I signed up to fight all enemies, foreign and domestic, not be a mercenary for the oil companies and defense contractors who have taken over my country. I have a long relationship with saying the Pledge of Allegiance.
I remember when I was a little girl in grade school in rural Texas, a new family moved into town; they were Jehovah's Witnesses. At that time, in our small town, the lines of religion were strictly regimented. The majority whites were either Baptist or less commonly, Catholic. The very few African-Americans had their own black church. We Mexican-Americans attended Church with the grudging white Catholics. All of us looked in disfavor at the new family whose five children were enrolled in elementary to middle school.
We were shocked when the kids refused to stand for the Pledge. The teachers had been told by the family of the religion's proscription to what they considered idolatry and the family's adherence to it. That didn't stop the faculty from condemning them. They'd say to the children's faces that there was nothing wrong in showing pride in country. It was during the Cold War and were they commies or something? The children were made to feel like outcasts and the rest of the class was actually encouraged in belittling them and bullying them. Away from school, the family was the talk of the town and many businesses were cold and rude to them. I'm ashamed to say that even I and my family weren't tolerant of the new arrivals. But, time passed and the novelty wore off. After a couple of years, they were integrated into the community even if they weren't exactly accepted warmly into it. But, as I grew and religion and politics became important to me, I saw the cruelty and viciousness that the family had to go through. I'm an atheist now and have no particular love for Jehovah's Witnesses, but seen objectively, I have to admire the courage they showed in braving ridicule and censure during a time when patriotism and nationalism was a religion in it's own right and those who didn't toe the line in observing it were treated like pariahs.
In this day and age, it always seems to me that those that scream the loudest about flag and country are those that have never had to suffer for it. A flag is a symbol and no symbol should be treated like it's more sacred than the country it's flown over or the people that created it, the cause it stands for or the Constitution it represents. But, so many have imbued the flag with a meaning of their own that exists outside of that paradigm. They instill the flag with their own version of patriotism, whether that patriotism includes racism, class inequality, endless warfare or religious persecution. To so many people, the flag is like God. It signifies what their image of America should be.
You're entitled to your anger. But, really, it's not the nation's fault but those that have taken the reins of it. The corporations like oil companies and the defense industry. The lobbyists and the rest of the plutocracy that has stolen the wealth of the people and concentrated it in the hands of the few. They have their own version of the meaning of the flag. And it's one that flies over the land of opportunity for the rich and the home of the avaricious and greedy.
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