Not gonna happen, but it would be beautiful if 100% of NFL players, coaches, assistants, trainers, water-boys, referees, line judges, beer vendors, hot dog sellers, announcers, ticket takers, security personnel, custodians and fans took a knee when the national anthem plays at today’s football games.
If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our Flag & Country, you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2017
…NFL attendance and ratings are WAY DOWN. Boring games yes, but many stay away because they love our country. League should back U.S.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2017
Senator Ben Sasse, aspirant to McCain’s mavericky mantle, has it all wrong:
NFL players:
You have the right to protest Trump tmrw. But aren’t there better ways than kneeling before the flag soldiers died to defend?— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) September 23, 2017
btw, Trump wants you to kneel–because it divides the nation, with him and the flag on the same side. Don't give him the attention he wants. https://t.co/ic5Vc9oGyB
— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) September 23, 2017
The rectangle of dyed cloth isn’t the issue; it’s the principles it symbolizes, among them free speech without interference from the government. The protests aren’t about disrespecting the flag or the troops; they’re about police killing black people, including children, with impunity.
Let the nation be divided among those who understand that, with Trump and white supremacy on the other side. Let’s finally see where everyone stands — or kneels.
The reaction won’t be what it should be, which is the overwhelming majority of Americans supporting American values like the right to peaceful dissent without censorship from a big-mouthed tyrant.
But as more players take a knee in more sports, as additional owners and fans support them, and, most importantly, discuss the issue that inspired the protests in the first place, the more Trump will be revealed as a weak, hateful anachronism.
That’s my hope, anyway. Open thread!
Baud
When the quarterback takes a knee at the end of the game, it means he hates the troops.
Baud
And which side will you be on, Sasse? Hmm?
dr. bloor
The upcoming decades-long fetishization of Ben Sasse is going to drive me to my grave.
debbie
More appropriate for this thread:
Sign me up!
Ten Bears
Boycott football. Boycott its venues.
Don’t just change the channel. Don’t go there.
Haroldo
Ben Sasse is a weasel, at his core a trogladyte, tho’ he dresses nicely and has good teeth.
Baud
@dr. bloor: He’ll have to fight Kasich for the prize of Village favorite.
debbie
@Baud:
Yes, silence is better. It has proven time and again that it accomplishes absolutely nothing.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
I wish white people would participate. It’s time for us to stop playing it safe.
dr. bloor
This is how bad it is: Donald Trump has me applauding the Baltimore Fucking Ravens.
Baud
@dr. bloor: That there’s an impeachable offense.
PsiFighter37
Ben Sasse is a fucking asshole, just like Jeff Flake – his main issue is that Trump isn’t able to focus long enough on getting tax cuts for the rich passed and throwing all poor people into the streets. Not that they were great shakes, but Nebraska used to have Ben Nelson and Bob Kerrey for their senators (and even Chuck Hagel, who came to Jesus later on in the Iraq War)…now they have Debra fucking Fisher and this clown. Embarrassing.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: Moron. Sasse, not you. The incapacity for elementary logic (my dear Watson) is appalling, Or maybe – more likely – it’s just more bullshit flimflam obscurantism. I’m beginning to align with Villago.
Not to go unmentioned are Trump’s remarks about how reducing big hits to the head has taken the fun out of the game and turned the players into sissies. This after Aaron Hernandez was found to have severe brain damage, one of the worst cases of CTE the researchers have seen to date. Trump is toxic in every way. Again, back to Villago.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Sasse, you idiot, “sit down and shut up” is what is getting those blacks murdered. They have no no choice but to protest thanks to “do rock the boat” type useless idiots like you. Not to mention not speaking up is fraking un-American. WTF do you think the Revolution and the Civil War were about Sasse?
Shalimar
I am spending this Sunday morning working on a hymn for Trump supporters. The chorus:
Fuck off and die,
Like Jesus told you.
Why don’t you just
Fuck off and die.
Not very nice, but it is cathartic.
PaulWartenberg
If the NFL owners really want to show their support of the First Amendment, they’d hire Kaepernick as a backup QB to teams in dire need of QB experience at that spot. Like, say, the Ravens (whose coach and GM wanted to sign him) or the Jaguars or the Colts or the Jets or the
FlipYrWhig
How much time does Trump spend every day watching TV? 90% of his waking hours? Higher?
