FCC asks stations for "pro-America" programming, like daily Pledge of Allegiance
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
This was an extremely conservative area, and so my teachers were very upset. I told them I don’t have to say the pledge if I don't want (and I believe I had even memorized the specific court case with the Jehova's Witnesses about it). This went on for a week, until I was eventually sent to the principal's office for it.
The principal asked why I wouldn't just say it, and I told him because I don't believe in God and I don't have to. He said "well let's just see what your parents see about that". He picked up the phone and called my house, and my dad answered.
The situation was explained, and then my dad said "why is he in trouble again? I'm pretty sure he doesn't have to say it if he doesn't want to."
The principal responded back with "well sir, it's very disrespectful if he--".
My dad interrupted and said "it doesn't matter if it's respectful, if he doesn't have to say it then he doesn't have to say it. You should probably send him back to class". I went back to class and nothing that day came from it at school.
I was slightly afraid that I would get in trouble when I got home. I knew my dad had fought for me but I thought that he might have just wanted to make sure I don't get into any official trouble, so when I got home I was prepared for a lecture and maybe being sent to my room.
My dad sat me down and said "You're not in trouble, you did what you thought was right, but why does it really matter if you have to say the pledge? It'd probably be easier if you just said it" and I quickly responded back with "because I don't believe in God and I don't think I should be forced to say it."
My dad basically said that if this important to me, then he will support me. He wrote a note explaining that he doesn't have an issue with me not saying it if I don't want to, signed it and put his phone number if they have any questions, and he said to keep it in my backpack and show it to teachers if there's ever an issue.
I love America most of the time, but I think America can be great even if there isn't mandatory indoctrination. I look back and feel grateful that my parents were pretty cool with this.
Even twenty-three years later, I'm still a little surprised that they sent me to the principal's office over it. It seems like it was a waste of everyone's time, considering it would have been considerably easier to just roll their eyes and let me sit in class.
I'm guessing Aeolun might be from one of those places/countries/states :)
For nearly my entire life, I had assumed that it was like this everywhere in the world, until I spent two weeks in the UK in 2022, when the topic of “Super Noah’s Ark 3D” came up (I believe because of a Steam sale).
The people I was with were extremely confused by the idea that there is a version of Wolfenstein 3D themed around Noah going around the ark firing food at goats, and I said “oh you know, it’s part of that whole Christian media culture”.
They had no idea what I was talking about, so I had to explain the weird dual media economy that exists in the US.
Kind of eye opening, I guess one of those stereotypical American things of assuming “everything is the US”.
So yes, weird an culty by design and intent.
I wish I was clever enough to come up with something witty, something like "Oh yeah, because everyone else is a thieving bastard, is that what you're saying?".
Perhaps only because they have a high likelyhood of speaking English and being able to help him? And sure, many Italians speak English, but if I needed help finding my watch, I like my odds of able to communicate with the Americans over almost any other nationality
Hopefully as part of the upcoming rebuke of sacrificing our nation's values for a megalomaniac coopting religion for political gain (with very public examples of hypocrisy). Jesus preached feeding the hungry, healing the sick, caring for the poor, loving thy neighbor. Any politics that goes against those basic principles is anti-Christian. Any attack or hindrance on a neighbor with a different faith is anti-Christian.
To me it smacks of desperation.
Wanna get more adherents? Live your life right, and keep stronger boundaries between personal and private. People will see and respect that.
When things cross, stop already with seeing public comments as an opportunity to evangelize, and blabber on about holiness.
Good example: there's a guy rusty (US state secratary) I believe got caught in the middle of Trump's 2020 election nonsense on the issue of alternative electors. He testified Jan 6 saying cooperation was against his faith and morals whatever the outcome.
Man, I had big respect for his actions and explanation. Short, factual, backed up by action.
Overplayed their hand? They’re reaching mainstream appeal now. There’s a whole religious revival around young zoomers but it’s a bit strange. A few months back I noticed the rage bait algorithms had my feeds looking like the 30 years war.
[0] One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America Kevin M. Kruse https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22928900-one-nation-unde...
> The book examines white evangelical affinity for Donald Trump. Du Mez explains that white evangelical support for Donald Trump during the 2016 United States presidential election was a continuing trend rather than an exception. The book focuses on the militant masculinity that white evangelicals idealize and how it has manifested in a pattern of abuse among evangelical leaders. Du Mez criticizes mainstream evangelicals such as John Eldredge, John Piper, and James Dobson for advancing the evangelical ideal of militant masculinity.[4]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_and_John_Wayne
The Christianity that is often in the news in the US is of a particular variety.
