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I never liked doing it. Got in trouble a few times for not doing it, though that didn’t matter to me since I got in trouble a lot when I was in school. Those dipshits (the counselor) thought I had “Gender Identity Disorder” and was reacting because of “distress” (Not because I wouldn’t say the pledge, I did many worse things than that), they also used the fact that I also had long hair and sometimes would wear a skirt as evidence I had GID. What fun people I spent my childhood with sarcasm I’m glad my parents are and were nice people otherwise I might not be here today.
Worth a read for the “secede from our marital union” part alone!
Fiest time I had to do the pledge, I just got to America from Taiwan and I honestly thought the pledge was a Christian/religion thing because of the “…under god” thing. So I told my teacher that my family is Buddhist and can’t do the pledge.
Fun fact! “Fun”, actually.
Under God wasn’t in the original version. It wasn’t added until 1954 because they didn’t to be like communist countries and be seen as a secular government.
Good old fashion forcing religion on your citizens.
This was also the same time “In God We Trust” was added to all coins and paper money.
That makes sense. It did seem like the under god was out of place. Everything else flowed pretty well until the under god part.
You weren’t wrong, exactly
Americans are cultists
I sat down because I was lazy.
Pledge oft what? Eli5 pls
Wtf. Hard to believe this is real… Do only certain far right private schools do nationalistic stuff like that or is it a common phenomenon over there, like are public funded schools allowed to do bs like this as well?
EDIT: WWWWTTTTTFFFF
" All states except Nebraska, Hawaii, Vermont, and Wyoming require a regularly scheduled recitation of the pledge in public schools.[13] Many states give a variety of exemptions from reciting the pledge, such as California which requires a “patriotic exercise” every day, which would be satisfied by the Pledge, "
To be honest its a miracle you guys didn’t turn facist earlier with stuff like that.
No it’s basically universal
Texas also has its own that kids have to do after the US one, every day.
Yup, when I heard about it it was really weird. And when I said I won’t let my children do that, I learn they’d be ostracized not only by peers but by teachers as well. And considering there’ll bullying in schools and teachers don’t do much. It doesn’t seem like a good place to send your children. (And there’s shooting)
I wouldn’t be surprised if my town was the exception and not the norm (I’m from a relatively progressive town in a consistently blue state) but at my public high school I only knew of 1-2 people out of the 500 people in my grade that stood up during the pledge of allegiance and a good percentage of the grade hated them because they were high key homophobic.
And the worst part is that it was created in cooperation with a flag company partly to hopefully sell more flags.
That’s capitalism for ya.
Is this true? Honestly it wouldn’t surprise me but I’d never heard this before
If you go to the Wiki article linked above, you can find the whole story of how multiple vows of fealty have sprung up over the years under the Origins section, but the last bit on Francis Bellamy is the important one as that’s the one used today.
Some useful highlights from that section:
The Bellamy “Pledge of Allegiance” was first published in the September 8, 1892, issue of The Youth’s Companion as part of the National Public-School Celebration of Columbus Day, a celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas. The event was conceived and promoted by James B. Upham, a marketer for the magazine, as a campaign to instill the idea of American nationalism in students and to encourage children to raise flags above their schools.[28] According to author Margarette S. Miller, this campaign was in line both with Upham’s patriotic vision as well as with his commercial interest.
Francis Bellamy and Upham had lined up the National Education Association to support the Youth’s Companion as a sponsor of the Columbus Day observance and the use in that observance of the American flag. By June 29, 1892, Bellamy and Upham had arranged for Congress and President Benjamin Harrison to announce a proclamation making the public school flag ceremony the center of the Columbus Day celebrations. This arrangement was formalized when Harrison issued Presidential Proclamation 335. Subsequently, the Pledge was first used in public schools on October 12, 1892, during Columbus Day observances organized to coincide with the opening of the World’s Columbian Exposition (the Chicago World’s Fair), Illinois.
James Upham “felt that a flag should be on every schoolhouse,”[27] so his publication "fostered a plan of selling flags to schools through the children themselves at cost, which was so successful that 25,000 schools acquired flags in the first year (1892–93).
Thanks for the detailed response. That is absolutely wild
Yeah, it’s absolutely insane, which is why I remember it lol.
All states except Nebraska, Hawaii, Vermont, and Wyoming require a regularly scheduled recitation of the pledge in public schools
Madness.
You don’t have to do it. I stopped doing the pledge around 6th grade. 9-11 made me read into our history a bit more, and pledging allegiance to a flag that is supposed to represent “of the people, by the people, for the people” seems a backwards. Then you realize that it’s straight up McCarthy-era bullshit. It’s more patriotic to not say the pledge.
I mean I was punished for not doing it one time. Agreed otherwise
I was lucky enough that my parents had engaged with the school system overriding my (and my siblings) civil rights in the past. A little bit of push-back from them quashed a lot of school bullshit. As long as I wasn’t endangering myself or my class, and not disrupting the education of other students, I had carte blanche to do what I wanted.
When the whole “trapper keepers only” thing went down around 8th grade, I kept using my backpack, since I walked a little over a mile home from school every day, and the trapper was dead-weight.