O. Felix Culpa
@PaulWartenberg: Bears.
dr. bloor
@Shalimar: That’s the sort of hymn that might get folks like me back into church.
West of the Cascades
@PaulWartenberg: Bills.
The Bills’ owners met with the players and coaches last night and issued this statement. Hoping for some sort of concerted action in Buffalo today.
“Several of us met tonight – players, coaches, staff, and ownership. Our goal was to provide open dialogue and communication. We listened to one another. We believe it’s the best way to work through any issue we are facing – on and off the field.
“President Trump’s remarks were divisive and disrespectful to the entire NFL community, but we tried to use them as an opportunity to further unify our team and our organization.
“Our players have the freedom to express themselves in a respectful and thoughtful manner and we all agreed that our sole message is to provide and to promote an environment that is focused on love and equality.”
different-church-lady
This is what you voted for America: bathe in it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I think the correct reply to Trump is “what’s the issue, seeing blacks on their knees is what you want you racists”
tobie
The media will lose its affection for Ben Sasse and Paul Ryan when the two start to lose their hair. Till then they’ll represent that aw-shucks, all-American Wunderkind they so love.
bemused
Of course Trump also has downplayed football head trauma. Damn safety rules are ruining the game.
different-church-lady
@Ten Bears: Huh? There are hardly any moral reasons reasons to support football left, but this solid push-back against Trump’s hatred being shown by the players and the league is a good one.
gene108
When fans start refusing to stand for the anthem, this will really have caught on.
But right now the right-wing media machine has turned this from violence against blacks by police to disrespecting the flag, soldiers, and apple pie.
Right-now this is more a free speech issue than a focus police violence.
The narrative has been lost.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
Meh. Not mutually exclusive.
Feathers
I had somehow gone this far without Ben Sasse being on my radar. Christ, what an asshole. And he has a PhD in American History from Yale. The blinders must be squeaky tighht on that one.
FlipYrWhig
@Feathers: Sasse, like Tom Cotton, really really REALLY wants to be president and has been engineering his whole life to get there.
Mr Stagger Lee
Well I guess Shaid Khan, owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars isn’t going to fire ANYONE. He knelt with the players, I guess Trump will send ICE after him since he is a naturalized Pakistani-American, which means he is Muslim. Thank you Mr.Khan
japa21
If you follow hockey, you may well be familiar with the tradition in Chicago of people cheering all the way through the anthem before Blackhawks games. To me that is far more disrespectful then silently taking a knee, which actually shows respect for both the anthem and flag and disrespect for those that act in ways against the values they represent.
FlipYrWhig
@bemused: Trump’s whole approach to life is that a man needs to prove that he’s tough and/or horny at all times, and not a pu$$y. You’d think that at some point in the past 70 years he’d have graduated from the mentality of an 11-year-old bully, but he clearly never did.
Kay
Ugh. He’s so gross and loud. I don’t watch sports but the taking a knee protest seems really brave to me- just to set yourself up for all that hateful derision and outrage and here comes the big, noisy buffoon to exploit it.
Me, me, me. Look at me, pay attention to me. No one else gets a word in- we all have to listen to this angry, hateful old man vent.
Nothing positive comes out of that administration. Horrible, paranoid people who are always protecting some imaginary “turf” that they feel they own.
Jeffro
Waiting for some enterprising young reporter to note how unbelievably unpresidential it is to call for the firing of American citizens peacefully exercising their 1st Amendment rights.
It’d also be nice to get a quote from Alicia Machado or Khzir Khan at this point in time.
We’re probably an hour or two at most from a NFL player telling a reporter, on mic, that “the president can go f___ himself”. I mean, LeBron kinda already did, I just mean using those exact words.
MobiusKlein
BTW, the kneeling is spreading to baseball too – Bruce Maxwell of the Oakland A’s.
marv
I live in rural red northern Michigan, and I can tell you the old-man morning Koffee Klatches can’t talk enough about Kaepernick. Nothing makes some white people happier than having a person of color they can openly hate. But this is what gets me – after all the talk about the flag, and veterans, etc., one of their buddies walks in who has a Confederate flag decal on his truck, or his hat, and it’s like come on in and join the party. IN MICHIGAN! where over 14000 vets made the supreme sacrifice in the Civil War defending Old Glory from the Confederate flag.
