationalism....The critical question, however, is not the source of Trump’s popularity but rather the reason his popularity is so shocking to our political culture....
Trump shows that what is most in demand...is not ideological purity but patriotic zeal....
Trump alone appears to understand that politics is more than policy and ideology."...
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