Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

You are here: Home / Politics / America / I’m not outraged about Colin Kaepernik

I’m not outraged about Colin Kaepernik

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I’ve been seeing a lot of stuff on Twitter and Facebook about how Colin Kaepernik insulted Veterans with his refusal to stand for the National Anthem.

I personally am not offended by Kaepernik’s actions. I wish he’d chosen a different method, but only because the substance of his protest, the glaring racial iniquities of policing and the legal system, have been ignored while the outrage machine over his refusal to stand for the anthem has burned up all the oxygen. I honestly had no idea who the guy was before this week. Those glaring racial iniquities of policing and the legal system? That’s the real outrage here, or it should be if you buy into the idea that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Speaking for myself, I for one am real Goddamned tired of people appointing themselves to be outraged on my my behalf.

I joined the army for a lot of reasons, patriotism being one of them, but patriotism had little if anything to do with my decisions to re-enlist over and over again. Every place I ever fought, I fought FOR my brothers, the guys to my left and right. If politics entered into it at all, it was because we fought against people who would string up the Colin Kaeperniks of the world for being a racial minority, or for not toeing some religious or political line. So there was always some knowledge and understanding that on some level there was a difference between us, or what we still aspire to but haven’t yet become, and them.

But mostly it was for my brothers. And a paycheck.

Reader Interactions

160Comments

  4. 4.

    Davebo

    Good to hear from you Sooner. I am a bit perplexed however.

    I wish he’d chosen a different method

    Why? What’s wrong with a silent, non-violent protest? It’s not like he flipped off the flag. Hell that was the third game in a row he’d done it and no one noticed it before.

  5. 5.

    Felonius Monk

    Good to hear from you again, Sooner. Your post is spot on.

    Oh, yeah. And don’t be a stranger.

  6. 6.

    Trentrunner

    Being in the military gives does not give one any extra authority on what America is or should be. I’m always sorry when our media/culture gives them more weight than they should have.

  7. 7.

    Chet

    Thank you for saying that. I’m becoming annoyed at the increasing canonization of our military. I appreciate the work they do, but (as others on this blog have said), the government deserves some credit for protecting our freedoms, too.

    I’m also annoyed at Colin Kaepernik for thinking that this gesture works in his favor [ETA: not to his personal benefit, rather to the cause he supports]. But on the third hand, our military fought and died for his right to free speech, so he gets to exercise it.

  10. 10.

    Soonergrunt

    @Davebo: Only like I said, his method of protest has taken all the press. His (important and entirely valid) reason for protest has been largely ignored and swept aside.

  12. 12.

    Davebo

    @Chet:

    I’m also annoyed at Colin Kaepernik for thinking that this gesture works in his favor [ETA: not to his personal benefit, rather to the cause he supports].

    Again, I don’t think this claim rings true. People are talking about it, and talking about it is good. The buffoons up in arms over it look like buffoons and others, call them the grown ups, see the issue once again pushed into headlines.

  13. 13.

    SiubhanDuinne

    How wonderful to see you, Soonergrunt! Hope all is going smoothly (more smoothly, anyhow) in your life.

    And now that I’ve said “Welcome back!,” I’ll scroll to the top and read what you wrote :-)

  15. 15.

    Davebo

    @Soonergrunt:

    I don’t know. Listening to the sports talk radio today it was discussed a lot. Anything he’d done would have resulted in push back, but at least he did something and at great cost to his own financial well being.

  16. 16.

    lamh36

    thank you for this Sooner!

    I’m glad someone decided to talk about this idea that everyone who volunteers to join the military do so for “love of country” or overt patriotism. Not to say there aren’t folks who do, but the idea that the overwhelming majority when they SIGN UP…are doing it for that reason is naive and in my community and my own family, that reason was not even in the top 5 or even 10 reasons, and that’s from my Vietnam vet grandfather, my Army vet father, cousins, uncles, etc.

    As for respecting those who served, the stories my grandpa would tell about what he experienced in the Jim Crow south when he returned from Vietnam would piss you off…

    I said the other day, that the respect of the troops outrage is just the right strawman for folks so they don’t have to confront the real and not always hidden racism in the soil of this country.

    Your post really speaks to me…thanks

  17. 17.

    singfoom

    Freedom of speech, how does it work? The whole thing is a nothingburger. Those who will be offended by him are going to be offended. Good on him for calling attention to something that’s important to him. It wasn’t ever going to be a popular thing to do and I’m not sure if it’s effective.

    @Chet:

    But on the third hand, our military fought and died for his right to free speech, so he gets to exercise it.

    So yes, our armed forces fought for the right to free speech under Washington way back in the day. I can buy that our GIs fought Nazis/facism so that secured our rights to free speech. But I’m not aware of a conflict in my lifetime where anyone’s right to free speech was protected…. and I don’t mean any offense…..but why is this accepted as a maxim?

  18. 18.

    bystander

    My feeling about his idiocy stems from his remarks about how neither candidate is qualified. One of them deleted emails and committed crimes she should be in jail for. Puhlease. Protest away, but saying stupid stuff now that you’ve gotten the microphone leaves me cold.

  20. 20.

