This reads like a really good term paper. One I wish I would've written in college. Two standout lines to me (call me a hippie, but they made me laugh out loud):
"Individuals like Phillips and Newdow who publicly challenge the Pledge of Allegiance can expect to provoke not only harassment by their neighbors but also cyclones of bloviation emanating from elected leaders who, unwilling to fix healthcare or pay for infrastructure, always have time to defend the pledge or the flag."
"Ironically, the Pledge of Allegiance, which today is most fiercely defended by white conservative Southerners whose Confederate ancestors tried to destroy the United States in the 1860s, was written by a Yankee socialist from New York in the 1890s."
This was fascinating to me. For some reason, I suck at history and didn't know a few of the things outlined in this article (i.e. the whole Nazi-esque salute of olden days instead of the hand-on-the-heart).
But yeah ... makes me wonder even more why we still say the Pledge of Allegiance after all these years. Not in school or Veterans Day ceremonies -- I understand that as tradition and such, however outdated the words are -- but I have recited the Pledge at at least three school board/government meetings I've covered in the last week. Why?
5 comments:
You hippie, I'm going to need to see a copy of your birth certificate.
This reads like a really good term paper. One I wish I would've written in college. Two standout lines to me (call me a hippie, but they made me laugh out loud):
"Individuals like Phillips and Newdow who publicly challenge the Pledge of Allegiance can expect to provoke not only harassment by their neighbors but also cyclones of bloviation emanating from elected leaders who, unwilling to fix healthcare or pay for infrastructure, always have time to defend the pledge or the flag."
"Ironically, the Pledge of Allegiance, which today is most fiercely defended by white conservative Southerners whose Confederate ancestors tried to destroy the United States in the 1860s, was written by a Yankee socialist from New York in the 1890s."
This was fascinating to me. For some reason, I suck at history and didn't know a few of the things outlined in this article (i.e. the whole Nazi-esque salute of olden days instead of the hand-on-the-heart).
But yeah ... makes me wonder even more why we still say the Pledge of Allegiance after all these years. Not in school or Veterans Day ceremonies -- I understand that as tradition and such, however outdated the words are -- but I have recited the Pledge at at least three school board/government meetings I've covered in the last week. Why?
ditto to all of your comments, Juice Box
I also didn't know about "the bellamy salute," look it up on wikipedia, the pictures they have with the article are creepy as hell.
That is creepy. How could they not realize that they should drop doing that, right away?
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