to pledge or not to pledge…

i was having a chatfest with a friend of mine the other night and we got talking about world affairs and whatnot. nothing heavy- we already had chatted for an hour or so anyhoo- somehow we got on the topic of saying the pledge- and she was upset that someone she had seen had refused to stand and say it. her rationale is that even though things are going wrong now- we should show loyalty to our country. i told her i wouldn’t say the pledge either. i think i completely dumbfounded her because there was momentary silence and then the ‘why?’ i gave her a short answer but i, of course, am obsessive and i think about things after the fact- and it’s a good enough question i suppose- to think about a bit.

it isn’t because i don’t love my country- i do. it is a beautiful land that has been scarred and used up by greed and shortsightedness and has been hijacked by fascist oligarchs so it isn’t as free as it once was- but it is where my citizenship is and always has been- and i am an american. i just don’t feel i have to stand on tradition as a principle and i don’t feel i need to prove my loyalty through oaths that can be broken. and truth be told- if you read the words- just as with the constitution- most has been done away with. there is no ‘republic for which it stands’ anymore- we are turning into a pseudo-theocratic oligarchy. our states and our people are not united and neither the flag nor the pledge are going to get us back together. it will take more than just words. we are not one nation- and there is no god to be under- so what exactly am i doing by standing up and reciting words that have been broken by people higher up on the power scale than me?

michelle obama took much heat for saying that she was proud of america. well, i can truthfully say that i am not. there was a time when i was genuinely patriotic. i stood proudly with hand over heart and teared up at ‘god bless america’ and ‘the star spangled banner’- but what i see as my country today makes me weep. not out of pride but out of genuine sadness. if you look at our country on a macro scale- not exceptions- the people are fairly shallow. concentrating on their daily grind and not bothering themselves with deeper subjects such as climate change or ‘the war on terrah’- we have government to worry about that for us. letting ourselves be brainwashed and distracted to the point that many simply do not have the critical thinking skills to open a jar of mustard- let alone prepare for anything that is going to be coming at us. we have coasted on the fruits of our grandparent’s labors for decades and now our infrastructure is rotting and so are we. we are more separated than i have ever seen in my lifetime- the white supremacists have done a fine job with that. this is a country of corporate strip malls and chain stores that are exactly the same no matter what community you go to. we are one big suburb with one boring driveway after another. our best scientists have gone abroad because we are seriously discussing the creation story as if it’s real. and people around the world shake their heads in bewilderment, amusement, and/or frustration. as do i.

americans have lost their skepticism and have buried their prejudices deep inside- but there is the primal notion stirring that something is terribly wrong. we have the likes of john yoo teaching at BERKLEY! and the neo cons and christian right have their own schools now. these are the people who are rewriting history- rewriting the constitution. they just came in and have done what they wanted to do with impunity- and americans will not see. to this day- they will not see. some of it is ignorance and some of it is fear and most of it is denial. but that niggling that something is wrong showed up in a recent poll. there are a few noisy thinkers out there asking questions and suing for information and generally doing their best to right things- but i have doubt that there is time to fix anything. so what would it be that i would be pledging my allegiance to? to a country that pays lip service to the armed forces they always drag out for parades? and who they won’t take care of after they unceremoniously discharge them? to a country that uproots and disrupts and outright murders millions of people in sovereign nations for greed, profit and strategy? to a country that guts its infrastructure so that it can no longer protect its people from natural disasters; so that it no longer assists the most vulnerable of its citizens? to a country whose leadership gets into bed with corporations that are altering the landscape of civilization through polluting and genetically altering and cloning foods so that the world’s peoples go hungry?

how can i, in good conscience as a human being sharing this planet, stand proudly with hand over heart and say these words?

‘i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america

and to the republic for which it stands; one nation; under god;

indivisible- with liberty and justice for all.’

i love my country too much to lie.