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Object 3

                          Relational Analysis of “With God on Our Side”

           The motivations of the song “With God on Our Side” are mainly anti-racism and anti-war sentiment. Just as stated in “Port Huron Statement”, the major tension at the sixties was mainly due to “southern struggle against racial bigotry” and constant fear of cold war that was “symbolized by the presence of the Bomb” (SDS 173). The anti-war representation of “With God on Our Side” is parallel to the anti-racist movement during the sixties. As an extremely important form of artistic expression, songs on different but relevant topics shows the relation and intersectionality between both categories existing in different groups.

           Another protest song “Mississippi Goddam” was first performed by Nina Simone in 1964, the golden era of Civil Rights Movement. We can clearly get the history and the core understanding of the song from the very first stanza. The song specifically mentions three southern states, and several key events happened there from the 1950s to 1960s further drove the birth of the song. First, 1955 Rosa Park Bus Boycott in Montgomery, Alabama united the whole African American community across classes, and thus initiated the wave of people’s movement against racial inequality. The year before the release of “Mississippi Goddam”, the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing happened, and thus led to the lyrics “Alabama got me so upset” (Simone). From 1963 murder of Medger Evers, to 1964 Freedom Summer Murder of three young men, Mississippi sparked a national outrage toward these supremacist murderers, and “everybody” across races “knows about Mississippi Goddam” (Simone)! As another racist state, Tennessee is also denounced at the very beginning of the song. Coincidently, Dr. King’s assassination happened later in 1968 exactly confirms the lyrics “Tennessee made me lose my rest” (Simone).

           Even though “Mississippi Goddam” and “With God on Our Side” are respectively on civil rights activism and anti-war sentiment, they are profoundly related to each other through the same emergent ideology of self-determination--the anti-racism of people of color against white supremacy, and the anti-war sentiment for Vietnamese against western expansionism. Such connection between anti-colonialism and anti-segregation aroused extensive support from both sides of the movement. Therefore, both movements reached their peak at the same time, and there is a great overlap among civil rights and anti-war activists. Presenting a related theme, these two songs have two completely different styles. As a protest song trying to attain publicity and accelerate the progress of Civil Rights Movement, the song “Mississippi Goddam” boldly address its vehement accusation of white supremacy in the lyrics. “Can’t you see it, Can’t you feel it, it is all in the air” (Simone). As a folk song, “With God on Our Side” inherits the feature of passivity and depression when expressing its discontent and sympathy about American exceptionalism. Instead of stating bold and boisterous accusations like “Mississippi Goddam”, “With God on Our Side” applies more implicit repetitions of ironic contradictions of American manifest destiny.  

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Object 2

                             Intersectionality of “With God on Our Side”

In the song, Dylan mentions several historical war events conducted by “American people”, including the slaughter of Native American during Andrew Jackson’s Indian removal policy, the Spanish-American War, the Civil War, WWI, WWII, and the Cold War. As portrayed by white upper-class people as just, these events exemplify the hypocrisy of the so-called American value. In fact, it is the white supremacy and colonialism associated with the country that led to all these crimes. Issued during the Vietnam War in the 1960s, “With God on Our Sides” aimed to denounce the role of the United States in the war by recalling all those crimes committed by the country years before.

The confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the cold war divided the world into two parts, each with a highly exclusive ideology. American exceptionalism and manifest destiny once again repeated along the history. In the 19th century, white people regarded native American as savages and uncivilized. The idea of “whiteness” justify its action to expel all the Native American from their homelands, and occupied their land. They considered their civilization is superior to Indian’s and expected the native to assimilate to their value and culture. Similarly, people during the cold war can’t accept the different ideology of communism, thus regarding it as heresy. As a result, the United State decided to forcefully implementing the Western ideology of Capitalism in other countries, which was exactly the idea of colonialism.

As discussed, racism and ideological conflict intersect with each other during the 1960s. The common theme of self-determination and equality drove people to rise up and fight against whiteness and colonialism. The fact that these two categories were mutually intersecting made the Civil Rights Movement and the Anti-War Movement happened and reached peak simultaneously. The core value of capitalism stems from individualism, which is also the focus of western religion—Christianity. However, the Communism is popular among the Eastern countries because of its long-lasting tradition of collective society. Similarly, the slaughter of native American and Nazism during the WWII are simply a social construction of racism that artificially defines other racial groups as inferior. The so-called divine mission of America actually remains fluid and dependent on its interest. “When the Second World War came to an end, we forgive the German and then we were friends, though they murder six million” (Dylan).

Based on such reasoning, both racism and ideological conflict are essentially the social product of American exceptionalism and manifest destiny.

           The song “With God on Our Side” is the joint product of the Civil Rights Movement and Anti-War Movement. People in Vietnam suffered from the warfare and blood, while domestic people suffered from racial discrimination and oppression. Such intersection aroused a resonance between these two groups of people. These two movements both came from the same motivation of self-determination. Therefore, such overlap among civil rights and anti-war activists gave rise to a number of artists and singers during the sixties, including Bob Dylan.

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Object 1

                              Circulation of “With God on Our Side”

“With God on Our Side” is a song performed by artist Bob Dylan in 1963, the peak time of anti-war movement in the 1960s. America in the sixties was an era full of tensions that operate simultaneously. After WWII, Civil Rights Movement started domestically in America, while the global independence movement started around the world. Such synchronization is not merely a coincidence, but a product of world themes—self-determination, freedom, and equality. “With God on Our Side” was driven by the tension created by the anti-war sentiment against American exceptionalism and self-determination against western colonialism. It not only posed a great impact on the United States itself, but also circulated around the world, having a huge impact during the global colonial independence movement.

Since the song was issued due to Bob Dylan’s discontent about war and expansionism, it fits in the category of “War and figure of the Refugee”. It introduced an emergent ideology of anti-war sentiment in the USA, and also gave other colonies around the world additional power to resist colonialism and jingoism from western countries.

The song is mainly constructed by a series of ironic repetitions that reveal the contradictions of American manifest destiny. For example, a highly tragic scene as “the cavalries charged, the Indian died” is followed by an ironic and pretentious statement “with god on our side” (Dylan). Such contrast repeats over the whole song, highlighting the hypocrisy of American ideas. The song points out the long existing contradiction between American exceptionalism and those bloody crimes. Regarding America as being chosen by god, and its spirit superior to any other ideologies, American exceptionalism seems to justify all its political and military crime conducted to other countries and races. Such contradiction simply reflects the pretense to fulfill U.S. interest of expansionism. After finishing the use of satirical repetition of “with god on our side”, Dylan explicitly expresses his anti-war sentiment through the last sentence of the lyrics: “if God’s on our side, he will stop the next war” (Dylan).

The protest song “With God on Our Side” was majorly driven by the ideological and military collision between American and communist countries. Born in the 40s, Bob Dylan grew up during the McCarthy Era. Widespread fear and hatred of communism led to frequent military confrontations later between America and other third world countries, including North Korea and Vietnam. Besides, an incessant military competition between Russia and America, especially on nuclear weapons, brought the world to the edge of full destruction. 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis made people truly realize the danger, and thus maximized the anti-war sentiment among American, particularly toward Vietnam War. These events directly led to the birth of the song “With God on Our Side”, which points out the hypocrisy of American idea of “city on the hill” and criticizes the bloody military history of the nation.

           The ideology of self-determination imposed by the song inspired people both America and colonial countries such as Vietnam. In the United States, self-determination drove people to fight against white supremacy during the Civil Rights Movement. In Vietnam, self-determination drove people to fight against western colonialism during the Vietnam War. People in color in America strived for the same freedom and equality as Vietnamese did in the war.