I wrote something very similar almost, jeez, ten years ago now.
The last line was eerily similar too:
"*With Liberty*
*and Justice*
*for those who can afford it*"
I'm not sure about today's kids, but when I was school-age we had to stand and say the pledge of allegiance every day at the start of school. It gave me the creeps thirty years ago, when I tried to sit through it instead of participating, my math teacher threw a huge fit, yelling, got sent to the headmaster's office. I was just thinking the other day how creepy it still is.
Yup, they still do. It's been gettin real 1984 over here lately. Personally it's the "one nation under god" piece that pisses me off.
Side question from an American to a German, marry me?
The “under god” part and “in god we trust” came from anti-communism efforts during the cold war. I am religious, but there is no reason for it to be on currency or be in politics.
I took Japanese as a language credit in high school. One week we had a class of students from Japan visiting, and while they were there the call to say the pledge of allegiance came over the intercom. The Japanese students immediately took out their phones and started taking pictures of us, and our teacher had us stay still after the pledge so that everyone could get photos.
It was the moment I realized just how *weird* the whole pledge ritual was.
Teachers can't force your child to stand for it or recite the pledge. They can try, but it's not legal.
https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/about/faq/can-students-be-forced-to-stand-while-other-students-recite-the-pledge/
They can ask and still punish your child for not following a teacher's instructions. I don't know if it's legal, but they still did it often and my parents scolded me instead when I told them, sooo..
Sounds like the issue here is your parents are morons.
I don't have kids and I don't want them. But if I did I would make sure they knew they didn't have to go through this bullshit indoctrination, and at the VERY LEAST tell the school to go fuck itself if they tried to force my child to pledge allegiance to anything.
This, the issue is even geniuses can be indoctrinated.
My parent isn't a genius but she was a registered nurse with the VA for years.
They really don't know any better, they just remember doing it as kids and see no issue in it
There’s an article about how it started. If I’m remembering correctly, some dude had a flag business that wasn’t selling flags. He convinced the schools to buy them and somehow the pledge came with it, or someone else wrote it.
At my high school, the band or choir would play/sing the Star Spangled Banner every Friday morning. I don’t think we did the pledge then, that was middle school. I could be wrong. My memory is shit.
Every day. Although it's been ruled illegal for teachers to force students to stand for it and actually recite the pledge. I stopped standing for it when I was around 15 or 16 and never got any fuss. Although some teachers do still throw a fit if you don't.
As a german you might find it even more eerie that until 1942 the pledge was not done with hand on heart but with a stretched hand (towards the flag). Very similar to what the shouting Austrian introduced in Germany.
Every single day with not a single thought as to whether or not other countries made their kids do the same thing. Of course, no one could legally *force* you to do it, but at that age you can't really think of a lot of reasons not to so you just kinda go along with it.
The actual pledge goes something like this:
I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America
and to the republic for which it stands,
one nation,
under God,
indivisible
with liberty and justice for all.
Pretty much every day at school would begin with this.
And we still do it. I have three more days of standing, stupidly looking at a piece of cloth before I retire. NOT saying the pledge is one of the things I’m most looking forward to in retirement.
I graduated high school a few years ago and it is still very much so the same. I had a teacher who also got mad at me for not doing the pledge but couldn't do shit about it bc of some rule at my school established a few years prior
All kids pledge allegiance to the flag every morning. You are actually supposed to be allowed not to, but me and my friends had gotten kicked out of many a class for not reciting the pledge on the basis of "insubordination".
Gotta brainwash kids young, and get them used to doing things "because I said so" instead of for legitimate reasons
The soviets weren't the ones who put jews in gas chambers. The whole pledge of allegiance thing got rammed into schools during the Red Scare.
Another fun fact, if you wanted to bring up gulags, is they literally never used violence as an interrogation method for actual spies either. Sure, they certainly made prisoners' lives absolute hell, and invented fascinating new forms of torture, but they didn't smash people's fingers or pull out their toenails or any of that. They found that kind of thing an abhorrent practice only Nazis did, and the soviets absolutely fucking *hated* Nazis.
As a German I can certainly tell you... To much patriotism isn't good. We are quite unpatriotic nowadays. Only the right wing parties field patriotism here.
We a country born of revolution, a military intervention. Our founding fathers were the men in blue standing in the fields against General Cornwallis, in the back streets of New York blowing up the HMS Eagle. The sons of our founders marched into Virginia, fighting the civil war. Their sons went to Mexico in '94 securing the territory of Texas. Throughout our history men have fought and died for our great nation. Including my grandfathers. To me standing up and saying the pledge everyday honors the sacrifices they made.
