Author’s website: www.piecomic.com
Let’s be honest, the whole thing has always been a little weird.
I’m German and learned about this via a friend from the US. When they mentioned it, I thought their teacher was a lunatic. Then they told me that this is normal course of action. Just what in the absolute fuck.
Yes. It’s far more than “a little weird”. It’s how you breed nationalists.
USA hasn’t run into the consequences of nationalism hard enough yet when it backfires.
It depends on where and when in the US. In areas that are Democratic (the more liberal party) it doesn’t really happen much anymore, but in areas that are Republican (the more conservative party) it still happens at the start of every single school day.
And the custom of doing this was started by a salesman trying to sell flags and magazine subscriptions. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bellamy#Pledge_of_Allegiance
They really make it too easy to draw the parallels:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellamy_salute
It’s state law where I live IIRC. They force you to say it, because of legal precedent, but the school can apparently get in trouble with the state if they don’t say it at the start of the day.
It was always funny when we’d all stand up and only the teachers and maybe three students would say it.
An anachronism because there aren’t still powerful forces in America trying to witch hunt people with left-leaning ideas?
Growing up, for a time my folks were way into the evangelical thing and I attended a totally batshit religious school where we recited 3 pledges back-to-back every morning. To the U.S. flag, the Christian flag and the Bible. Then had to recite entire chapters of the Bible we had per force committed to memory that week. Failure to do so was grounds for savage corporal punishment. No other experience in life so inoculated me against authoritarianism and organized religion. It also let me know at that tender age that sadists existed.
In high school like 15 years ago we not only had the regular pledge, we had to pledge to the Texas state flag. Which you hold out your hand like you are holding something?
“Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible.”
It’s all hot garbage and unquestioning nationalism. The good bit was, only one teacher ever gave me flack for sitting out the pledge with my little emo ass. And that was my ultra conservative AP US Government teacher. And he was just a nut ball. But when I framed it as my freedom he chilled.
He was still wrong about flat taxes not being regressive!
but how can you pledge allegiance to two separate entities?
scenario A: if texas ever attempted secession then you’d have to break one of your pledges.
scenario B: Texas always remains loyal to the US, which makes the texas pledge superfluous. you pledged allegiance to the US which includes texas.
That’s so weird to me. I grew up in an area of Texas that is very red today. We quit both pledges in the 3rd or 4th grade. It’s weird that we did it at all, but that was back when they also taught that freedom of the individual was super important and if you didn’t like what someone else was doing you could always just look away because it wasn’t your fucking business. So they didn’t make us do it at a certain point because it was counter to the other shit they said. That was in the years leading up to Ann Richards being voted as governor so that may inform outsiders of what was happening at the time.
There’s a lot of problematic shit that happened when I was a kid. Don’t get me wrong. But at least they seemed to be headed the right direction at the time with the info we had (that’s a whole other ball of garbage that I’m not picking at today…ask me another time when it’s not 3am). I had forgotten about both pledges as an adult until someone reminded me a few years ago that it was a thing.
Texas has gotten way more idiotic over the last 30 odd years.
Such a creepy thing, getting children to chant in devotion to a state flag in schools.
It’s the sort of thing they probably do in places like NK, or the Third Reich, you don’t expect it to come from a supposedly modern, non imperialist nationalistic nation, ya know? :-(
I’m from the UK, my wife is from Singapore, and our son was born in the US. I really don’t think it’s appropriate to force him to pledge allegiance to the US, because he has strong ties to other countries. It feels like brainwashing.
It is brain washing.
Where I’m from children sing the national anthem once a week at the school assembly and usually a few other songs too.
There are typically no flags.
Singing once a week vs listening twice a year like in Russia. Please fix. Don’t be worse than Russia.
They can’t force you, but teachers can decide that your behaviour in class is uncooperative and your answers are bad, so you should get bad grades. Teachers can decide that when you report you have been beaten up by the Nazi gang in school that you are probably making it up as you are always looking for attention and making yourself be special.
I’m sure it will be over turned soon. Precident and clear readings of the US constitution don’t matter much nowadays.
When I was in school the pledge was always preceded by the statement “we live in a nation of freedom, participation in the pledge of voluntary. Those who wish to participate please stand, other may remain seated and quiet”
I remember when it first dawned on me how creepy the pledge is I began to sit and one teacher was like “what are you doing? You have to stand up!” so I explained that it seems creepy, and quoted the statement they always precede the pledge by and the teacher replied “oh I never thought about that” and left me alone from then on on the subject
I hope you don’t live in one of these 46-47 states.
Such a creepy thing, getting children to chant in devotion to a state flag in schools.
Apparently, schools will have to display the ten commandments in classrooms, which means all the kiddies with functional brains get to wonder why chanting to a piece of colored fabric isn’t considered worshipping a false idol.
Also, all the military recruiters will get to awkwardly explain the whole “thou shallt not kill” thing…
In French schools that kind of indoctrination would be immediately likened to the Nazi-empowered Vichy government in the 40s.
But you know, the grandchildren of those have brainwashed enough people that they’re already seeing themselves in power right now, so maybe we’ll get that again soon, and a lot worse?
French people, vote today. Please.
We need a new constitution, badly. One that gives more power to the parliament, and less to the president. The current constitution is De Gaulle’s creature, it was tailor made for him and simply doesn’t represent people in today’s political map.
The fact people don’t feel their vote matters anymore is one of the main reasons far right is so strong right now. Macron has been elected with less than 28% of expressed votes on first turn of the election, yet he basically runs the place.
Changing constitution is actually in the left wing alliance’s program. Except they want to do it democratically, by being elected into power, not through a revolution.
