I Pledge Allegiance…

Why do we have nationalistic political ceremonies at sports events? The public attends football games to watch football games. The singing, standing and flag waving have nothing to do with football or any other sport. But the powers that be have welded the love of sports to a political ceremony and accuse the disobedient of mixing politics with sports.

Why do we need a political flag ceremony to kick off sporting events? A play, lecture, dance or symphony doesn’t start this way. Directors don’t stand in silence listening to the Star Spangled Banner before a board meeting.

What if the home team were to choose an opening song and encouraged the spectators to sing along. Lennon’s Imagine, for example, or Nobody Knows the Troubles I’ve Seen, or Where Have All The Flowers Gone, or Sympathy For The Devil or any of the 10s of 1000s of possible alternatives. Is it unpatriotic to imagine?

We’re supposed to salute the symbols, but not discuss real events. The military views disobedience to the song and flag ceremony as an insult, a heresy. Kaepernick’s refusal to stand during the national anthem tore their act and he consequently comes under attacked for being unpatriotic; for insulting the men and women fighting for our freedom; for disrespecting those who have fallen in duty; and so on…

Let’s skip the fact the Kap’s protest had nothing to do with the military. Not a word. But now that the military has brought it up, what is the connection between football and the military, between sports and the military, and, most significantly, the flag and the military? The American flag does not express a love of military so much as it does love of liberty and justice for all. That’s how the American people view their flag as expressed in the closing phrase of their pledge of allegiance, “with liberty and justice for all”.

This is expressed differently in the final lines of the Star Spangled Banner,
”O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

That’s a question. Does it? Does the SSB-flag still wave over the land of the free? We have to disregard the largest prison population in the world, almost more than the rest of the world combined. We can hardly count those to the free. What about the millions employed at wages they can’t survive on? Are they free? Do the citizens have privacy? Are they secure in their health needs? Do they have shelter. Are they well-nourished? Do they have clean water? Can they trust the authorities? If their government is 99% 1%ers, how free can they be?

If the flag doesn’t represent our freedoms, it doesn’t represent us at all. It represents our right to privacy, our right to be secure in our homes, our right to justice, our right to speak, write, discuss and gather freely… the flag represents our rights, our freedoms. It does not represent the military creating enemies all over the world in its name.

The soldiers, mercenaries and terror groups that make up the US military force do not defend our freedom. They kill and get killed to defend the freedom of corporate commanders to gather wealth by any means available. The military is a tool of the rulers, the owners, the plutocracy.

The flesh and blood people who get killed in war today floods our imagination. All this destruction, sorrow and scars.

“With liberty and justice for all.” To this I pledge my allegiance.

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”I pray that you release me from my praying habit.”
Dartwill Aquila

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The West Bank is now the Judea-Samaria area.