A while back in an early morning thread, I mentioned that one of my Trumpster uncles texted a meme about the take-a-knee protests. It was a photo of Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump, and the caption was, “And just like that, 63 million Americans said ‘Fuck the NFL.'”
I responded to the text with something snarky, along the lines of, “Who could have foreseen that when liberal and conservative America divorced, the libtards would get custody of the NFL?”
My uncle then huffily informed me that it was HUMOR, not a political debate. I dropped it, but this was at the beginning of Trump’s hissy fit about the NFL, so I found the claim that the meme wasn’t political disingenuous.
But one of y’all (can’t remember who, sorry) replied that my uncle may have really not seen it as political. Turns out, you were right. There are vast swathes of folks who see taking a knee during the national anthem as tantamount to pissing on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and pooping on Mom’s apple pie.
Trump, who is a moron just as Tillerson said, does have a demagogue’s talent for exploiting wedge issues, and he used his weekly address to gin up more outrage among the base on this issue. After blathering about the military he never bothered to join, Trump said:
Before watching a football game, you want to see those players be proud of their country. Respect our country. Respect our flag. And respect our national anthem and we think they will. We certainly hope they will.
Like most of what Trump does, this is a dominance thing with racial overtones. The majority of NFL players are black, and there’s only one owner who isn’t white. Some folks are crediting Trump with a victory over the NFL here, but I don’t think the story is over, not by a long shot.
Virtually all the stakeholders are rich men — players, owners, broadcasters, etc. And while the owners and networks have exponentially more money than the players, the players are the product. Will they allow themselves to be bullied into silence by the likes of Trump?
I read this morning that a couple of networks carrying today’s games don’t plan to broadcast the anthem. The NFL and networks desperately want the issue to go away. But will the players use it to assert their own independence and, hopefully, counter the bullshit narrative Trump is pushing about the nature of the protests?
If they do, will anyone hear them? My uncle won’t, but he’s not among the reachable, IMO. However, if Trump takes the bait (which he seems genetically incapable of NOT doing), could public perceptions shift when the highest elected official in the land makes ever more overt demands to mandate patriotic displays?
I don’t know. But it should be more interesting than some of today’s games.
Corner Stone
Talk about moral Grand Canyons. I had still been enthusiastic, to some degree, about watching football this year. Even with everything that has come out and continues to come out. But I told myself that if the NFL as an org decreed the players *must* stand during the anthem I would never watch another game or buy any merch. And I would make sure to let them know why.
Like so much else in this alternate reality, Trump has almost killed off my last straw of moral false equivalency by trying to cower the owners and assert dominance over black men.
What a fucking world…
WaterGirl
I surely hope so! I hope entire teams take a knew and send a big fiuck you to the white owners.
It’s total bullshit if networks don’t carry the anthem. That’s just as bad as the people who clean up his speech when Trump talks because they don’t want him to sound like a moron. He is a fucking moron, it’s not your job to control whether we see that.
Hunter Gathers
This is the end result of patriotism as a marketing strategy.
Corner Stone
And Rexy refused to deny it yet again this AM on the shows. So…
Corner Stone
I unfortunately caught this part shown on MSNBC this AM. Like so much else Trump tries to do, it is ominous and can not be taken as anything other than an overt threat, the way he delivered it.
Fair Economist
I guess these people who think taking a knee is disrespectful think people go to church to insult God? Who thought there were so many aggressive atheists in the Southern Baptists?
SRW1
I think Trump should demand that the players greet the flag. Maybe a gesture with a stretched out hand, or something like that.
WaterGirl
Is there ANYWHERE where black men have more power than the black athletes in the NFL? I surely hope they don’t roll over without a fight.
Also, I hope every white player stands with their brothers on the team and sends a big fuck you to anyone who tries to say whether they can kneel or stand during the anthem. Someone needs to tell these rich white men (owners) that they don’t own the athletes who play for them. This whole thing makes me spitting mad and I really don’t give a shit about football.
The last football game I went to was in 1972, if we don’t count the one I had to sit through 7 years ago because my great nephew was playing.
Fair Economist
So conservatives think the National Anthem is about excusing lynching? Why do conservatives hate America?
Corner Stone
@Hunter Gathers: The owners don’t mind the coercion. If they could have somehow stayed out of the way and let Trump assault and debase the players they would have been only too happy to somehow step in and take advantage of the situation. But because the NFL hurt Trump’s feelings years ago he took the opportunity to demagogue the owners right into a corner. They still want to punish the black athletes for being actual human beings with voices, but they can’t seem to come up with a unified way to do it. And Jerry Jones just threw a Bouncing Betty into the room filled with owners when he pulled his OWNER stunt.
Corner Stone
@WaterGirl: They have incredibly weak representation in the NFLPA and have been rolled in successive negotiations over the last several (collective bargaining) renewals.
edited
Suzanne
@Corner Stone:
Perhaps I am bitter and divisive, but I am still trying to figure out why so many liberals are willing to boycott the NFL over Kaepernick and the kneeling issue, but weren’t willing to do so over the rape and domestic violence, or the CTE, or the labor abuses.
WaterGirl
My best friend called me out last night for saying that I am sick of old white men running everything. It seems like all 5 people running for governor in Illinois are rich white men. Then I said I don’t like the front-runner simply because he looks like a good ole’ boy – my friend said it wasn’t fair that I am judging him by his looks.
Is my friend right? Is Trump turning me into some awful person who is angry and judges people by what they look like?
Baud
Shouldn’t humor be funny?
trollhattan
Find me somebody “boycotting” their 6-0 home team and I’ll take them at their word, I’m acquainted with several boycotting Raiders and 49er “fans” who coincidentally have discovered a spare 3 hours for mowin’ the lawn and such, which is much more relaxing than yelling at the teevee screen showing a team going down in flames* yet again.
*Recently, actual not metaphorical.
trollhattan
@Baud:
Republicans don’t “do” humor. See Miller, Dennis; Coulter, Ann, etc.
trollhattan
@Suzanne:
Liberals are boycotting the kneeling players? I’m boycotting Jerry Jones.