    Ruckus

    Sooner
    Glad to see you back. Hope things are doing OK on your end.
    You pretty much nailed it for me as well. I served for a lot of the same reasons. Those original pieces of paper mean something. And I think that politics does matter. It matters because politics is really people trying to make society possible or impossible. Yes it didn’t matter as much personally while serving because there are too many other pressing issues while then. But it still matters. It’s damn important to have a functional society, even if it isn’t exactly the one in my mind.

  21. 21.

    different-church-lady

    @Davebo: I heard one of the overnight sports network radio shows droning on about it last night. It was pretty transparent that what was going through their minds was, “Thank god, something to fill all this time with!!”

  22. 22.

    Raven

    @lamh36: The Jim Crow south was just worse than the rest of the country. Look up what happened in Cairo Illinois with gun battles between AA Nam Vets and the cops. Not standing for the anthem got so widespread that they stopped playing it in some places.

  24. 24.

    Roger Moore

    @debbie:

    I thought the national anthem was for the country, not the military.

    This. I’m much angrier at the kind of people who treat “our veterans” as a convenient abstraction rather than real people with real needs. They’re always first in line to stand up for “our veterans” when they can be used as a means of stifling dissent, but they find actual veterans terribly inconvenient when it comes time to spend money or effort.

  25. 25.

    Brachiator

    Trump weighed in on this matter this afternoon:

    Trump appeared on Dori Monson’s show on KIRO radio in Seattle this afternoon, and was asked about 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick’s decision not to stand for the National Anthem as a protest against racial oppression, police brutality, and all-around inequality in the United States. His answer:

    “Well I have followed [the Kaepernick story], and I think it’s personally not a good thing. I think it’s a terrible thing. And you know, maybe he should find a country that works better for him, let him try, it won’t happen.”

    Such a deep understanding of the issues involved. Very classy.

    Thanks Sooner, for a much more nuanced response.

  26. 26.

    les

    @Davebo:

    Why? What’s wrong with a silent, non-violent protest?

    After 50+ years of watching this shit, most of the folks saying “well, yeah, but wrong time, wrong act” will never recognize a right time, right act. ‘Cause they’re not interested in talking about it.

  28. 28.

    hovercraft

    I just heard Kaep speak on All Due Respect, he says he was compelled to make this protest because of what’s going on in this country. One candidate is a racist, and one candidate is a liar who deletes thousands of e-mails and should be in jail, and called black youth super predators. So basically he’s disgusted with the whole country for nominating these two, obviously I disagree with his assessment of Hillary, but I support his right to express his disgust in any way that is legal.

  30. 30.

    lamh36

    @Soonergrunt: I think that’s also due to the way the press is using this story. For example, this sports reporter on MSNBC just said that Kaep has made it uncomfortable for other Black QB and athletes, cause reporters are asking them what they think about Kaep and would they…whatever.

    That, in and of itself, is bullshit. Why are the sports folks only talking to the Black QB..all what…9 of them? Fuq that…ASK THEM ALL…Black or white…about the REASON behind which Kaep says his protesting…

    But naw, they won’t do that…that’s not the stories that gin up outrage and clickbaits I guess

  31. 31.

    Roger Moore

    @singfoom:

    But I’m not aware of a conflict in my lifetime where anyone’s right to free speech was protected…. and I don’t mean any offense…..but why is this accepted as a maxim?

    Because it’s a convenient way of turning the other side’s arguments against them. They want to talk about the military protecting our freedom, so let them. We just get to point out that one of the freedoms the military was protecting was the right to free expression, including the right to say stupid things and be outrageously wrong.

  32. 32.

    Albany Rifles

    Well said. And agree with every point…except I knew who he was before. I also know he was liable to be cut for nonperformance prior to this.

  33. 33.

    Raven

    Date:
    Mon, 1967-07-17
    On this date in 1967, three days of riots and protests occurred in Cairo, Illinois.

    The incident began with a so-called jail house suicide of Pvt. Robert Hunt. He was a young Black soldier on leave in his hometown of Cairo. The alleged suicide fired up the town’s African-American community. The police said Hunt had hanged himself with his T-shirt, but Cairo’s Black residents had the evidence to challenge that story.

    The suspicious death touched off three days of riots and protests, followed by a seven-year renewal of civil rights activities in the city, one of the latest, and longest-sustained such struggles in the nation at that time.

    Reference:
    Southern Illinois University,
    Anthony Hall 220, mailcode 4344,
    1265 Lincoln Dr.
    Carbondale, IL 62901
    (618) 453-4551

  34. 34.

    piratedan

    Jim Wtright has an equally comprehensive take over on AmericanNewsX

    Don’t have to agree with his stance but he sure as hell has the right to make it. @Chet, I find it very unlikely that CK did this thinking that the masses would rally around him, especially in this climate considering the attention and defense of all things military and law enforcement.

  35. 35.

    Mary G

    Well said, sir. Every vet I’ve ever met say they fight for their comrades.

    The institutional inertia and instinct to turn a blind eye to police brutality until the next unarmed person is gunned down is so frustrating. He used the platform he has to make a statement. I admire him for that. Even if he is an idiot, he must have known that the America, Fuck Yeah! portion of NFL fans would pitch a hissy fit.

    Apparently he has done this in at least one other preseason game without any notice taken of it until the Wurlitzer warmed up.

    Nice to see some of your writing again, Sooner.

  36. 36.

