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the pledge of allegiance is brainwashing at NK levels.
Dear America:
Most countries don’t do this shit. At all. It’s weird and off putting
Does anyone else also fly bombers and fighter jets over stadiums at the start of a game? Do you take 2-5 minutes to honor some guys in the military during half time?
to be fair, that one (afaik) is a legitimate training exercise. it’s useful to train pilots to be at an exact place, in an exact formation, at an exact speed, at an exact time… and if you can get marketing and morale out of it, welllll why not
You can train the pilots in other time and area. The combination with an unrelated game makes it propaganda.
you can, but as i said at the end of the comment: you have to do it anyway… you either entirely waste the fuel, maintenance, and pilot time, or you use it for something
in a couple of comments people have said they think it’s “plain old cool” and “a mini air show”
propaganda? perhaps
but people also seem to enjoy it… better than entirely wasting it
It’s also dope AF. Frankly, I’d rather have those planes boosting morale here than dropping bombs somewhere else. I see it as a win-win.
Lol, as opposed the the drills and formations that NK/Russia etc do?
not at all - they’re all exactly the same… i’m just noting that there are reasons to do them beyond only propaganda and nationalism
It’s fucking weird and creepy
Also, jets are just plain old cool. Everyone likes a mini-airshow.
Piling on the list of negatives - they use leaded fuel, which is bad for you. I still like planes though
No they don’t. Jets use jet fuel not avgas.
I mean yes, I love airshows, but there’s something about a mass celebration of these machines of death where a crowd gathered for a completely unrelated purpose gets to see the last thing an afghan child at a wedding sees gives ick in a way that normal airshows, even with all the military recruitment and propaganda don’t.
It doesn’t even apply to all flyovers, sometimes it’s like F-14s or Chinooks or WWII era planes where the message isn’t so dark.
where a crowd gathered for a completely unrelated purpose gets to see the last thing an afghan child at a wedding sees
I know this probably makes it worse, but the Afghan child most likely wouldn’t even have a chance to see the plane (or more likely, predator drone) that fired the missile that killed them.
It’s one of the many reasons these children are fucking terrified of clear skies and sunny days.
yyyyyyyes but it’s also expensive and thoroughly weird when compared to the rest of the world… so whilst it does serve a legitimate purpose, it’s worth noting those points too
NK does i believe
When you connect the dots of modern history, you realize America was most of the way to fascist dictatorship the entire time.
Many of us have been waiting for it to drop the facade for decades.
Fascism is just capitalist imperialism turned against your own citizens.
I never liked doing it. Got in trouble a few times for not doing it, though that didn’t matter to me since I got in trouble a lot when I was in school. Those dipshits (the counselor) thought I had “Gender Identity Disorder” and was reacting because of “distress” (Not because I wouldn’t say the pledge, I did many worse things than that), they also used the fact that I also had long hair and sometimes would wear a skirt as evidence I had GID. What fun people I spent my childhood with sarcasm I’m glad my parents are and were nice people otherwise I might not be here today.
I sat down because I was lazy.
You’re welcome
I have never seen a kid sit down for O Canada unless they are in a wheelchair. Of course getting sent to the principle’s is not worth it but I would admire a kid who had the balls to do it.
There was always one kid that sat down during the pledge in my class. None of us thought he was annoying or weird. I admired him.
My kids refused to do it and I supported them. We started sending them to online school after that. The pledge was thought up and implemented by White Christian nationalists to commemorate 400 years since Columbus “discovered” America. Prior to World War 2 students didn’t put their hands over their heart, they did the Bellamy salute AKA the Nazi salute. Choral repetition and responses are used to brainwash people.
My son is in second grade and ha, chosen to not to say the pledge of allegiance (his own decision because we talk about how the country won’t take care of its people). He says he teachers never force him, but subs always do claiming we’re the greatest country in the world.
I stopped in third grade. I walked to school so had to hang out till the busses were gone and I asked my teacher after school one day why I had to say it. She said I didn’t have to if I didn’t want too but that I should stand. It made sense to me . Never said it again.
I asked the same teacher why she said Columbus “discovered Smerica” when there were already people here. She could not answer that one and I don’t think the thought ever crossed her mind. I knew school was all bullshit after that and didn’t really participate much after that
I don’t think kids should even stand for it. Our loyalty should be to the people, to our communities, to the scientific pursuit of truth, to the health of the planet, and to defending the unalienable god given right of dignity for all people.
