HB 3014: Pledging allegiance... to what, exactly?

By Bill Bodden of Redmond, Oregon. Bill is a long-time activist and commentator. Previously, he contributed "Back in 2008, I was wrong about Jeff Merkley"

House Bill 3014 promotes a requirement for all schools in Oregon to have students recite the Pledge of Allegiance daily.

The Pledge contains within it one of the great concepts for a democratic republic: “… one nation, …, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” What a profound and admirable idea!

Unfortunately, the Pledge has its problems. Ours is not “… one nation, …, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Accordingly, most politicians and the people who keep re-electing them have rendered reciting the Pledge of Allegiance into an act of national hypocrisy. It is common for many, but not all, supposed representatives of the people to recite those words to open sessions in their legislatures and then proceed hastily to perpetrate some injustice against the people they are supposed to represent.

To cite one of countless examples, consider this quote by the distinguished macroeconomist, Dean Baker, regarding Social Security: “Why is a Democratic president trying to cut Social Security in response to a crisis created by a combination of Wall Street greed and Washington corruption and incompetence?” Why, we might also ask, is this proposal for economic injustice a bipartisan vendetta?

Another problem is pledging allegiance to the flag. The flag of the once democratic republic of the United States was usurped by the George W. Bush Administration to lead the nation into an illegal, immoral and disastrous war in Iraq. This act was supported by people following the flag while they ignored the part about “the republic for which it stands” and their oaths to uphold the Constitution as explained to Congress by former Senator Robert Byrd.

The great journalist Walter Karp in an essay on the Pledge of Allegiance during the Reagan era noted that our nation was divided in many ways at that time but what made us “… one nation, … , indivisible … “ was the Constitution. No more. The Bush Administration began shredding the Constitution and the Obama Administration continues to render its provisions subject to political expediency. Meanwhile, justices in the courts interpret the Constitution according to their ideological biases. All with the complicity and/or acquiescence of an apparent majority of the American people.

There is one part of the Pledge that is true: “ … one nation, under God, ...” Unfortunately, that God is Mammon, and it is his high priests in that temple of avarice – Wall Street – and their acolytes lobbying in the halls of Congress and state capitols who run this country.

As for requiring children to learn and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, that could be a good idea when, if ever, adults learn to understand what the words of that pledge mean and have the integrity to live according to the virtues the Pledge implies.

And what, we might usefully ask, will the reactions of today’s students be if they mature someday to think for themselves and observe that their emperors are naked and that they have created a more cruelly divided nation of haves and have nots than was the case in 2013?

April 17, 2013