Native Pledge (musings)

Native Pledge

An “Indian  Pledge of Allegiance” was first presented on December 2,  1993—101 years after the original Pledge was written—during the opening address of the National Congress of  American Indian Tribal-States Relations Panel in Reno, Nevada.

I pledge allegiance to my Tribe, to the democratic principles
of the Republic and to the individual freedoms
borrowed from the Iroquois and Choctaw Confederacies,
as incorporated in the United States Constitution,
so that my forefathers shall not have died in vain.

Pledge of Allegiance, Native American view 
 Last edited: Saturday, January 15, 2005
 Posted: Saturday, January 15, 2005

Under God. Indivisible with liberty and justice for all. The Supreme Court said it is illegal to have to say the pledge of allegiance. When America was founded, under God there was not liberty and justice for all. There was liberty and justice if you were a white male, landowner. If you were black you were considered property and you had neither liberty nor justice. If you were a Native American you were not even considered a human being. We were considered property for those who were taken as slaves or had no legal rights or liberties until the mid eighteen hundreds and not considered American citizens until 1923. The Chinese workers who helped to build our land were neither given liberty nor justice. If you were a woman you did not have the right to vote or in some places even own property. 

Manifest Destiny stated that the taking of lands and property was the God given right of the white race to make this country into a Christian land. Governed by men who would teach all who did not believe in the White man’s God by the whip, torture or even death if they did not comply. So I can see why some people are opposed to saying the pledge of allegiance. But over the course of the past one hundred and fifty years things have changed. People realized that Manifest Destiny was wrong. Many did try to make things right and truly provide liberty and justice for all. It was hard. It is still being fought against today by the bigots and religious zealots of today. Note I did not say Christians but religious zealots (including atheists) who will do everything in their power to disrupt our Government and our attempts to treat all with liberty and justice. Native Americans, Blacks, Orientals and Hispanics are still treated as second class citizens. But people still come to this great county of ours because we try to make it better. We try to help provide the American dream where you can practice your religion no matter what it is. That has changed too. We no longer beat or torture Native Americans for speaking their native tongue or for practicing their native religion. Under God means something different now. It no longer means the white man’s God. But God as a universal being. As the Native Americans say, “We all believe in the same God we just call him different names and worship him in ways we understand”. If you chose not to say the pledge, don’t. I did not say it myself for many years until I understood that it meant that I was pledging to help my fellow man not to believe in a God different than mine.

Very briefly, the Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by a socialist Baptist minister named Francis Bellamy. His brother was Edward Bellamy, author of the most popular book of the day, a book that promoted socialism. The Bellamy brothers associated with powerful people including John Dewey, perhaps the most influential educator in the history of public education.

This is the flag pledge that Bellamy wanted to write:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands,
 one nation, indivisible, with liberty, equality, and fraternity for all.

And this is the flag pledge he actually wrote:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands,
 one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

  

 Notice that Bellamy left out the word “equality.” He was afraid his flag pledge wouldn’t be accepted because many rich, powerful people didn’t want African Americans and women to have equal rights. Also, notice that neither version includes the words “under God,” despite the fact that Bellamy was a Baptist minister!

After World War I, the words were changed from “my Flag” to “the Flag of the United States of America” to prevent people from secretly pledging allegiance to flags of other nations! The words “under God” were added to the Pledge in 1954.

The timing of the Pledge of Allegiance was a cruel insult to Native Americans. In 1876, Plains Indians led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull defeated Civil War hero General George Armstrong Custer in the future state of Montana. News of Custer’s death shocked Americans—especially because it happened just days before July 4, which was the 100th anniversary of the birth of the United States!

The U.S. Army waged war against Native Americans even more ferociously. In 1890, the Indian Wars proper were ended when soldiers massacred a band of unarmed Indians at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. But the war against Indians would continue on reservations and in schools.

The Pledge of Allegiance was written for Columbus Day, which honors the man Native Americans hate most! And Columbus Day in 1892 was very special—the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ discovery of America. For Native Americans, Columbus Day represents the beginning of centuries of torture, slavery, humiliation and murder.
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Your make interesting points about the Pledge of Allegiance, and the situation was even worse than you stated. The pledge was the origin of the Nazi salute (and the swastika -although an ancient symbol- was used to represent crossed S-shapes for "socialism" under the National Socialist German Workers Party).