GregB
Every time Donnie Two Scoops talks, I am more convinced he is a Biblical version of Satan come to life. Lies and deception and the incessent sowing of discord among humankind.
He is a horror.
We all knew he would be a horror and that is why we were soaked in dread after the election.
Roger Moore
And the angry venting about disrespecting the flag and the military isn’t really about the flag and the military; it’s about sending up a squid cloud of butthurt to avoid talking about why the protesters are protesting.
boatboy_srq
D’you suppose similar events could make Lord Dampnut lash out at Mom and apple pie as well? It would be absolutely delicious if his rants made the tRumpets denounce all those Yooneek And Genyuwine Ahmurrrrcan things.
Honestly the only thing that keeps me from going full metal HeleninEire is the fact that Lord Dampnut is doing considerable damage to his own side even as he hurts ours.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud:
Your humility is humbling. And misplaced in this case. ;-)
dr. bloor
@Feathers:
No one should ever assume that a Yale education is a broadening experience.
boatboy_srq
@Baud: Makes you wonder how they tolerated Tebow’s constant genuflecting – oh, right, he was thanking Gun-Totin’ Capitalist White Jeebus for being able to make another touchdown pass.
MJS
@West of the Cascades: This is shocking to me. The owner of the Bills made his billions in fracking. Thought he’d have his head firmly up Trump’s ass.
boatboy_srq
@dr. bloor: INDEED. See: Bush, George W.
germy
picking fights with the NFL is one thing, but picking fights with NK is what feeds my insomnia.
JMG
@Mr Stagger Lee: Khan was one of the owners who donated to Trump. But it turns out billionaires (real ones, can’t get in the NFL owners’ club unless you are) kind of resent somebody messing with their business. Except for the far gone Trumpers, I don’t think Trump will have much support here. He’s not making the issue disrespecting the flag, it’s so obviously 1. racism in action and 2. all about disrespecting HIM that I don’t see him coming out better off for this rant.
MattF
Kevin Drum:
FWIW, I used to watch NFL football, but that was long ago. I do wonder what Trump is actually pissed off about, but, in fact, I don’t actually want to know.
different-church-lady
@MJS: Closing of the ranks — an attack from outside the league is an attack of all inside the league.
HRA
Although I do not have the education to rightfully analyze his idiotic ways, I do realize he never lets go of a grudge or loss. He tried to buy the Buffalo Bills and failed. I suspect this is a least a part of his stupidity to use inflammatory language against some professional athletes.
I have the Bills Mafia and other Bills organized fan clubs on FB. Yesterday when the Pegula’s statement came out defending the right in the Constitution, the idiots came full force in the replies all starting with “I have been a fan for X# of years, I will no longer support the team if they kneel, etc. It’s a bunch of BS IMHO. I stood up and raised a fist when those athletes did it in the Olympics. I understood what Rev. Wright meant when he said “God damn America”. I will kneel with the players, too.
.
different-church-lady
@germy:
Excuse me, Mr. Ri: it’s a murder/suicide mission, and you’re helping him with it.
Flanders' Former Neighbor
I’ve seen it suggested a bunch of times that collusion by team owners and coaches is keeping Kap out of the league, but I’m not so sure. The guy came out of the gates on fire, and as soon as Harbaugh left for Michigan, it was like he took Kap’s skills with him. The guy went from throwing bombs to being unable to consistently complete short-yardage, high-percentage throws. I’m often surprised at how much the GMs and coaches know about football based on signings and releases, and maybe they know something that tells them it’s not worth their efforts. They brought back Michael Vick after prison. I tried to explain to my 80YO father why players take a knee and what their beef is, but it wasn’t sinking in. Such an uphill process trying to get through to people that don’t want to be gotten through to.
On another note, Trump at least knows what he’s talking about when it comes to football leagues going downhill..
JDM
Sasse is yet another of those guys, like Trump, who would shred the Constitution to protect the flag. I’m the opposite.
debbie
@Kay:
It will be very interesting to see Dotard’s response to Kraft’s statement which clearly wasn’t supporting him. Hw considers Kraft a real friend.
Amir Khalid
Maybe the NFL Players’ Association, or a group of players/teams, should make a public appeal to the fans: “Kneel with us against injustice.” If it catches on, that would be one hell of a poke in Trump’s eye.
Roger Moore
@Feathers:
Bear in mind that history is a heavily politicized discipline. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn his doctoral adviser was a Lost Cause believer.