I think it's decently accurate to write US founders were religious except:
(1) church private and state public was more of a thing even though the majority shared similar private values
(2) God was away/apart more so in a static background way
[1] https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/pledge-alleg...
There’s nothing more American, in principal, than seeking to change America for the better.
How ridiculous would it have been for civil rights leaders to have pledged to preserve the America that existed till the mid 60s.
The pledge, or similar, is almost unique to the US and other authoritarian states.
I don't see what I should owe any country my "allegiance". If you interpret "the country" as being "the people in this country", then yes, I feel a responsibility towards their wellbeing, and I accept that as a form of allegiance. But in practice "the country" isn't really interpreted as "the people" but rather "the government", and is highly exclusive (us vs them). And if a government is largely contrary to my values, and isn't (in my view) helping me or the people of this country, then why should I owe it any particular allegiance? Allegiance shouldn't be automatic, but rather earned. And the recitation of the pledge in schools is part of trying to make it automatic.
Very 'come a give Grandma a big kiss and tell her how much you love her' vibes
From the UK. Our government definitely sucks, and has basically had the same hostile policies despite switching between different parties.
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/53806-how-popular-is-...
People wish that we would stop pandering to the US, at least to the level that we do.
Turns out actual luxury apartments don't have to write it on a sign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Mathematik
I recommend translating the German version as it is much more detailed.
> "But far more important is the educational value that stems from the spiritual kinship between mathematics and the Third Reich. The fundamental disposition of both is the heroic. […] Both demand service: mathematics demands service to truth, integrity, and precision. […] Both are anti-materialistic. […] Both desire order and discipline; both combat chaos and arbitrariness."
Same for physics:
Regardless, Carr's letter searches hard for nostalgia. "Schoolhouse Rock" not being in syndication is eroding our nations educational strength according to him. This makes me wonder who this letter is really written for and how far-reaching they're "asking" content providers to take this.
Most Americans consume traditionally-broadcasted content through streaming platforms (Disney+ has Schoolhouse; the future of our kids is safe).and/or social media. Does Carr want Netflix to show the Pledge before every stream? The first stream of the day? Are they asking streaming providers to prioritize nationalistic programming in their recommendation algorithms outside of nationalistic holidays? Will they subsidize TV and movies for having a little more freedom in them? So many questions.
(All of this has been done before; I think there were pro-military Looney Tunes episodes back then these were shown in theaters, and the DoD does throw studios some cash to make the military look awesome and help full their recruitment pipeline.
These scenarios all seem imminent, their precedence not withstanding.
In a strange way this notice actually comes across as transparent, considering the thought that everything you described could be achieved without the public being informed of the cooperation between the state and media.
Tangentially, this entire thing could be a veiled notice to Netflix on how to curry the favor necessary to wrestle Warner Bros. away from the Ellisons.
Conspiratorially, I’ve read that a lot of production for TV/film is moving overseas and I can’t help but imagine these studios and sets being used for other purposes.
Always has been. A huge amount of US content is filmed in Canada.
I pledge Allegiance
to Liberty and Justice
for all
They promised us another American Revolution. They neglected to mention that they were planning on taking the position of King George and the redcoats.
“We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Almost all of history's greatest, most-destructive conspiracies were not concealed in smoke-filled rooms, they were published and advertised to great fanfare. This one included.
And yeah "bloodless, if the left allows it". It's always projection and gaslighting with these fascists. "Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself. Look what you made me do."
(see also "TDS" to describe anybody not in the Fraudster in Chief's reality distortion field)
I agree, and I've always found it kind of amusing. There is a conspiracy of elites that are actively trying to bring you down to enrich themselves, and they exert absurd amounts of control on the government, tax policy, and actively use their platform to move public opinion in their favor.
We call that group of elites "billionaires", and it's not really even hidden. Elon Musk was the CEO of like five companies while still heading a government "department", but for some reason Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson aren't going on long tirades about how utterly inappropriate that is. Instead they go on about "satanists" and "child sacrifices" and then their listeners will replace those with "Jews".
I suppose getting to Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 is a disappointing early start to what is meant to be a uniting and patriotic activity.
*white male landowner
Of course it is important to guard against those who would dredge up that historic context as what "the founders intended" to try and drag us back there, on some rosy vision of the past where all of the problems seem quaint (as they've been addressed in the current day).
a lofty ideal is worthless if you're not actually striving to put it into practice, which they did not
You seem to be missing that progress is a gradual process of painstaking change. Presumably you're looking at what we currently have, thinking its manifestly obvious, and taking it for granted. But to me, this kind of thinking actually contributes to sliding backwards.
