Quote ChicagoMatt:

I don't see the elites of the world as cracking whips over the backs of the lowest-paid workers either. Like I said before, my Bible tells me not to judge people. So I'm not judging those who have more than me, nor those who have less.

Maybe that's the problem - I don't see anyone around me being screwed into a life of hardship. At least, not by some big elitist conspiracy.

Are you saying that you're some sheltered privileged brat who's unaware that people are being screwed over and living lives of hardship. I'm so surprised to find that out!

The pledge of allegiance was written by a socialist. The "under God" part was added in 1954 during the McCarthey Era, without consulting the author, to serve as a weapon of intolerance.

The original Soviet Constitution was very wise. It guaranteed complete freedom of religion, it forbade religious persecution (it was thinking, mainly, of Anti Semitism) and forbade religious instruction of anyone who was under the age of 18. The Soviet Union was initially a very hopeful, ambitious, idealistic and humanistic experiment to create a just, benevolent and enlightened society, informed by science and free of prejudice and superstition.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/05/09/chicago-t...

"The Chicago Teachers’ Union House of Delegates has passed a resolution opposing use of the Common Core State Standards in teaching and testing, and it plans to lobby the Illinois Board of Education to reverse approval of the Core and ask its parent union, the American Federation of Teachers, to consider it at its upcoming convention."

That old corporate-fascist mantra, Matt, is what you preach, and I'll have none of it. If this is where your faith lies, then the hell with you. This privatize-everything, destroy-the-government crusade is evil, it is dangerous, and I consider anyone endorsing that as a legitimate social order and way of life to be a fascist. Sieg heil, Chicago Matt! Because these privately owned entities taking over the commons are answerable to no one but the owners and the shareholders. When government is functioning like a government is supposed to function (as in the USA, uh, supposedly…) it protects and defends the interests of its citizens first and foremost. Since this corporate-fascist, hostile takeover, our government and our country have turned into something I barely recognize anymore. This transformation evolved gradually, over decades, thus escaping the notice of anyone in their thirties or younger. But I'm in my sixties. I've been around long enough to watch what was largely a thriving, prosperous citizenry demoted to serfdom as this country slowly morphed into the banana republic shit hole that it is today, for so many of us.

Conservatives want us all to believe the working poor are in their situation because they're not smart enough, or they're lazy or whatever. But I've seen, heard about, read about engineers, college professors, people with PhDs, stuck in paycheck-to-paycheck purgatory and living on the margins. The bigger grows the hole in the safety-net portion of the commons, the more of us keep falling through it. Surprise, surprise.

Anyway Matt, sorry. We're not buying what you're selling. Those who get paid $7000 (or even $500) for an hour's "work" have an awful lot staked in the myth that they "earned" it when, more often than not, it's the workers "below" them who earned it, being the ones who designed, created and/or manufactured the product, or provided the actual service that customers are paying for.

The sense of entitlement you conservatives uphold and project outward is breathtaking. You can take your privatizing, government-bashing screed somewhere else, far as I'm concerned. You've made your positions abundantly clear. "Me first and screw you." "Me-my-mine". You've given us all quite a dose of it over this past week, since diving into the discussion seemingly from nowhere. But we're not buying it anyway. - Aliceinwonderland

I accept only about five or six of the Ten Comandments, if that many.

Quote ChicagoMatt:On the other hand, a pledge is "a promise". Which to me makes it seem like a pledge is between people, and an oath is between a person and God.

"...one nation. under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

There is no difference between a "Pledge of Allegiance" and an oath. The are the exact same thing.

We need to stop voting for either party. They are the SAME party! Both work for the interests of their donating constituency and NOT the interest of their voting constituency.

They (GOP and Dem) are both right-wing corporate shills. We ALL need to vote for other parties/people.

Lifetime enslavement by student debt will never be eliminated in the U.S. precisely because the One Percent views it as a primary method of suppressing student activism -- which is exactly the motive behind the policies that created the indebtedness.

Indeed, the rationale for targeting students and academics -- academe damned as "the single most dynamic source" of anti-capitalist resistance -- is the primary topic of the infamous Powell Memo of 1971, which is widely considered the original operations plan for the imposition of zero-tolerance Ayn Rand fascism on the USian homeland. (The memo is reprinted in full at http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/ )

Meanwhile Sen. Elizabeth Warren's interest-reduction measure, like Mr. Hartmann's notion of a jubilee of student-debt abolition, is nothing more than a pie-in-the-sky manifestation of the imbecility of hope. Neither Sen. Warren's mildly ameliorative bill nor any other genuinely humanitarian measure will ever again be enacted by the U.S. Congress simply because the Republican majority in the House has been gerrymandered into permanence.

