American patriotism sounds very much like brainwashing to me because it is INSTUTIONALIZED, meaning that you HAVE to love your country, you HAVE to be proud to be American. This is part of the education. This just seems to me to be a way to control the population regardless of the bad choices of their government and I find this to be fucked up.
@Siphonay There is an episode of Man In The High Castle I just watched, in which they are doing a pledge to Hitler and The Reich in a classroom. It was FAR too close to the Pledge of Allegance for comfort. And that's kinda what it feels like to us who see through it. It always made me uncomfortable as a child, as did church. It wasn't until I grew up that I understood why.
@Troll @Siphonay The history of the pledge is really interesting. It was written by a socialist named Bellamy. The main point of it was supposed to be anti-confederate. People pledge allegiance to the republic (rather than their slave-owning states) with 'liberty and justice for all' including those formerly enslaved.
Congress changed it twice, to specify *which* flag people were pledging to, thus adding the country name. And again in the 1950s to add God.
