No. America is the only one and it’s fucking creepy
When I was still living in AmeriKKKa, one kid in my 12th grade maths class taught me to start shitting on the pledge by calling it “corporate America” and things like “oil barons, Walmart, Lockheed Martin and Fox News”, finishing off with “America deserved 9/11”, something like that. But saying it in a way where it doesn’t immediately stand out like me windmilling my piss on the Vietnam War Memorial, lmao
God I wish I was that fucking cool as a 17 year old
I always just pretended the pledge wasn’t happening. I hoped a teacher would throw a fit about it tbh. They never did though
Average HB user
It’s mandatory in China every Monday
They made us stand in the yard to listen to the anthem every Monday but I don’t remember ever doing a pledge, but it might be different depending on city I guess.
No, you’re right. I conflated singing the national anthem with doing the pledge of allegiance. Although, it seems the purpose is similar.
being 20% as bad as america is still a huge L tbh
We sang March of the Volunteers (the Chinese national anthem) on Mondays, there was never a pledge of allegiance.
20% bad as post-9/11 america. some schools that had dropped it for all the obvious reasons it’s stupid to do picked it back up
In my country you had to pledge allegiance to the dead founder every morning. Some people lost their shit when it was lifted.
We had religious hymns in assembly and I FUCKING hated it. Stop making me sing about god you weirdos and let me play with my tamagochi
https://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org/what-countries-have-a-pledge-of-allegiance-in-schools/
Philippines, Singapore, India, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Japan all have in-school pledges.
I think the impact of the pledges are heavily overstated, particularly as kids get older and begin to naturally rebel. Sort of like how D.A.R.E. was a failure, in large part because it was quickly apparent to a lot of teenagers that this stuff was inflated bullshit. The real value, I think (much like with DARE), is in identifying certain kids who are outwardly rebellious and singling them out for punishment. Pledges become a litmus test for general obedience.
D.A.R.E. taught me that weed was non-addictive and also gave me an excuse to wear hot pink because I beat my entire class at trivia and won a hot pink D.A.R.E. t-shirt. It made it into the rotation, and was of such a radioactive hue that relatives and classmates alike would avert their eyes from the pain. It was glorious, and probably should have been a not-so-subtle hint that I was a freaking egg.
Edit: The fucking winning question was the names of the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I was the only diehard TMNT fan in my tiny 6th grade class, so there was an audible groan as everyone in the room turned to look at me, “say the line, Bart”-style.
The fucking winning question was the names of the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
That’s insulting easy.
I was the only diehard TMNT fan in my tiny 6th grade class
How do I reach these kids!
It was rural KKKracKKKerstan and like maybe two other people in my class had cable, and the series hadn’t been on the air for very long. These backwoods rubes were barely cognizant of (G1) Transformers, Thundercats, or Masters of the Universe, let alone their pick-me counterparts (e.g., Go-Bots and Silverhawks). By the time TMNT hit, they were barely discovering Matchbox and Hot Wheels. Micro Machines wasn’t even a blip on the radar.
Go-Bots
“Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time… a long time”
yeah, we never had pledges and sang the anthems only on national holidays and still nearly everyone grew up to be a nationalist chud, so i don think it’s necessary…
uhm, actually in combmunismt korth norea they make kids as young as -2 praise kim jong un 45 times a dayAmateur hour, I grew up saying the pledges of allegiance to both the US and Christian flags.
You ever complete the trifecta and swear allegiance to the Bible too? We did three pledges. Granted it was a Christian private school though.
Thanks for unlocking a memory I had repressed since high school, but yes. I also went to a tiny private Christian school.
Me too, had to recite the whole trifecta everyday. Glad others have rebeled to my extent too.
What is the Christian flag? I thought their symbol was the cross
Its an evangelical thing
Makes sense, that looks like fucking arse
Tightly associated with the christofascists
their music sucks so i wouldn’t expect much from any other art.
Its a flag of a blonde hair blue eyes Jesus with an AR-15 in one hand and a fist punching a brown refugee with the other standing on a mountain of skulls.
I found a crimethinc pamphlet on the ground in NYC while on a school trip, in 6th grade. I was already too lazy to do the pledge but it definitely put me on the correct path. Thanks whoever littered rather than challenge themselves with something they never would’ve seen.
it definitely put me on the correct path. Thanks whoever littered
✨mistakes into miracles✨
When I was in school I remember it being optional even post 9/11, I don’t remember getting any shit for not doing it, but this was like in high school and I’m sure things have probably changed for the worse.
Nah its still fine to not stand, no one in my homeroom does
The kids are good folks
I would be cautious about that particular assessment, most of them are still bigots, and definitely are not anti-USians
same. couple of teachers would give you dirty looks but they weren’t allowed to do anything about it because there was a court ruling at the time that prohibited discrimination on that basis (or at least that’s what we were told in civics class). wouldn’t be shocked if it got rolled back.
I think Germany used to do it alot. Not so much anymore for some reason.
was going to come here and joke that “probably nazi germany”, but chose not to because reality is way funnier than i could ever be
they still do at high school games in Germany. Admittedly it’s usually the song of the town, or the song of the state (or state before it was merged, just to mess with the other states), and some of the songs sound very much, uh, march-in-formation-y.
Venezuela had you sing the national anthem every morning, or least that was the case in my private school.
I live in Argentina and we sang the Venezuelan Anthem because my childhood school was named after that country. In fact, during assemblies we flew both the Argentinian and Venezuelan flags, and I even got to carry the latter once.
(US) yeah, totally. the lesson i learned was how easily most people will do and say a thing they don’t believe in just to avoid scrutiny from the broader group even when the orders are coming from the tiny minority that hold all institutional power.
and how like 5-10% of the obedient group are unhinged freaks who delight in enforcing discipline. by late high school though, most of us just stood there and didn’t hand-on-heart/recite. and really the standing only happened when the instructor was like some divorced-dad dipshit coach or karen that would note who wasn’t patriotic and look for ways to retaliate. normal teachers just stood at their desk and looked at their plans or whatever unless an administrator was doing a spot check.
No, that’s weird and fucked up and the most obvious indoctrination ever. But I went to a Catholic primary school and a Protestant secondary school and in both of them we had to do different prayers. Also the Protestant school explicitly favoured Protestants, it was a private school and gave priority to Protestant children to get in. Idk how they got away with that because that is so fucking illegal
Ours was Catholic, but they also liked money, like a lot - so it was full to the brim with Indians and South Asians. Let’s just say the Vicar had no idea what to do, and the kids parents were clearly pushy enough for him not to be able to ask them sing any songs like “god has a white beard and a six pack” or “we are the chosen people” or anything blatantly western.
We did sing some nice neutralish songs that stay with me today:
When a knight won his spurs in the battles of old
He was gentle and brave he was gallant and bold
With a shield on his arm and a lance in his hand
For God and for Valour he rode through the land
When my family moved to Florida when I was in elementary school yes. But when we moved back to New York I’m 100% sure i wasn’t in a school that ever did it.
Damn we had to do it in Upstate New York or else you got dirty looks.
Honestly as trivial as it is in light of virtually everything else the performative patriotism adorning American society is the thing I’ve had a bug up my ass about the longest. Mawkish as hell. Cringy as hell.
I started sitting through it half way through highschool. I was lucky enough to have a couple teachers who while were extremely uncomfortable with what I was doing, were at least worldly enough not to make a stink about it. They’d basically pull a biden ‘c’monn maannn’ before giving up which was cool. One teacher even revealed that she used to do the same thing in high school like 40 years back and understood it.