Gretchen
Betty, you are a treasure! I laughed out loud at the libtards getting custody of the NFL. I’ll have to share that with my wingnut brother!
Frankensteinbeck
EDIT – Removed. I am trying to wean myself off of saying the same thing in every thread.
Chyron HR
What a shameful display of contempt for our country, our flag, and DA TROOPS.
Gretchen
@WaterGirl: I’m sure you had more information that his looks when you formed your opinion. And anyone who asks themselves if they’re a horrible person is pretty much assured of not being a horrible person.
Fair Economist
@Chyron HR: I support the snark, but it would be a good thing if we cut down a bit on the nationalism and warmongering. Normal countries don’t sing a militaristic national anthem before sports games.
trollhattan
Thought I was hearing things when the radio told me a hurricane is headed towards Ireland but nope, a hurricane is headed towards Ireland. Can this year get any weirder?
khead
Posted this in another thread yesterday but it is worth repeating here. Check out this graph: “How Trump voters said they view the NFL“. There is also a chart for Clinton voters further down at the link.
Roger Moore
I’m curious how this works with the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement. Does the league really have the power to impose drastic punishments for a new offense without going through collective bargaining? The whole thing seems like it’s just begging for an unfair labor practices lawsuit.
Repatriated
@trollhattan:
Yes.
SATSQ.
Chyron HR
@Fair Economist:
THE TROOPS
H
E
T
R
O
O
P
S
Laura
@trollhattan: hey Trollhattan, Wonkette is coming to Sacramento next Saturdayy, it would be swell to meet you IRL if your free.
waspuppet
This presidency is like my first marriage, and Deadspin the other day spelled it out perfectly:
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
I have become horrible because I don’t care about the trump and third party voters and most days I hate them. I don’t even care to try and understand them. But not wanting to choose between older white men after generations of having to choose almost exclusively between older white men doesn’t make you horrible. It means you are justifiably sick of generations of non representation. The system is rigged. Believe me.
sukabi
Taking a knee has gone international…
Betty Cracker
@Roger Moore: I think Kay mentioned that the other day — it does indeed sound like begging for an unfair labor practices lawsuit.
Roger Moore
@Suzanne:
Because Trump made it into a political issue. Until now, all those things have been personal moral questions, and many people see sports as an excuse to avoid thinking about that stuff. But when Trump turned the anthem protests into a major political issue, it became very difficult for people who view their lives politically to avoid taking sides, and for liberals to avoid taking the opposite side of whatever Trump took.
FWIW, I’ve already been avoiding the NFL over the CTE issue. I’m not happy with the level of domestic (and other) violence NFL players are guilty of off the field, but I honestly think that’s something that’s best handled by the criminal justice system, not by employers.
donnah
I spent the past week in the company of Republican women who think Trump and his minions are doing a great job, shaking things up in Washington, and making sure the Mexicans and Muslims are held off.
They “couldn’t wrap their brains” around the NFL players taking a knee; it looks to them that they are a bunch of criminal thugs shitting on the flag, period. My newest obnoxious emailer sent one today that listed black NFL players with criminal records just to boost their claim. We are not framing things as strongly as the Trump followers. Again, it falls upon the victims to defend themselves. Our messages are being twisted and thrown back in our faces.
Another woman in the group asked rhetorically if we aren’t all concerned when a suspicious (ie: Muslim-looking) person boards the plane we’re on. I said no, but reminded them that I’m not like them (Trumptards) and that I’m more worried about white guys with guns. That ended THAT discussion.
I don’t know how we get our voices heard over them. They clearly do not see reality; everything is perceived in a fog of lies. They would give up everything if it meant their party would continue to be in power. And we have got to figure out how to get the truth out there.
gene108
I don’t know why, but men and especially white conservative men in this country have an authoritarian streak.
They want people to salute, especially have kids say please and thank you or sir to adults in all circumstances, and other mindless deferences to authority.
It seems so ingrained there’s no way to change opinions.
Catherine D.
@Fair Economist: Yes, I asked my RWNJ father when did kneeling become disrepectful. **crickets**
H.E.Wolf
Alas, as we all know, this is sadly nothing new.
There’s a gruesome poem by e.e. cummings – “i sing of olaf glad and big” – which was published in 1926, soon after the USA’s WWI-era imprisonment and mistreatment of numerous conscientious objectors.
See also the Joseph McCarthy era. See also the era of the Vietnam War. See also any recent Republican administration.
Conservatives love to advocate for everyone doing everything in lockstep (or goosestep) as a signifier of “patriotism”; and they then attack people who protest or resist, as being “unpatriotic”.
I’d say that a patriot’s duty is to support those who protest mandatory displays of “patriotism”.
[Puts on Grumpy John Adams hat, sits in corner scowling]
Jeffro
I think the players should stand hyper stiff at attention ( like a second grader would ) and then when asked about it, casually mention to a reporter that it is a rebuke of trumpov
Suzanne
@trollhattan: I know some liberals who are boycotting the NFL over the refusal to sign Kaepernick this season due to the kneeling. Shawn King has been promoting a boycott. I phrased that badly.
Barbara
@Hunter Gathers: I have always hated patriotism as a marketing strategy but it when the country is so divided
boatboy_srq
Proof positive that the Conservatist sense of humor is damaged beyond repair.
Baud
@donnah:
Nice.
WaterGirl
@donnah: Glad you ended up speaking out.
I would add to this a bit. I think that Fox et al spouting lies made them afraid and that fear makes them believe more lies because the lies fit into their view that was caused by the fear. Now they can’t see the truth even when it bites them in the behind. That’s part of what makes this so very hard to fight.
Roger Moore
@gene108:
Because patriarchy and white supremacy put them ahead of Those People. Authoritarianism is much more attractive when you expect to be one of the authorities other people have to obey.
boatboy_srq
@SRW1: You’re only four fingers off.
