askscribbly:

acepalindrome:

cricketcat9:

foxanddanapetrie:

bemusedlybespectacled:

wholock-rab:

youarelookingatthis:

jolivet:

youblowuponesun:

jolivet:

holmes-sweet-holmes:

urbancatfitters:

do u guys understand how creepy the pledge of allegiance is though like every day when ur a kid everybody just chants how great america is every morning it’s creepy

You do that every morning???

EVERY MORNING.

wait

wait

is this a real thing i thought that was just in the simpsons

no son

Wait, other countries don’t do this.

*whispers* Not even Russia

I remember when my dad had a conversation with me

because I asked him what the Austrian pledge of allegiance was (because he’s from Austria)

and he said “we don’t have a pledge of allegiance”

and I said “why not?”

“honey, think about what training your children to mindlessly pledge to a flag, without really knowing what they’re talking about, sounds like to Austrians”

“oh. hitler.”

“exactly”

RE FUCKING TWEET

EVERY - FUCKING - DAY?!?!??!!!!!

Yep, every day. When you’re made to do it daily from childhood, you don’t realize how fucked up it really is.

Hate to slap on a story here, but you know what honestly sucks? You used to get punished and belittled if you didn’t do the pledge. I found it really creepy when we first started to learn it and would normally do stuff like mouth the words, replace with other words, or keep my head down while they spoke so no one could see if I was doing it or not. Teachers of course didn’t like that.

I remember a lot of my teachers yelling, calling me a privileged brat, refusing to start class, even threatening to call my parents because the pledge didn’t fly with me. One even started going on about how I was part of a “devil cult” and that I should fear god cause I’m CLEARLY a catholic (she was white, stereotyping a tiny Mexican with no religion, you can see where this goes). Another actually grabbed her fucking keys and chucked them into the wall, nearly hitting a kid and also stabbing them deep in the wall because I didn’t even want to stand up that day. I remember every horrible interaction with it and every word they threw at me, all because I wouldn’t pledge to an old flag innan old classroom.

But, I also remember the first day of high school. The kids rose up dead on schedule, all hands on their heart, and I remained in my seat with my eyes closed tight. But when the chants didn’t come, I opened them to find my new history teacher standing in front of class with her arms crossed over her chest and a sharp glare that silenced everyone. “No, we’re not mindless drones, we don’t do that at this school. If you wanna pledge yourself to this nation like that every day you can do that at home, but in this class we’re gonna learn what that kind of hive mentality has done in the past. Now everyone sit down, and let’s start learning something much, much more fun.”

Never have I ever wanted to cry so hard in class. She later pulled me aside to tell me she was proud I tried to sit through it and reassured me it wasn’t something to be ashamed about. I saw through the lie, and she nor any other teacher there was going to punish me for it.

I love where I live. I was born and raised here, I’m as American as they come. But the pledge is an absolute nightmare that’s taught from kindergarten up, and honestly? It’s not even in our constitution to do it, as many try to argue it is. The pledge was a late 19th century scare tactic that was created specifically against the oncoming pour of immigrants, based deeply in racism and to “ensure” that they truly were a part of this country.

“If you can’t pledge your loyalty every day to this flag, then you are scum, you’re not allowed to exist here.”

Nothing but a scare tactic, nothing but old nationalism.

When i was in elementary school, we had TVs mounted on the walls fro the school news (basically lunch, school events and the pledge) each mornign and 1 kid from each grade would be selected at random a day in advance to do the pledge. when i was selected, i didnt really want to do it because I knew i would get nervous on the camera (i had froze during the school play the year before and someone else had to do the only line i had in it) but i was guilted by the teachers because “it was my civic duty” so the following morning, when it came time to do the morning school news and the pledge, i froze up. 5 other kids did the pledge and i just stood there silent. I didnt even hate this country back them i was just an undiagnosed autistic kid with stage fright. but that still got a lot of backlash. I got suspended for 2 days and when i got back the bullying was even worse including other students accusing me of being a terrorist (this was post 9/11) and looking back on it, its just generally creepy as fuck that every student is being indoctrinated into a militant national mindset since the moment they enter school.