Voting rights in the new US were much the same as those in British Empire they broke away from, where white adult landowning males had been able to vote for some time.
As for slavery, most countries still allowed it, but abolishing it, while admittedly a big step forward, would still have been possible within the context of the time, and one of the strides of progress one would expect from people who declare independence on the basis of "all men being created equal". Some States began to abolish it shortly afterwards, and France did so with its own actual revolution (with its own set of problems).
You might be comfortable with it all, but I expect much more from the founders than some nice words on a page.
Ironically, the fundamental basis for the revolution was "taxation without representation", which we _still_ have in the United States today (i.e., PR).
And they stuck it in your mailbox hoping you could be coerced
I can think of quite another place they should have stuck it first
Every school expected me to say it every morning.
As I've never said "The Pledge of Allegiance", this seems to be the original one, I'm guessing there might be some other modern variation schools use today, but anyways:
> I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
I wouldn't be surprised that most people see it as a joke today, given the "with liberty and justice for all" is far from reality today, and it's very obvious to anyone.
> I don't know if other countries have pledges like this but on the surface it seems OK to me
Generally not, AFAIK. On the surface it seems like blatant propaganda to me, and kind of extremist, something you'd see not in a modern country typically.
There are really two values expressed in the pledge. "Liberty and justice for all" and "the nation is below God." I'm happy saying that the former is a national value, though it is rarely achieved in practice. The latter... oof.
It is definitely propagandistic. Even if we ignore the religious component, it more expresses an idea that "liberty and justice for all" is already achieved rather than being a goal to strive for.
You can say "oof" to "under God" but most of the founders believed in the divine and cited it as a reason for granting "god-given" rights to the people. I am an atheist and I kinda don't like the religious aspect of the pledge, but I'm not so upset about it either. Most people believe in a deity, even in 2026, and on the whole I've been treated better by those people than by fellow atheists. Regardless of whether God exists, Christian moral standards are mostly beneficial and too often abandoned when people give up religion. It represents hard-won cultural knowledge and survival strategies for civilization.
> I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
The flag is no longer yours. The Christian god, despite supposedly being a secular nation of differing religions, is the leading principle.
If you think about it, the main reason for the Bill of Rights, and especially the 2A (I vehemently disagree with guns in today's world but I understand the original purpose of the 2A), is because they understood that governments can be subverted away from the country's values and citizens need protection from the government in such cases.
The "values for which we stand" are quite numerous and too lengthy to reiterate on a daily basis, in a short pledge. The pledge may inspire more interest in finding out more about those values, and that is worthwhile.
>Otherwise, you can wind up with something like Nazi Germany where people have to go along with it because "my country".
Funny you should mention this. Most Germans, even Nazis, had no idea what their government was actually up to and would have never supported anything more than deporting those they saw as troublemakers.
>If you think about it, the main reason for the Bill of Rights, and especially the 2A (I vehemently disagree with guns in today's world but I understand the original purpose of the 2A), is because they understood that governments can be subverted away from the country's values and citizens need protection from the government in such cases.
Today's world needs the 2A and the Bill of Rights more than any other time. Idk why you think 2A doesn't apply now. Guns did not go away. The government is bigger than ever. The founders were not only worried about "subversion" but governments going rogue in overt and shameless ways. There was no standing army back then, and the founders did not want one. That is one thing that isn't practical anymore... We need professional soldiers. But we ALSO need people armed and ready to defend the homeland if necessary. We let in way too many people and grant citizenship way too easily. There are 1.5 million Chinese coming of age soon who never lived in the US but will be eligible to vote here due to birthright citizenship tourism! It's insane that we allow this, or any of the BS asylum claims. If a war pops off, I expect that thousands of operators who were let in under false pretenses will spring into action and sabotage everything. If you tell most people this, they will look at you like you're the crazy one.
> I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Also, did you know children had to do a "Bellamy Salute" to the flag? That was removed during WW2 for obvious reasons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellamy_salute
I think they should use up all their social capital and definitely force government to do this, and it will go brilliantly for them in the midterms. Definitely do this. Maybe even send police around to rough up everyone and say it randomly, Americans love that.
Even for them, even though they may believe otherwise now. There's no loyalty among thieves.
More importantly licensees pledge to serve their _local_ communities and maintain _local_ standards. That's the entire well documented point of the license system. As such the FCC has very little actual authority over stations outside of general technical requirements of the radio broadcast itself and no authority over content unless prompted by local complaints.