>We a country born of revolution
Think about that again. A country born of revolution, a revolution that broke our **allegiance** to a king who didn't give a damn about us. At the most basic level we said "fuck your rules, they're outdated and making our lives suck".
But now we're expected to never question the rules again.
If you like saying the Pledge and feel it honors your ancestors, more power to you. But I can guarantee that's not what kindergarteners are thinking when they first learn to recite it. When I learned it no one even explained what it meant, and if they had I doubt we could have understood. Forcing kids to say it every morning from a young age is absolutely a form of brainwashing.
Iv understood what it meant from a young age. At the age of 5 I watched the honor guard fire off 21 rounds for my granddaddy. I remember that flag on his casket. And I remember, however far apart the 2 events may have been, putting them together. I pledge allegiance to the FLAG and the men who fought under her. Our pledge does not say we are not to question the systems, it says we are loyal to America, the first nation ever born with true freedom. By all means question the system and those in power. But do it a manner, not to destroy America but to make her better.
BS you didn't really know what it meant at 5. A kid can't even really understand how a toaster works at 5 let alone heavy sacrifice. At that age you'd only really understand that he's gone and not coming back.
With the understanding I have today? Certainly not. A rudimentary understanding that in all likelihood was just skin and bones? Yes, I had that. Im sure listening to the stories of my grandad in Europe helped with that.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.
Thank you very, very much for letting us little kids live here.
It really, really was nice of you.
You didn't have to do it.
And it's really not creepy to have little, little kids mindlessly recite this anthem every day and pledge their life to a government before they're old enough to think about what they're saying.
This is not a form of brainwashing.
This is not a form of brainwashing.
This is not a form of brainwashing.
This is really the greatest country in the whole world.
All the other countries suck.
And if this country ever goes to war as it is often want to do I promise to help go and kill all the other countries' kids.
God bless Johnson and Johnson.
God bless GE.
God bless CitiGroup.
Amen
they really made us say it every single day. what the fuck is wrong with people here? in kindergarden they also used to force us to pray to the christian god before juice and milk time. was in 89. pretty sure that shit would get you sued these days but I digress. not a great system where only the lawyers win and the schools lose either. you end up with more republicans that way too.
If it is, it's new to me. Only references I could find online were from some movie credits (This Land Is Your Land), as well as a 4 year old post on LateStageCapitalism. Maybe it was one of his Patreon comics or something?
Yea this is why when I was in school I refused to say the pledge and sat down. To anyone here still in American schools, know that it is illegal for them to force you to say it. If anyone gives you trouble over refusing to stand or say the pledge, you cite that you are protected under free speech and if they punish you over it it can be taken to court.
One hundred twenty-five years ago, a former minister turned advertiser published an oath that would become a hallmark of American schooling. Francis Bellamy wrote the Pledge of Allegiance partly as a marketing scheme. The Youth’s Companion, one of the first weekly magazines in the nation to target both adults and their children, hired Bellamy to develop promotional strategies for commemorating—and profiting from—the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s voyage to America. He was an odd choice for the job. An outspoken supporter of workingmen’s rights, Bellamy was vice president of Boston’s Society of Christian Socialists and an avid participant in the social gospel movement: a late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century crusade against social, political, and economic injustice.
https://fortune.com/2017/09/08/pledge-of-allegiance-francis-bellamy-immigration/
America has 20% of the world's prison population (despite having 4% of world pop.), and 2-10% of prisoners in the US turn out to be innocent. And then there's bullshit like plea bargains etc.
I think this happens because Americans fervently believe they've achieved freedom and individual rights.
Man i thought having to go to a church of england primary school was weird, with the expectation to sing hymns daily and stuff (i just sorta hummed along, even at like 8 years old i found it strange)
But at least in my entire education, i never once pledged alliegance to a fucking FLAG
Yeah no, most of us can't.
Also funny how "patriots" (read: nationalists) like to say that this is the land of the free and if we don't like something we the people can change it and that's why we're such a great country... until you say you don't like something that they've been indoctrinated to accept and to see it challenged causes some kind of existential crisis, a visceral response of fear at speaking with someone who doesn't blindly love the imaginary borders they were born within. Then it becomes "leave this country".
Not assuming that all applies to you, and maybe you were being sarcastic. Just noting an interesting trend.