Suzanne
@gene108:
Because traditionally, white conservative men have had all the authority. Power is one hell of a drug.
Barbara
@Barbara: Well, all of my devices are going haywire, but what I meant to say was that I have always hated patriotism as a marketing strategy and I especially hate it when the country is so divided politically and there is no consensus on what our patriotic mission should be. I will be happy when the anthem stops being used as a proxy for endorsing anything done by the U.S. anywhere in the world.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
Buzzfeed says Trump has been subpoenaed for all documents related to one of the accusations against him of sexual assault.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
have trump or Pence (who I believe has a son on active duty) said anything about the four soldiers killed in Niger almost two weeks ago? I believe as of yesterday neither had
Digital Amish
It will be interesting to see how far this goes. https://www.theplayerstribune.com/russell-okung-an-open-letter-to-all-nfl-players/
WaterGirl
@boatboy_srq: I think that was a reference to the nazi salute.
efgoldman
@Hunter Gathers:
Getting to a good conclusion (disconnecting sportsball from patriotism/the military) for bullshit reasons (to avoid embarrassing the NFL/the networks).
@WaterGirl:
The NFLPA has less real power than all the other sports unions except hockey. The MLB and especially the NBA players laugh at NFL players.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): Wouldn’t it be lovely if all the women could bring him down?
WaterGirl
@efgoldman: Point taken. It seems to me they could easily get more power by standing up on this issue, rather than waiting for someone to hand it to them. Like those college football teams who have taken a stand here or there.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He may not know. Has Fox News covered it?
Sherparick
See also Bannon criticizing Senator Corker for criticizing Trump while troops are in the field. Of course, this has been used dissenters against American colonial wars going back to the Mexican War (it was also used against Copperheads in the Civil War, but in that case it was true – dissenting against the war was supporting treason and slavery.) And of course the protest is not about America’s forever wars, but rather the predominately white police forever domestic war against minority communities, Black, Hispanic, and American Indians.
The Dear Leader still has not mentioned the 4 Green Berets killed in Niger last week. http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/06/politics/body-recovered-us-niger-ambush/index.html
Again, Dear Leader = Fucking Moronic Asshole and the 63 million people who vote for him are fucking moronic asshole.
Gretchen
@WaterGirl: Huh. I just read a summary of the 4 old white guys (including, God forbid, Kris Kobach) running in the Republican primary for governor. All had bullshit reasons why they wouldn’t extend Medicaid – more state control, more taxes, need work requirements, law might go away, yada yada. The Democrats, and all areas of the medical establishment (except the rural hospitals that have already closed for lack of funds) are in favor of expansion. Wish us luck next November.
Suzanne
@Roger Moore:
This seems rather…..ostrich-y…..to me. For example, Weinstein is rightly being rejected by his company and industry for what he did. Social rejection is just as important and powerful a tool for upholding the social contract as the law. The players of the NFL are well-compensated entertainers with morality clauses in their contracts, and they can and should lose their positions of social prominence if they engage in behavior that violates that. The only reason that violence against women isn’t seen as a disqualifier is because it just isn’t that big a deal to people.
What’s interesting to me is that I and others have suggested boycotting the NFL for a long time over their crap, and I have been assured that a boycott of the NFL could ever work. Now lots of those people are boycotting the NFL. I can’t help but think that people just enjoy sports and violence against women just doesn’t seem like a good enough reason to give up something they enjoy. If that’s the truth, I wish liberals would just admit it.
Another Scott
@gene108: It’s not hopeless, but it’s not easy either.
BBC – How anxiety warps your perception:
Recognizing the details glossed over in this popular account, and that this field is still very young, this makes sense to me. And it makes me wonder about potentially hidden dangers in all the kill all the monsters / criminals / enemies or be killed video games…
We’ve got to find a way to get so many people out of their mindset that scary others are going to kill us all in our beds. :-(
More of us need to recognize that our brains aren’t computers, our eyes aren’t cameras, our memories aren’t hard drives. They’re all affected by our emotions, and our emotions are affected by our environments. We do, to a significant extent, make our own pictures of reality in our heads.
Cheers,
Scott.
boatboy_srq
@WaterGirl: The NFL is the only venue where White Ahmurrrrca will cheer on black professionals doing their jobs, whose successes are lauded by their audience and whose failures on the field are (largely) forgiven.
It says a great deal to me that this whole kneeling business has received more attention, and garnered more headlines (and more tweets), than Michael Vick’s dog-fighting escapades and any dozen spousal abuse cases. Fight your dogs? Fine; we’ll take the poor beasts from you and you better report to Spring Training. Beat your wife/girlfriend? That’s bad, but here’s a slap on the wrist, boy; now go play ball. Protest how LEOs everywhere stop/arrest/abuse/kill POCs with impunity? How very dare you!
Mingobat (f/k/a Karen in GA)
@Suzanne:
For the same reason nobody calls to boycott states that want to outlaw abortion or force doctors to lie to pregnant women, despite the fact that they’ll boycott to stand up for any other group that needs the support.
SenyorDave
I just came back from a ten day cruise, and I really got disconnected. I didn’t watch the TV except for info on what was going on around the ship, so I had no clue about Trump’s latest tantrums. I called my mother and said it was depressing to come back to our two year old president, and that he was actually getting worse. Her response was what did I expect from “el fucking moron”. This was my 88 year old mother who I’m pretty sure I have never heard her say anything worse than the second tier cuss words.
boatboy_srq
@WaterGirl: You’re interpreting SRW1’s comment as suggesting the players give Lord Dampnut what he demands; I’m interpreting it as giving him what he merits.
Aleta
@gene108: Their authoritarianism is bad enough but it’s also dishonest and hypocritical. Pen., after failing at first at trying to win elections, goes into rw radio and picks adultery for his topic (his target being the first woman b-52 pilot in the US). No problem saluting t though. He all but kneels before the criminal.
