Has anyone watched this (School House Rock - Elbow Room) since developing social awareness??? "Manifest Destiny" is the same as the "Lebensraum" policy of Hitler as far as I can tell. How can we still glorify this mentality? No wonder we are having trouble with the rest of the world!
One thing you will discover
When you get next to one another
Is everybody needs some elbow room, elbow room.
It's nice when you're kinda cozy, but
Not when you're tangled nose
to nosey, oh,
Everybody needs some elbow, needs
a little elbow room.
That's how it was in the early days
of the U.S.A.,
The people kept coming to settle though
The east was the only place there
was to go.
The President was Thomas Jefferson
He made a deal with Napoleon.
How'd you like to sell a mile or two, (or three, or a hundred or a thousand?)
And so, in 1803 the Louisiana Territory was sold to us
Without a fuss
And gave us lots of elbow room,
Oh, elbow room, elbow room,
Got to, got to get us some elbow room.
It's the West or bust,
In God we trust.
There's a new land out there...
Lewis and Clark volunteered to go,
Good-bye, good luck, wear your overcoat!
They prepared for good times and for bad (and for bad),
They hired Sacajawea to be their guide.
She led them all across the countryside.
Reached the coast
And found the most
Elbow room we've ever had.
The way was opened up for folks with bravery.
There were plenty of fights
To win land rights,
But the West was meant to be;
It was our Manifest Destiny!
The trappers, traders, and the peddlers,
The politicians and the settlers,
They got there by any way they could (any way they could).
The Gold Rush trampled down the wilderness,
The railroads spread across from East to West,
And soon the rest was opened up for - opened up for good.
And now we jet from East to West.
Good-bye New York, hello L.A.,
But it took those early folks to open up the way.
Now we've got a lot of room to be
Growing from sea to shining sea.
Guess that we have got our elbow room (elbow room)
But if there should ever come a time
When we're crowded up together, I'm
Sure we'll find some elbow room...up on the moon!
Got to, got to get us some elbow room.
It's the moon or bust,
In God we trust.
There's a new land up there!
6 comments:
You make an excellent point. And it's topical again today with Israel's desire for "natural growth" in its settlements.
I would disagree. The song glorifies the amazing way that our country has developed and grown under the belief that God himself has watched over it and helped it to grow. I do not read one single word that is implicated in your comment. On the other hand, Manifest Destiny is a reference to the wholesome guidance given and path taken to allow America to be the land of the free and the home of the brave.
This is a good song, not one to find fault with, I would ask you to read it again as there is no reason to confuse it with the Nazi philosophy.
From Wikipedia:
Lebensraum (German for "habitat" or literally "living space") was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany. In Hitler's book Mein Kampf, he detailed his belief that the German people needed Lebensraum ("living space", i.e. land and raw materials), and that it should be found in the East. It was the stated policy of the Nazis to kill, deport, or enslave the Polish, Russian and other Slavic populations, whom they considered inferior, and to repopulate the land with Germanic peoples. ...
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Let's replace "Lebensraum" with "Manifest Destiny" and "German" and "Nazi" with "American". Let's also replace every other ethnic group with "Native American".:
Manifest Destiny [...] served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of America, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the American population, for a Greater America. [... T]he American people needed Lebensraum ("living space", i.e. land and raw materials), and that it should be found in the West. It was the stated policy of the Americans to kill, deport, or enslave the Cherokee, Sioux and other Native American populations, whom they considered inferior, and to repopulate the land with American peoples. ...
Someone needs to write new lyrics for this little gem. "Lebensraum" and "Elbow room" have the same number of syllables.
This song was written by the female Jewish Tony Award winning artist Lynn Ahrens. I'm quite sure she wasn't promoting "Lebensraum."
That video was removed, but it's easy enough to find it still on YouTube by typing "elbow room schoolhouse rock" into Google.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs2w4lwQRtc
Not sure why a couple of the other commenters insist on splitting hairs over specific words or the personal history of the author instead of acknowledging that yes, the theme of "manifest destiny" is in the same spirit as Nazi "lebensraum", a very common recurring theme in world history before and after those events... Columbus and Pizarro... Alexander the Great... the Roman Empire... Genghis Khan... the unification of China... etc...
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