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The Loyalty Oath
I pledge allegiance to Israel
as the state of the Jews.
This is the means
the Israeli government uses
as the final disenfranchisement,
asking Palestinian Israeli citizens
to swear a loyalty oath which, in fact,
is meant to get rid of them.
"I pledge allegiance
to the United States of America
as a white, Christian nation"
was the unspoken oath demanded of waves
of immigrants lured to the industrial jungles
of America's Gilded Age
with the promise they'd be included
in America's experiment
as a multicultural, democratic nation.
These workers came, strictly controlled by law,
through Ellis Island at the request
of US Captains of Industry/plutocracy
who were wearing freedom and democracy's mask.
Eventually Irish and Italians, though Catholic,
were allowed to "become white".
Some Eastern Europeans were so honored, too.
That is, of course, unless they happened
to be Asians, Hispanics, Muslims or Jews.
I pledge allegiance to Israel
as the state of the Jews.
I pledge allegiance to South Africa
as the state of white people.
I pledge allegiance to Germany
as the state of Christian Nazis.
I pledge allegiance to
Israel/South Africa/ Germany
as the state of the
Jews/white people/Christian Nazis.
I pledge allegiance to
the United States of America
and the rich, white Christian
people for which it stands.
These "loyalty" oaths are based
on race, class and/or religion,
all exponents of racism and apartheid
which demand submission to dominion.
Religion, color and money are a barrier
to the attainment of genuine American-ness.
Ask Asians, Africans, Hispanics, white trash,
Muslims, and Native Americans
Discrimination doesn't come out in the whitewash.
It is, was and always will be apartheid.
Whether the state that proclaims it
is Israel, Germany, South Africa
or "even" the United States, it doesn't make it right.
The US enforces economic apartheid
as a way to exclude most of its citizens,
granting exclusive rights to the few, the wealthy,
to do and take whatever it is that suits them.
Those to be discriminated against are set apart,
cast aside and chosen for scape-goating
by religion, color or the amount of money
left after their financial rape by the plutocracy.