I really hope you guys avoid the far right government that we keep hearing Marine Lepen is trying to install. The one upside I can see is that she will hopefully scare the shit out of some moderates in the US so we avoid Trump
Results are (mostly) in, far right is way too high but still third, behind the left and presidential alliances. Worrying for the future but it could have been worse.
Some of the far right candidates had already called for “not accepting the result of the election if they lose”. I am sure you can draw some parallels…
If you take a look at pre 1943 US, you might see some inspirations for Hitler there.
The Bellamy Salute was pretty much the same. The Pledge of Allegiance was done with it. It was changed to the hand over heart style in 1942.
I said it once, I say it again. Why the Flag? I don’t get it. Why not the Constitution? The Flag changed so many Times in US history.
Is there an actual reason or just because the flag is a more visual Token for loyalty?
I think it’s because the people who made the pledge were just trying to sell flags. “A flag in every classroom” or something to that effect. So, once again, the answer is capitalism.
Dunno for US, but in some monarchies, the flag was carried around by representatives who delivered the will of the king/queen/emperor/etc. So seeing the flag was the same as seeing the ruler in person. Symbolism I guess.
The visual qualities are exactly the point.
If you wave around the constitution, it’s indistinguishable from some random bits of parchment. Most people can recognize their flag, even when it’s flapping around and next to similar flags. Humans are just very visual creatures.
In either case, the pledge isn’t actually to the object itself but to the country represented by that object.
The problem we have in the US is that Old Glory is commonly used to represent some particular group’s vision of what the US should be rather than a symbol of the country as a whole. When that sort of change is broadly positive, such as when it started to become a symbol of American ingenuity in space, it’s easy for everyone to rally behind. When it starts to symbolize a message like, “We should give the police unrestrained power.” it becomes more divisive.
Bullshit, I instantly could picture the declaration of independence, it is not a crazy symbol to use as noone has 400 year old parchment lieing around anymore.
I think theres an argument over which would be a more appropriate symbol but personally I think the nationalism stuff to be silly when theres not much the US has done to be proud of.
I’m proud of our younger generations. Do they have a flag?
It fits the rhythm, the cadence better. Makes it easier to remember and recite.
What is strange to me is while you’re made to repeat the pledge every day as a child in school, the practice is not carried into adult life at all. We hear the national anthem at every sporting event (not that I go to sporting events), but I can’t think of a single time I was expected to pledge allegiance as an adult.
Why the Flag? I don’t get it. Why not the Constitution?
Yes… why worship a piece of colored fabric and when you can worship a piece of paper with scribbles on it instead?
The constitution is still the constitution, when you read it from a website. It is still the constitution, when it is read out loud. It is the text and interpretation that matters.
So in terms of pledges it is the least troublesome symbol.
In post-communist eastern Europe it was common to reinforce the nationalistic sentiment in schools to try and erase the Soviet/Russian influence in case of a posible future separatist movement from within.
Obviously not.
But here’s an Ukraine read that might be used as an example for or against what I said above. http://litopys.org.ua/polpost/e1a2.htm
I live in Ireland, we had an American teacher visit our school for a year. She taught us the pledge, it stands out as one of the stranger memories of my childhood. That and her repeated “they didn’t want bush any more, they wanted Clinton”. Which should give you some sort of hint of how long ago this was.
She taught you guys the pledge to the US flag or at least made it about the flag of Ireland?
Even worse, some versions of the pledge make you swear “under god” which is fucked up. Christian Nationalists are what is destroying america.
Christian NationalistsReligious fundamentalists are what is destroyingamericaeverything
FDFY
It’s not that I disagree, but it seems like a very separate statement with very little connection to the main topic of this discussion.
We have a very specific and very pressing issue in the USA that deserves more focus than your broad global stroke.
You think backward-looking, misogynistic religious nationalist nutjobs trying to seize power are a specifically US problem?
Yeah, you can thank Eisenhower for that. Didn’t use to be like that. I usually pause at that point or idk maybe say under Satan.
https://www.history.com/news/pledge-allegiance-under-god-schools
Good How can there be different versions of the pledge? Is it that each state technically has their own pledge?
Under god is part of the pledge from my understanding. Beyond that, other states do have their own pledges.
I remember when 1 student in my class said she wasn’t doing the pledge and the teacher said something along the lines of “it’s a free country so you don’t have to” almost no one did from that point on.
A country that truly believes in freedom and democracy shouldn’t require you to take a loyalty oath every day.
The Conservatives here in the UK wanted to enforce something similar, but in the form of a patriotic song. Everybody just laughed. That would never fly here!
And it’s spreading. Denmark is pushing laws to restrict using other flags. It might be a dog whistle for anti-palestine but still. Rubs me the wrong way.
That’s how I feel about my state adopting laws saying Non-Citizens can’t vote. They already can’t, the only thing the law is accomplishing is a dog whistle.
And we’ve had multiple lawsuits decide exactly that - you do not have to do it.
In most schools it is. 46-47 states have laws requiring it.
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court holding that the First Amendment protects students from being compelled to salute the American flag or say the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools.
They can’t require participation.
It says I live in a state that requires it with no exceptions and that’s simply not true. In HS a lot of students didn’t participate.
Counterargument:
If no one believes or identifies with a nation, that nation will cease to exist.
The idea that “things don’t exist when we stop believing in them” is something that most of us outgrow at an early age.
Object permanence applies to tangible objects, basically things explained by physics and constituted from energy.
A nation is a construct of collective imagination, much like religion and economics.
National patriotism is a religion which worships dirt.