Gretchen
@Catherine D.: Another good summary of where we are. I was struggling with this idea but didn’t manage to put it as succinctly as you did.
NR
Polling states that big majorities of Americans disapprove of both the national anthem protests and Trump’s response to them. For whatever that’s worth.
trollhattan
@Laura:
Snark mob+alcohol=Freedom!
Sounds fun, will have to see whether I can fit it in whilst also celebrating Mrs. Troll’s birthday, a
worldgalaxywide event.Suzanne
@Mingobat (f/k/a Karen in GA): Exactly. Even liberals accept a certain amount of sexism and misogyny as just the way things are, maybe crappy but not worth getting upset about. It’s depressing.
efgoldman
@Betty Cracker:
Because of the (uncontested) ruling at the second appeals court in the Brady case, it is unlikely that a suit succeeds, especially with THIS DOL and this court.
Not impossible, but unlikely.
trollhattan
@Suzanne:
Hadn’t considered that angle.
debbie
Betty, I call bullshit on your uncle. Would he find humor in a meme showing Trump’s IQ to be less than a turnip?
Corner Stone
@Suzanne: I think we’re also talking about actions by individuals. As heinous as they are they can be called out or punished in various ways. Versus an outside force trying to strip protected rights from an entire group of people en masse. Mainly for reason or reasons that have nothing to do with any sense of morality.
Baud
@Suzanne: FWIW, boycotting over Kaepernick was dumb. I’ll never stand up for a Hillary for Prison person unless he is being attacked by someone more odious.
trollhattan
@boatboy_srq:
Good points and the NBA slots in right next to them.
Another Scott
@boatboy_srq: Vick spent 21 months in federal prison.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
1000 flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@WaterGirl: It’s layered on top of a very long history of training white women, especially in the South, to see all black mean as rapists–with white male authority as their only possible defense. So it’s been aimed at fertile soil.
WaterGirl
@boatboy_srq: Exactly!
Starfish
@WaterGirl: You didn’t specify which party these candidates are affiliated with, but I feel like the national DCCC is failing when they are not promoting more diverse candidates in a time when Trump has tried to divide us along the lines of people who accept diversity and those who do not. Our local city council is discussing “diversity of thought” which is the most pathetic way to say “a bunch of liberal white people.” There is a local candidate who seems aligned with my thoughts on increasing housing to bring down prices for middle class families in my town. His thoughts on the issue just seem average. I am holding white dudes to a higher standard and find myself more likely to give newcomers who aren’t white men a chance.
Mingobat (f/k/a Karen in GA)
@debbie: Yeah, they get political until they’re called on it, then they hide behind the “it’s a joke” excuse. They’re cowards.
Suzanne
@Corner Stone: So NFL players are lone wolves and the fact that there are so many of them behaving in similar fashion is not evidence of systematic oppression of women?
I don’t buy that when right-wing terrorists bomb clinics or shoot up black churches. And I don’t buy it now.
WaterGirl
@Mingobat (f/k/a Karen in GA): I think you meant to say fucking cowards. Or total fucking cowards. :-)
Another Scott
@efgoldman: I suspected there was unlikely to be good precidents on their side, and as you say, the idea that they would have a good shot under the slanted system under Donnie seems delusional. Thanks.
But they certainly should be looking at lawsuits and lining up the best lawyers they can…
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Mingobat (f/k/a Karen in GA): Just like Trump. He’s used “it’s a joke” a number of times.
PIGL
@donnah: they “can’t wrap their brains around it” because their brains are defective, their souls are dead, their hearts are engines of malice which pump only poison distilled from the excrement of dogs.
The social norms which enforced the pretence, it rather a simulacrum of, civilisés behaviour have been stripped away by the postwar social upheavals in the western world, and a calculated program of oligarchy.
We are left with two sub populations, 25% authoritarian followers, and 0.1% wealthy evil, who refuse to participate in the project of human civilisation. they will stop at nothing, while our “side” shrinks from everything. What is to be done?
Corner Stone
@Suzanne: I certainly didn’t say that. And you’re also talking about a rotating count of some 1500 people that is not constant from year to year. Ray Rice doesn’t have a job in the NFL and he should not. Greg Hardy was clearly nuts and violently abusive when the Cowboys gave him another chance and JJ called him a “team leader”. The same owner that is standing behind his star running back Zeke Elliott and simultaneously demanded his largely black players stand for the anthem “or else”.
I do not believe domestic violence is singular to the NFL, and on the whole believe anyone charged with it should be investigated and dealt with appropriately by the legal system.
Ruckus
Betty
No.
The people who support drumpf seem to me to mostly be people who think that what they consider patriotic displays is patriotism and supporting the troops. They, like him don’t have to do anything more than wave a flag, stand for the anthem, put their hand on their heart. They think that is respect for the risk that the military takes and the restrictions/costs of service. It isn’t of course. It’s like being thanked for your service. It feels condescending, even if it is genuinely given. Most vets that I know don’t like it. It is common now but I served over 40 yrs ago and no one thanked me till it became popular to do so. It’s like hearing a crappy pop song on the radio for the 8th million time. It wasn’t good the first time, it hasn’t gotten better.
I don’t need your thanks, I didn’t serve for that, I need the things that were in the contract. The VA, funded and functioning is the major one. I need a country to be free, to be dramatically less racist, less misogynistic. I need a country to be progressing, not regressing, a country to be proud of, not ashamed of. Not a country that citizens want to leave because the only direction it goes in is backwards. That’s what I served for, not for a token.
Another Scott
@Another Scott: Also too, if this line of reasoning makes sense, then it seems the best way to combat anxiety-driven RWNJ reactions is via humor and ridicule – not righteous anger.
Kumail Nanjiani’s monologue on SNL last night might be a good example of something that might work…
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
I really do like your style.
Baud
@Ruckus:
I keep hearing that, but nothing ever seems to be said or done in public. Most vets voted for Trump also.
Mingobat (f/k/a Karen in GA)
@Baud: And he’s proven what a coward he is on several occasions.