Francis Bellamy (cousin of author Edward Bellamy) was a socialist in the Nationalism movement and authored the Pledge of Allegiance (1892), the origin of the stiff-armed salute adopted much later by the National Socialist German Workers Party. See the work of the symbologist Dr. Rex Curry. http://rexcurry.net/pledge2.html

See the image at http://rexcurry.net/pledge_of_allegiance.jpg

The early American stiff-armed salute was not an ancient Roman salute. That is a myth debunked by Dr. Curry, who showed that the myth came from the Pledge and from various facts including that Francis Bellamy grew up in Rome, N.Y., not Rome, Italy, and thereafter the Pledge salute was repeated in early films (some showing fictional scenes of ancient Rome). The reasons above and more led to the American stiff-armed salute being picked up later by German socialists and the National Socialist German Workers Party (under the influence of Adolf Hitler and the U.S. citizen and Harvard grad Ernst Hanfstaengl, a confidant of Hitler) and by Italian socialists under Benito Mussolini (who discovered the salute while he gained power as a socialist journalist writing for socialist newspapers, and later became an ally of the National Socialist German Workers Party). http://rexcurry.net/pledgerome.html

Francis Bellamy never used the term "Roman salute" when describing his pledge's salute and he was not influenced by Jacques-Louis David's painting "Oath of the Horatii." One reason why Francis Bellamy never used the term "Roman salute" in any way is because the concept of the "Roman salute" did not exist when Bellamy wrote his pledge and for decades thereafter.
http://rexcurry.net/roman-salute-oxford-english-dictionary.html

Francis Bellamy clearly explained that his pledge began with a military salute that was then extended out toward the flag. In practice, the second gesture was performed palm-down with a stiff-arm when the military salute was merely pointed out at the flag by disinterested children forced to do Bellamy's programmed chanting daily in government schools. That is how the straight-arm salute developed from Francis Bellamy's Pledge of Allegiance and its use of the military salute (and how the USA's Pledge salute led to the Nazi salute). http://rexcurry.net/pledge_military.html

See the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvDwL553pVM

That the concept of the "Roman salute" did not exist when Bellamy wrote his pledge (and for decades thereafter) also means that the concept of the "Roman salute" did not even exist when Jacques-Louis David lived and painted "Oath of the Horatii" and thus David was NOT thinking of a real or imagined "Roman salute" when he painted the Horatii, nor did David ever use the term "Roman salute." The Horatii lie (that the painting was the origin of the "Roman salute" myth) first appeared on Wikipedia, deliberately fabricated by a liar to cover-up Dr. Curry's discovery that the Pledge was the origin of the Nazi salute. In the painting, 3 brothers are reaching for weapons (and the two figures in back are reaching with their left hands). The same liar who created the Horatii lie had, until he was debunked, previously claimed that the stiff-armed salute was an actual ancient Roman salute, and he posted the lie that Roman statues displaying "adlocutio" (a gesture made by a person speaking) showed "the ancient Roman stiff-armed salute." The newly substituted Horatii lie has been mindlessly repeated by many people (as the adlocutio lie was repeated and still is) because wakipedia glorifies itself as an encyclopedia, even though it is merely an anonymous bulletin board where anyone can post anything. http://rexcurry.net/pledge_of_allegiance_videos...

American national socialists (including Edward Bellamy), in cooperation with Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society, popularized the use of the Swastika (an ancient symbol) as a modern symbol for socialism long before the symbol was adopted by the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazis) and used on its flag. http://rexcurry.net/book1a1contents-swastika.html

See also http://rexcurry.net/45th-infantry-division-swas...

The Bellamys influenced the National Socialist German Workers Party and its dogma, rituals and symbols (e.g. robotic collective chanting to flags; and the modern use of the swastika as crossed S-letters for "Socialism" under German National Socialism). Similar alphabetical symbolism was used under the NSDAP for the "SS" division, the "SA," the "NSV," et cetera and similar symbolism is visible today as the VW logo (the letters "V" and "W" joined for "Volkswagen"). http://rexcurry.net/bookchapter4a1a2a1.html

The Bellamys wanted the government to take over all food, clothing, shelter, goods and services and create an "industrial army" to impose their "military socialism." See the video documentary at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BssWWZ3XEe4

It is the same dogma that led to the socialist Wholecaust (of which the Holocaust was a part): ~60 million killed under the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; ~50 million under the Peoples' Republic of China; ~20 million under the National Socialist German Workers' Party. http://rexcurry.net/socialists.html

Today, the flag symbolizes authoritarianism in the USA. The historical facts above explain the enormous size and scope of government today, and the USA's police state, and why it is growing so rapidly. They are reasons for minarchy: massive reductions in government, taxation, spending and socialism.

(An intelligent person knows that the first logical question that should arise after someone views for the first time the early American "nazi" salute should be: which stiff-armed salute came first (German or American) and did one cause the other? It is unfortunate to note that in America that question NEVER seems to arise after an American first views the early American "nazi" salute. It proves how stupid Americans have become and it is another reason to end government schools (socialist schools)).

— rexcurry
Kind of ironic that the swastika is also a basket design
— Andre Cramblit