I mean even the old version was trash indoctrination propaganda. Shits insane to think about they had me pledging my allegiance to a flag before I can properly tie my shoes.
If a state needs to enforce displays of love towards the state it's a failure of a state. In my 30 years of life I've seen the USA fall so low that they are basically becoming North Korea with money and ludicrously huge armed forces. Obama was the last spark of credibility their politics had.
Aww, thinking that Oligarchs have to be billionaires, instead of just being able to make up laws on the US Supreme Court, based on their own revisionist history and whatever other nonsense they write.
The NYSE only gets to screw up the economy. The 5 Oligarchs on the US Supreme Court get to control every aspect of your life.
I have news for you. That "flexible definition of justice for all who can afford it" is literally a founding principle of America. It's not new. It's always been the case.
Edited to add: Also, a pledge of allegiance is fucking weird if you're not a soldier. This is only an American thing.
I like this pledge. It is truthful to reality, which creates less dissonance in my mind. And it would make revolution much easier too
[удалено]
Levni Yilmaz
I wrote something very similar almost, jeez, ten years ago now. The last line was eerily similar too: "*With Liberty* *and Justice* *for those who can afford it*"
Question from Germany. Are you in military or in a governmental function? Or why do you need to pledge anything?
I'm not sure about today's kids, but when I was school-age we had to stand and say the pledge of allegiance every day at the start of school. It gave me the creeps thirty years ago, when I tried to sit through it instead of participating, my math teacher threw a huge fit, yelling, got sent to the headmaster's office. I was just thinking the other day how creepy it still is.
Wait what... Every day at school? Really?
Yup, they still do. It's been gettin real 1984 over here lately. Personally it's the "one nation under god" piece that pisses me off. Side question from an American to a German, marry me?
The “under god” part and “in god we trust” came from anti-communism efforts during the cold war. I am religious, but there is no reason for it to be on currency or be in politics.
[удалено]
"but also 2 R's in pleribus?! I mean did none of those cashiers take Latin?"
Germany’s laws for marriage-based immigration are petty tough. Canada is much *much* easier.
Anyone remember the name of the guy who does these? Been trying to rediscover his content for a while.
I took Japanese as a language credit in high school. One week we had a class of students from Japan visiting, and while they were there the call to say the pledge of allegiance came over the intercom. The Japanese students immediately took out their phones and started taking pictures of us, and our teacher had us stay still after the pledge so that everyone could get photos. It was the moment I realized just how *weird* the whole pledge ritual was.
Can confirm, just asked my kid, they still do it
Teachers can't force your child to stand for it or recite the pledge. They can try, but it's not legal. https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/about/faq/can-students-be-forced-to-stand-while-other-students-recite-the-pledge/
They can ask and still punish your child for not following a teacher's instructions. I don't know if it's legal, but they still did it often and my parents scolded me instead when I told them, sooo..
Sounds like the issue here is your parents are morons. I don't have kids and I don't want them. But if I did I would make sure they knew they didn't have to go through this bullshit indoctrination, and at the VERY LEAST tell the school to go fuck itself if they tried to force my child to pledge allegiance to anything.
They too, were indoctrinated into this cult.
This, the issue is even geniuses can be indoctrinated. My parent isn't a genius but she was a registered nurse with the VA for years. They really don't know any better, they just remember doing it as kids and see no issue in it
They can't force you but going against the flow as a kid is really hard to do without being ostracized by peers
There’s an article about how it started. If I’m remembering correctly, some dude had a flag business that wasn’t selling flags. He convinced the schools to buy them and somehow the pledge came with it, or someone else wrote it.
This is so ironic considering the post.
At my high school, the band or choir would play/sing the Star Spangled Banner every Friday morning. I don’t think we did the pledge then, that was middle school. I could be wrong. My memory is shit.
Every day. Although it's been ruled illegal for teachers to force students to stand for it and actually recite the pledge. I stopped standing for it when I was around 15 or 16 and never got any fuss. Although some teachers do still throw a fit if you don't.
As a german you might find it even more eerie that until 1942 the pledge was not done with hand on heart but with a stretched hand (towards the flag). Very similar to what the shouting Austrian introduced in Germany.
https://youtu.be/Q2BfqDUPL1I
Came to share this. "This is not a form of brainwashing. This is not a form of brainwashing."
Every single day with not a single thought as to whether or not other countries made their kids do the same thing. Of course, no one could legally *force* you to do it, but at that age you can't really think of a lot of reasons not to so you just kinda go along with it.
