The disturbingly culty “pledge of allegiance” started as a cynical ad campaign designed to sell flags to schools. It’s one of the most American things I’ve heard.
Bellamy, a former Baptist preacher, had irritated his Boston Brahmin flock with his socialist ideas. But as a writer and publicist at the Companion, he let ’em rip. In a series of speeches and editorials that were equal parts marketing, political theory and racism, he argued that Gilded Age capitalism, along with “every alien immigrant of inferior race,” eroded traditional values, and that pledging allegiance would ensure “that the distinctive principles of true Americanism will not perish as long as free, public education endures.”
Is that the “TM” after the flag names?
I think it is some other descriptor, not a TM. They’re insanely capitalist, but not quite at that level yet.
The disturbingly culty “pledge of allegiance” started as a cynical ad campaign designed to sell flags to schools. It’s one of the most American things I’ve heard.
It seems the western left was shit back then too.
Double Fallout reference.