    Hal

    Thank you for your input. My eyes are about to roll out of my head over this controversy. All these people who are not veterans being outraged on behalf of veterans. I swear they’re all waiting by the mailbox for their medals. Kaepernick’s message was to a country that does not respect minorities, not to the service members who sacrificed.

    I think part of the outrage is meant to dismiss the point about inequality in this country. This is also a black man making millions in football, so what does he know? That’s nonsense. The comments I’ve seen saying he should be grateful, how he was raised by white parents, how he couldn’t possibly understand racial discrimination, all of it leaves me so frustrated.

    Once again I’m reminded of one of the scenes from Tony Kushner’s Angels in America:

    I hate America, Louis. I hate this country. It’s just big ideas, and stories, and people dying, and people like you.The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word ‘free’ to a note so high nobody can reach it. That was deliberate. Nothing on Earth sounds less like freedom to me.

    Also, I admit, I might be in a little bit of a bad mood today.

  37. 37.

    hovercraft

    O/T Free speech is a wonderful thing, Trump supporter Pastor Mark Burns has tweeted out a cartoon image of Hillary in blackface today. And he then proceeded to call in to MTP Daily to go on an insane rant. Can’t find the clip yet, but here is the Tweet.

  38. 38.

    les

    @Soonergrunt:

    Only like I said, his method of protest has taken all the press.

    This is mostly true, Sooner–but what’s he gonna do? Hold a press conference? How many people would be there, write anything? The folks insisting it’s all about the method never want to hear the message; but at least some people get it. I heard a reasoned, sane, passionate discussion of the problem and its invisibility on Fox Sports fuckin’ Radio; never would have without this. Baby steps; but it has to start somewhere.

  39. 39.

    lamh36

    @bystander: Agreed…I’d like to hope since he’s started this and says he will continue…I’m gonna bet someone will get to him and get him better at it.

    Not everyone can be as eloquent as Ali was.

  40. 40.

    Davebo

    @les: I think that’s a broad stroke but at the same time it’s not entirely inaccurate in some instances.

  41. 41.

    Eric U.

    I always wondered why free speech that was supposedly protected by the military has to only be what might not offend the military. That is not free speech. Flag worship also annoys me. My only criticism is that he should have done the black power salute to make it more obvious.

  42. 42.

    Mudge

    Many, if not most, recent veterans are black. They could easily be shot and killed by police. I suspect they appreciate the idea behind Kaepernick’s protest. Besides, the National Anthem has been cheapened by being played for sporting and other entertainment events.

  43. 43.

    MJS

    @singfoom: Agree completely. I do appreciate those that serve, but the fact is that our collective taxes and the weapons they fund, nuclear and otherwise are primarily responsible for protecting our freedoms, to the extent that those freedoms are even under assault from the outside.

  44. 44.

    Ruckus

    @lamh36:

    I said the other day, that the respect of the troops outrage is just the right strawman for folks so they don’t have to confront the real and not always hidden racism in the soil of this country.

    Very well stated.

  45. 45.

    Raven

    For me the predator statement was all I needed, he’s a dumb fuck who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I don’t care that he did it but that’s about it.

  46. 46.

    les

    @Davebo:

    I think that’s a broad stroke but at the same time it’s not entirely inaccurate in some instances.

    True, and obviously doesn’t apply to everyone that says “wrong time.” But if you look at who says it and when, it’s a lot like the folks who holler “too soon to talk about restrictions” right after a mass shooting. If you can’t make the statement when you have a big enough platform, when do you do it? And the statement he made will never be welcome in this country.

  48. 48.

    Chet

    @singfoom:
    Sorry for my clumsiness. I think I was trying to say too many things at once, and parroting a point in order to argue against it.

    One of the wingnuts in my FB feed linked to a story such as this one described by Snopes as a “legend”:

    A gentleman standing behind my son stepped forward, putting his arm around my son’s shoulders, and nodding towards my son, said in a calm and gentle voice to the Iraqi woman, “Lady, hundreds of thousands of men and women like this young man have fought and died so that you could stand here, in MY country and accuse a checkout cashier of bombing your Countrymen…”

    I heard the same argument applied to CK. People seemed to say that he was disrespecting those who earned him his freedom. I don’t agree that only the military has earned our freedom (And like you, WWII is about the only clear-cut case I can think of our military actually doing it).

    What’s worse, people who accept that maxim seem to want to use it to shame him into silence. To which I would reply, in my debate fantasies, “Well, if in fact you honor the freedom that has been earned on his behalf, you have to honor his right to exercise it.”

  49. 49.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    Can’t interview any of the white players — it might turn out that some of them agree with Kaepernick and it would ruin the whole MSM narrative about how it’s only black people who think racism is bad.

  50. 50.

    Mart

    @Raven: Cairo, IL is at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. The town is in very rough financial shape. A few years back Cairo was going to flood. To avert this FEMA has the contractual right to dynamite farm levees on the Missouri side. Of course the farmers were going to shoot FEMA from their hunting blinds. Missouri legislators were in fine form. Don’t remember the exact words on the radio, but basically said let the N words flood, they have nothing compared to those farms. The good news – FEMA blew up the farm levees, nobody got shot, and the river dropped three feet allowing the Cairo levees to hold and save the town (barely).

