If you can't turn around, at least turn the wheel

Although I don't know how many times I have to say it before it becomes clear, it should be dawning on you -- even if ever so slightly -- that we can't go on with "business as usual", as if "business" were a good metaphor for anything.

The difference between what we say and what we do is huge. The difference between what we know would be good for us all and what we have is huge. The difference between what we believe and what is real is huge. The days of small-step changes are, well, for the most part behind us, if they even exist any more at all.

Don't you just hate it when that happens? Here we are, like frogs in the pot of water, thinking that things aren't as bad as everyone says and that with a tweak here, a small adjustment there; a declaration of commitment here and a gee-wouldn't-it-be-nice there; with a mere "return" to some odd values that were never actually there; well, then things would just be peachy keen and the world would be a nice place again. The water's boiling, however, and if we weren't frogs, our goose would be cooked.

But hey, as George Orwell once said, "In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." And he also said, "The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it." George was a wise man, and insightful on top of everything else. No, don't get me wrong: I'm not comparing myself to him in any way. I think he got it, and I like to think I understand what he's saying. I'm not (yet) despised by many (OK, a few, but who isn't), and for the most part those who don't want anything to do with me feel that way for reasons much more personal than whether whatever I say might have some similarity with "the truth". Fair enough. What I am thinking, though, is that in these days and times, even looking for the truth is close to revolutionary. I've never really thought of myself as such, but with each passing day, I find myself closer than I would have ever imagined.

Revolutionaries are a strange breed, that's for sure. You've got your Lenins, your purveyors of the guillotine-driven French Revolution, the slave-owners-seeking-freedom types of the American Revolution ... hell, all advocates of violent revolution have been short-lived, ending up like the despots they drove out (the Beelzebub-Devil problematic, as I like to call it). On the other hand, there are the Mandelas, the Gandhis, and Jesus, just to name the most well-known, who knew that if you want real change -- even necessary change -- you've got to find it in yourself first. And who is really ready for that?

And that, dear reader, is the rub: Folks much smarter and wiser than me (e.g., Buckminster Fuller, Jacques Fresco, Jim Hurtak, Stan Tenen, Valentin Tomberg, Gar Alperovitz, E.F. Schumacher, Erich Fromm, Jean Gebser, just to name a few) have all made the case that any and all real change starts with ourselves. We can't wait for others to set the tone. We can't wait for others to show us the way. We can't wait for others to take the lead. We can't wait for others at all.

I know -- and believe it or not, I understand -- that not many of you are willing to (radically) "turn around". I wish you could, but I know that's expecting too much. Given that we now think what we've always thought, we've simply got just more of what we've always got. Nevertheless, you can make a start, and this start involves simply stopping to think what you think and take a step back to give it a good look-over. Regardless of how compressed time-frames are becoming, the least you can do is ask yourself whether there might be other options for a better future available.

I pledged but not necessarily allegiance ...

As I noted last time, saying the words is just a way of "talking the talk". The real test of anything we say is whether we're willing to act on it ... to "walk the walk", to keep in tune with the rhyming metaphor.

I know lots of talkers. Lots. At the moment we're talking about American talkers, but I'm here to tell you: mutatis mutandis (a Latin phrase that means, "all the relevant changes having been made") what I'm saying here applies everywhere else I've ever been as well, and beyond. Again, this is one of those cases in which my fellow countrypeople carry their obsessions on their sleeve, but they're really not as exceptional as they might like to think they are. No, what I'm looking for are "walkers": people who are willing to put into practice what they preach, folks who are willing to do, not just say.

Even once we get past that swearing-one's-allegiance-to-a-piece-of-cloth thing and leave the realm of the actual for the more ethereal realm of the possible, what does this "oath" require? Assuming that the sayers are serious about that "one-nation" stuff, how long does it take for it all to break down? Two more words, as Fate would have it.

