Pledge.

I'm so tired of hearing the overwhelming polarization in this country around issues of race, class, political party (it's not even real debate on the last of these - just name-calling, dug-in positional disputes, and people talking over one another). Anyway, so not that I'm helping with this post, but I was doing some research, and came across this photo of American kids using the "Bellamy salute" during their pledge of allegiance.


The practice was ended during/after World War II for obvious reasons, but the irony can't be lost on too many people. It's just another in a string of weird parallels and unnerving places where the "admiration" or just "independent" convergences are quite uncomfortable... such as Hitler's modeling of concentration camps and strategies on the American attempted extermination of the Indian tribes...