Laura
Traditional white male power-structure deigns to notify ‘the help’ just how and when and where peaceful, nonviolent protest of unjust and extrajudicial exercise of police power will occur.
Bullshit to that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Flanders’ Former Neighbor: I think his productivity took a dive like you said, but the fact that no team has taken the chance of even bringing him on as a potential back-up is odd.
charluckles
Putin’s stooge is on about respecting our country? The guy who mocked POW’s and KIAs? Mr. deferments himself? But his children are ready to head to the DMZ though right?
Belafon
The struggle right now will be keeping the point on police brutality, which most whites are uncomfortable talking about, and away from patriotism, which whites are way more comfortable at accusing others of not having.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Zounds! he was one of the NFL grandees who gave (at least) $1 million to the inauguration slush fund
germy
Mnuchin: “Trump has right to curse out NFL players over anthem but they must ‘do free speech on their own time’”
Zanamu
@Baud: it is Ben Sasse’s habit to miss the point. He has dreams of the presidency and wants people to think he is thoughtful. After all, he wrote a dissertation on madyln Murray o hair! Smart, right? He actually knows better but he’s pretty sure that the people whose votes he wants don’t know the difference. This is the reason I hate him so much – nebraskas other senator IS stupid. Sasse is bright but doesn’t want to seem too bright because intelligence and thoughtfulness are not values the Republican Party embraces.
WaterGirl
@debbie: And it comes with a bonus dig at Jared at the end. Perfect!
OT, I was on my iPad late in the night and saw your link of “Sports to Trump” but I can’t recall which thread it was on. I would like to share that – I was giggling out loud and watched it 3 times – do you recall the thread or could you link again?
Hal
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/ben-sasse/
MazeDancer
they’re about police killing black people, including children, with impunity.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus: I follow football pretty casually, and I was aware Kaeperick’s had had a couple of bad years before he ever knelt, but Jay Cutler got hired, I’m pretty sure as a starter, for some ungodly sum of money. As you say, nobody even wanted him as a backup?
WaterGirl
@PaulWartenberg: Some team needs to hire him RIGHT NOW. Enough of this bullshit.
Patricia Kayden
It really irks me when White people like Sasse think they can dictate to grown up, mature Black people how we should respond to racism and how we should protest. Shut the hell up and stay in your dang lane. Go and figure out how YOU are going to respond to racism coming from people on your side against Black and Brown people.
A Ghost to Not
The Eagles are calling for fans to link arms during the anthem in solidarity against Rump’s remarks.
mouse tolliver
Ben Sasse. The Ben Sasse who didn’t object when Bill Maher used the N-word in front of him. That Ben Sasse.
Lyrebird
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): I think the Oakland A’s player who was the 1st in MLB to kneel in solidarity is white, GOOD to see him step up to step down.
And so awesome to see these photos – not 100% kneeling but 100% together, even with one of the team owers, rebuking Orangemandias.
Old Dan and Little Anne
Tbe Steelers are going to stay in the locker room during the anthem today. According to the Twitter machine.
PST
What could possibly be more disrespectful than kneeling? In our congregation we do it several times every Sunday morning to show our disrespect for God and Jesus.
Hal
Hilarious to see all these people who went apoplectic over Phil Robertson being suspended by A&E (THE CONSTITUTION!!!) suddenly endorsing the firing or suspension of these players.
Kathleen
@Patricia Kayden: My favorite all time white people hit is, “They should be grateful that… (fill in the blanks)”.
Cheryl Rofer
Might be worthwhile to list all the team statements in a front page post. I am in the middle of half a dozen things right now, or I would do it.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Here’s a fun thing. You can go to profootballtalk.nbcsports.com and it looks like you can rate the comments without having to login or anything. The nazis over there, and there are a lot of them, are having a meltdown over the kneeling. Go mess with the snowflakes.
Linky
Mary G
In order to obey the great and powerful Baud, not going to link, but the NYT article is very heartening. Looks like all the owners, even those who donated to Twitler, support the protesting players. And the Jaguars, who stood, but locked arms with clenched fists, even the Muslim owner between two black players, and all the white players, even the obviously reluctant ones, were inspiring.
J R in WV
Now the dammed Treasury Secretary is telling us that it’s about showing respect for the Military, First Responders, etc. No, dirtbag, it’s about protesting Trump, and YOU. What a pack of losers Trump has picked out to associate with.
