Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Democrats have delivered the Square Deal, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and now… the Big Joe Biden Deal.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

We’re not going back!

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

Please don’t feed the bears.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Republicans don’t trust women.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

It’s a doggy dog world.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

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

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open ‘Patriotism’ Thread: Football Follies

Open ‘Patriotism’ Thread: Football Follies

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kaepernich no more arguing ramsey

(Marshall Ramsey via GoComics.com)
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I think I hurt universally acknowledged commentor Raven‘s feelings by forgetting that this would be the first weekend for college football. Sorry, dude! (I’ll probably hurt them again next year by forgetting all over again; apologies in advance.)

These funnies seemed worth sharing, though. Dave Roth on “Colin Kaepernick’s Protest, And What Values Are Worth“:

On Thursday, Colin Kaepernick issued a statement regarding his socks. The public was owed nothing less. The public was very concerned about—or pretending to be very concerned about—the socks in question. The socks had little pig faces on them, and each pig was wearing a policeman’s hat. Kaepernick had worn the socks at 49ers training camp on August 10, which was four days before he first sat down during the national anthem before a NFL preseason game, and more than three weeks before Steve Wyche asked Kaepernick to explain why he had been sitting during the national anthem…

This story is not just another humid August News fartwave, because what Kaepernick did and why he did it are more serious than that. More than that, the actual seriousness of Kaepernick’s protest has blown a hole, deep and wide, right through the pomp and pretense and vast self-seriousness of the NFL and the conversation it wraps around it. The result has been a pitched battle between Kaepernick’s protest in itself, and the forces of that goonish rhetorical universe in which it occurred.

The protest itself is telling. Kaepernick sat through “The Star-Spangled Banner” several times before Wyche asked him to explain why, and Kaepernick has not stopped explaining it since, explaining and re-explaining it concisely and coherently and with startling patience. That explanation resolves to Kaepernick’s wish to bring attention to various longstanding national disgraces that, because they tend disproportionately to victimize poor people and people of color, are viewed by some people as more of a disgrace than they are by others. This is a wide-ranging critique—wide-ranging enough to include pointed criticism of both Presidential candidates, among other things—but not a terribly complicated one to understand…

The NFL has always been weird, in ways endearing and not, but it is never weirder than its most powerful people and their most powerfully weird beliefs….[T]he defining aesthetic aspect over the league’s ascent over the last decade and a half is the extent to which the NFL has come to see itself as a sort of unofficial auxiliary branch of the armed forces, and the attendant tendency to treat its games—which are, at the risk of belaboring an obvious point, games—as campaigns in an elaborately staged play-war.

A state of permanent war is not healthy for any political body, as you have probably noticed, and the NFL’s state of play-war has been corrosive in ways that parallel the broader culture’s. In the same way that America is more sentimental than serious about the people that fight and die in our abstracted and boundless and endless wars—quick to pay solemn and tearful tribute to the heroism of The Troops, but notably less keen on paying for their more mundane and more concrete and more vital needs—the NFL is more sentimental than serious about its own vaunted values. The league’s belief that it is important and stands for something important is unmistakably sincere; we might as well take at their ridiculous word the anonymous NFL execs who called Kaepernick a “traitor” and suggested they’d sooner resign than have him play for their teams. But just because the NFL believes its own wild rhetoric doesn’t mean that rhetoric is believable. The NFL hasn’t ever been very serious about defining what those important things are, or about actually standing for them. It has always been much more committed to gesture than actual action. This is a defensive instinct dressed up as a series of bold stances and statements….

(Kinda like the GOP presidential campaign?)

kaepernich patriotism mandatory anderson

(Nick Anderson via GoComics.com)
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kaepernich trump davies

(Matt Davies via GoComics.com)
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kapernich not standing stones luckovich

(Mike Luckovich via GoComics.com)
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Reader Interactions

201Comments

  1. 1.

    germy

    Chris Wallace has no intention of fact checking during the debate.

    But when he asked Wallace what he intends to do if Republican candidate Donald Trump or Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton say something he knows to be untrue.

    “That’s not my job,” Wallace concluded. “I do not believe it is my job to be a truth squad. It’s up to the other person to catch them on that. I certainly am going to try to maintain some reasonable semblance of equal time. If one of them is filibustering, I’m going to try to break in respectfully and give the other person a chance to talk.

  7. 7.