@WaterGirl: There aren’t words profane enough.
Duane
I’ve watched a lot of NFL football over the years. The networks rarely show the anthem being played, opting for commercials instead. Pays to know what’s truly important.
Corner Stone
@Baud: Did they? I have seen different numbers on that claim.
boatboy_srq
@Another Scott: Yes. 21 months of a “one to five year” mandatory federal sentence and three year Virginia (suspended) sentence, aggraved by marijuana use and other bad behavior. And on release was nearly immediately signed with the Philadelphia Eagles for over $1.5M, and continued playing, for multiples of that amount with Philadelphia and with other teams, until he formally retired just this year.
He was rehired by the NFL as a confessed, convicted felon, and made millions over the next several years back in his old job. And he’s received far less press coverage thank Kaepernick, after doing something significantly worse and demonstrably illegal.
My point stands.
Aleta
Those kind seem to train for ever faster reflex response to fear.
This morning a friend who teaches video game graphics told me that in the current class only one student is doing a first person shooter project. (Big difference from 5-7 years ago when almost all the projects were those.) Said this year many of the projects are calming environments.)
Suzanne
@Corner Stone:
No it isnt. But, for example, Ben Roethlisberger still has a job, because not enough Steelers fans called up the office and said that they didn’t want to cheer for a rapist. Hell, even on this blog, I’ve been told that he wasn’t convicted of anything so the issue is closed and the fans can watch guilt-free.
The crux of the issue is that lots of people, even those who ostensibly support women, even many women, don’t feel like patriarchal violence is worth giving up something they like. Again, I just wish we could admit that to ourselves.
HeleninEire
@trollhattan: No it cannot. Gotta tell you, though. People are pretty chill about it here. But I’m in Dublin. We’ll get a really bad storm. My neighbors to the south are gonna get harder than they could ever imagine.
Baud
@Corner Stone:
I hope I’m wrong, but that’s what I understood. I think active military went for Clinton, however.
All my info is second hand, so happy to be corrected.
trollhattan
@boatboy_srq:
If he had been a schlub third-down utility pass rusher his career would have been kaput but he was Michael Fucking Vick and the only crime in the NFL is losing so of course somebody was going to pick him up. Because Al Davis was still dead the task fell to somebody else.
moops
It was political from the the very first meme
Where did he think the 63 million number came from? Just HUMOR, sure, right.
Another Scott
@boatboy_srq: I was too terse.
I haven’t liked the NFL for ages.
My only point in my reply to you was that there were several additional steps between him being accused of dog fighting and him being welcomed back to spring training.
I agree with you about the NFL these days – my personal opinion of the organization has done nothing but continue to decline over the years….
Cheers,
Scott.
trollhattan
@HeleninEire:
Fingers crossed it loses intensity before hitting land. Best wishes to all!
sharl
You inspired me to track that down and read it again (it’s been a long time). It’s as explicit and gruesome as you say.
As an aside, this got me all nostalgic for a long ago commenter at Atrios’ blog who went by olaf glad and big, who passed away far too young. He was a sweet, smart, and very well read guy who was totally unpretentious. He was a forklift driver, among other things I can no longer recall; a true loading dock intellectual, as it were. Still miss that guy; we don’t have enough like him.
boatboy_srq
@Ruckus: I trace the idea for being thanked for service to the public awareness of the all-volunteer armed forces. WW2, Korea, Vietnam all had the draft, and WW2 and Korea benefited from the wartime economy: everyone served in some capacity, either fighting on the front lines or keeping the machinery going at home (making munitions, foodstuffs and other supplies, and keeping the US overall running in some fashion). There was no distinction to be made. It’s the modern situation, where perhaps 2% of the US citizenry is actively engaged in the military, and where providing the support infrastructure is no longer patriotic duty but profit center, that has changed the perspective. When the draft ended, there was a collective sigh of relief followed by a couple decades when there was still the perception that the Cold War would be won economically rather than militarily. The Peace Dividend (that never materialised), coupled with PNAC’s militant misadventurism, swung the pendulum to people too lazy or self-centred to be arsed to serve themselves taking pride in having other people (frequently Other People™) do their fighting for them.
Corner Stone
@Suzanne:
There is really nowhere to go with this argument. Any other category that could be brought up would be faced with making excuses or diminishing an important issue.
Hey, anyone seen the last episode of Game of Thrones? No spoilers!
Ruckus
@donnah:
Their party is more than a political thing for them. It’s almost a religion and sometimes that goes past almost. Conservatives do not want to advance, they want life to be what they think it has been. They are afraid of change, afraid of difference, terrified in fact. This is zero sum thinking, that any change, for example, that a black man getting ahead is taking away from them, any change is coming directly out of them. What we need to show them is that they will benefit far more from that change than from staying in the 15th century. But they have been convinced otherwise.
schrodingers_cat
I don’t know your uncle, but I disagree. I have had this happen on other boards. They know their statements are political if you call them on it, heh it was just a joke and they will accuse you instead of being political. I got censored and then banned on a kitteh site because I called out a polite winger on her BS.
Fuck that shit, stop the bullies getting away because we are too nice.
Fair Economist
@Aleta:
A big change in gaming is the shift to smartphone games. It’s a much less suitable platform for FPS than a desktop.
schrodingers_cat
T is a bully and the only way to deal with bullies is by standing up to them.
Just Some Fuckhead
No. There are vast swathes of folks who can be demagogued to become outraged about black people not conforming.
Someone needs to write up a primer for a conservative outrage stunt, being sure to include the step where ostensible liberals somberly acknowledge they have valid concerns. It’s fucking disgusting.
boatboy_srq
@Another Scott: Understood.
My beef with Vick is that he commited a crime, did some immeasurably stupid things during the investigation and trial for that crime, and practically had an NFL limo waiting outside Leavenworth when he was released to take him back to work.
