Long ago back in our innocence when patriotism was in flower,<\/p>\n
And no pundits questioned America\u2019s place as a super power,<\/p>\n
Children stood at attention vowing their allegiance to pledge<\/p>\n
Since rising to face the flag didn\u2019t set any critics teeth on edge.<\/p>\n
After all, it was the mannerly thing to do like rising for our elders,<\/p>\n
Calling ladies and gents sir<\/em> and ma\u2019am<\/em>, and respecting one\u2019s betters.<\/p>\n True, misogyny existed, and the South was rife with segregation,<\/p>\n But whatever color and creed each believed America a chosen nation.<\/p>\n Fast forward to today, when putting a hand over one\u2019s heart<\/p>\n Is more than likely the loyalist to condemn, ostracize, and set apart.<\/p>\n Instead of one nation indivisible now we\u2019re many different peoples\u2014<\/p>\n A hyphenated crew, all separate and feeling rather abused, unequal,<\/p>\n demanding our inalienable rights, but forgetting our duties due.<\/p>\n So come now and rise to honor those maligned stars and stripes,<\/p>\n Pledge allegiance to an imperfect, but striving to improve way of life.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Long ago back in our innocence when patriotism was in flower, And no pundits questioned America\u2019s place as a super power, Children stood at attention vowing their allegiance to pledge Since rising to face the flag didn\u2019t set any critics teeth on edge. After all,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/979"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33701"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33708,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33701\/revisions\/33708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}