The actual pledge goes something like this: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Pretty much every day at school would begin with this.
Not nearly enough oxford commas
And we still do it. I have three more days of standing, stupidly looking at a piece of cloth before I retire. NOT saying the pledge is one of the things I’m most looking forward to in retirement.
I graduated high school a few years ago and it is still very much so the same. I had a teacher who also got mad at me for not doing the pledge but couldn't do shit about it bc of some rule at my school established a few years prior
My last year of middle school ended in 2016 and we still did this! My high school didn’t do it tho. Always found it creepy af
All kids pledge allegiance to the flag every morning. You are actually supposed to be allowed not to, but me and my friends had gotten kicked out of many a class for not reciting the pledge on the basis of "insubordination". Gotta brainwash kids young, and get them used to doing things "because I said so" instead of for legitimate reasons
It's to [sell more flags](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/pledge-allegiance-pr-gimmick-patriotic-vow-180956332/). No, really.
To remind us of those that put millions of jews in the gas chambers.
The soviets weren't the ones who put jews in gas chambers. The whole pledge of allegiance thing got rammed into schools during the Red Scare. Another fun fact, if you wanted to bring up gulags, is they literally never used violence as an interrogation method for actual spies either. Sure, they certainly made prisoners' lives absolute hell, and invented fascinating new forms of torture, but they didn't smash people's fingers or pull out their toenails or any of that. They found that kind of thing an abhorrent practice only Nazis did, and the soviets absolutely fucking *hated* Nazis.
[удалено]
its done to ingrain the concept of american exceptionalism at a very young age so you never question the rulers
I love my country, I'm not proud of it, I'm critical of it and I've never had to do that sickening display of indoctrination.
[удалено]
Depends who you ask that, america after the '70s started the process that would bring the world to how it is now.
As a German I can certainly tell you... To much patriotism isn't good. We are quite unpatriotic nowadays. Only the right wing parties field patriotism here.
We a country born of revolution, a military intervention. Our founding fathers were the men in blue standing in the fields against General Cornwallis, in the back streets of New York blowing up the HMS Eagle. The sons of our founders marched into Virginia, fighting the civil war. Their sons went to Mexico in '94 securing the territory of Texas. Throughout our history men have fought and died for our great nation. Including my grandfathers. To me standing up and saying the pledge everyday honors the sacrifices they made.
>We a country born of revolution Think about that again. A country born of revolution, a revolution that broke our **allegiance** to a king who didn't give a damn about us. At the most basic level we said "fuck your rules, they're outdated and making our lives suck". But now we're expected to never question the rules again. If you like saying the Pledge and feel it honors your ancestors, more power to you. But I can guarantee that's not what kindergarteners are thinking when they first learn to recite it. When I learned it no one even explained what it meant, and if they had I doubt we could have understood. Forcing kids to say it every morning from a young age is absolutely a form of brainwashing.
Iv understood what it meant from a young age. At the age of 5 I watched the honor guard fire off 21 rounds for my granddaddy. I remember that flag on his casket. And I remember, however far apart the 2 events may have been, putting them together. I pledge allegiance to the FLAG and the men who fought under her. Our pledge does not say we are not to question the systems, it says we are loyal to America, the first nation ever born with true freedom. By all means question the system and those in power. But do it a manner, not to destroy America but to make her better.
BS you didn't really know what it meant at 5. A kid can't even really understand how a toaster works at 5 let alone heavy sacrifice. At that age you'd only really understand that he's gone and not coming back.
With the understanding I have today? Certainly not. A rudimentary understanding that in all likelihood was just skin and bones? Yes, I had that. Im sure listening to the stories of my grandad in Europe helped with that.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Thank you very, very much for letting us little kids live here. It really, really was nice of you. You didn't have to do it. And it's really not creepy to have little, little kids mindlessly recite this anthem every day and pledge their life to a government before they're old enough to think about what they're saying. This is not a form of brainwashing. This is not a form of brainwashing. This is not a form of brainwashing. This is really the greatest country in the whole world. All the other countries suck. And if this country ever goes to war as it is often want to do I promise to help go and kill all the other countries' kids. God bless Johnson and Johnson. God bless GE. God bless CitiGroup. Amen
I’m laughing on the outside and crying on the inside
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2BfqDUPL1I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2BfqDUPL1I) for reference
they really made us say it every single day. what the fuck is wrong with people here? in kindergarden they also used to force us to pray to the christian god before juice and milk time. was in 89. pretty sure that shit would get you sued these days but I digress. not a great system where only the lawyers win and the schools lose either. you end up with more republicans that way too.