My beef with the NFL is longstanding as well, and no small part of it is the plantation mentality. Apparently substance abuse, spousal abuse, animal abuse, sexual assault and all sorts of other bad behavior are tolerated in some fashion – frequently because the perpetrators are Those-Other-People-and-what-else-can-you-expect™ – but suggesting there is a social malaise that needs addressing and boy howdy do you catch hell for being Uppity™ like that.
Kaepernick hasn’t done anything illegal, and has arguably done something loudly and courageously visible to protest injustice, and he’s getting more flack than any dozen NFL perps, many of whom have resumed employment as professional players on release.
Betty Cracker
@Ruckus: I’m not holding out any hope Trump supporters will shift perceptions — fuck those morons. But the general public might. I think it’s possible this will backfire on Trump because he won’t let it go.
@debbie: I call bullshit in him all the time! And @moops makes a great point.
Ruckus
@Catherine D.:
I’ve wondered that as well. Kneeling used to be a sign of respect, of deference to something, someone, say the monarch. Isn’t that why religions kneel for prayer?
And all of a sudden it’s the opposite. All because a black man did it? We don’t need politicians to lead conservatives, we need sheep dogs.
trollhattan
@boatboy_srq:
I wonder how many folks know about Kaepernick and Nate Boyer and the source of taking a knee versus sitting?
Lapassionara
@sharl: One of my go to poems. “There is some s#&* I will not eat.”
boatboy_srq
@trollhattan: You want Reichwingnuts to do actual research. That’s so cute.
/s
Seriously: if the Conservatists bothered to look into the origins of this particular source of irritation, they’d be a lot quieter. They’re too busy following Lord Dampnut’s tweets, or tuning in to Alex Jones or Rush or Savage/Weiner, to bother going to that effort.
They’re not merely bigoted, racist, sexist, boors, they’re lazy to boot: remember Conservapedia (because Wikipedia was too Liebrul)? That was a product of not being bothered to do the empirical fact-finding that would have either shot great gaping holes in their fantasies or at least made their fantastical worldview less ridiculous. And look at their conviction that they can catch the Left out lying and cheating to get their agenda (whatever they fantasize that may be) enacted because it has to be so easy: the presumption that they are the only hard workers, when they’re actually shirking every Newton of the heavy lifting, is astonishing.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
I hope you are correct. We’ve been heading in this direction of total devotion to bullshit for a number of decades. Conservatives don’t want change, it’s built in to the concept. But they also don’t want to understand what it is that they are asking/demanding of all of us. The regression of humanity. The subservience of everyone to the wealthy, powerful, the chosen. This country was founded upon the idea of that being wrong, and conservatives have spent the last 241 yrs trying to prove that independence, freedom and equality is wrong.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chyron HR: As a former troop myself, this shit disgusts me no end. Fuck these civilian asswipes.
zhena gogolia
The NYT is in overkill overdrive with Weinstein. Enough already.
sukabi
@boatboy_srq: I think Kaepernick’s “crime” was that he called attention to the beaten, bloodied elephant in the room in the most peaceful, dignified way possible. Add to that that he didn’t have a past to be displayed and denigrated 24 / 7, and he wasn’t just exploiting the cause for personal glorification.
So yes, the yappers have to make this about “patriotism and respect for the military” because if they don’t people might start to notice Kaepernick is an actual leader.
JR
Anthem singer for a major game should sing the Battle Hymn instead of the Star Spangled Banner.
trollhattan
O/T Fortunately there’s nothing the least concerning about an emerging far right party in Austria, fixated on the threat from foreigners and “the other.” Hey, there’s a first time for everyt…oh, wait.
boatboy_srq
@sukabi: EXACTLY. He did something unexpectedly mature, empathetic, and socially-conscious. That, from an Other Person™, is unforgivable – where the usual sex-and-drugs-and-violence stuff, though technically illegal, is only to be expected and at some level forgiven so long as it doesn’t impact the talent and ability to play.
trollhattan
@JR:
Jerry Jones would demand equal time for “Dixie.”
Nelle
@Gretchen: Where in Kansas are you? I’m in Lawrence.
schrodingers_cat
That,patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, is being proven once again
gene108
@trollhattan:
When I was a younger lad, I was told you didn’t get hurricanes in Europe because as they veered into the North Atlantic the ocean waters are not warm enough to sustain hurricanes.
Times change, I guess.
Darkrose
@Laura: I was thinking of going to that! Would be cool for a bunch of Sac Juicers to show up.
Catherine D.
@Ruckus:
And lots of ravines, pits, and cliffs …
PIGL
I am in moderation for typing my email address wrong. My words are strong, but do not refer to any of FYWP’s proscribed entities .
schrodingers_cat
BTW why sing the national anthem for every game? What is the purpose? Its not the fucking Olympics where other countries are competing. Was this always a thing or did it start after 9/11.
Corner Stone
Welp, looks like Omnes is now going to be crying in his cups for a while.
ETA, Rodgers injured perhaps for season.
Villago Delenda Est
@zhena gogolia: Weinstein is the new Hillary Clinton. Anything to avoid pointing out that Donald is just as bad as Weinstein, or worse.
Betty Cracker
@Just Some Fuckhead: What liberals?
A Ghost to Most
@SenyorDave: If it’s good enough for your mother, it’s good enough for me.
El Fucking Moron it is.
HeleninEire
@gene108: Yeah that’s what my wingnut sister told me today. “It’ll slow down, the water’s too cold.”
PIGL
@Suzanne: for what it’s worth, me neither. I’m right there with you in the not buying.
Old Dan and Little Anne
My Uncle who was a Green Beret in Vietnam got into it with my dad about the disrespecting kneelers. My dad said he didn’t much care and my uncke told him to fuck off and atirmee our if rhe house. Goid times. My dad doesn’t care about that, either.
Starfish
@gene108: Cultures that have kids show all this deference to authority are usually “children should be seen and not heard” cultures. This usually has some consequences in the development of vocabulary.
Suzanne
@Corner Stone:
Also a dodge. Just because we cannot solve every social problem doesn’t mean we shouldn’t solve the ones we can.
