This Independence Day holiday is an excellent time to revisit one of Red Skeltons most endearing works: his recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance and what that pledge means.
You dont get patriotic entertainment like this anymore
In the words of Red Skelton:
Ive been listening to you boys and girls recite the Pledge of Allegiance all semester, said Mr. Laswell, and it seems as though it is becoming monotonous to you. May I recite it and try to explain to you the meaning of each word?
I me, an individual, a committee of one.
Pledge dedicate all of my worldly goods to give without self-pity. Allegiance my love and my devotion.
To the flag our standard, Old Glory, a symbol of freedom. Wherever she waves, theres respect because your loyalty has given her a dignity that shouts freedom is everybodys job!
Of the United that means that we have all come together.
States of America individual communities that have united into 48 great states. Forty-eight individual communities with pride and dignity and purpose; all divided with imaginary boundaries, yet united to a common purpose, and thats love for country.
And to the republic a state in which sovereign power is invested in representatives chosen by the people to govern. And government is the people and its from the people to the leaders, not from the leaders to the people.
For which it stands, one nation one nation, meaning so blessed by God.
Indivisible incapable of being divided.
With liberty which is freedom the right of power to live ones own life without threats, fear or some sort of retaliation.
And justice the principle or quality of dealing fairly with others. For all which means, boys and girls, its as much your country as it is mine.
Since I was a small boy, two states have been added to our country and two words have been added to the Pledge of Allegiance UNDER GOD
Wouldnt it be a pity if someone said that is a prayer and that would be eliminated from schools too? God Bless America!
Red Skelton was a good, decent American. His heart would be broken to see what has happened to America recently. I saw him in Fort Worth a few years before he died (around 1994?): what a funny comedian, his entire routine was family- friendly, unlike every comedian today. He was NOT a fan of Bill Clinton :)
He was an actual comedian, and unlike those ripping off the word today did it all with clean language and wholesome humor. There is NO SUCH THING as a good excuse for the toilet mouthed stuff that prevails today (damn Robin Williams all over again as he's mouldering in the grave).
Thank you for that "ping." It was wonderful, wasn't it? I just can't understand how everybody could just start gulping Jue kool-aid and throw it all away. amerika was one country in 1960 and an entirely different one in 1965!
amerika was one country in 1960 and an entirely different one in 1965!
1965 was indeed the year that amerika took a steep downward pitch. That fact jumped out at me several years ago while reading The Bell Curve. Scores of well documented charts and graphs in that book show just about every social pathology -- bastardy, STDs, violent crime, welfare dependency, illiteracy, drug addiction, etc. etc. -- turning sharply upward in 1965. (About the time that the beatles allegedly got more popular than Jesus.)
Check out vintage Little Golden Books. My wife bought and sold them for a while when we had several small children, and we saw a very definite contrast between the pre- and post-1965 books. Like two different worlds.
I maintain the main fulcrum was the Beatles' appearances on Ed Sullivan in 1964, by no means an original thought with me. They and similiar proto-hippies wore suits at first but quickly morphed into multiculturalist flower power radical- chic messiahs, which CANNOT have happened spontaneously in my ridiculously paranoid view.