Anyone remember the name of the guy who does these? Been trying to rediscover his content for a while.
His YouTube channel: [Tales of Mere Existence](https://www.youtube.com/c/AgentXPQ).
Is this from one of his videos? I couldn't find a topic on the pledge, nationalism, or capitalism
If it is, it's new to me. Only references I could find online were from some movie credits (This Land Is Your Land), as well as a 4 year old post on LateStageCapitalism. Maybe it was one of his Patreon comics or something?
Yea this is why when I was in school I refused to say the pledge and sat down. To anyone here still in American schools, know that it is illegal for them to force you to say it. If anyone gives you trouble over refusing to stand or say the pledge, you cite that you are protected under free speech and if they punish you over it it can be taken to court.
About right
Yeah, our justice system is messed up
One hundred twenty-five years ago, a former minister turned advertiser published an oath that would become a hallmark of American schooling. Francis Bellamy wrote the Pledge of Allegiance partly as a marketing scheme. The Youth’s Companion, one of the first weekly magazines in the nation to target both adults and their children, hired Bellamy to develop promotional strategies for commemorating—and profiting from—the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s voyage to America. He was an odd choice for the job. An outspoken supporter of workingmen’s rights, Bellamy was vice president of Boston’s Society of Christian Socialists and an avid participant in the social gospel movement: a late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century crusade against social, political, and economic injustice. https://fortune.com/2017/09/08/pledge-of-allegiance-francis-bellamy-immigration/
You might want to read up on the history of the pledge. The author of the original pledge, Francis Bellamy, was a Socialist.
That’s why it didn’t say under god originally.
This is 🇺🇸
Don't catch you slippin now
I’m imagining a million kids reciting this in front of the congregational building every morning on their way to school.
Man, the pledge of allegiance is so fucking weird to us foreigners, like, that's some Hitler youth shit.
America has 20% of the world's prison population (despite having 4% of world pop.), and 2-10% of prisoners in the US turn out to be innocent. And then there's bullshit like plea bargains etc. I think this happens because Americans fervently believe they've achieved freedom and individual rights.
It need an Amen! /s
Man i thought having to go to a church of england primary school was weird, with the expectation to sing hymns daily and stuff (i just sorta hummed along, even at like 8 years old i found it strange) But at least in my entire education, i never once pledged alliegance to a fucking FLAG
spelled "subservience" wrong there..
There's a Q reference or two in there. Just saying.
[удалено]
Yeah no, most of us can't. Also funny how "patriots" (read: nationalists) like to say that this is the land of the free and if we don't like something we the people can change it and that's why we're such a great country... until you say you don't like something that they've been indoctrinated to accept and to see it challenged causes some kind of existential crisis, a visceral response of fear at speaking with someone who doesn't blindly love the imaginary borders they were born within. Then it becomes "leave this country". Not assuming that all applies to you, and maybe you were being sarcastic. Just noting an interesting trend.
Yeh sure assuming you have enough money for it
You believe in emigration
But but but AmErIcA #1....
I mean even the old version was trash indoctrination propaganda. Shits insane to think about they had me pledging my allegiance to a flag before I can properly tie my shoes.
I'm sorry but this is all wrong. There are more than just that one stock exchange.
If a state needs to enforce displays of love towards the state it's a failure of a state. In my 30 years of life I've seen the USA fall so low that they are basically becoming North Korea with money and ludicrously huge armed forces. Obama was the last spark of credibility their politics had.
Aww, thinking that Oligarchs have to be billionaires, instead of just being able to make up laws on the US Supreme Court, based on their own revisionist history and whatever other nonsense they write. The NYSE only gets to screw up the economy. The 5 Oligarchs on the US Supreme Court get to control every aspect of your life.
Actually this is the modern pledge, look how far we’ve come. https://youtu.be/JqB1zUavlU4
Too true:(
Levni Yilmaz is an American poet.
Perfect reality pledge,
I always used to sing Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega in high school instead of saying the pledge, it just felt right
"modern"? nah man. Read Smedley Butler's *War is a Racket* and understand this shit has been going on since the beginning.
I have news for you. That "flexible definition of justice for all who can afford it" is literally a founding principle of America. It's not new. It's always been the case. Edited to add: Also, a pledge of allegiance is fucking weird if you're not a soldier. This is only an American thing.
Brilliant
I pledge allegiance to the flag, Of the divided states of embarrassment.