From Dan Sanchez at antiwar.org
Inscribed on a plaque inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty is a poem by Emma Lazarus titled “New Colossus.” The sonnet waxes lyrical about how different the Green Goddess is from ancient colossal statues, and how that symbolizes the contrast between American ideals and those of empires since antiquity. The Statue of Liberty is:
“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land”
This is a reference to the Colossus of Rhodes, a statue long thought to have straddled a great harbor (although this is now doubted), and which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Empires also arrogantly stand “astride from land to land” with “conquering limbs,” like the famous editorial cartoon depicting a British colonialist standing over the African continent, “striding from Cape Town to Cairo.” In a stroke of great luck for the ironist, the lampooned fellow happened to be named Cecil Rhodes, allowing the clever cartoonist to dub him, “The Rhodes Colossus.”
In contrast, according to Lazarus’s poem, the Statue of Liberty looks upon the world with “mild eyes.” It stands beside the “golden door” of the New World and, on behalf of America, tells the “ancient lands” that they can keep their “storied pomp” of imperial greatness. America would have none of it. Instead, America would take in the victims of that “greatness”: those made “tired” and “poor” by imperial exactions. “Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”
The new country would not bestride the world like a colossus, but would, like its great statue, stand straight and stable, holding aloft an illuminating torch: a welcoming beacon of hope and freedom.
Unfortunately this ideal has never been much more than a distant aspiration. From its earliest days, the American Colossus never hesitated to tread upon the Blacks and Indians it found underfoot.
But at least while it was busy acquiring dominion over its own continent, it was indeed quite benign and welcoming to the civilized peoples of the Old World.
But by the late 19th-century, the American Colossus had its fill of local lands and craved more exotic fare. And so, beginning with Spanish-American War, Manifest Destiny set out to sea, and the American overseas empire was born. An 1898 cartoon called “Colossus of the Pacific” aptly depicted Uncle Sam striding from the California coast to the Philippine Islands.
Thus a mere 15 years after Lazarus wrote her lovely poem, and 5 years before it actually graced the statue itself, its ideals were fully repudiated by the American regime. And the actual “New Colossus” would eventually bestride more of the globe than any before it.
For the past 14 years, the American Colossus has been on a Godzilla-like rampage, trampling over the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia: squashing people, flattening homes, and demolishing communities.
To continue reading: Mass-Producing Huddle Masses