ETA: And he’s asking the NFL to impose a rule requiring players and staff to stand and show respect for the national Anthem. Ass, that wouldn’t be showing respect at all, it would be following a rule. That shows obedience, not respect, which is that Trump really wants, obedience.
Fuck all of these assholes!!
different-church-lady
@Amir Khalid: Based on the reaction I saw to an Ian Rappaport tweet, it seems pretty likely the league and the fans might end up on opposite sides of this.
Let’s face it: as much as we supposedly “enlightened” folks enjoy NFL football, the vast majority of the fan base is anything but.
JMG
It should be noted (and maybe has been, if so, I apologize for duplication) that no NFL teams were on the field for the anthem until 2009. They’ve been doing so because it’s part of an agreement in which the DoD paid the NFL to stage patriotic ceremonies, honor the troops occasions, fly-bys, etc. as part of the department’s recruiting marketing budget. It’s an entirely artificial ritual.
Omnes Omnibus
The statement from GB’s president:
Jim, Foolish Literalist
the worst part about the conflation of the NFL with the military and jingoism is it makes this kind of demagoguery possible.
what did this bullshit start? seems to me it’s been ramped up since 9/11– trying to remember what it was like in the 80s and 90s, but I can’t
Mezz
@marv: My folks live in Roscommon Cty. My dad is a vet, my mother on SS disability, and I’m 95% sure they both voted for The Imbecile. I’m grateful at least that they come out to the East Coast to visit, sparing me from having to explain why I refuse to go back “home” to visit them. (I long ago declared my unilateral opposition to visiting them when they winter in Alabama.)
different-church-lady
@Belafon:
Too late: the point now has become just simple push-back against overt hatred as a positive value.
psycholinguist
Don’t you love it when draft-dodging Trump and blue-blood Sasse presume to speak for the troops? I know it means a lot to me.
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus: Although the President’s words are beyond “unfortunate,” this is one of the few times I can say “Go Pack.”
sukabi
At least one owner and the majority of the team took a knee at their game….granted it was out of country, and the owner will probably have a bit of trouble getting back in this country, It’s heartening to see more folks standing up for civil and human rights.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
If this doesn’t work, it’s #72 (for me) on last night’s evening open thread.
No One You Know
@cain I saw your announcement on a previous thread. Hope you’ll see this here. Congrats on the new job! And kudos on the move to Colorado. That takes a lot out of you, having to move to a new place out of all your comfort zones.
Keep sending news about what you see, and how you’re getting on.
O. Felix Culpa
So the Penguins are going to the WH. But aren’t there a bunch of Russians on hockey teams?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/09/24/pittsburgh-penguins-announce-they-have-accepted-invitation-to-attend-white-house/?utm_term=.4bf7f43efe75&wpisrc=al_alert-sports&wpmk=1&outputType=default-article&deferJs=true
Sister Golden Bear
@Lyrebird: And just so they made the point crystal clear:
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2017/09/24/many-players-kneel-most-link-arms-during-star-spangled-banner-in-london/?cid=eref:nbcnews:text
JMG
Any rule governing the anthem ceremony would have to be entered into the CBA between the NFL and the Players’ Association. Believe me, the last thing the owners want to do is reopen an agreement which favors them to a ludicrous extent.
WaterGirl
@Patricia Kayden: I liked your rant, but you left out something, which I added in bold:
MCA1
@marv: I spend a good bit of time up there (Emmett and Charlevoix counties), and I can picture the groups you’re talking about. They’re not even touched by multiculturalism but it scares the hell out of them nonetheless. I’ve seen more Drumpf signs and MAGA hats than I ever would have imagined from all those friendly, polite people. They’ve been told their whole lives how those of us in the cities and the coasts hate them and think they’re worthless, and how they’re the real America and they work harder than the rest of us. So if something pisses off or inconveniences us pluralist members of the global community but doesn’t affect them, well, they’re all for it. They consider Trump their revenge and the details don’t matter.
They’re also fairly poorly educated (but don’t recognize same), so they don’t see the logical inconsistency you note re: various flags and symbolism. And they’re the ultimate Takers in our society – they contribute little in federal taxes, yet get a massively disproportionate amount of infrastructure spending, welfare, social security and Medicare money, in some part because of their celebrated decision not to move to denser areas where ROI is increased for those dollars.
