I have many fond memories of my idyllic childhood in the rolling hills and flowing rills of the Ozark Mountains: tramping down muddy creek beds under the spreading green wild-fern canopy; indulging my prepubescent predilection for the congealed molasses sweetness of pecan pie; setting afire castoff Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures for no reason.
To the shareholders for which it stands
I have many fond memories of my idyllic childhood in the rolling hills and flowing rills of the Ozark Mountains: tramping down muddy creek beds under the spreading green wild-fern canopy; indulging my prepubescent predilection for the congealed molasses sweetness of pecan pie; setting afire castoff Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures for no reason.
School was not one of these fond memories.
Every day the sputtering yellow school bus would shuttle my drowsy body down 22 miles of potholed gravel roads to Jefferson County R-3 Elementary School. After disembarking I would somnambulate to my classroom, fall into my seat at my rickety wooden desk and lay my head down for 15 minutes of fitful sleep.
Like most American schoolchildren, I was deep in the grasp of the original gateway drug: sugar. Mind and body alike were equally catatonic before I got my first Skittles fix. As a result I have virtually no memories of my childhood mornings, at least before 11 a.m.
Except for the hoarse voice of Principal McDermott chiming over the school intercom at precisely 8:45, leading his weary charges in the Pledge of Allegiance of the United States of America. I and 500 other dozing schoolchildren would wearily take to our feet, place hands over hearts and trip over the polysyllabic monstrosity that is the word “indivisible.”
To this day I have an unyielding hatred for the Pledge of Allegiance. That empty incantation did naught but interrupt my sweet somnolent oblivion and thrust me into the grinding routine of multiplication tables and past perfect participles.
So it raised my ire to learn that last month the Oregon House of Representatives approved a bill that would require all public and publicly funded charter schools to display the flag of the United States in classrooms and offer to lead students in reciting the pledge. Oregon schoolkids, until now spared this vacuous brainwashing, will henceforth be subjected to the same flag-waving inanity that has dogged Missouri youth for years.
Supporters of the bill, which passed 42-16, said that the new requirement would promote students’ value of patriotism and national duty and pay tribute to veterans of foreign wars.
Nowhere does the law stipulate that students would be required to recite the pledge. But there was significant dissent from some Democratic legislators during floor debate on the measure. Rep. Carolyn Tomei, D-Milwaukie, expressed concern that students who declined to participate would be unfairly singled out by their peers, while Rep. Lew Frederick, D-Portland, called the proceedings an empty piece of nationalist posturing.
The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Christian socialist minister Francis Bellamy and was introduced to American schools during Columbus Day celebrations that same year. The late 19th century was a time of waning nationalist sentiment in the U.S., and many worried that the rapid influx of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe was undermining American values.
“Patriotic education,” Bellamy said, “should begin in the public schools.”
Clearly, the Pledge of Allegiance is a fine piece of nationalist pedagogical indoctrination. Exhorting young people to give themselves mind and body to the republic for which the Stars and Stripes stand, the recitation is the crucial cultural glue that binds men and women of diverse creeds and colors in common adoration of all things American.
Like, say, the spirit of public service and national duty. And the cheeseburger. And neo-imperialist Middle East military misadventures.
But the Age of the Nation State will very soon be past, and the Pledge of Allegiance with it. A growing chorus of voices prophesize the rise of a future world in which all national distinctions will slowly fade to dust as information technology and cheap transportation make space, time and geography irrelevant.
Soon our flag and its republic will be a rotting anachronism. What we need is a new social hymn—one more suited to the emerging socio-historical circumstances—to drill into our children’s brains.
This columnist therefore proposes that the Oregon House of Representatives commission the creation of a new Pledge of Allegiance to our International Corporate Masters.
For the currency of the future will be cold hard cash, not national brotherhood, and our children must learn to play the brutal game of survival lest they sink to the deepest depths of the clawing human mire. By extolling the virtue of total subservience to money’s mastery over all humans, we may assuredly assure our progeny’s success in the nasty, brutish and short times ahead.
I for one do hereby pledge allegiance to the embossed business card logo of United States Incorporated.