Does this phrase have non obvious meaning? They are an agency and make rules.[1]
> As such the FCC has very little actual authority over stations outside of general technical requirements of the radio broadcast itself and no authority over content unless prompted by local complaints.
To prompt local complaints would be trivial.
> Broadcasters can voluntarily choose to indicate their commitment to the Pledge America Campaign and highlight their ongoing and relevant programming to their viewing and listening audiences.
The article said Carr has repeatedly threatened to punish broadcast stations for violating the public interest standard.
> They’re free to meet their public interest obligations the normal way as well and not participate in this.
Carr's view of public interest included suspending Jimmy Kimmel for his criticism of Trump and other MAGA figures after Charlie Kirk was killed.[1]
> They could also participate in this in a rebellious way if they so pleased. “While we don’t agree with the FCC…. We do think this is an important milestone in our nation worth celebrating… not because the FCC told us to but because…”
There would be no reason to state disagreement unless they thought it was a threat. And it would have the effects of a child saying they will go to sleep but not because their parent told them to.
[1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/after-jimmy-kimmels-sh...
No reason to do any of it other than you want to. But, because some broadcasters will want to signal to their audience there is a difference between complying with FCC "mandate" and doing what the mandate says because they were planning on doing it anyway or are independently doing it. Stating disagreement is how you signal to your audience that you are participating but on your own free will.
> And it would have the effects of a child saying they will go to sleep but not because their parent told them to.
Self realization that sleep is healthy, not a bad thing. Patriotism, or simply acknowledging major national milestones, is healthy in my opinion.
I was only 9 the first time it happened but even back then it felt really weird.
Participation is never mandatory and retaliation or forcing the pledge is an invitation for an expensive civil rights suit.
Even if it's not strictly "mandatory" there can be substantial pressure in conservative areas. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47095381
I don’t have a list of schools for you.
Sure peer pressure can be a thing (at the school I went to you would have been bullied for doing the pledge), but it is pretty firmly established law that a student has every right to not participate and not be pressured to participate by public school staff.
In my case the pressure came from my teachers and the principal. I never got in any official trouble but I was sent to the principal's office for refusing to say it and it required a phone call with my dad for them to begrudgingly let me continue to not say it.
I know some that don't, it's not announced that they don't and as long as nobody notices I don't think anyone local really cares.
Yes, and it doesn't make it any less cult-like.
But apparently Europe are the ones with freedom of speech issues.
Lack of freedom of speech: anything else
We fucked up from the very moment we let agitators spread their poison around without any sort of punishment. Now the rot is widespread enough that they're making their moves.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7870768-never-believe-that-...
But it was directed at a different audience. This propaganda direction - inwards, serves another purpose: to remind the listener who's boss, or Daddy, if you will.
Other big countries all have their propaganda outfits. Why shouldn't the US at least have something to promote their point of view? The alternative as we are experiencing now is that point of view is never even expressed among the competing points of view and thus any ideas deriving from it never get discussed.
1. read from the bible between between 16:00 and 20:00
2. At 20:00 show Trump's picture for 5 minutes with people praising him
3. rest of the programming are shows based upon Leave it to Beaver and my 3 sons, make sure only WASPS are the actors and producers.
That is what the US admin. really wants. If I see more than one of these "PSAs" in a 4 hour period, I will never watch that network again. FWIW, I stream as opposed to using Cable. So they will know why I cancelled their service.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trumps-face-is-now-on-...
That being said, Trump is awful and his admin is not gonna do anything but gaslight his supporters, so while im ok with this in principle, I’m aware in reality it’ll be used for net negative things (akin to his cruel fumbling of deportations).
The religion is aligned to fit your cultural moral code.
Because original Jesus would be _very_ disappointed in most US christians. "it is harder for the rich to enter heaven than for a camel walking through the eye of a needle", and all the parables about the good samaritain and the temple merchants, presenting the other cheek, etc. Catechism basically told me "god do not exist and whatever the original teaching were, it has been a very long time since anyone of importance ever followed them"
We should be openly discussing whether freedom of speech and information is being infringed by governments around the world in ways which can and do infringe upon our world.
I’m sure it’s easy to assume that these questions aren’t in good faith. Of course I have a point of my own that I could make, but then we’d be arguing over that instead and I’m less interested in trying to speculate better than you than I’m curious about what you think on your own.
So there isn’t any way that an administration led by a Democrat would implement such a campaign? You can’t imagine that? If not under an identical premise (viz. the US semiquincentennial) but under some other initiative to instill non-partisan nationalist pride at a time where it is virtually absent?
