Pledgewonschik
Think again on the Pledge?
This site claims that the US Pledge of Allegiance was the origin of the salute of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Many older Americans were aware that the Pledge of Allegiance was written by a self-proclaimed National Socialist in the U.S. (Francis Bellamy) who promoted a government education monopoly because he wanted to create an “industrial army” (a Bellamy term) modeled on the military for a totalitarian society of Christian socialism. Francis Bellamy and his cousin Edward Bellamy promoted their ideas worldwide and they influenced similar behavior in socialists in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Peoples’ Republic of China, and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.
Even after all these years, I still don’t salute the flag. I have always thought that perhaps it was one fo the few areas in which the Jehovah’s Witnesses might have been right. Flag rituals always make me nervous.