  52. 52.

    john fremont

    @lamh36: Agree. When I was in USMC boot camp at Parris Island 30 years ago, the drill instructors would ask us recruits one on one in front of our peers , “Why’d you join my Marine Corps there freak?” Most of the recruits would respond about love of country and the DI’s would shout back ” Yeah I know that Rambo, but what’s your other reason!” That’s when answers about lack of jobs, the challenge, learning new skills, seeing someplace besides their hometown etc. would come out.

  53. 53.

    Soonergrunt

    @Chet: “Well, if in fact you honor the freedom that has been earned on his behalf, you have to honor his right to exercise it.”
    Yep.
    I never really felt that I was protecting anyone’s rights as Americans. Our country has never really faced an existential threat since 1812-1814. WWII–the Nazis had great dreams of world domination, but never had a realistic chance of seeing them through, but that’s just my opinion. That said, there’s no value in protecting rights by force of arms if those rights aren’t vigorously exercised.

  55. 55.

    lamh36

    @Raven: a good number of folks were and are still upset bout the “super-predators” line in the Black community…doesn’t mean they aren’t voting HRC, but just that they haven’t forgotten it.

    I’m not gonna hold that against Kaep…

  58. 58.

    laura

    Hi Soonergrunt, my family has included those who have served including Uncle Frank (Ada OK) who survived the Bataan March and imprisonment on Corregidor, my dad the Marine Sgt. Cousin John and his son Charlie, Army Infantry.
    Each held a common position – they served their Country and believe it’s more important to defend our freedoms. The symbols of our freedoms could take a backseat.

  59. 59.

    Baud

    @Brachiator:

    And you know, maybe he should find a country that works better for him, let him try, it won’t happen.”

    So the answer to “What do you have to lose?” is “your country.” Good to know.

  60. 60.

    Mart

    @Raven: I used to visit Cairo annually for about ten years with the last visit a couple years back. Every year it just got a little bit sadder, another closed restaurant, another business now a church. And what few business’ were still going, mostly hired white’s from across the river in KY, and not the local blahs.

  62. 62.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Having been raised from the white cracker viewpoint, I assure you that the ‘veterans’ argument has nothing to do with actual respect for veterans. They’re throwing out an argument they keep handy so its infallible righteousness will shame anyone who questions White America’s perfection into shutting up.

  63. 63.

    Roger Moore

    @les:
    It seems to me that most of the people complaining about wrong method or wrong time are the “moderate whites” who Dr. King described as caring more about order than justice. They’re OK with blacks demanding equal treatment, but not if it inconveniences them in any way. With Kaepernick, that apparently extends to things that don’t actually inconvenience them but which merely offend them in some way. With friends like that, who needs enemies?

  64. 64.

    Villago Delenda Est

    I’m with you, Sooner. As you (and all of the Jucitariat) know, I’m a vet, too, and frankly, one of the reasons I signed up was to protect the right of people like Kaepernik to make those kind of statements.

    Also, too, what Frankensteinbeck (or, just for today, is that FronkenSTEENbeck?) said at 62.

  65. 65.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Raven: He’s always struck me as particularly dim. I guess it’s good that he grew a social conscience at some point recently but…

  68. 68.

    singfoom

    @Chet: No need for apologies. It’s not your clumsiness, it’s the legend of the whole thing. I can accept that in theory it’s our military protecting our freedoms. I get that. It’s intuitive. Which is where I think most people start and stop. But when I interrogate that and think about it, I can only go back to WWII for an example of that theory in action.

    What’s worse, people who accept that maxim seem to want to use it to shame him into silence. To which I would reply, in my debate fantasies, “Well, if in fact you honor the freedom that has been earned on his behalf, you have to honor his right to exercise it.”

    Same as it ever was/is/will be. As SG said, the real outrage is our unequal justice system. This is just another meal for those daily outrage consumers.

    Cheers.

  70. 70.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soonergrunt:

    Our country has never really faced an existential threat since 1812-1814.

    1861-65, no? The real existential threat was from within. Sure, the Confederacy was overmatched in every way, but the Union could have gotten tired of fighting, especially if they hadn’t decided to turn it into a moral crusade against slavery and start actively recruiting black soldiers.

  72. 72.

    FlipYrWhig

    @lamh36: Hillary Clinton used the term “super-predators” in 1994 (when Colin Kaepernick was 6 or 7) to talk about why to pass the crime bill. It’s not like she’s been frequently using the term for the past two decades. People need to stop forming political opinions through things they read on Twitter.

  73. 73.

    Cacti

    Republican minority outreach in a nutshell:

    Trump: “America sucks for black people and they should vote for me!”

    Trump: “How dare that black man say that America sucks for black people. He should leave the country.”

  74. 74.

    Trollhattan

    Anybody wanting to focus on NFL player misconduct can bloody well start with domestic abuse, on-field headhunting, PED abuse, game-fixing, etc. etc. and fix those before they pivot to how a paid player should exercise his free speech rights, which so far as I know aren’t waived in their collective bargaining agreement.

    Kaep and suck my balls (said in a Cartman voice) but I won’t say one thing against his action here.

  75. 75.

    rikyrah

    Put him UNDER THE JAIL.

    2 NUNS?

    NUNS who were servicing people that EVERYONE ELSE IN THE MEDICAL FIELD WOULD LIKE TO FORGET!!

    They were NUNS. They take a vow of POVERTY. They had nothing TO STEAL, you evil, stupid, rotten muthaphucka.

    UNDER.THE.JAIL.

    ………………………………………

    Man arrested in fatal stabbing of 2 nuns in Mississippi

    By Faith Karimi, CNN
    Updated 2:11 PM ET, Sat August 27, 2016

    A man has been arrested in the stabbing deaths of two nuns whose bodies were found in their home in rural Mississippi, authorities said.

    Margaret Held and Paula Merrill, both nurse practitioners, failed to show up for work Thursday at a clinic in Lexington, where they served one of the state’s poorest counties.
    Authorities believe the killer took the victims’ car, a blue Toyota Corolla, which was later found on an abandoned road less than a mile from their home. But nothing was taken from the house, according to a law enforcement official who has been briefed on the investigation.
    Clinic workers called police when the pair didn’t arrive at the clinic, said Maureen Smith, a spokeswoman for the Catholic Diocese of Jackson.

  76. 76.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    So sick of white people and their bullshit, and I’m white. The ridiculous morality plays they (white people) indulge in while willfully blind to their role in the hand wringing backlash to the culture they’ve created, has radicalized me, and I’m an old white woman.

  77. 77.

    Davebo

    @HinTN: I don’t know if his contract is guaranteed or not, if it is it’s a rarity in the NFL.

    Regardless, this isn’t great for endorsement deals.

  78. 78.

    Trollhattan

    @Frankensteinbeck:
    One, uh, “glorious” thing about the active draft was it netted everybody, from saint to turbo-douchbag, so you couldn’t necessarily worship their selfless patriotism. “Serve or go to prison?” was quite the Hobson’s choice.

  80. 80.

    lamh36

    @FlipYrWhig: Again…no need to explain to me the circumstaces by which HRC used the term. I get it. Alls I was saying was Kaep ain’t the only to express that view and he won’t be the last in the community…so it’s not enough for me to hold against him or others..

  82. 82.

    rikyrah

    PHUCK.OUTTA.HERE.

    Alan Taffel
    ‏@TaffelBooks
    Fox News’ Howard Kurtz wants Univision’s Jorge Ramos to resign for denouncing Trump while Fox’s Hannity hosts “The Trump Love Fest” nightly.

  86. 86.

    lamh36

    Holy shit… apparently Kaep’s birth mother (he was adopted by white parents) is trying to school his on twitter…I am sorry, but she needs to fall da fuq back…Who da fuq does that.

    WHAT DA HOLY FUQ

  87. 87.

    Gvg

    I think we may also be holding him to an unfairly high standard to wish he had picked a better/more effective way to act. He is mostly an ordinary citizen in the context of politics. We are too, though we as a group tend to pay more than average attention to what works. What exactly is he supposed to do that would be more effective? Real professional politicians have trouble with that problem. In fact none of them have solved it yet. So he did…something. It happened to use a tool he happened to have to hand. A painter or a comedian or a plumber for instance might have to do something different and probably alone it wouldn’t help. I guess we need to build more connections still.

  88. 88.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Ruckus:
    It helps that my parents are fine, but starting in South Carolina in the 80s and then spending the rest of my formative years in Kentucky, I swam in a sea of asshole racist prejudices. Mostly the ‘Those poor black people in their ghettos need less welfare and more tough cops’ type that would never use the n-word. I just have to look at the instincts I grew out of to know what conservatives are thinking.

    @Trollhattan:
    I don’t blame anybody for dodging the Vietnam draft. That shit is terrifying. I do blame people for dodging it and then pretending to be tough guys, praising war, and sending other people off to die.

  90. 90.

    rikyrah

    A black teen was beaten and wrongfully detained by Indiana police. A jury awarded him just $1.

    On a July evening in 2012, 18-year-old DeShawn Franklin was pulled
    out of his home by South Bend, IN, police who looking for his brother on a domestic violence charge. They did not have a warrant and mistook Franklin for his brother since they both had dreadlocks.

    The South Bend Tribune reported at the time that police woke the sleeping Franklin by punching him multiple times and using a Taser on him. He then sat in a police car with the Taser probes still stuck in his body for two hours before paramedics treated him and he was released.

    Franklin’s family sued the officers, the city and the police
    department for violating his civil rights and a jury agreed earlier this
    month that he deserved compensation, finding in favor of the Franklins.

    So how much compensation did the jury award? $1 per party for a grand total of $18.

  91. 91.

    JSinLA

    I enlisted because I was 18, with a wife, son, and no marketable skills. Luckily I was smart, and got into the navy nuclear power program. I developed marketable skills and got out.

    That said, I am as patriotic as anyone. A member of my near immediate family gave his life for the country, and many others of us have many many years of service.

    We all did it so every person who had something to say, could say it. Fuck this false patriotism; fuck this “honor the troops” bullshit. Fuck everyone who never sacrificed anything for this country telling other people what patriotism looks like.

  94. 94.

    jl

    Odd note about Kaepernik’s protest I heard in a news spot. Not sure if it is true or not. But apparently he sat out the anthem 2 games before anyone noticed. Then he said why he was not standing and it became a big story.

    I don’t think they should have anthem at every sporting even anyway. I read one time that it began as a patriotic gesture during WW I or WW II. Then it just stuck.