This shit has always been creepy. Always. Greetings from Germany o/
Internet Germans convinced me to sit down for it in high school. And yeah its such cult shit
Agreed
“Our country is really the best, all the other countries suck… God bless Johnson & Johnson…”
True, but they start you off doing it at the age of 4 or 5 so it is completely normalized before our brains are developed enough to question it
I moved the US as a kid, and this shit gave me massive cult vibes from the start. I refused to participate.
I was suuuper popular in middle school…
Good choice with the forward slash. Good choice.
it me lmao
Same. But I didn’t do it because of a different indoctrination, not because I understood anything special.
Im guessing that’s a lot of us here lol
Lmao saaaame
Less of the annoying kid more of an annoying teacher, admin, and staff. Like peer pressure and desire to follow along made me do it but the teacher and the staff couldn’t explain why we should and that made me question it and leading me to consider the kid right
Are we all in this meme?
I’m from the UK but I have my own version of this.
I went to a Church of England school. When I was about 8, we had this super religious teacher start. She was Methodist so made us change the words of the lord’s prayer to her version. I loudly and defiantly said the old one every time.
It wasn’t long after, that I stopped saying prayers altogether, making sure to stare ahead with lips tight and hands unclasped, so nobody could mistake me as being pious!
I probably would have been that annoying kid had just been schooled in the USA.
Pious - adjective
Strongly believing in religion and living in a way that shows this belief: She is a pious follower of the faith, never missing her prayers
For anyone else who has never in their life encountered this word, lol.
Thanks for adding this!
That was me!
I still have a feeling that me breaking down the whole classes in elementary school alone was a glimpse of genius and not some kind of sociopathy
In any case I am in the business for an article on how I was right all along, nurturing my indomitable rebellious spirit of America or something
Actually I instructed GPT to write such article to stroke my ego a little:
Title: “The System-Smashers: Why the Kids Who Dissect Social Hierarchies Aren’t Sociopaths—They’re Visionaries”
By Dr. Eleanor Voss, Sociologist & Author of “Unseen Structures: The Hidden Architecture of Power”
Every generation has its truth-tellers—the ones who refuse to accept the world as given. Today, they’re the young people ruthlessly deconstructing social class, power dynamics, and institutional hypocrisy, often to the discomfort of those around them. To the outside observer, this behavior might seem cold, obsessive, even sociopathic. But what if it’s something far more radical: the birth of a new kind of critical genius?
The Deconstructive Mind: Pathology or Insight?
Modern psychology has a habit of pathologizing what it doesn’t understand. A teenager who meticulously dissects the unspoken rules of wealth, race, or privilege isn’t necessarily detached or antisocial—they might just be seeing the system more clearly than most adults ever do.
Research in cognitive development suggests that pattern recognition peaks in adolescence and early adulthood, a time when the brain is both hyper-analytical and idealistic. Combine that with today’s hyper-transparent, data-saturated world, and you get a generation that doesn’t just question authority—they reverse-engineer it.
The Rebel Gene: A Historical Perspective
This isn’t new. The same impulse drove Enlightenment philosophers to dismantle divine right, civil rights activists to expose systemic racism, and Silicon Valley disruptors to topple entire industries. The difference? Today’s system-smashers aren’t waiting for permission. They’re crowdsourcing their critiques on TikTok, gaming out power structures in Discord servers, and treating societal norms like lines of code—to be hacked, rewritten, or discarded.
Why Society Fears Them
The backlash is predictable. Institutions (whether schools, corporations, or governments) rely on unexamined hierarchies to function. When someone—especially a young person—points out the emperor’s lack of clothes, the response isn’t gratitude. It’s panic.
- They’re called “too intense.” (Translation: They make us uncomfortable.)
- They’re labeled “obsessive.” (Translation: They care more than we do.)
- They’re accused of sociopathy. (Translation: They don’t perform empathy in the ways we expect.)
But history shows us: The people who refuse to perform social niceties while exposing uncomfortable truths are often the ones who move culture forward.
The Future Belongs to the Systems-Thinkers
The kids aren’t just alright—they’re ahead. In an era of crumbling institutions and algorithmic inequality, their willingness to dissect power isn’t a disorder. It’s an evolutionary advantage.
The question isn’t whether they’re “right.” It’s whether the rest of us are brave enough to listen.
Dr. Eleanor Voss is a professor of sociology at Columbia University and a senior fellow at the Institute for Social Futures. Her latest book, “The Deconstruction Generation,” will be published next spring.
Go outside.
I have just returned from a whole god damn trip I am tired please I need to sleep indoors 🙏
Please don’t post your ai crap.
Generally, the main problem with being “far left” is being ridiculed for being right earlier than everyone else.
