The Irony Is Rusting
By now everyone has heard that Obama is giving a speech designed for school kids, apparently to urge them to stay in school and get an education. There is no word as to whether he intends to discuss tax policy as Reagan did, or bore them to tears as GHW Bush did, but the wingnuttiest among us, led by Florida’s own, Jim Greer of the FGOP, are raising loud objections to anyone going on CSpan to tell kids to get an education.
This is humorous, but not ironic. For the irony one must journey to Katy, Texas.
The local school board, not seeing any point in getting into a political fight over a non-political event, sent out an e-mail telling parents that if they didn’t want their children listening to the speech, simply fill out a form and the district would find something else for them to do. Alas, the district mentioned, no doubt to assure people that this was not a big deal, that this was the same procedure used to excuse students from participating in the pledge of Allegiance, and hilarity ensued with parents claiming that the school system was calling parents who didn’t want their children “indoctrinated by the socialist in the White House” unpatriotic. The board issued another e-mail apologizing to anyone who took offense.
Still, no visible irony? Well, you need to know a little history, New York state history, and something about Francis Julius Bellamy, the Baptist preacher from Rome, New York who wrote the original “pledge of Allegiance”. If children learn nothing else in the public school system in the US, they learn how to take the “pledge”, every day. Almost every local government meeting these days starts with the “pledge”. Huge clouds of the vapors have formed around the “pledge”. Bills have been pushed through the US Congress to edit the “pledge”. It is the most often heard piece of writing in the United States, and it was written by a socialist.
Make no mistake, Francis Bellamy wasn’t accused of being a socialist, he was a self-proclaimed and proud socialist, who made no bones about it. He is classed as a Christian Socialist, because he came to the political movement from guidance for good Christians in the New Testament, more specifically the words of Jesus in the Gospels.
Yep, the wingnuttiest don’t want their children “indoctrinated by a socialist”, but they want every one to parrot the words of a socialist every day.
11 comments
I remember going to school in the Miami area and having to recite the pledge AND sing a religious song. My atheist parents were non to glad to hear about that, and let’s just say, they weren’t the most popular parental units with the Principal. I just pretended I was participating.
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In the Panhandle, every day I was in the county school system the day started with the pledge and the Lord’s prayer, which was a mess because there were military brats in the class and the Jewish kids didn’t know it, and the Catholics cut out before the end. It was stupid and meaningless.
Some smartass little kid pointed out that the instructions in the Gospels was to do this in private. This same kid threw a conniption when they injected “under G-d” in the third grade. Mrs. Edwins, the principle of elementary education, was thrilled when my Father was transferred. They had apparently never encountered a child who would read the rule book and call them on deviations.
i didn’t realize the pledge was originally written by a socialist! i feel much more kindly toward it now. not being much in favor of authoritarian anything as a kid, i usually just stood there and refused to pledge allegiance to anything, though sometimes i’d go along, skipping only the ‘under god’ part.
i do wish loldogs had been around back then, this is a pledge i would have been happy to recite.
The Mohawk River Valley of upstate New York was a hot bed of liberals, progressives, and whackos in the 19th century.
It’s where the Mormon church was founded, where Susan B. Anthony began rabble rousing, where Frederick Douglas had his newspaper, all kinds of things were going on, and Christian Socialism was one of them.
I would point out that expecting the early grades to pronounce or understand “indivisible” is like trying to teach a pig to sing.
yeah, i can remember wondering why it was so important to be invisible.
OTOH, if you were “invisible” you didn’t have to act like you cared about this useless ritual, but the country and the flag were both very not “invisible” so why were we pretending they were.
I would hate to be an elementary school teacher. Of course, I wouldn’t be one for long, perhaps a week, before I explained that we had to do something because the idiots who ran things demanded it, but if we picked up our torches and pitchforks and mobbed the state legislature, it would stop.
I don’t think they would buy “an historic reenactment of the Children’s Crusade” as a valid excuse for arming children and attacking public buildings.
well, at least doing things your way they could taser the teacher as well as the kids.
yeah, some of those teachers can be dangerous. i can’t remember which class or which teacher it was, but i can remember that it was the inspiration for us kids to form our own labor union and strike for either higher allowances or higher pay for mowing the lawn [i forget which it was, and it may have been that both options were on the table: we’ll take either higher allowances or more pay for the lawn, but it’s got to be one or the other]
Everyone knows that teachers are a bunch of socialists, after all they are about the only group down here who belong to unions.
I’m sure your job action led to some interesting parent-teacher conferences.
Time to crash after putting out more kibble.
I’m sure your job action led to some interesting parent-teacher conferences.
i don’t think it did ackshully. our parents had long been political organizers at that point and were [albeit a bit grudgingly] impressed with our nascent mad organizing skillz. i’m pretty sure we negotiated a fair increase and not an extortionate one.
Francism Bellamy, didn’t he write Looking Backwards? A period piece but still a book worth reading today
So a committed socialist wrote the pledge of alleigance. I am tickeld pink.. or should that be red!
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The “hoist on your own petard” moment, when you are shocked to find your children have been paying attention to you. It’s a bit unsettling for parents, especially when they find themselves in the position of “management”.
That was his cousin, Edward Bellamy, Jams, the entire family was a group of radicals and trouble makers. 😉