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.
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.
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.
This shit has always been creepy. Always. Greetings from Germany o/
True, but they start you off doing it at the age of 4 or 5 so it is completely normalized before our brains are developed enough to question it
I moved to the US as a kid, and this shit gave me massive cult vibes from the start. I refused to participate.
I was suuuper popular in middle school...
Agreed
"Our country is really the best, all the other countries suck... God bless Johnson & Johnson...."
Brought to you by McDonald's, on behalf of Nike.
I stopped in elementary school.
At the time, it was because I was convinced that the pledge was essentially worshipping a false idol, and if I continued to do it, I would go to hell. Teachers couldn't fight that argument. Students didn't fuck with it either. I stood. I didn't cross my heart, and I didn't say it.
About 6th or 7th grade, I started challenging my "faith" and realized that the pledge was essentially swearing fealty to something that was supposed to serve the people, not the other way around. By highschool, I didn't even stand for it anymore. It was nationalism.
If only there were more in this world with such critical thinking, maybe we wouldn't be in such a shit state.
It doesn't make sense. Critical thinking enables survival. Sometimes it's not fun. Sometimes it doesn't feel great.
But it's typically more rewarding that not. That's what I don't understand.
Unfortunately for us tribalism also enables survival
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America..."
I mean, you can stop right there. The rest is all fucked up too, but that shit's weird. How can one owe allegiance to a flag, of all things?
And, it's not "as representing the Republic for which it stands", it's "and to the Republic for which it stands". The flag is a separate thing, the second clause is about allegiance to the republic, but the first part is just about the fucking flag.
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.
You weren't wrong, exactly
Generally, the main problem with being "far left" is being ridiculed for being right earlier than everyone else.
This is the kind of shit that leads to nationalism over patriotism. Blindly teaching kids to pledge allegiance without teaching them what comes with that or why.
My kids refused to do it and I supported them. We started sending them to online school after that. The pledge was thought up and implemented by White Christian nationalists to commemorate 400 years since Columbus "discovered" America. Prior to World War 2 students didn't put their hands over their heart, they did the Bellamy salute AKA the Nazi salute. Choral repetition and responses are used to brainwash people.
My son is in second grade and ha, chosen to not to say the pledge of allegiance (his own decision because we talk about how the country won't take care of its people). He says he teachers never force him, but subs always do claiming we're the greatest country in the world.
I stopped in third grade. I walked to school so had to hang out till the busses were gone and I asked my teacher after school one day why I had to say it. She said I didn't have to if I didn't want too but that I should stand. It made sense to me . Never said it again.
I asked the same teacher why she said Columbus "discovered Smerica" when there were already people here. She could not answer that one and I don't think the thought ever crossed her mind. I knew school was all bullshit after that and didn't really participate much after that
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.
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.
the pledge of allegiance is brainwashing at NK levels.
I get the sense Lemmy people are generally less likely to participate in this weird shit, as I also sat it out and we kind of select into this sort of "fuck you I won't do what you tell me" mindset by rejecting mainstream apps.
I didn't know it was an option in elementary, but as early as I remember I always adjusted the words to make it silly. I especially remember saying "under frog" when they got to the under God part, with liberty and French fries for all.
Yeah I stopped doing it in High School after realizing that it's some North Korea level bullshit. Got a few other kids in my homeroom to stop too, which really angered our teacher. She was a military spouse and would actually yell at us for refusing to participate. In the end, we compromised by standing but not reciting it. Was the begining of my political and social awakening.
I used to piss people off by adding a very loud, drawn out, "amen" to the end to show how fucking weird and cultish it is to make kids say it every day. come like 7th grade tho I just stopped participating at all.
Americans are cultists
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.
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.
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.
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.
I have never once done the Pledge of Allegiance. Grew up a Jehovah's Witness, who think that giving allegiance to a country would mean putting that country over God. Even if any of my teachers didn't like this reasoning, they were obliged to keep quiet and accept it. There was a Supreme Court case about this exact issue.
Left JWs as an adult, so I never had to do it.
Being the person that won’t stand for the national anthem at a hockey game is fun too. You fully expect some asshole to give you shit but it hasn’t happened yet.
Less of the annoying kid more of an annoying teacher, admin, and staff. Like peer pressure and desire to follow along made me do it but the teacher and the staff couldn't explain why we should and that made me question it and leading me to consider the kid right
Behavior rules:
Posting rules:
NSFW: NSFW content is permitted but it must be tagged and have content warnings. Anything that doesn't adhere to this will be removed. Content warnings should be added like: [penis], [explicit description of sex]. Non-sexualized breasts of any gender are not considered inappropriate and therefore do not need to be blurred/tagged.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact us on our matrix channel or email.
Other 196's:
