History of the Pledge of Allegiance

With all this hubbub over Colin Kaepernick I figured I'd remind people of the not so honorable start of the pledge.

The author of the Pledge of Allegiance was Francis Bellamy, a Christian Socialist and was employed by children's magazine named "The Youth's Companion". Francis was working on a way to sell more American Flags and they decided to start a campaign to get on into every school in America. It was a successful campaign and within 4 years they had sold to just about every school in the US and now needed a way to sell more. Francis used the magazine to publish "The Pledge of Allegiance" in 1892. The original pledge was as follows:

"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which is stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all"

The pledge was accompanied by a special salute which is now called "The Bellamy Salute".





These things were so successful in inspiring nationalism that other leaders in other countries took notice. In 1920 The Fascist leader of Italy started using it and called it "The Roman Salute" Then in the 1930's it was adopted none other than Adolf Hitler and called "The Nazi Salute"




Godwin's law states that "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazism or Hitler approaches 1". In this case, the similarities are eerie, to say the least. What's sad is that the people who hold the american flag so close to godliness are so blind to what's going on that they cannot see the path this country is on. They think, as did those others, that they are just and right and are fighting the good fight. It's just not true.

The bottom line here is that the pledge of allegiance was created to sell flags. It's just that simple. They used the nation's feelings to sell a product. Great marketing, but a shitty outcome.

If you're all about "liberty and justice for all", doesn't that include the freedom to NOT stand and pledge? 

Remember how everyone will post that "Be that guy" meme? But when they do it to this country, they go apeshit.