And I disagree that it is worthless. It is good to know who your allies are. An ally who would rather cheer for a rapist than watch a losing season is not much of an ally.
PIGL
@Catherine D.: there’s an episode in a Thomas Hardy novel, I think maybe “The Mayor of Castlebridge” where a sheepdog comes to a sad end for doing just what I think you have in mind. Our sheep dog, however, will be covered with flowers and fed on chicken. Or the kidneys of his fallen enemies, if he should prefer.
Old Dan and Little Anne
Oi! Where’s the edit button?
moops
The typical conservative forwarding their brand of humor will often whine when you call them out on it and insist it was *just* a joke and want to change the subject. If you can call them out with something witty or clever then it can go down nicely, but even a boring rebuttal will work. I think I prefer the witty and mocking responses. The problem with shutting them down is they will switch to their Political Correctness victim role and dig in harder for Trump who they idolize for his lack of PC filters.
PIGL
@Ruckus: what you said…but with more vitriol. And pretentiousness, because that’s just how I roll.
Ruckus
@boatboy_srq:
I think you are right, it’s far easier to let others take risks while you sit at home and eat Doritos and swill Butt Light. But the people who have thanked me can’t be described by that demographic. The last time I was thanked I told him I didn’t need his thanks and that while I felt his comment was genuinely given, it feels condescending, like I’m expecting it. He served in the navy, just like I did and he didn’t take it that way, but he was also a lot younger than me, if that makes a difference. It feels like that thanks is given in the same way as the complaints about taking a knee in the NFL. A herd response, it’s what you are supposed to do, like hate blacks or stand with hand over heart…… A thought popped into the noggin, we were pulling into port in northern Norway in late November 72 to a Norwegian navy dock. The PTB thought we’d have a brass band and dignitaries greeting us. It was cold and snowing so two Norwegian sailors walked down the pier and handled the ropes, finished and walked away. We were standing at attention in our dress uniforms, freezing our balls off because of course we couldn’t wear pea coats and hid our uniforms. We all noticed that both of the sailors had pony tails down almost to their butts and were giving the ensign standing with us crap about it. We have to have shitty haircuts and military discipline just to exist while other navies did mostly without that crap.
We are an authoritarian country, at our core, from our culture. Changing that takes more than a few slogans and bumper stickers. We’ve made laws that changed that but we didn’t change minds. We have a divided country now because we’ve never even asked the question of how do we change a culture that we refuse to acknowledge.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@sukabi: That’s what made the Bigot Outrage Bingo Square “What’s he even protesting ABOUT?” so disgusting. He was protesting the extrajudicial killings of men, women, and CHILDREN that look like me, by men and women sworn to uphold the law, whose only “consequence” was paid time off, “allowed to resign” – or nothing at all.
The flag/troops/police disrespect square got placed b/c the only thing in this country worse than injustice is bringing it up. The “I agree with their right, but the time/place /manner is inappropriate” square was played for the same reason, and is the dumbest of all. Protest is by definition inconvient and disruptive. “Patriotism” under threat is fascism. Protestors are NOT disrespecting me, and conservatives do NOT speak for me nor do they act in my name.
Suzanne
@PIGL:
“I couldn’t possibly watch this league that won’t re-sign Colin Kaepernick! That’s white supremacy! But the league that employs Ben Roethlisberger…..totes okay. That’s a Private Employment Decision.”
Corner Stone
@Suzanne: Yeah, nothing matters.
Ruckus
@Catherine D.:
LOL
A Ghost to Most
How do you get people who see what they believe to believe what they see?
And if we can’t, what’s next?
StringOnAStick
@trollhattan: We came back from a trip to Austria 3 weeks ago. There were political signs everywhere, but unlike ours they tended to only be a photo of the candidate and a few words. The one that was a obvious RW asshole was a guy with his arms crossed in a hostile fashion and words that included “Islam” and “nicht”. I don’t speak German or Austrian but it didn’t take much to figure out what this guy was against.
What I’ve read is the center right party will win but not enough seats so they will form a coalition with the hard right party. Yuck, but I can’t say that I’m surprised; Austrian is a seriously white place and the undercurrent of authoritarianism isn’t all that “under”.
Ruckus
@PIGL:
Yes I normally add in all the fucks, shits, damns and other words necessary to convey how I feel but for some reason this morning, I’m feeling a bit calmer. Maybe it was because I went to my 50th HS reunion last night and was feeling that it could either be a disaster or a great time. It turned out to be a great time. Saw and talked to people I haven’t seen in decades, some of whom actually recognized me without reading my name tag. I was able to do the same with a number of people.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@moops: This technique is straight out of the “feminists have no sense of humor” playbook.
sharl
This topic came up late yesterday morning, in mistermix’s post on the NYT’s new restrictive social media policy for their reporters and editorial-side employees. Noam Chomsky addressed this situation in his 1988 Manufacturing Consent, specifically in the section Flak and the Enforcers: The Fourth Filter. I won’t re-paste the somewhat lengthy pull quote here – see my comment #106 at mistermix’s post, or Ctrl-F the section title in this online excerpt.
The performative outrage conducted by conservatives that is most dangerous tends to be somewhat well organized, generously funded, and highly targeted, which makes it particularly pernicious.
But anyone can play that game; I see it on Twitter regularly, where it tends to follow a regular pattern:
Step 1. Someone does something bad and/or stupid – maybe it’s a Big thing, or maybe something minor that can be ginned up into something Big.
Step 2 (sometimes missing). People genuinely hurt or offended complain – they may even be friends or allies of the bad/stupid thing-doers – and some of them take the time to explain why the bad/stupid thing was wrong to do or say.
Step 3. The Performative Outrage team shows up. They may have long time grievances against the doers of the bad/stupid thing, or whatever group the latter belongs to. Or they might just be bored shit-stirrers who want to pile on.