The original pledge, written by a fascist-friendly Baptist pastor who wanted to have it said with right arms extended forward (yes, as in "Sieg, heil"), didn't include the "under God" part. That was a 1954-we've-got-to-distance-ourselves-from-those-atheistic-Commies addition. If it's included, what does it mean for Americans today? If it's an essential or mandatory part, then, quite simply, no atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto, Taoist, and, conceivably, Moslem (though the stretch is not far) can say it in good conscience. I don't know how many of these there are in America, but it's more than a handful. There are those who insist that the phrase be included, even if it excludes so many fellow "patriots". Personally, I think we can leave it out because it wasn't there to begin with, and since the Commie threat has passed, it's doubly unneeded, but that's just my own little view of things.

No, what interests me more than anything else is what follows, that short little phrase, "indivisible, with liberty and justice for all". When I look across the Pond these days, I see anything but something "indivisible": right and left, Democrats and Republicans, gun nuts and concerned citizens, North and South, East and West, the racial divide, and the treatment of immigrants -- just to name the most obvious -- point to anything but indivisibility. Which talkers are doing anything about that?

The very last six words, though, are the killer: in a country that recognizes "affluenza" as a disease, that has a disproportional number of minorities in prison, most often for negligible offenses, that has the starkest income inequality in the Western world (and is in the top 3 worldwide) and that is home to the Patriot Act, the NDAA, the CIA and NSA, that has the most militarized police force in the "free world", well, I have to ask myself, what are the pledgers doing about this?

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that all those "rising to defend the pledge" are actually just doing their part to ensure that nothing about it holds true. It's just so much hot air. What we should be doing is protecting and helping the weak and maligned, seeking ways to come together, and speaking truth to power. But we're not. We're wishing for the "good old days" that were never really good, and are nothing but old.

The way out of the darkness is not behind you, it's in front of you.

I pledge allegiance ...

These are the opening words of a statement than every American school child was expected to render each and every day of school at one time. It probably persists today, but I don't know, for I'm not there. What I do know, however, is that more than just a few friends of mine bring it up again and again (on Facebook, for example) and there is a strong feeling that it's not being pushed hard enough.

It is, therefore, time to take a look at this pledge and ask ourselves just what is being said, and, in addition, whether we should be pledging it at all.

Note bene: for my non-American readers, this is an exercise in examining something Americans think is important. Consider it a lesson in cultural studies, or Landeskunde, as my German friends would say. In the next post, I'll take another look at it from a broader, more inclusive perspective.

The pledge, as originally written, is as follows:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation [under God] indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

First of all, a flag is a piece of cloth, in most cases, and it is, at best, a physical representation of an idea or an ideal. It doesn't matter which. What we find, first and foremost, however, is an oath to a mere piece of matter which has been, somehow, in some inexplicable way, be endowed with almost religious significance. Immediately, though, we are informed that the same degree of devotion, of submission, is to the republic that the flag is meant to symbolize, namely the USA. This entity is then described as a singular, united, unified "nation", which as of 1954 by legislative decree is imbued with divine oversight, that ascribes to and practices "liberty" (freedom in a political sense) and "justice" (equal treatment before the law) for all.

It's a nice sentiment, but is it applicable? When the pledge is expressed, it's a matter of "talking the talk". But, putting it into practice would be a matter of "walking the walk". But that's a topic for next time.

No, at the moment the question that is plaguing me, is how so many people who either believe or would like to believe that the United States was founded on sound, Christian principles, reconcile this pledge with their beliefs. Think about it:

1. There are numerous places in the Bible, especially the New Testament, that strongly indicate one shouldn't be swearing oaths.
2. While it is on the surface, at least, a pledge, it certainly sounds like an "oath", especially when you consider what the law proscribes for desecrating the symbol, let alone the "republic for which it stands".
3. The discrepancy between what it describes ("liberty and justice for all") and what is reality (one of the greatest disparities between rich and poor, the inordinate number of people of color who receive harsher punishments, even for lesser crimes, the repeated attempts to modify, say, voting laws to discriminate against those same people of color, the drastic differences in adjudication between "those well off" and others (e.g., "affluenza")

I have to wonder about how people get these things together in their minds. For the moment, I think it's enough for you to think about.

Yes, this is the pledge that many, many Americans hold to be sacrosanct, but before we even look at it in a critical way, questions present themselves that every one of us should be required to think about seriously.