    Why not go back to the olde tymey all-American ways, when there were real self-reliant, patriotic and sturdy Americans (so GOP pundits tell me), and stop doing it all the time. Could still do it for championship games, I suppose.

  96. 96.

    FlipYrWhig

    @lamh36: I wasn’t trying to explain things to you, just piggybacking on your comment to shake my head at why people believe the things they believe. Citing Hillary Clinton’s use of an indecorous-at-worst word 20+ years ago as key evidence for one’s disgust with contemporary America is just goofy.

  97. 97.

    Baud

    @jl:

    I read one time that it began as a patriotic gesture during WW I or WW II. Then it just stuck.

    I think God Bless America at baseball games started because of 9-11.

  102. 102.

    rikyrah

    Follow

    Norman Ornstein
    ‏@NormOrnstein
    AP needs some serious housecleaning and soul searching– starting with Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll:

  106. 106.

    Baud

    MoJo

    It’s been one year since President Barack Obama announced that the United States would take in 10,000 Syrian refugees by this September. After much criticism from Republican politicians and a slow start, the administration picked up the pace of resettlement and met its goal a month ahead of schedule. Today, the United States is resettling its 10,000th Syrian refugee.

  108. 108.

    D58826

    @FlipYrWhig: And it’s not like she was the first or only person to use the term. It expressed a fairly widespread, if erroneous, fear at the time

  109. 109.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    It’s a silly thing for him to use as his example why Hillary and Trump are exactly the same and he’s not going to vote for either of them. It makes me think he might be a BernieBro. ;-)

  110. 110.

    Bobby D

    I’m a desert storm vet, every male member of my paternal side of the family were wartime vets going back to WWI, and I’ve worked as a civ for two branches of the military for the last 10 years. I am not offended in the slightest, and the whiners that are can go fk themselves. Burn the flag? Have at it. Make a point during the anthem, more power to you. Freedom isn’t just for the shit these gomers approve of, that’s the entire point of freedom. If it isn’t hurting me financially or physically, please enjoy yourself.

    All this bs pretend patriotism does my head in, and usually comes from people that never wore the uniform, the same assholes that acted as cheerleaders for the Cheney cabal’s misadventure in Iraq. The same assholes that tell me I’m a parasite for serving my country as a civilian after I got out, because you know govt employees are not needed and are “takers”. Yes, I “take” a bunch of bs whining from uneducated trailer trash gomers, while I “give” stability to a military installation that you can’t get from uniforms that rotate every couple of years.

    The guy has a platform, and is using it to draw attention to something that needs fixing in our country, a grave injustice. Bravo. We need more of this, not less.

  114. 114.

    Baud

    @lamh36:

    The Coach got it right.

    Coach Sean Payton took a pass when asked to weigh in and said his focus is on preparing his team for the season.

    “Honestly, we have a lot more important things that we’re working on right here in our building,” Payton said.

  116. 116.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Baud: In some circles it already is. It’s become “Hillary Clinton called young black people ‘superpredators,'” rather than “Hillary Clinton said a key purpose behind the crime bill of 1994 was to crack down on ‘superpredators,’ a controversial term that arose in the 1990s to explain a supposedly new kind of remorseless criminal but that was later discarded as erroneous as the disproportionate effects of the law on communities of color became harder to ignore.”

  117. 117.

    rikyrah

    Lewandowski Is Back In Trump’s Inner Circle
    August 29, 2016

    As Donald Trump arrived in Manchester, New Hampshire, for a rally a week ago, he stepped out of his motorcade and was greeted by a familiar face: Corey Lewandowski.

    Lewandowski had been fired in late-June after serving as Trump’s first campaign manager. Given the internal fighting, Trump’s losing ground in the polls, and the candidate’s and his family’s alleged lack of confidence in Lewandowski, the campaign cut him loose June 20.

    Lewandowski was escorted that day from Trump Tower in New York by the very security detail that had helped him check for hidden listening devices in the campaign office weeks earlier.

    Now, a few weeks and a lucrative cable network contract later, Lewandowski is back in the fold, according to multiple campaign sources. They describe Lewandowski’s relationship with the candidate as “stronger than ever.”

    Each day, Trump wakes up, usually in his Fifth Avenue penthouse, and has a routine round of calls, sources say, that includes his campaign leadership (which has changed in recent weeks), his children, some close allies and someone else quite frequently: Lewandowski.

    “They talk almost every day,” one senior level campaign staffer said, requesting anonymity.

  118. 118.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    Although, regarding the “superpredators” thing, the debate may give her a nice opportunity to apologize for it. Something like, There was a popular theory in the 1990s that there would be a particularly dangerous group of criminals called “superpredators” that would be rampaging through the black community unless we started locking people up. It turns out there was no such thing, and I’m sorry that I ever bought into that idea. I should have known better.

  120. 120.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: The TV thingie at the bank that shows “news” had a story up about the ACA – it’s falling apart and if Clinton is elected she will try to save the failing program. It was a crazy right-wing take on the story Richard Mayhew talked about this last week. I wondered where the news was from, and right before the screen switched I noticed the “AP”.

    Lying bastards with an axe to grind should not be allowed to present themselves their so-called news as neutral.

  121. 121.

    rikyrah

    Fox host says black NFL star should stand for anthem because America gave him ‘two white parents’
    David Edwards DAVID EDWARDS
    29 AUG 2016 AT 16:28 ET

    Fox News host Brian Kilmeade argued on Monday that San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick should stand for the national anthem because he lived in a country where he had the advantage of being adopted by white people.

