...In the two years I wasted in American high school ('69 and '70), as a lone dissenter among pledgers of allegiance I expected no reprisals, nor were there any.
btw, when was "under God" dropped?
Joanna ----------
I can't honestly remember, except it was during Eisenhower's administration. At first it was in `as always', then it was out for awhile, then it was back in, then it was out again.
In seventh grade if a teacher or the boys VP caught you pledging allegiance with your middle finger, you ended up in detention.
It's hard to recapture in words just how obnoxious, militaristic, bigoted, pig-ass, up-tight, jerk-off this country was just after WWII: crew cuts, starched pants, shined shoes, lots of cleaning and scrubbing, modes of address and gestures. Just complete bullshit. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. All the sorts of things that the Murray article was on about.
If you liked high school in `69-70 you would have loved `59-60. My US Government teacher wore a Nixon button and screened the Birch Society film on the SF HUAC hearings and protests. My English teacher flunked me for writing a term paper on the Arab-Israelis war and siding with the UN resolution that mandated return of occupied Sinai and Gaza(?). Another English teacher a year or so later in state college threw out the grade for my term paper writing against some crap book on the importance of the US geo-political position against Cuba--during the Cuban missile crisis. I mean it just went on and on like that.
Chuck Grimes