The NFL, Kneeling, Ratings, and the Flag

[Blizzard]

So, this is the outrage-du-jour? Literally everything has become political now. I'll check back in another week or two to find out the latest issue to get worked up over, maybe it'll finally be one that actually matters and I care about - but somehow I doubt it.

 

[Red Flag 1]

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[Devildoc]

I enjoyed reading most of your post. I just want to point out that there are great philosophical arguments against doing exactly that -- leaving the NFL. For example, effective altruism would say that as players of the NFL, they should continue to make millions AND help/start a foundation or continue to give. If they stand for social justice, and the NFL protests got one of the most powerful people on the planet to tweet about them, then altruism would say they are doing the most good they can in their current position. I would argue that getting the President to take notice and use his platform to talk to the nation about the issue, IS getting involved.

Great post, making me think. The counter to this are people like Jason Brown, NFL's highest-pain center, stopped playing, bought a farm, teaches people how to farm, and gives food away. Glen Coffee and Tillman, quit NFL to join the military. I know there's more than one way to skin the proverbial cat to live out values in action, and I hope these players do put their money where their mouths are.

 

[ThunderHorse]

So we have a petty President that is annoyed by petty athletes. That's not presidential. But the evidence is pretty damn clear, every time you say a lie about him in specific regards to calling him a white supremacist, a Nazi, or a Klan member you're showing your ass. Nazis, Klan Members and White supremacists hate a lot of people. Including Jews. His daughter is a Jew, Three of his grandchildren are jews.

So Jemele Hill, Steph Curry, and him are just a bunch of fuckwhits that need to get off air and actually do their job.

Kaepernick is protesting something that you can't really back up with statistics. Do you really think there's just a massive wave of cop shootings targeting one race? Because I have the current data compiled by the Washington Post for 2017, did you know there was a war on Hispanics?
The moment Kaepernick put on a Guevara shirt no one woke the fuck up, which is sad.

What this idiocy has truly highlighted is that as Veterans we are not a homogenous group, some folks are cool, some folks are fired up. I'm fired up because very few of these gazillionaires are actually doing anything to help change the problems. Kaepernick put his money where his mouth is, and so far for him $1MM from his last contract is relatively significant. LeBron James put down $41MM for Scholarships for Akron kids to attend Akron.

 

[Frank S.]

But the evidence is pretty damn clear, every time you say a lie about him in specific regards to calling him a white supremacist, a Nazi, or a Klan member you're showing your ass. Nazis, Klan Members and White supremacists hate a lot of people. Including Jews. His daughter is a Jew, Three of his grandchildren are jews.

http://www.thewalkerstalkers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/walking-dead-josh-mcdermitt.jpeg

I don't see that pragmatism borne from moral weakness excludes true sentiments of Supremacy, no matter how ill-defined.

 

[amlove21]

... LeBron James put down $41MM for Scholarships for Akron kids to attend Akron...

I will say this as a dude that grew up in/around Akron- Bron's contributions to that city will go down in history as some of the most truly caring in the history of professional athletes. That guy really cares about the city and those people deeply.

 

[Serenity]

Australia as a nation would televise and rabidly follow any competitive endeavor, be it two flies crawling up a wall or a competition between two turtles on their back trying to get on their feet. But, the average person on the street wouldn't even be aware of the NFLs current issues, outside of the Superbowl, it's not followed that closely in our neck of the woods. Collectively we follow the NFL about as closely as you guys follow Aussie Rules.

As an Australian, I'd disagree with this in as far that people outside of the US not being aware of this NFL players vs Trump issue. The things POTUS is doing is very much under the microscope of the world, so even I - who knows little about sports and politics - noticed this not kneeling to the flag business. My husband who is a news hound had an opinion on the whole thing and we discussed it last night, and that's why I finally bothered to click on this thread. So yeah, the mention of NFL does make me automatically not pay attention. At the moment, I think people are closely following this North Korean crisis and when they run out of things to read (like me), they pick up on all this other stuff (like me).

On a side note: It's quite shocking to me to have heard children in a playground yelling and talking of 'Trump'. This was way back when he was recently elected. Even my own kids did something similar. Not sure it was us or other kids or just having the news on. I've never seen this level of awareness of a US president.

 

[SpitfireV]

Believe what you will. But these guys, they are just hypocrites. Why stand for GSTQ? I guarantee none of them can link The Crown to 'Murca pre-1783. They want to stand (kneel? Sit? Whatev...) to demonstrate against oppression, but show support to the same government that has been THE most oppressive in North America....

Edited to add....to be fair, although the owners allow them to do this (easy fix: owners say no) and therefore have a "right", I think it's tasteless and hypocritical. One of those things, just because they can doesn't mean they should. I also call out the hypocrisy of the NFL writ large who says they believe in unity but refuses to allow players to wear a freakin' decal in support of LE and the military. So, unity and community seems to be a transient definition.

Great Britain (or British Empire, as it was then) was also the driving force behind getting rid of slavery by stopping the maritime merchants doing their trade in slaves (amongst other things). I might point out that your country had many years after that to stop the industry but did not. So your assertion cuts both ways and it isn't as cut and dried as what you might think.

It's also my country's other official national anthem, as an aside.

 

[Devildoc]

Great Britain (or British Empire, as it was then) was also the driving force behind getting rid of slavery by stopping the maritime merchants doing their trade in slaves (amongst other things). I might point out that your country had many years after that to stop the industry but did not. So your assertion cuts both ways and it isn't as cut and dried as what you might think.

It's also my country's other official national anthem, as an aside.

I love my brothers across the pond as much as the next guy, and my comments were not meant as a slam per se, but rather an illustration that these guys aren't paying attention to any context. All of your points are true and valid, but just as Britain made huge strides towards advancement, so did the US, which is why I was a little perturbed by there very weird, and educated stance.

 

[Florida173]

A friend of mine suggested the POTUS violated the law attempting to influence/ threaten a private entity by use of color of office for political gain (at a political rally).

I said I will wait for the articles of impeachment.

 

[Devildoc]

A friend of mine suggested the POTUS violated the law attempting to influence/ threaten a private entity by use of color of office for political gain (at a political rally).

I said I will wait for the articles of impeachment.

Holy crap; gotta round up all politicians.

Those charges would be... wait for it...trumped up!

 

[Gunz]

I would be fine if all the patriotic/military displays, flyovers, anthems etc were to disappear from sporting events. Then you don't have to worry about protests or political statements. The patriotic stuff is always overplayed anyway, too much gravy, every swinging dick is a warrior hero. Time to bring it down a notch.

 

[ThunderHorse]

Great Britain (or British Empire, as it was then) was also the driving force behind getting rid of slavery by stopping the maritime merchants doing their trade in slaves (amongst other things). I might point out that your country had many years after that to stop the industry but did not. So your assertion cuts both ways and it isn't as cut and dried as what you might think.

It's also my country's other official national anthem, as an aside.

What's your point, standing for an anthem not their own and showing it respect whilst throwing out disdain for their own nation is idiotic. We have the saying: don't air your dirty laundry in public. In this case, in a foreign country it's pretty stupid when it's literally becoming just an anti-Trump thing.

 

[SaintKP]

I've been listening to some podcasts recently and I came across one that I feel addresses our current situation pretty well. While it's title is Deep State Conspiracies all it goes into is myth busting of it. It focuses more on how the divide we currently face has developed and has continued to be exasperated.

Deep State Conspiracies

Honestly I'd agree with it (podcast), we can't stand divided against the people in the world who want to do us harm or see us no longer the world power we've been for the past almost 70 years. We as a nation have gone through many shifts and flip flops when it comes to political platforms and societal norms, so I have faith that we can work out our differences but it gets more and more difficult the more and more we refuse to reach a compromise with one another.

We are lacking in education, healthcare, infrastructure, and science. Even though we are the most powerful nation the world has ever seen or probably will see for sometime. We are falling behind as a people, more and more often I see people who are willing to accept something they see or hear online or on the news as fact, without putting effort into investigating it and developing their own opinion based around the facts. We are losing our ability to apply critical thinking to our environment and just accepting what ever is closest to our political standing.

The wolves are circling, we owe China almost 1.02 trillion as of May (it's not even published how much we owe the Saudis) and China has been manipulating the market for years now to make the Yuan surpass the dollar. Not only that but Russia shouldn't be considered an ally (which strangely a lot of the far right seem to believe)but instead as a natural competitor. They are not Britain or any of our "core" allies. We need to take a good long hard look at what's wrong with our country and work o n healing it, if we keep heading down this path of political and societal tribalism I'm afraid That we will fall and it'll hurt when it happens.


As I've been typing this, I see the tagline on CNN 'Trump after 24 tweets in 4 days "not preoccupied with NFL". So you know, we can continue to be petty and not look at the real issues that plague us right now. That's cool too....

 

[ThunderHorse]

We owe Japan more money than we owe China, btw.

 

[SpongeBob*24]

The National Anthem is played at Games because its bad ass. It started Cicra 1918 during WWI at a World Series game and then spread more and more during World War II and soon after it became the norm at baseball games which then spread to other sports!!!!!!

 

[ThunderHorse]

The VFW and the American Legion ain't happy about this. The nation’s largest veterans groups are irate and lashing out at NFL players for national anthem protests | American Military News

 

[Devildoc]

The Panthers' owner is pretty serious about where he stands (it ain't for kneeling for the anthem). Today a bunch of concerned players are meeting with him to come to a consensus. He has been outspoken about their right to do what they want away from the field but has been pretty steadfast in his expectation in uniform.

Panthers players meeting with owner Jerry Richardson today over protests

 

[RustyShackleford]

The boss lady and I have discussed this a few times since Kaepernick started sitting, then kneeling, during the anthem. People can do what the want to do to call attention to a cause, to call BS on the President calling on a private business to fire employees, etc. That's the beauty of living in this country. If you don't like it, vote with your wallet. I watch television sparingly and when I do it is usually sports (mostly Pittsburgh teams) or movies for entertainment and could really care less about any of the athletes or actors beliefs or politics.

Not giving a shit about much of anything has it's benefits in life! Nihilism!

 

[Frank S.]

Not giving a shit about much of anything has it's benefits in life! Nihilism!

Too easy, I know...