    Over the weekend, Kaepernick told reporters that he would continue to sit during the anthem as a silent protest against police brutality and social injustice.

    “To me, this is something that has to change, and when there’s significant change — and I feel like that flag represents what It’s supposed to represent, and this country is representing people the way it’s supposed to — I’ll stand,” Kaepernick said.

    On his Monday radio show, Kilmeade asked former Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann if he disagreed with Kaepernick.

  123. 123.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Mnemosyne: That could work. She could even say that similar fears shaped the coverage of the Central Park jogger story, which roped in Donald Trump, who has learned nothing from the experience of having rushed to judgment on matters of black crime panic, or else he wouldn’t have hired a campaign manager who runs a site with a permanent “black crime” section.

  124. 124.

    hueyplong

    @Davebo: Nobody’s NFL contract is 100% guaranteed. What is giving rise to confusion is the fact that the 49ers kept him past a date after which all of this year’s salary would be guaranteed.

    This offseason and preseason have been by far the iffiest part of CK’s career. It’s a dicey time to be doing what he’s doing. I hope things work out for him, though his “path” to so doing is probably perceived to be about as narrow as Trump’s right now.

  125. 125.

    Aleta

    Interview w/ Colin K. He talks about his treatment by hostile police.

    “…have you been pulled over unjustly or had bad experiences?

    “CK: Yes, multiple times. I’ve had times where one of my roommates was moving out of the house in college and because we were the only black people in that neighborhood the cops got called and we had guns drawn on us. Came in the house, without knocking, guns drawn on my teammates and roommates. So I have experienced this. People close to me have experienced this. This isn’t something that’s a one-off case here or a one-off case there. This has become habitual. This has become a habit. So this is something that needs to be addressed.”

  127. 127.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @efgoldman:

    Actually, I get really tan. Somewhere in my Rhineland heritage, a Mediterranean snuck in and passed a gene.

  129. 129.

    rikyrah

    Philadelphia’s black voters outraged by Donald Trump’s ‘outreach’

    Trump, residents said in interviews this weekend, is offering blacks not a helping hand but a slap in the face.
    Mon., Aug. 29, 2016

    PHILADELPHIA—Donald Trump says “inner-city” African-Americans will vote for him because of how miserable their lives and neighbourhoods are.

    The African-Americans of North Philadelphia say Donald Trump is an ignorant bigot.

    Trump’s campaign has described his recent rhetoric about black people as outreach. With actual black people, it seems to have produced little but outrage. Trump, Philadelphians said in interviews this weekend, is offering blacks not a helping hand but a slap in the face.

    “Extremely insulting. And I think purposely insulting,” said lawyer Rasheedah Phillips, 32.

    “He’s getting the ships ready. He wants to send us back over to Africa,” said Douglas Skipworth, 33, who does maintenance work.

    “Black folk aren’t fooled by this thing. African-Americans are clear about who Trump is,” said professor Anyabwile Love, 41, watching his 2-year-old son. “Many other elections, local and national, it’s been the lesser of the two evils. In this, it’s not even lesser of two evils. It’s one is completely against us and one is not.”

  132. 132.

    Soonergrunt

    @Matt McIrvin: That’s such an obvious point that I missed it completely.
    Yes, the Civil War was an existential threat, most definitely.
    I was referring to an external threat, but your observation is correct.

  134. 134.

    rikyrah

    IN AFRICA!!!!

    ………………………

    Pretoria Girls High racism protest backed by SA minister

    A South African minister has thrown his support behind protesting female students, who accuse their high school of operating a racist hair policy.
    Black pupils at the private Pretoria Girls High say they have often been told to straighten their hair.
    “Schools should not be used as a platform to discourage students from embracing their African identity,” Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa tweeted in support.
    The school has not yet commented.

    ………………………………………………

    South Africans, particularly young black South Africans, have been using social media in recent months to raise questions about beauty, cultural tolerance and racism here.
    They have been challenging what they describe as colonial standards that should have been dismantled years ago.
    At the heart of these protests are the high school’s black students who feel like their identity, which is wrapped up in the curly strands of their hair, is deemed as inferior.
    They have had enough.

  135. 135.

    Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)

    I served in the ANG during my college days, went on active duty afterwards. My family wasn’t thrilled, mostly because my maternal grandfather survived WWII only to drown in a creek shortly after coming home. One of those things that are never discussed, you see.

    So yeah, all those people bleating about the disrespect to the troops? Pretty sure they don’t mean either me or my grandfather. Not that we need the “respect” they’re talking about.

    Good to see you here on the mothership, Sooner.

  138. 138.

    Steven Silk

    I knew a guy – went with Patton from Italy to Berchtesgaden. Had a couple of purple hearts and bronze star. He never stood for the anthem either. He said they never played it before the war and once it was over why continue? Then McCarthey came along and it was mandatory everywhere for everything. This guy never joined the VFW or any other organization – he refused to go to memorials etc. He didn’t think anyone who had actually fought needed any of that. I am pretty sure he would agree with Colin.

  139. 139.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    Many of my students are Iraq/Afghanistan vets. Most (if not all) see the “honor our vets/thank you for your service” a great way to get free/cheap stuff, but generally think it is bullshit.