    ThresherK

    We all know what the word “Christianist” means. Can’t The Internet come up with the equivalent of people fascinated by the enforcing the trimmings of displaying patriotism, rather than what it’s supposed to mean?

    n. Patrioticism?
    v. Patrioticking?

  8. 8.

    cokane

    the irony of the kaepernick protest, is that it’s only a BFD because of the reaction. how many football fans even watch the fucking national anthem proceedings of any game? he’s a backup QB now and those guys get almost no media attention.

  11. 11.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    I am traitorously watching two foreigners slug it out in a fifth-set tiebreaker in the U.S. Open (tennis, if not obvious).

    But I have committed to watch at least the beginning of Notre Dame vs. Texas.

    Dang, that’s coming up in a few minutes, but Nadal is heroically fighting off match points (three or four so far).

    And Pouille closes it out! No. 24 upsets No. 4.

    Over to handegg.

  24. 24.

    germy

    @efgoldman:

    bought and paid for by DOD with our tax dollars.

    Sorry… we’ll need to cut entitlements like social security and medicare. We simply can’t afford them.

  26. 26.

    lollipopguild

    @germy: Since Wallace had nothing but good things to say about Ailes he probably still talks to Ailes about how to do his job.

  27. 27.

    Trentrunner

    @germy: Much as I want to disagree with Wallace’s position (and cheer Candy Crowley when she most gloriously fact-checked Romney in 2012), he has a point: Which facts should a moderator check? Leaving aside the impossibility of fact-checking Trump in real time, how feasibly can a moderator fact-check any debate participants, where the claims come every minute, can be on any subject, and are made with varying degrees of good faith and ignorance?

    Now, the pundits afterward, that’s a different story. They should eschew the execrable “Spin Room” interview bullshit and go straight to verifying facts.

    But I don’t see that happening, either.

  29. 29.

    Old Dan and Little Anne

    The modest home where I live is a short walk to a neighborhood of rich ass living people and crazy ass old houses. The wife and I haven’t walked there all summer but tonight we did and saw one Hillary sign, two Drumph signs, and one Gary Johnson sign. Whatevs. Go Irish!

  31. 31.

    raven

    No problem, I gave up on this being much of a venue for football chat a couple of years ago. The only one that comments consistently is someone who I ignore and he ignores me. Doesn’t make for compelling dialogue. I can always count on goldy to make some smart ass remark so that’s what I live for.

    .

  33. 33.

    raven

    @Pogonip: No, he still has an occasional Steeler thread but it was more how much the EER’s suck that cooled his interest IMHO. When I got sober it took me a couple of years to get re-interested if college football because alcohol is so integral to the experience for many so maybe that was part of it.

  34. 34.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    If these announcers don’t calm down they’re going to stroke out before the end of the game. Dudes, let the fans scream. You don’t need to.

  38. 38.

    JPL

    When I first moved into my little neighborhood there were only GA flags, but now we have TX and FL flags. I hope they don’t cause the housing values to go down.
    just sayin

  39. 39.

    p.a.

    Watch out Colin.

    Allison Moorer:

    I dont have it in me
    A bullet needs a gun
    And in the land of plenty
    They need a champion
    Im one more of many
    Not a lion in the sun

    Its unpopular
    To be unpopular
    Its unpopular
    To be unpopular

    Isnt it sad?
    The ending wont be a happy one
    Im one more of many
    Not a lion in the sun

  40. 40.

    redshirt

    Seeing as this is unprecedendented, at least to my knowledge, how does an AZ Republican process this:

    The Great State of Arizona, where I just had a massive rally (amazing people), has a very weak and ineffective Senator, Jeff Flake. Sad!

    One assumes most Flake voters are also likely Trump voters. Do they hate their own Senator? Are they happy the R nominee for President is now outright badmouthing him?

    I’ve never seen this dynamic before.

  44. 44.

    ThresherK

    @Steeplejack (tablet): (And all–I can’t risk moderation for excessive links).

    If one believes the internet, jingoism was invented by the British during the era of their empire being on the rise and refers to militarism, sabre-rattling, and (your country here) exceptionalism.

    There is a certain inward-focused Palmer-Raid/Red Scare-ness mob mentality I’m trying to describe, I guess, and combined with the technological shitstorming available to the winged monkeys of the right, which interest me in a new term.

    PS Anyone else remember the military family reunions on “Truth or Consquences” (Bob Barker-era) and now wonder if those were on the up-and-up?

  45. 45.

    Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.

