ALLEGIANCE?  A spoof on an American pledge

The room was heavy with the scent of lukewarm coffee and the stifling humidity of an afternoon
that refused to end. Sam, Tim, and Kris were huddled around a scarred wooden table, the kind
that had witnessed a thousand debates and even more silence. Sam paced the small, cramped
apartment, his movements tight and agitated. He held a scrap of paper as if it were a burning
coal, his jaw set in a line of grim disapproval.

"This is just… toxic," Sam muttered, flicking the paper toward the center of the table. "It’s
blatantly unpatriotic. It spits on everything."

Tim didn't look up from his notebook. He was a man composed of measured pauses and deliberate
movements, his focus as sharp as a scalpel. He leaned back, his chair groaning under the weight
of his contemplation.

"Every nation has a shadow, Sam," Tim said, his voice a low, steady rumble. "To see clearly, you
have to look at the darkness, not just the light. We have to be willing to examine the machine,
not just admire the paint."

Kris, sprawled across a moth-eaten armchair, didn't even bother to open her eyes. She toyed with
the zipper of her jacket, a look of bored indifference etched into her features. "Too much
effort," she drawled, a languid wave of her hand dismissing the entire topic. "Life’s too short
for a thesis on the flaws of the system. I’d rather just enjoy the ride."

Tim sighed, a sound that carried the weight of a long-standing frustration. He fixed his gaze on
Kris, his expression firm. "That’s exactly the problem. We are obsessed with the 'now,' addicted
to the speed of the surface. But examination is the very engine of discovery. If we don’t stop
to peel back the layers, what exactly is the point of being here? What else is a human birth
for, if not to peel back the skin of the world and look at what's really underneath?"

He picked up the discarded paper and read the lines aloud, his voice dripping with the biting
rhythm of a distorted, mechanical anthem:

	I pledge allegiance to dah United-Estates-Ah-Capitalism
	und dah Ledger fer which it standz:
	wun market under a Unified Economy
	wid low-tariffs fer the favored few,
	& violable in money wayz
	
	granting liberty fer major stock holders
	& justice only fer rulin' elites -
	a hollow champion ah liberty
	ready ta kill err jail any
	who dare to disagreeee...

The silence that followed was brittle. Sam looked at the paper again, his anger slightly muted
by the cold reality of the rhythm. Kris shifted in her chair, her boredom finally cracking to
reveal a flicker of unease. Tim simply sat, the paper balanced in his hand, waiting for the
weight of the words to settle into the marrow of the room.


=================================================================================
from _AmeriSong: Poetry, Art, & Dialogs about Amerika_ by T Newfields
LONG-SUMMARY* A satirical rewrite of the Pledge of Allegiance sparks a debate among three 
	friends about the necessity of critical examination versus the comfort of apathy in a capitalist society.
SHORT-SUMMARY:  A satire on a 1892 verse by Francis Bellamy about the United States and pseudo-democracy.
KEYWORDS: unamerican poetry, political satire, American economic hegemony, The Pledge of Allegiance

Author: T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955)
Begun: 1997 in Shizuoka, Japan / Finished: 2026 in Shizuoka, Japan
Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted

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TRANSLATIONS

DEUTSCH   https://www.tnewfields.info/de/unter.htm
ESPAÑOL   https://www.tnewfields.info/es/lealtad.htm
FRANÇAIS  https://www.tnewfields.info/fr/alleg.htm
NIHONGO   https://www.tnewfields.info/jp/chuusei.htm