"Flag saluting and the nationalism of which it is a vital part are perfect vehicles to produce the docile persons the system needs. They teach that obedience is more important than thinking. Someday students will have to obey their employers. Someday they will have to march off to war. What better way to get them ready than to make them pray to the flag everyday? "
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Flag salute. My favorite combo of sentimentality and self-righteousness. Started refusing to do it in high school. Nobody ever said a word to me. L.A. late sixties.
What really blew my mind is that there was no such thing in Europe -- not in "totalitarian communist" schools in Romania, not in French schools. But in the U.S., every bloody day.
Joanna