    My grandpa didn’t fight Hitler so some punk could choose not to stand in unison when we pledge loyalty to our country at mass public gatherings.

  49. 49.

    redshirt

    @Baud: McCain is up. But Flake is a sitting Republican Senator.

    I mean, badmouthing a Senator of the same party has to have a negative effect on your vote totals in the region, yes?

  53. 53.

    Gin & Tonic

    @redshirt: I’m pretty sure Jeff Flake knows that on Nov 9, 2016, he will still be US Senator from Arizona, and Donald Trump will be a loser.

  59. 59.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @efgoldman: It’s not really surprising that Chris thinks that his job is to keep the time even rather than inform the public.

    It’s the natural result of the debates being taken away from the League of Women Voters and given to a creature created and effectively run by the two major parties. If the purpose really was to “ensure that debates, as a permanent part of every general election, provide the best possible information to viewers and listeners” then it would actually (rather than formally) be independent of the parties.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  62. 62.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @germy: Frankly, if Wallace hears Drumpf saying something totally outside the bounds of the reality of the universe (such as “The Blacks love me!”) he should immediately press the button for the trap door that will take Drumpf directly to the pits of hell, located somewhere in New Jersey.

  63. 63.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @ThresherK:

    I think jingoism has “widened” to encompass what you’re talking about, but it does lack the hammer-on-the-head obviousness of Christianist.

  66. 66.

    Lowtechcyclist

    Based on the reaction of the Santa Clara police union, whose fee-fees were hurt something terrible, I’d say pigs were the wrong choice – it should have Ben equalling babies wearing police hats on those socks.

  67. 67.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: I missed most of the illini game yesterday, but I caught the last hour because it was on at the pool while I was swimming. I know we were expected to win, but it sounded like we were playing pretty well, not just beating a team we were supposed to beat. What was your take?

  69. 69.

    raven

    @WaterGirl: Yea, great start but there is not much meaning to it. We play a North Carolina team that Georgia beat last night and that will tell us a lot more. I look for the Heels to win big but Lovie is just starting what will be a multi-year building process. I’m glad he’s there but just making a bowl will be tough.

  71. 71.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @ThresherK:
    There is already a term. It is ‘white nationalist.’ America is the greatest and must be supreme, and America is defined by what white people want. The groups Trump courts are beyond that, to ‘white supremacist’, where it’s about which race wins, period.

  74. 74.

    Taylor

    NYT yesterday had an article on the reality of coastal flooding caused by climate change. The military wants to act to protect their bases.

    A Republican congressman from Colorado, Ken Buck, recently called one military proposal part of a “radical climate change agenda.”

    The liberal NYT attributes this to “gridlock in Washington.”

    They really do have a Bloombergesque narrative that they are pushing.

  75. 75.

    Pogonip

    @raven: THE Ohio State University has banned from its stadium bags larger than the palm of your hand. Coincidentally, THE Ohio State University is also selling beer this year for $8/pop.

    I think college football is a huge scam.

  79. 79.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: Don’t know this personally, but I have heard he is getting some good recruits, so that probably bodes well for the future. Yes?

  80. 80.

    Tripod

    @Lowtechcyclist:

    They actually think NFL fans (or anybody in the NFL) give a fuck if they refuse to get paid to attended an NFL game?

    Like there aren’t thousands of cops in the bay area happy to work off duty at a niners game?

  91. 91.

    lamh36

    @Patricia Kayden: I rolled my eyes hard at the Santa Clara police union. So ya mean to tell me, ALL those PD members are gonna voluntarily give up that sweet, sweet overtime cause of some socks? As if some other municipality wouldn’t come along and pick up that extra money…smh. I said, I’d believe it when I see it..

  93. 93.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Lowtechcyclist: If the police unions would stop acting like assholes every time this comes up, people might actually start to listen to them, because they’re not going to listen to those they perceive as racist assholes.

  95. 95.

    Splitting Image

    @ThresherK:

    We all know what the word “Christianist” means. Can’t The Internet come up with the equivalent of people fascinated by the enforcing the trimmings of displaying patriotism, rather than what it’s supposed to mean?

    The combined resources of the internet probably are not capable of out-doing Ambrose Bierce:

    PATRIOTISM, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
    In Dr. Johnson’s famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.