I would say I went to a fairly typical public high school and most people didn’t say the pledge or stand, although it was definitely read over the loudspeaker during the morning announcements
The Nazi party of America - the GOP - has spent so much time and money creating fascist propaganda for decades. The country largely ignored it, because it didn’t really “do” anything and most people were like “ok. It’s a bit strange, but whatever.”
The military is to be praised. The boy scouts of America have promoted flag ceremony, and allegiance to state. Sports are practically religious events, so your team is part of where you live. The more you buy, the more you help America. America’s international superiority is paramount to our health. It’s been ready for a long time. It just needed ignition.
In my state, which is extremely conservative, it is illegal to force a student to participate in the pledge. Most teachers are ignorant of this though so you have to bring it up when they try to make you do it. I haven’t been in high school for well over 20 years though.
it me lmao
Same. But I didn’t do it because of a different indoctrination, not because I understood anything special.
Im guessing that’s a lot of us here lol
Lmao saaaame
Generally, the main problem with being “far left” is being ridiculed for being right earlier than everyone else.
There was always one kid that sat down during the pledge in my class. None of us thought he was annoying or weird. I admired him.
Dear America:
Most countries don’t do this shit. At all. It’s weird and off putting
Does anyone else also fly bombers and fighter jets over stadiums at the start of a game? Do you take 2-5 minutes to honor some guys in the military during half time?
NK does i believe
When you connect the dots of modern history, you realize America was most of the way to fascist dictatorship the entire time.
Many of us have been waiting for it to drop the facade for decades.
YuppppP
Fascism is just capitalist imperialism turned against your own citizens.
to be fair, that one (afaik) is a legitimate training exercise. it’s useful to train pilots to be at an exact place, in an exact formation, at an exact speed, at an exact time… and if you can get marketing and morale out of it, welllll why not
Also, jets are just plain old cool. Everyone likes a mini-airshow.
Piling on the list of negatives - they use leaded fuel, which is bad for you. I still like planes though
No they don’t. Jets use jet fuel not avgas.
You’re right, my bad.
yyyyyyyes but it’s also expensive and thoroughly weird when compared to the rest of the world… so whilst it does serve a legitimate purpose, it’s worth noting those points too
I mean yes, I love airshows, but there’s something about a mass celebration of these machines of death where a crowd gathered for a completely unrelated purpose gets to see the last thing an afghan child at a wedding sees gives ick in a way that normal airshows, even with all the military recruitment and propaganda don’t.
It doesn’t even apply to all flyovers, sometimes it’s like F-14s or Chinooks or WWII era planes where the message isn’t so dark.
where a crowd gathered for a completely unrelated purpose gets to see the last thing an afghan child at a wedding sees
I know this probably makes it worse, but the Afghan child most likely wouldn’t even have a chance to see the plane (or more likely, predator drone) that fired the missile that killed them.
It’s one of the many reasons these children are fucking terrified of clear skies and sunny days.
It’s also dope AF. Frankly, I’d rather have those planes boosting morale here than dropping bombs somewhere else. I see it as a win-win.
The whole purpose of those flybys is to glamorize and advertise the same planes they use to drop bombs.
In many other countries, their military acrobatics teams don’t even use true military jets.
New Zealand’s Black Falcons use propeller-based trainers. Japan’s Blue Impulse team uses Kawasaki T-4 based trainers. Britain’s Red Arrows and Finland’s Midnight Hawks use BAE Hawk trainers. Australia’s Roulettes use turboprop trainers. Canada’s snowbirds use Canadair Tutor trainers.
You can train the pilots in other time and area. The combination with an unrelated game makes it propaganda.
you can, but as i said at the end of the comment: you have to do it anyway… you either entirely waste the fuel, maintenance, and pilot time, or you use it for something
in a couple of comments people have said they think it’s “plain old cool” and “a mini air show”
propaganda? perhaps
but people also seem to enjoy it… better than entirely wasting it
Lol, as opposed the the drills and formations that NK/Russia etc do?
not at all - they’re all exactly the same… i’m just noting that there are reasons to do them beyond only propaganda and nationalism
It’s fucking weird and creepy
the pledge of allegiance is brainwashing at NK levels.
I sat down every time and my teacher would get pissed. I finally told her that my grandpa fought in WWII for my right to protest and that shit her up real fast. I’m not going to pledge my aliegence to an inanimate object, I shouldn’t have to prove my love for my country with a pledge.
I have never seen a kid sit down for O Canada unless they are in a wheelchair. Of course getting sent to the principle’s is not worth it but I would admire a kid who had the balls to do it.
That was me!
Are we all in this meme?
I’m from the UK but I have my own version of this.
I went to a Church of England school. When I was about 8, we had this super religious teacher start. She was Methodist so made us change the words of the lord’s prayer to her version. I loudly and defiantly said the old one every time.
It wasn’t long after, that I stopped saying prayers altogether, making sure to stare ahead with lips tight and hands unclasped, so nobody could mistake me as being pious!
I probably would have been that annoying kid had just been schooled in the USA.
Pious - adjective
Strongly believing in religion and living in a way that shows this belief: She is a pious follower of the faith, never missing her prayers
For anyone else who has never in their life encountered this word, lol.
Thanks for adding this!