At times, I think it might be best for the rest of America to stop coddling the rural folks who are going to resent and hate us, anyway. America hasn’t been a majority agrarian, rural country since WWII, so time to move on without those who refuse to get on board. Just tell them what they’ve already convinced themselves of: we do think you’re lazy and inbred after all, and we’re going to lord our immoral lifestyles and wealth over you from here in our dens of iniquity until you keel over and die, and then we’re going to take your precious farmland and give it to Mexicans. What are you gonna do about it?
Aleta
Above all T and his people want to provoke a violent police response to people in the streets and make a white audience thankful that (as some middle class Germans said about the Nazis) there is order, criminals are being removed, and (fearful, silent) people are being made to ‘behave properly.’
J R in WV
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
That was fun, thanks for the link. Lots of buttheads there, but not all by any means.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Just making sure you saw my link above in answer to your question?
Uncle Cosmo
@Baud: Go fuck yourself with a rusty chainsaw, shithead. You and the rest of the fucking Raven-haters on this blog. And everywhere else.
Lyrebird
@Sister Golden Bear: Nice.
I still worry about the people being hurt, but what a strange side-effect of this maladministration – NFL coaches and business types publicly standing up for the players’ civil and human rights.
SFAW
@PaulWartenberg:
The Jets? Screw that “backup” crap. How about starter?
ThresherK
Is Ben Sasse’s previous career “failed kindergarten teacher”? He obviously doesn’t know how to handle an attention-seeking tantrum-throwing toddler.
Ksmiami
@marv: just tell him to fuck off cause he’s a racist pos. I hate redneck Michigan- such entitled backwards a-holes
Marvel
I’m SO there.
https://imgur.com/a/guYgM
Brooklyn Dodger
One of my FIL’s favorite songs – Old Dogs, and Children, and Watermelon Wine seems appropriate today. Hope the link works.
“Old dogs care about you even when you make mistakes…” OMFG. My rescue pup (11-13 years old) and accomplished poop trombone Esme laying on my feet.
low-tech cyclist
And have I mentioned I’m tired of hearing “blue lives matter”?
“Black Lives Matter” is a thing because they’re so often treated as if they don’t, particularly by the police and our justice system.
If law enforcement officers are experiencing any similar problem, there’s no evidence of it – in fact, quite the opposite: the past five or six years have been the safest time to be a police officer since at least the 1950s, and more likely since sometime in the 1800s. (The uncertainty here is over how many law enforcement officers there have been in the U.S. at any given time. But even assuming we have no more police today than we did in the 1950s, the former statement is true, according to tallies of annual police deaths from nleomf.org, the Law Enforcement Officers’ Memorial Fund.)
So police are less at risk than they have been in a long time. So they’ve got no excuse for killing black people and then saying “blue lives matter.”
Omnes Omnibus
@low-tech cyclist:
Your second sentence would remain valid even if the first one were not true.
HeleninEire
@boatboy_srq: WOO HOO. Thanks for the shout out.
Sherparick
@marv: I think this is a great point. Fox News & right wing radio echoes & invited these guys about how ” ungrateful” the blacks to wreck their bodies & brains to entertain these clowns.
Sherparick
@low-tech cyclist: In almost every instance the police officer in the rare cases have gone to trial he or she has been acquitted by judges & juries on grounds that being in fear of your life is reasonable when a police officer deals with a black man. That belief is the essence of racism.
Ruckus
Betty, I would hope that you are right but I fear that for too many it isn’t the issues but the symbolism. Like everything else they’ve been sold, the sellers don’t want them to understand the issues, they want them to understand and worship the symbols. Take the golden calf, they worship that rather than the reality that it stands for and is exactly backwards.
Worshiping a piece of cloth rather than the issues? Piece of cake for people who get everything backwards.
smintheus
It’s the same flag that bums have marched under and demagogues have wrapped themselves in to villify and threaten fellow citizens. Invoking the flag to shame others gets you zero brownie points.
WaterGirl
@debbie: Thank you. I want to marry the person who trained their dog to do that.
Barbara
Ben Sasse is such a tool. He knows these players are in the right, so he can’t tell them they are wrong to kneel. But he doesn’t want to admit that they are right, so he finds a different way to put them in the wrong — there are better ways to protest (I wonder how many Southerners told their black servants something similar about lunch counter protests), or, they are really doing what Trump wants by making divisive gestures. Meanwhile, if they did not kneel today, we all know that Trump would crow about what a victory they had given him. So strike Ben Sasse as a tool — really, he is a coward who utterly lacks the strength to stand up for things he knows to be right.