This means de facto Republican control of the U.S. government is literally forever. It will not end -- it cannot be ended -- until the entire system is overthrown or the nation itself is toppled, most likely by the looming environmental apocalypse, at which point the entire student debt issue becomes moot.

Until then -- precisely as the diabolically clever, inconceivably powerful One Percent intend -- impossible-to-enact initiatives by Ms. Warren and her ilk will perpetuate the Big Lie of USian representative democracy even as we of the peasantry and proletariat, students and professors included, are driven ever deeper into slavery.

R/H are, I think, more properly thought of as reactionaries.

Even I am smart enough to know they probably don't even believe half of the stuff they say. They are just selling a "product". I don't think there is some grand behind-the-scenes plan behind it all. I think Conservative radio - Rush in particular - came along at the right time and find an audience and started telling them what they wanted to hear. The fact that the audience grew so large shows that 1. He was lucky/smart enough to find an untapped market, and 2. Large amounts of people were very discontent with the federal government.

I like Thom better, but I don't believe everything he says either. I don't think he even really believes some of it. He, too, needs to make a living and sell his "product" to his audience. But he's a lot nicer about it. I don't think there's some big conspiracy behind the failure of Air America or the lower ratings Progressive media receives. I think there is just a smaller number of people with this mindset.

That's probably just my "raised in the post-Reagan era and I think everyone is out to separate me from my money, which is fine because greed is good" mentality rearing it's head. It makes it hard to believe ANYONE has my best interests in mind, and doesn't just have their eyes on my wallet.

How do you reconcile forcing a child or anyone else to swear an oath of any kind after hearing this scripture.

I also agree that no one should be made to say the pledge in a public school. And, around here, they don't do it in school anymore.

I also, personally, don't force my students to do it. If they don't want to do it, they still have to be quiet while others do it. But I work with 12-14-year-olds, and I try to treat them like adults.

According to Catholic teaching, and oath is "an invocation to God to witness the truth of a statement". I admit I had to look that up just now...

On the other hand, a pledge is "a promise". Which to me makes it seem like a pledge is between people, and an oath is between a person and God.

I would also say that the Pledge of Allegiance, like an invocation before a town council meeting, has value as a tradition. Catholic schools started doing it during the waves of diverse Catholic immigrants in the 1880s-1920s, either as a way of making everyone feel like they had some shared culture, or indoctrinating them into the fascist American system, depending on who you ask.

Also, the rule to do the Pledge comes from the school board, not the Pope. Our school board is three people (the whole school is about 200 students). If any parent wants to complain, they can take it to the school board. If a different private school doesn't want to do it, that's their perrogative.

Hey Matt,

Class envy? Nope, sorry kid.

Taking back something that's rightfully yours is not about class envy, it's about survival; beyond that, simple fairness. It might make you happy to ignore, shrug off, even deny how this system is rigged against most of us, how it favors the rich and is predatory by design. Might make you feel better, insulating yourself in layer upon layer of denial. But the reality is, this economy is rigged against most Americans. More and more of us find ourselves stuck in this paycheck-to-paycheck purgatory from which there is no escape, where you must work longer and harder just to get by. No sick leave, no child care, no maternity leave, no paid vacation time… But for the top 1% it's party time, where every day's a holiday! And that's where we are. Theocracy and Plutocracy, fraternal twins from hell. You know the saying, "denial ain't a river in Egypt"! Yeah, Matt. Try contemplating that, if you dare.

And by the way, we'll quit bashing your religion when you quit telling us progressives what we "think" and "feel". That a deal?

Peace, love an' grooviness… - Aliceinwonderland

I can see your point. Then, as always, the question becomes, "what level of government should handle this?" The right is quick to point out - and I agree with this - that the Department of Education doesn't "educate" anyone.

Of course, the next four lines are "We the people of the United States...."

But good luck coming to a consensus at the federal level about what should be taught in schools. As a private school teacher, I am not beholden to Common Core standards, but I still hear shit about them anyway.

But I'm getting off topic...