The Spoils of War

I remember as a kid , turning towards the flag, hand over heart doing the Pledge of Allegiance in grade school. We even said God.
They don’t recite the pledge regularly in schools today that I know of, from wiki it says there have been many lawsuits, which most likely led to many schools dropping it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellamy_salute
The Bellamy salute is the hand gesture described by Francis Bellamy to accompany the American Pledge of Allegiance, which he had authored. During the period when it was used with the Pledge of Allegiance, it was sometimes known as the “flag salute”. It was first demonstrated on October 12, 1892 according to Bellamy’s published instructions for the “National School Celebration of Columbus Day“:

Interview w/ Dr. Rex Curry

27.11 MB

Al interviews Dr. Rex Curry about his research into the “pledge of allegiance” and its influence on National Socialist movements worldwide. topics included Nazi’s, Francis Bellamy, Charles Bellamy, Freemasonry, the peculiar original salute that the pledge instructed children to do, and how the gov’t doesn’t trust you.
http://rexcurry.net
music includes Jonathan Richman, “True Love is not Nice”
Saul Williams “The Pledge of Resistance”
and Carl Klang “Turn Away from the Eagle”
1 hour
radioActive sanDiego

Wiki: The criticism of the Pledge of Allegiance of the United States exists on several grounds. Its use in public schools has been the most controversial, as critics contend that a government-sanctioned endorsement of religion violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Critics feel that that the pledge is incompatible with democracy and freedom, and suggest that pledges of allegiance are features of totalitarian states like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

http://www.bartleby.com/65/pl/PledgeAl.html

The final alteration to the pledge occurred in 1954 when, by a joint order of Congress, the words “under God” were inserted. The change is usually ascribed to a cold-war attempt at differentiating the United States from officially atheistic Communist countries.

What are they saying? That pledging loyalty is fascist, Nazi-ish, etc? What do we have now? We have a morass of people who are angry that our so-called leaders are NOT loyal to the country, who don’t respect the border or the constitution. I’ll tell ya, things were much better in this country in the days I was doing the pledge in grade school. When did believing in the nation’s original principles become a bad thing? When did the separation occur that divided those who still believed in the Constitution from the Global Makeover Marxist Multicultists who believe that Equality can be bestowed, and that White People can Fix Any Problem, turn straw into gold. Ha. Was it really the 60’s? Or was it long before that? Wiki is trying to put across that saying ‘Under God’ is an endorsement of religion. Oh yeah, well, how many things are an endorsement for the North American Union stuff? Would Dora the Explorer and Diego be an endorsement for no border? Pledge is incompatible with ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ – ahh yes, the ubiquitous vague, undefinable words except by TV, not by US. They tell us what ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ is, rather than have us define it.

allegiance

One entry found.

allegianc

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/allegiance
I always had a sense of respect while doing the pledge, and thought about the people who built this country, the presidents, the settlers- I was young, but knew enough of my own family’s history to know we had not been here very long compared to the founders, descendants of pilgrims and early immigrants. On my mother’s side I am 3rd gen American, father’s side, I am second gen. In those days all the old values of be good to your neighbor, golden rule, all that was still very intact-people for the most part returned lost items they found, helped strangers, helped their neighbor, we were able to play around the neighborhood without fear. yes, there were differences, even though we were all some brand of Euro, but we all kind of lived by this unspoken code, most did anyway.

There’s this kid in my parent’s neighborhood that is friends with my oldest son, that they have kind of semi-adopted. He doesn’t live with my folks, but might as well. He doesn’t have it so great at home, the electric has at times been turned off, he has all these random brothers and sisters -because well, Dad gets around, and most of the mothers of his half-sibs did not take the kids with them, but left them with pops, including his own mom. So this kid is there any time my son is there and sometimes when he’s not- my folks feed him , and give him odd jobs to do for money. No, he doesn’t steal their hubcaps. In the 70’s we had this friend of my parents move in with us, a Vietnam vet who played bass in a band called Tumbleweed , we took care of him and his toddler for prob 3-4 years while he dealt with alcohol, his wife leaving him and moving back to Minn where they were from- he had depression and a plate in his head. I can’t remember if the mother had issues too, but we were too young to explain all this to- still we could figure things out that things were definitely not right . I still think of that boy as a little brother though we have lost touch, and doesn’t remember very much of that time. He used to do ceramics at Fleishhacker Pool down by Ocean Beach in San Francisco. Come to find out, it was the largest public pool in the US.

Then, above. Now: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/fleishhacker/

Note graffiti, utter destruction. Would people like those depicted in the postcard ruin such a place, spray the walls with filthy gang-scribble and leave drug paraphernalia about? Don’t think so.

When I was a kid, I must have believed folks just looked after each other as a matter of course, more invested in each other than STUFF and what is popular and trendy to buy, believe and do. It wasn’t only my folks that were like that then, almost everyone they knew were liked that, and even neighbors and teachers we hardly knew were like that, not constantly afraid they would cross some boundary or say the wrong thing, less fearful or interested in worrying about offending than getting at the heart of the matter and dealing with it in a sincere and straightforward way. This is not to say my folks were perfect by any stretch, this isn’t about that. It is more about the general climate of how We lived, and how I truly believe we were able to do those things because other parts of life that are so hard, annoying, stressful, etc. now, they didn’t have to deal with that. Now there are fewer and fewer people willing to help anyone, because we are forced to help EVERYONE.

They didn’t have to deal with the economy falling apart, social-program sucking illegal aliens contentedly waddling down shopping aisles , blank-eyed children in tow, stocking the cart full of mexi-pop , peppers and starch. They didn’t have to worry about Arnold letting criminals out en masse from prisons. There weren’t DAILY reports of Oakland murders. We believed in our country, but perhaps more importantly , we believed in each other, and that wasn’t just smooshy feel-good talk. We lived that way. We protested the war, my parents took us to Golden Gate Park , we held signs, there were concerts. I don’t remember the events we went to as being quite as hippie-esque as the photos show of those times, maybe because I was a young kid and thought whatever they were like, everyone was like. There were certainly people who were even more far out than my folks. “Meet Leafy, her parents live in Golden Gate Park!”

I try to remember when things started to quickly change, if it was because I just got older, and saw things differently, or if things actually were changing for the worse that quickly. I can remember so many things from my childhood, even my parents dragging me as a toddler to watch the man on the moon on an old black and white TV. In that sense I do feel privileged, not so much because of my own upbringing, but for having grown up in a better world, a better time.