  142. 142.

    Jack the Cold Warrior

    @MJS:
    The soldier, sailor, marine, airman, IS the weapon, MJS! These weapons our military uses can’t aim themselves. Almost every skill in civilian life is required in the military, plus intensive training in the combat skills. To produce an infantryman deployed to a unit requires about six months of basic and advanced training. Then on the job training to learn how a unit operates. Pilots train for about a year, combat pilot training costs well over a million dollars.

    As far as the original question, I served to protect the Constitution which includes the first amendment. That’s the QB’s right.

    A Navy aircraft carrier is essentially a moving city in the ocean with a combat airfield on top. It does not run itself.

  144. 144.

    Davebo

    @Jack the Cold Warrior:

    A Navy aircraft carrier is essentially a moving city in the ocean with a combat airfield on top. It does not run itself.

    Preach it brother! Although at times I did wonder if anyone was running it! 30 years later I still miss my time in the Air Wing on the two carriers I deployed on. Two years ago I seriously considered having my old squadron’s emblem tattooed on my calf but decided if I’d made it this far without one I’d “missed the boat” on that. Mid life crisis’ can be tough!

  145. 145.

    El Caganer

    Jon Schwartz has an interesting piece at The Intercept about the racism of both the anthem and its author. Kaepernik is more right than he knows.

  147. 147.

    JR in WV

    @Raven:

    I hadn’t seen or heard about that. But when I was a little kid, I saw the Collored Only! signs down south!!!

    I was drafted – well, not quite. I enlisted in the USN a couple of weeks before I would have been drafted, back in 1970, into the Marines, most likely.

    I served my hitch, got out as soon as I could. Got in trouble once, wife and I went to a movie, and while they played the national anthem, they also ran film of NV peasant villages being bombed by Navy aviators.

    I stood up, as we all did, and my wife pulled at me and said something to the effect of “Look at the film!!” so I sat back down, and got arrested the second the music ended. I managed to avoid trouble, but it was a close run thing.

    I don’t much care for Kaepernik – his religion is tattooed all over, and it isn’t my religion. But if he’s against innocent black folks getting shot by bigoted cops, that’s good with me!!!

    I have driven all over the US with a concealed carry permit, and the pistols it allowed us to carry. In part because our camp in Arizona is in Lion country big time, but also because I’m old now, and not able to muscle my way through trouble. We met LEOs all over the country, and I showed them our driver’s licenses and CCS permits.

    Never any tension. None! But we’re older white folks, driving newer vehicles, all shiny and expensive compared to a lot of vehicles out there.

    It shouldn’t be like that. Anyone, even in an old rattletrap, with the license and registration and permits should be able to do what we did, from WV to AZ and back. Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, back into New Mexico, into Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, back home to WV.

    Sooner, glad to hear from you. Your stuff always makes sense, well thought, on point, not as wordy as I am, which is better on you!

    In case it isn’t crystal clear, I’m with Colin K for doing what he feels will help his teammates and the other Black American folks getting excess attention from law enforcement.

    Take care, bro~!
    J R

  148. 148.

    hueyplong

    What CK has forgotten is that a true patriot like Rick Perry threatens to secede when things aren’t going his way. Or substitutes the Confederate flag for the US one.

  150. 150.

    Ruckus

    @Davebo:
    My closest thing I do to celebrating the ship I was stationed on for 2 yrs was to look it up on Wiki and bookmark it. It was named after a confederate naval officer, I wasn’t all that thrilled with my time on there, even though I got to see a bunch of the world and had some experiences that you can’t get anywhere else, it really wasn’t all that and a bag of chips. Some of the people were memorable and some are unfortunately not forgettable. I’ve tried to contact a couple who were friends over the years but with no success.

  151. 151.

    ding

    re the 20 year old superpredator remark:

    But we also have to have an organized effort against gangs. Just as in a previous generation we had an organized effort against the mob. We need to take these people on. They are often connected to big drug cartels, they are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called superpredators — no conscience, no empathy.

  153. 153.

    greennotGreen

    I don’t care anything about this story, but I’m sure glad to hear from you again, Soonergrunt!

  156. 156.

    WaterGirl

    @Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): Oh. I’m an idiot. Because you’re black. White privilege strikes again.

    That’s beyond horrible. Thinking your husband/father was likely murdered but not saying anything in the hopes of protecting yourselves from more violence. Millions of people living like that. It’s so beyond wrong, I don’t even know what to say. But everything’s peachy now, because we’re post-racial. Just ask Scalia.

  157. 157.

    scav

    @rikyrah: That pretty much confirms everything I’ve heard or experienced about the average white Indianan. That jury pool didn’t fall far from the state average, which is to say mean.

  159. 159.

    Original Lee

    @Soonergrunt: I once worked in a local archives when one of the minor celebrities posthumously donated his collected papers to the collection. I was given the very cool job of reading through everything and sorting it all into categories for one of the librarians to catalog. Several boxes held all of the paperwork related to his job during WWII (he was in charge of setting up pilot training facilities). Based on the memos I read from the War Department, the military guys thought the war would last at least until 1948, and there was a very real possibility that Hitler would get a number of South American countries to invade the U.S. from the south. I think that idea only lasted until 1944, but it was a real surprise to me how pessimistic the early memos were.

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