Right now we have a Republican administration pushing it.
How might networks effectively satisfy this appeal from the FCC without drawing the ire of the current administration and its supporters?
The question is basically in the realm of how do you celebrate someone's birthday when their wife just died? Yes, it's the country's 250 birthday, but we're currently going through a very dark period that does not reflect well onto the lofty ideals we take as our country's founding.
I’m happy to withhold my own points to figure out more from another’s if they choose to present them and I don’t have a problem with acknowledging when they beat me to a constructive one and thank them for it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47103957 felt dismissive. If I made a good point, you could have signaled agreement.
The whole exchange feels in the realm of "just asking questions" both-sidesism. With this last comment I can see how that is perhaps not your goal, but it's close enough that it feels like it.
There is something here I am still chewing on - where does good-faith asking questions from a non-fully-fleshed-out place actually fit in modern large-scale Internet forum discourse? It's a crappy dynamic [0] to reflexively jump against that, but the "just asking questions" attack has been pretty damn effective too.
[0] in case it's unclear: I'm examining my own judgement, this isn't directed at you
Great point! [Deliberately mimicking an LLM here—not dismissively, but in jest.]
In all serious though, I understand where you’re coming from and I am aware that my approach throughout this thread is agitating. My response was a legitimate attempt to express appreciation for the time you spent answering my questions.
To be honest I was hesitant to signal agreement because I was worried that you’d interpret the entire exchange as me goading you into a point that I otherwise could’ve made on my own. I didn’t want you to think that you were working for my approval.
> where does good-faith asking questions from a non-fully-fleshed-out place actually fit in modern large-scale Internet forum discourse? It's a crappy dynamic…
Hope you don’t mind the ellipse where I left it. I do agree with this all though. And I don’t think the dynamic is inherent crappy [1], but in society’s current state and especially online it is; particularly when a certain line of questioning can be reasonably interpreted as provocative instead of curious or congenial at best.
Are we supposed to signal to each other that we are of the same ideological tribe beforehand? And what if we aren’t?
[1] I did break the quote there to gently diverge from what you actually said about reflexively jumping against the dynamic; In a way I don’t think I’m diverging though, maybe giving my take on why it’s crappy to jump, in a way I’m claiming my own judgmental stake alongside your own.
I know what I’m doing puts a strain on another person’s the cognitive bandwidth. I think that’s sort of the point. In return I reckon I presume the role of a knave.
What’s interesting is seeing how long a person tolerates my advances and how their answers develop.
Lately my primary motive is to try to drive discussions past exchanging platitudes toward something more…I don’t know yet. I started with that LLM reference for a reason but this comment is already long. If you even read this maybe you can sort of catch my drift.
Except for that most of the kinds of things it gave as examples are close to the kind of things you'd find your local PBS or NPR station.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr today urged broadcasters to join a “Pledge America Campaign” that Carr established to support President Trump’s “Salute to America 250” project.
Carr said in a press release that “I am inviting broadcasters to pledge to air programming in their local markets in support of this historic national, non-partisan celebration.” The press release said Carr is asking broadcasters to “air patriotic, pro-America programming in support of America’s 250th birthday.”
Carr gave what he called examples of content that broadcasters can run if they take the pledge. His examples include “starting each broadcast day with the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ or Pledge of Allegiance”; airing “PSAs, short segments, or full specials specifically promoting civic education, inspiring local stories, and American history”; running “segments during regular news programming that highlight local sites that are significant to American and regional history, such as National Park Service sites”; airing “music by America’s greatest composers, such as John Philip Sousa, Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington, and George Gershwin”; and providing daily “Today in American History” announcements highlighting significant events from US history.
I don't know that "pledge" should be the right word, just maybe like encourage? And like way to speed run the death of broadcast television, but whatever.
In context it comes off as a thin veneer of jingoism on top of an implied threat.
> I don't know that "pledge" should be the right word, just maybe like encourage?
The article addressed this.
Although it’s described as voluntary, Carr said broadcasters can meet their public interest obligations by taking the pledge. This is notable because Carr has repeatedly threatened to punish broadcast stations for violating the public interest standard.
“If this were genuinely intended as voluntary, and genuinely about celebrating America, there is no reason to limit this to broadcasters,” Feld told Ars. “Cable operators are equally free to celebrate America, as are podcasters for that matter.”
Over the air content is something they have power over.
Oddly enough, this is the FCC staying on their lane… kind of
What in god's name in anything that's happened in the past 10 years gave you that idea?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_controvers...