  99. 99.

    lamh36

    I linked to an article the other day that said the Kaep’s jersey has rocketted to #3 in sales. I supposed it could be stupid jackasses willing to waste money buying and then burning the jersey, but it’s just as likely that it’s in support of Kaep, like this lil guy

    Also had a thought. how many dumb white folk gonna go dressed as Kaep for Halloween? Pro-tip white folk: THERE IS NEVER A NEED FOR BLACKFACE in a Halloween costume…if the image is Iconic enough, you won’t need to paint ur face Black…please I beg you.

  105. 105.

    WaterGirl

    @lamh36: I find it hard to believe that anyone is stupid enough to buy an expensive jersey just to burn it. Oh, never mind, of course they are.

    I saw this comment in response to the cute photo of the kid in the jersey, I am hoping it was snark: “does he sit during the national anthem during school?”

    I put myself through college working as a checkout girl at the grocery store. At that point I really had to downgrade my view of how smart the average person was, but damn, here we are decades later and I am am having to do a major downgrade once again. Sad!

  106. 106.

    Suzanne

    @redshirt: Flake is LDS (Mormon) and lots of the Mormons hate Trump.

    Fun fact: the Flakes live where I lived from ages 8-18, in north Mesa. I know many Flakes, as well as members of many other Mormon families. Flake’s racist kid goes to the HS that is the longtime rival of mine. Most of the people from this little clan (not so little) really think Trump is mega-gross.

  110. 110.

    lamh36

    @WaterGirl: yeah…I remember that it was the first comment there…smh.

    I’m a twitter person, so nothing surprises, but I still SMDH at folks who post nasty or negative shit on a tweet about a kid…smh.

    It’s the YouTube factor…so I rarely even read past the initial tweet…but occasionally I still see one…smh

  114. 114.

    raven

    @efgoldman:

    Released in midsummer 1979, this simultaneously tense and funny movie never found the first-run audience it deserved, partly because it was beaten to the spring by other ’79 gang films, including Walter Hill’s action saga “The Warriors.” But “The Wanderers” is actually closer to Barry Levinson’s “Diner,” which came out three years later, than to any other gang film. It’s an end-of-an-era story, and its gangs are more like rowdy social clubs than bands of warriors.

  116. 116.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @redshirt:

    Wrong! I knew someone would bring that up (and I thought about preëmpting it). The Big Lebowski is a great movie, but no one describes it primarily as “a bowling movie,” which Kingpin is, in the same way that Slap Shot is a hockey movie.

  118. 118.

    redshirt

    @Steeplejack (tablet): Certainly, Kingpin is more focused on bowling and the actual sport of competitive bowling.

    But I ask you what movie an actual bowler is more likely to reference when bowling. We both know the answer to this question. And thus, Lebowski is The bowling movie.

  121. 121.

    Suzanne

    @redshirt: Nope, I wasn’t born until 1980, moved to Mesa in 1988. I have lived in the east valley or CenPho ever since, except for undergrad in Tucson.

  127. 127.

    Suzanne

    @efgoldman: One of my coworkers is a direct descendant of one of the first twelve LDS apostle guys. Some distant relatives of Mitt Romney were at my wedding. The LDS lineage is long and strong here.

  129. 129.

    Davebo

    @raven: And I’ve spent the last three days out on the boat baking and honestly I won’t be able to stay awake through a 1 hour lightening delay…

  131. 131.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    redshirt:

    We’re going to have to leave that there.

    Next up: Mad Max: Fury Road—great car-chase movie or greatest car-chase movie?

  136. 136.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    Jesus Halftrack Christ, did everyone turn off their snark detectors for the weekend?! I was trolling redshirt. Does no one remember him rhapsodizing endlessly over Fury Road as the greatest movie each?

  140. 140.

    Millard Filmore

    @raven:

    He fought Hitler so some punk could do and say what ever he wanted to.

    Hey! This is America, Land of the Free. We don’t have to tolerate individuality in our community.

  147. 147.

    raven

    The Pigskin Classic was a season-opening college football game played at Anaheim Stadium from 1990 until 1994, and continued from 1995-2002 at various stadiums. It was initially created as a west-coast counterpart of the Kickoff Classic and hosted by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. From 1990-1994 it was sponsored by Disneyland and referred to as the Disneyland Pigskin Classic. Until 2002 the NCAA only allowed for teams to play a 12-game regular season schedule if the first game were a licensed Classic (such as the Pigskin Classic, the Kickoff Classic, or the Eddie Robinson Classic). In 2002 the NCAA ended the allowance of an extra 12th game, thus effectively ending the Classics.[1] Kickoff games would later see a revival, in 2008 the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game was organized as a neutral-site game held in Atlanta, GA.

