Commentary

Pledging allegiance, over and over again

By Oscar Falconi

For the last month, the Saratoga Senior Center has asked us old-timers to stand up and recite "The Pledge of Allegiance" after our Wednesday lunches. This, of course, came about because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

It appears other groups over the entire country since 9-11 have also been having members "do the Pledge"--over and over again. This has thus created a nationwide controversy.

Most of us, especially we seniors, recited the Pledge of Allegiance to our flag well over 1,000 times in grade school. It's all senseless when we know that a pledge need only be stated once to be etched in stone.

It takes only one public declaration to denounce our country; why, then, does it take 1,000 pledges to love it?

We of the Saratoga Senior Center already love the flag of the United States of America and the country for which it stands.

The reason we love our country is, as we matured and aged, we actually experienced what America is all about, and what it offers us. Many of us have been lucky enough to get to compare the United States with dozens of other societies and concluded the United States is presently best.

This, then, is why we love America, not because of rote "pledges" we were urged to recite daily at an early age when our young, empty, susceptible brains were blindly accepting all ideas and slogans. We were too young even to know the meaning of what we were memorizing and reciting.

Hitler's propaganda minister, Goebbels, said that if you repeat something enough times, you'll believe it. Were we brainwashed, Nazi style?

There's no need to have us, or anyone, pledge allegiance each and every week to our flag and to the country for which it stands, again and again and again, ad nauseam.

I mentioned my "politically incorrect" thoughts to several folks at the center and one senior, a true World War II hero who was partially crippled on his 30th mission over Germany, angrily asked me if I was a traitor. A traitor, of course, would jump at any opportunity to pledge allegiance to our flag in order to mislead authorities. I refuse to pledge allegiance because I've done it a thousand times--and I'm sick of it.

I can see how one or two of our group's heroic war veterans would want to have us express our love of country. And I can also see how our fine young director, Sean O'Leary, on the spur of the moment, agreed that our group must stand up and recite the Pledge of Allegiance--week after week, forever. But several of us regret his decision.

Let's not compound the Sept.11 tragedy by adding the Pledge of Allegiance to all the bureaucratically mandated tasks we Americans already must endure. Repeatedly reciting the pledge doesn't make us more patriotic or love our country more. It would only be a victory for the terrorists.

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Oscar Falconi is a Saratoga resident.

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Commentary: Pledging allegiance, over and over again

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