[Vision2020] City Council and the Pledge

[Chasuk]

On 1/20/06, Janesta Carcich <janestacarcich at yahoo.com> wrote:
> So, if I am to understand this correctly.... Some City
> Council members decided to not say the Pledge, without
> discussion with the people who elected them?

So, if I am to understand this correctly... you feel that whether city
council members choose to say the the pledge or not is your business? 
If this is so, then I'm assuming it is because that you feel in some
way it is within your power to grant or deny them permission.  Just
because you elected them doesn't mean you get to choose their personal
beliefs.

> Take God out, I am a FIRM believer of separation of
> Church and State. But to not say the Pledge of
> Allegiance is beyond the pale.

Combine this with Nancey Chaney's "I get shivers when the flag goes
by," and I get shivers, too, the kind you get post-nausea.   I enjoy
living in this country, and I did spend a decade defending your right
to say the pledge if you want to, and salute the flag if you want to,
but goddamn I hate mawkishness and patriotism reduced to
sentimentality.

The pledge was written by a socialist minister to help sell more flags
to schools.  The author was going to include the words equality and
fraternity, but decided not to because people still opposed equal
rights for women and blacks.  It was originally accompanied by
something that resembled the Hitler salute, but this wasn't popular
during WWII, so it was changed.

Imagine for a moment that we didn't have a pledge, and you are
watching footage of kids in East Berlin saluting a German flag.  You
would feel smug that in your own free land we didn't resort to the
brainwashing of children.  The same would be true if I'd picked China
or North Korea.

Incidentally, I don't actually care whether the author of the pledge
was a socialist, a communist, or [insert your  bugaboo here].  I only
mention that he was a socialist because such trigger words are usually
effective in the knee-jerk conversations that seem inspired by this
topic.