LILEKS (James) Matchbooks

	06 14 05	I get lots of emails like this at work. They make me tired. From the crusading Rex Curry, Attorney at Law: Teachers, students, school boards and schools all over the USA received this open letter. Please help spread the word. Flag Day (6-14) is a good day to remove the flag from schools. Goes without saying. And let’s burn some forests on Arbor Day, too. And what better day to commit suicide than your birthday. Please help, and also educate everyone about these new historical discoveries: 1. The original Pledge of Allegiance to the USA's flag used a straight-armed salute and it was the source of the salute of the monstrous National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis). The gesture was not an ancient Roman salute. I recall using the hand-over-the-heart gesture when I was growing up; we reserved the Sieg Heiling for the glorious moment when the principal made announcements over the loudspeaker. 2. The Pledge began with a military salute that then extended outward toward the flag. Due to the way that Francis Bellamy (the Pledge's creator) used the gestures, the military salute led to the Nazi salute. Something tells me we’ve gone from point A to point C without quite explaining the matter of point B, no? 3. Bellamy was a self-proclaimed socialist in the nationalism movement and his dogma influenced socialists in Germany, and his pledge was the origin of their salute. Many people forget that "Nazi" means "National Socialist German Workers' Party." A mnemonic device is the swastika (Hakenkreuz in German). Although the swastika was an ancient symbol, it was also used sometimes to represent "S" letters joined for "socialism" under the German National Socialists. I have the feeling we’re getting off track here, but I assume this will all tie together. How the discoveries were made is a fascinating story in itself. I made the discoveries by accident during legal research involving litigation about the pledge. As a libertarian lawyer, and the USA's favorite flagologist, I do pro bono work educating students and others about the right to reject the ritualism. I remember that show to find the USA’s favorite flagologist! I was on Fox. Three judges – a genial ursine guy who pretty much approved of the flagologist doin’ what he did, dawg; a perky little bosomy fireplug who did a wonderful job of making the worst flagologist feel better, and an unsparing acerbic Brit who once reduced a flagologist to tears for insufficiently communicating his contempt for the Burkina Faso flag. Then there was a phone poll. I forgot all about that. Fight the flag hags and their flag fetish. Government's schools should not teach kids to verbally fellate flags each morning. It is like a brainwashed cult of the omnipotent state. For adults it is childish. Remove the pledge from the flag, remove flags from schools, remove schools from government. One word, Rex: focus. The Bellamy dogma was the same dogma that led to the "Wholecaust" (of which the Holocaust was a part): 62 million killed under the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; 35 million under the Peoples' Republic of China; 21 million under the National Socialist German Workers' Party. It was so bad that Holocaust Museums could quadruple in size with Wholecaust Museums to document the entire slaughter. Three words, Rex: try to focus. In the USA, government took over education and imposed segregation by law and taught racism as official policy. The USA's behavior was an example for three decades before the Nazis. As under Nazism, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and blacks and the Jewish and others in the USA attended government schools that dictated segregation, taught racism, and persecuted children who refused to perform the straight-arm salute and robotically chant the pledge. Some kids were expelled from government schools and had to use the many better alternatives. That there were such alternatives, and that one could freely leave to use them, seems to suggest that the US took advantage of that opt-out clause in the Wholecaust. There were acts of violence. When Jesse Owens competed in the 1936 Olympics in Germany, his neighbors attended segregated government schools where they saluted the flag with the Nazi salute. Amazing, but true! And when Joltin’ Jack Flabbergast competed in the 1931 Ten-Pin Bowling Playoffs in Hoboken, his neighbors attended grocery stores where they exchanged money for food – just like in Nazi Germany! The U.S. practice of official racism even outlasted the horrid party. And the schools and the Pledge still exist. The Pledge is still the most visible sign of the USA's growing police state. Timeline: Nazi Germany, a racist state, was defeated in 1945. American laws that violated 19th century legal guarantees of racial equality were finally enforced by the 60s. But somewhere in South Dakota right now, local property taxes still fund a kindergarten. As if that’s not horrible enough, the Pledge not only continues, it’s the most visible sign of the growing police state. Somewhere right now cadets are reciting the Pledge, right before they take Etc etc. I heard this guy, or someone who also champions this cause, on the Medved show, and it was a slightly more coherent version of this. It could all be true, for all I know – although what I’ve read of Edward Bellamy makes him seem like a silly head-in-the-ether utopian who seemed to think human nature would be repealed by a voice vote. Whatever. I bring this up as a classic example of how to turn off your intended audience. At the end all they remember is something about a fellating Wholecaust. Note to the author: just because someone is a “nationalist” and a “socialist” it doesn’t meant they’re a Nazi, anymore than someone being a vegetarian and a drinker of water makes them a fish. --- Perm Link.