NBC edits out “under God” from pledge of allegiance during US Open coverage, replaces it with worship of empire

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, June 20, 2011

NBC Sports has been forced to apologize following an outcry after the network deliberately edited out the words “under God,” from the US pledge of allegiance in a video segment for the US Open that showed images of US troops, but the edit has nothing to do with NBC’s purported “liberal bias” and everything to do with the fact that NBC is owned by the US military-industrial complex.

“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,” states the United States Flag Code for the Pledge of Allegiance, but in an NBC promo for the US Open golf tournament, the “under God” part was cut from a recording of schoolchildren reading out the words.

Given the fact that the reading of the pledge was interspersed with images of US troops in a brazen attempt to link patriotism with the kind of hegemonic conquests in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya that have bankrupted America, killed thousands of troops and disgraced the United States’ reputation globally, it’s made pretty clear in the clip that “God” has nothing to do with this brand of so-called patriotism.

Charges that the edit was due to NBC’s “liberal bias” are nothing but a smokescreen. Watching the clip, it becomes clear that the producers intended to replace obedience to God with obedience to the US military-industrial complex, which by no coincidence also bankrolls the NBC network.

NBC Universal is run by General Electric, the world’s second largest corporation and one of the major players within the military-industrial complex.

GE is a major supplier of arms and the “war on terrorism” has seen GE’s government and military contracts rise substantially to over $2.2 billion. So the de facto replacement of worship God with worship of US troops has nothing to do with “liberal bias,” and everything to do with advancing the cult of worshipping the empire that many Americans have been brainwashed into mistaking for patriotism.

NBC Sports announcer Dan Hicks was forced to apologize for the “error” later in the broadcast.

“Earlier we began our coverage of this final round just about three hours ago, and when we did it was our intent to begin the coverage of this U.S. Open championship with a feature that captured the patriotism of our national championship being held in our nation’s capital for the third time. Regrettably a portion of the Pledge of Allegiance that was in that feature was edited out. It was not done to upset anyone and we’d like to apologize to those of you that were offended by it,” said Hicks in response to a firestorm of criticism that raged on Twitter in the very minutes following the broadcast of the segment.

Hicks’ implication that the edit was accidental might be believable if not for the fact that “under God” is cut not once but twice during the segment, as the pledge is repeated a second time, again minus the “under God” part.

This is completely deliberate, and clearly an effort to sell Americans on the myth that genuine patriotism has nothing to do with allegiance to God or to the country, but obedience to the military-industrial complex war machine that has hijacked America and is now destroying the country morally, spiritually and financially.

This is nothing less than a crude effort to make Americans associate pride in their country with bombing broken backed third world nations, as the occupation of Iraq becomes permanent and as the Obama administration prepares to launch a ground war in Libya while also setting the stage for an intervention in Syria.