WaterGirl
@debbie: Yes, saw it just now! thank you again.
FlipYrWhig
@Barbara: Shorter Ben Sasse: “There’s a better way to get attention to a cause than an attention-getting way.” :/
Sherparick
@ThresherK: PhD in philosophy Yale, MA John Hopkins, BA Harvard. All that brain talent locked up in libertarianism, fundamentalist straight jacket. Also, a career that mixed academics, right wing politics, & finance with right wing twist. He did not serve in the military & outside of Omaha Nebraska’s only significant
Black population plays on UN’s football & basketball teams.
marv
@Mezz: Not from Roscommon, but near, damn near
Barbara
@ThresherK: No, but his academic background allows him to engage in infinitely flexible logical mental jujitsu to twist himself into a position that makes him sound reasonable but always comes down on the side of the power structure. He is to conservative politics what David Brooks is to conservative op-ed writers.
MomSense
@Shalimar:
Works for me.
MomSense
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
I’m starting to hear some talk about organizing a time, perhaps coinciding with a game, when supporters take a knee and post selfies to social media. We white people need to step up.
frosty
@Uncle Cosmo: Hear hear! But Baud’s a nice enough guy (and my candidate) so I think we can spring for a brand new chainsaw. //
Omnes Omnibus
@Uncle Cosmo: @frosty: There are many reasons that Baud should fuck himself with a chainsaw (either new or rusty), but I really don’t think this is one of them.
Duane
If Ben Sasse thinks the flag, and what it represents, is on the side of Trump and the racists, he’s got a whole lot to learn.
Cheryl from Maryland
If I were an owner, I’d up the ante. I’d open the game with Woodie Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land.
WaterGirl
@Cheryl from Maryland: Funny you should say that. I was thinking earlier this week that protesters should sing This Land is Your Land and America, the Beautiful as they protest. I am so sick of the right and their fake patriotism.
Mel
@Shalimar: We create new lyrics for a stress purging session of “Save our Sanity with Showtunes” in our house on a regular basis. My favorite tunes to tamper with are “Surrey With the Fringe on Top” and “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina” (which worked spectacularly well for the ditty of the week when Anthony Weiner’s sexting scandal hit the news, as I recall).
Zelma
@dr. bloor:
“Sasse earned his undergraduate degree in government from Harvard University (link is external) and an MA degree in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College (link is external) in Annapolis, Maryland. His Yale dissertation, “The Anti-Madalyn Majority: Secular Left, Religious Right, and the Rise of Reagan’s America (Madalyn Murray O’Hair)” won both the Theron Rockwell Field and the George Washington Egleston prizes at graduation. Written under the direction of Jon Butler, Glenda Gilmore, and Harry Stout, Sasse’s historical analysis examines the roots of modern secularism and the religious right and provides a thorough history of the Supreme Court’s reasoning and verdicts in Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington v. Schempp (1963).” Yale University Record, 2015
I guess I am defending my school, but it doesn’t sound like Sasse’s dissertation is unscholarly. Like all history writing, it undoubtedly has a point of view. But it’s an important topic. People of a certain age (like me) well remember the school prayer issue and how it impacted political divisions. A solid analysis of the thinking behind the decision and its effect is valuable. Don’t blame Yale.
LongHairedWeirdo
You know, when the issue was sitting during the national anthem, they at least had a point about being disrespectful But how the ever-living-fuck did kneeling become a sign of disrespect? i mean, come on, I know this isn’t about the national anthem, it’s about uppity folks not knowing their place.
Still: fergawdsakes “kneeling before the flag disrespectful” is so patently idiotic that I’m really kind of surprised they don’t choke while trying to say it.
lethargytartare
@Flanders’ Former Neighbor:
None of this is true, though – Kaps stats are pretty consistent throughout his career, and vary as expected with overall team quality. He actually had a pretty good 2016 season for a terrible SF team.
Right now, he’s probably as good or better than a quarter of NFL starters, and all of the veteran backups. Jay Cutler, Mike Glennon, Josh McCown, and Brian Hoyer are all STARTERS in this league. The only explanation for Kaepernick not having a job is at least passive collusion.