  149. 149.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @redshirt:

    That’s great, with almost 1.6% of the millennium in the books. Im sure it will hold its spot for the remaining 984 years.

    And kudos to you for getting the snark. Apparently no one else did.

  155. 155.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    Damn it, I have allowed myself to get so exercised that I fell prey to not one but two autocorrect errors. I must collect myself.

  158. 158.

    Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.

    @Baud: snark. As someone below points out, it’s hard to tell the difference these days (understandably). Sad!

  161. 161.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Omnes Omnibus: Friend of mine in high school had that Mustang. To this day the fastest I’ve ever been in an automobile (with the possible exception of a TVR Tuscan where the speedo was non-functioning.)

  168. 168.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @raven:

    That did look like a lie-beral pick.

    I’ve got no pooch in this hunt, but at least it’s a close game. These announcers going nuts like tweens at a sleepover whenever anything happens are breaking my balls.

    Balls. Breakin’ ’em.

  173. 173.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: They only make us get out of the pool for 20 minutes if they see lightning. Of course, if they see it again, the clock starts over.

  178. 178.

    ThresherK

    In a move surprising nobody, some newspaper decided to not endorse the Republican, for the first time in over 40 years. They endorsed Gary Johnson, as “Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton do not possess the character to be president”.

    I did not catch the name of the paper, on a TV news report. But it really doesn’t matter, does it?

  182. 182.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    Okay, great, they played the Spanish audio call on one of the touchdowns to make the gringos look sober in comparison. At least they didn’t scream “Go-oh-oh-oh-ohl!”

  183. 183.

    Davebo

    @raven: Not really. I trolled and caught a few whites but labor day weekend is pretty crowded here. 19 hours on the boat the last 3 days and I’m glad they didn’t bother me much.

  184. 184.

    Davebo

    By the way, I’m totally over getting fuel on the water! It’s a twenty minute drive from my home base to find it and then it’s $3.30 a gallon because it’s “ethanol free”. I paid $1.78 five minutes by truck but I had to fill 3 5 gallon cans. I’m willing to pay a premium to avoid toting 5 gallon cans to the pier but not that much!

  185. 185.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: Hey, 20 minutes is long enough to go pee or buy another beer or grab something at the concession stand. An hour is – maybe we should go home or maybe we should go to bed – territory. Seems dumb to me.

  188. 188.

    WaterGirl

    @efgoldman: But people are still sitting in the stands for the hour, right, unless they all decide to go home? So what difference does the 20 minutes vs. 60 minutes thing do?

    If it lightnings again after the first time, then it gets extended anyway. Not trying to be a jerk, I just don’t understand.

  190. 190.

    Steeplejack

    Kinda glad I was in the kitchen getting a snack when that blocked-kick runback happened. I heard a faint, falsetto screeching from somewhere. Now I know it came from the TV. Thought maybe the neighbor had stepped on her puppy.

  191. 191.

    workworkwork

    @raven: Ronin had a pretty awesome chase sequence. (seeing as it was directed by John Frankenheimer, this shouldn’t come as a great surprise).

  193. 193.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    Don’t forget the two great Bourne car chases: one in Paris and an even better one later in Moscow.

  196. 196.

    Steeplejack

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Jesus. Just good car chases. Since everyone went down that rabbit hole, I thought I would throw in the thought that came to me.

    The whole “movies defined by the car chase” thing was a bit of trollery for redshirt because his opinion on “bowling movies” boiled down to: “I really like The Big Lebowski. The Big Lebowski contains bowling. Therefore The Big Lebowski is the archetypical bowling movie.”

    Even my original comment that prompted that—“It [Slap Shot] is to hockey movies as Kingpin is to bowling cinema”—was in the way of a (semi-serious) joke. “Bowling cinema” should have been the tip-off.

    But when redshirt went all Cahiers du Cinéma, I thought I would see how he liked having Fury Road cast as a “car-chase movie” and where he would go with that. Little did I know that a horde of readers would rush the field and tear down the goalposts.

    Hopefully all traces of humor have now been removed from this misbegotten subthread.

    ETA: I don’t disagree with people’s picks for great car chases. But if we’re really talking “movies defined by the car chase,” then it would probably be some piece of crap like one of those ’70s Burt Reynolds movies (e.g., Smokey and the Bandit) or that thing with Charlie Sheen and Kristy Swenson (The Chase).

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