"My Country tis of thee"

"Shall the voice of liberty be mute?"
next to of course god america i

Whoever heard of taking lovely songs about America's pride and turning them around to have the opposite effect? E. E. Cummings seems to be a master at this, though. From lines such as "land of the pilgrims'" from "My Country tis of thee" to "oh say can you see by the dawn's early" from the "Star Spangled Banner", Cummings is referencing popular American songs left and right. However, the second half of the poem tips the reader off to the fact that Cummings isn't supporting everything about America. The irony of the way songs are constructed to form the line "heroic happy dead who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter" shows that perhaps America is not all it is cracked up to be. Maybe he is pointing out how Americans sometimes pretend to be proud and strong, while truly there are cracks in the system and bad things are overlooked. The last line of the quotations seems to ask a serious, straightforward question, though. "Shall the voice of liberty be mute?" If sometimes all American pride is, is cocky people cheering just to cheer, then should we be mute in support for our country? I don't think so, not at all.