NYC School Kids Pledge Allegiance to “International” Flag
BY ALEX NEWMAN
SEE: http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/education/item/22698-nyc-school-kids-pledge-allegiance-to-international-flag; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
Young New York City schoolchildren were forced to produce and then pledge allegiance to an “international flag,” sparking a sometimes fierce nationwide outcry among parents and taxpayers outraged about indoctrination and globalism. The controversial symbol, which included a desecrated American flag overlaid with small flags of Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico, and more, featured the words “We Pledge Allegiance to an International Flag” underneath. It was supposed to be auctioned off to raise money, but was removed from the Internet following the national backlash that, according to school officials, has included threats. Critics have argued that the law defines defacing a U.S. flag as a crime and that school officials should be held accountable.
The scandal first erupted when a brief article about the scheme was posted, along with an image of the “international flag,” by Fox News host Sean Hannity's website www.Hannity.com. “It is widely accepted that American public schools are controlled by liberals,” noted Hannity's staff in the post, calling the incident an "outrage." “It seems like every day, we see new examples of American schoolchildren being indoctrinated with left-wing ideas.... This is the type of globalist indoctrination we have come to expect from the public school system, but telling impressionable young American children that their loyalty should lie with some nebulous idea of a global community rather than their own nation is a new low.”
Hannity's website reported that it learned of the bizarre flag from a concerned parent. According to its report, subsequently confirmed by other media outlets, the incident took place at “Public School” 75, or P.S. 75, a government school in New York City that teaches students in English and Spanish. The offending “art project” was reportedly produced by kindergarten children, who are about five years old in most cases, under guidance from school officials. “The fun quote on the bottom is about unity and creating an environment in which everyone is welcome! 'We pledge allegiance to an International Flag!'” read a description of the flag and slogan on the auction site it was posted on, which has since been removed. “Our dual language classroom strives to be a place that everyone feels welcome!”
Also in the text advertising the flag to prospective buyers, which was reportedly taken down by the principal following the parental uproar, was information on how it was made. “The students made a beautifully painted stretched canvas American Flag and then applied flags from all the Spanish speaking countries onto the stripes of the American flag,” the description claimed, without elaborating on why Russia, where Russian is the primary language, would be included. “All the children chose a flag to color using colored pencils and they were glued onto the larger American flag. The stars are cut canvas which are painted and decorated with REAL Swarovski Crystals (gold and crystal colored)!”
After being picked up by conservative-leaning media outlets across America and spreading like wildfire on social media, an outcry of massive proportions ensued. Among those speaking out was actor and conservative commentator Chuck Norris. “Rather than defacing the American flag and pledging to a new international one, the teacher should have been instructing the students about the proper treatment of a flag and what desecrates it, as well as the penalties for the latter,” explained Norris in his WND column, noting that it is a serious crime to knowingly deface a U.S. flag. Unfortunately, he continued, it is not the first time that tax-funded “educators” have been caught promoting the desecration of the American flag, pledging allegiance to foreign flags, and more.
Also seizing on the story was Infowars, BizPac Review, and other non-establishment media outlets. Writing on BizPac Review, Frieda Powers said the “liberal indoctrination” of American schoolchildren had “reached a new low.” “It’s a pretty safe bet that this kind of globalist, left-wing indoctrination of school children will be seen again,” added Powers. In the comments section of articles, commenters urged parents to yank their children out of the government's “indoctrination camps” and slammed globalist “educators” for brainwashing American children.
Illustrating the massive and growing chasm between government “education” officials and the American public forced to finance government education through their taxes, school officials sounded bewildered by the controversy. And instead of apologizing to offended parents, taxpayers, and citizens, they went on offense, complaining to the media about alleged threats made by outraged citizens. Various Twitter images of people calling for the school to be “blown up” or for the mastermind of the international flag to be “shot” were highlighted, though they were not independently verified and, if true, were presumably not intended to be taken literally. Some critics also reportedly used article comment sections to accuse the so-called educators of “treason.” Others merely called for the officials responsible to be fired immediately. But under ultra-leftist NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio, who has a history of defending mass-murdering communist regimes, accountability is unlikely.
Patricia Frisbie, “donation chair and V.P. of fundraising” for the Parent Teacher Association's executive board, told a media outlet dubbed “Mic” that emergency meetings were going to be held. “It's definitely ongoing and it's happening as we speak,” she said, adding that the school had contacted police for additional security. Again, instead of apologizing, she went on offense, claiming critics of the globalist propaganda against impressionable young children were “really blowing this out of context.” It was not clear if she meant the critics were taking the project out of context, or were blowing the scandal out of proportion. Either way, furious parents were further outraged by the dismissive attitude.
“These are a bunch of 5-year olds getting together and making artwork expressing how they feel about school,” she claimed, as if the five-year-olds had just spontaneously decided to desecrate the flag and pledge allegiance to an “intentional” one. Sounding oblivious and unsympathetic to parental concerns, she also blamed the “harsh tone of national politics” for the outrage. “It definitely touched a nerve.”
Of course, the latest scandal is hardly the first U.S. flag-related scandal at a government school to spark nationwide outrage. As The New American reported in March of 2014, a government school in San Jose, California, banned the wearing of T-shirts with U.S. flags on the Mexican holiday known as Cinco de Mayo. Incredibly, courts agreed that censoring the American flag was needed to prevent “racial tension” from exploding into violence, and that infringing on free-speech rights was justified in the case.
The controversial pledge of allegiance to the “international flag” by kindergartners in New York also comes less than six months after United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon declared the UN, often ridiculed as the dictators club, to be “the Parliament of Humanity.” Speaking in New York City at a celebration of UN Day on the 70th anniversary of the global outfit's founding, the top global bureaucrat even went perilously close to deifying the scandal-plagued organization he leads, claiming it brings hope, peace, security, and even sustenance to the world. He claimed humanity had a duty to unite behind the UN and its blue flag, too.
Even before the UN boss was calling on the world to rally around the UN's world flag, Obama was urging American officials to celebrate UN Day with “appropriate ceremonies and activities.” Before Obama even took office, some especially radical city councils in America had started raising the UN flag on the flag poles normally reserved for the U.S., state, and city flags. UN flags and pro-UN propaganda have become increasingly common across the country and worldwide.
Indeed, at government schools across America today, impressionable young children are being indoctrinated into what is known as “multiculturalism” — the notion that all cultures, even those that engaged in human sacrifice, are equally valid, and a radical agenda that, in practice, tends to demonize Western culture and American culture in particular. None of this is a secret. In fact, recently retired Obama Education Secretary Arne Duncan often boasted of using government schools to create “global citizens” in partnership with UNESCO. The UN, meanwhile, regularly brags about its programs to transform children around the world into “global citizens” loyal to the UN. It even has a program known as “Global Citizenship Education.”
The American people must urgently demand an end to the globalist indoctrination of young children masquerading as “education” in the government's schools. Not only are they destroying children mentally and spiritually, they are putting the future of America, its independence, and its constitutionally protected liberties at grave risk.