Step 4. Other people – or maybe those who complained in Step 2 – smell a disingenuous rat, and start scrolling back into the timelines of the people in Step 3. Quite often they (unsurprisingly) find hard evidence of hypocrisy.
Finally: WIN…I guess…for…someone? everyone?
But yeah, when conducted on an industrial and organized scale by well funded backers seeking to do institutional damage, this is dangerous stuff.
boatboy_srq
@Ruckus: But the people CAN be described by “that demographic.” They are either among the 98% who live and work in the civilian economy, for whom the military are merely air shows and parades and the occasional headline, or they’re the 2% who don the uniform and buy into the idea that because they are serving their country they’re doing something extra above and beyond. They’re the people who grouse about government but can’t be arsed to vote and they’re the people who grouse about Big Gummint while riding their Hoverounds to cash their Social Security cheques or to vote for the latest guy who promises to cut their taxes. And they are DEFINITELY the vendors supplying (often substandard) materiel to the military, making a fortune by skimping on the well-being of the kids they applaud when they go off to fight.
There’s no wealth, education, or other identifiable distinction. If there is any distinction at all, it’s usually Caucasians, and the behavior is largely a function of racism: the armed forces have become the default employer for Those People™. There would not, for example, be the least tolerance for Erik Prince’s recent brainstorm to outsource military operations to “contractors” (i.e. mercenaries) if there weren’t the tacit acceptance that the US has traded slave agricultural labor for indentured-servitude military service.
Another Scott
@Ruckus: I remember you mentioning your apprehension about going – I’m glad it turned into a great evening. Thanks for the report!
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who went to his 10th, but that’s it (so far).)
satby
@Ruckus: and for this comment, thank you!
My Marine son, who did 5 combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, hates it when people thank him for his service. He considers it bullshit.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott: I didn’t know that they had a thing for my 10th, they all thought I was dead*.
*My father(and grandfather) and I shared the same name(I’m a 3 sticks) and my dad died my senior year of college.
chopper
@Old Dan and Little Anne:
soinds likw your uncke is goid peopke.
Suzanne
@Corner Stone:
Bullshit. Plenty of liberals are happy to virtue-signal, as long as it’s comfortable. Don’t shop at Walmart or Hobby Lobby, don’t eat at Chick-Fil-A. That all breaks down as soon as it entails an actual sacrifice—giving up something they actually WANT to do. Then the kind of excuses that tumble out are fucking masterpieces of blather.
I have much more respect for people who say something like, “Yeah, this thing I like is problematic. I acknowledge it, and I am struggling with it. Maybe I can’t give it up entirely, but I could take XYZ action to maybe cut down on the worst excesses.”
Corner Stone
@Suzanne: No you do not. That is bullshit based on your commentary in this thread.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I prefer to masturbate while watching the Texans beat the hapless Browns and then fantasize about how the 53 man roster will go home and choke out their wives/mistresses/girfriends so they can get a good night’s sleep.
Ruckus
@boatboy_srq:
The majority of the times I’ve been thanked have been at the VA, once by a gentleman getting his medical care there through some sort of federal program, as he said he hadn’t served except for 30 yrs for murder. Which I’d guess was entirely possible, given how being in the same room was making me look for the exits. Now I don’t wear a hat with insignia on it, or a vest with patches and pins (and yes these are quite common, at least at the VA) so unless you ask or the subject somehow comes up, PIRL don’t know I’m a vet. So my experience is that a lot of people do thank you for either personal reasons or because they feel like it’s a good thing to do. Most of the people I know, vets, don’t consider it a good thing, don’t appreciate it.
The people that have told me are serving still and have served, it is genuine to them, not just a thing to do. They aren’t the 98%.
Suzanne
@Corner Stone: By all means, do tell me how I think and feel.
Steve in the ATL
Dotard continues to ruin America as the Falcons lose to the Dolphins. Cutler for MVP!
Corner Stone
@Suzanne: Exactly.
Suzanne
@Corner Stone: I’m enjoying the logical and rhetorical knots you’re tying yourself into in an effort to disregard my point. The point is that it’s hypocritical. Whatever.
Another Scott
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Sorry about your dad. That must have been rough. :-(
It sounds like you need to go to at least one, if only just to hear the – “Billin?!!? Is that you? I thought you were dead!!1” gasps.
:-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Corner Stone
@Suzanne: The point is that people do have issues with the NFL and its conduct. But if they weren’t inclusive of the issue you felt that should be determinitive then it was not good enough. Everything was a dodge, a side-step, an acceptance of a whole class of people being guilty for something actual people did.
Brachiator
@H.E.Wolf:
I did not know this poem. I think it’s wonderful.
In reading about it, I came across a piece in the Atlantic, about a kid shaken out of adolescent indifference by his teacher’s reading of the poem.
Alexander Maksik became a writer. And his conclusions about the poem should warm the hearts of any resisters in this age of Trump.
Catherine D.
@PIGL: Must re-read! I read most of Hardy, but it was years ago.
A Ghost to Most
@satby:
It’s a dog whistle to like-minded fools. I hate it too.
low-tech cyclist
@Suzanne:
I stopped watching football at all levels about 5 years back because of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ writing about CTE. I honestly don’t understand how anyone can keep watching, once they know that what they’re watching is young men’s brains being disastrously scrambled.
Since I’ve pretty much stopped paying attention to football altogether since then, I can’t say I’m up on the other issues you mention.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
Silly me. I thought the liberal position was that criminals who have completed their sentences are supposed to be allowed back into society and given a second chance. I guess for some crimes and some criminals they’re supposed to be shunned by polite society and denied gainful employment. Good to know.
encephalopath
This dynamic really is representative of the way Trumpism works, though. They would pluck out their own eyes or burn down this own houses to prevent brown people from receiving the full benefits of being Americans.
The the case of the anthem protests, long established symbols of reverence and respect become inverted. Kneeling, even if it has nothing to do with the anthem, is booed by these people. And now the anthem itself has to be hidden just so white people don’t have to listen to the voices of black Americans.
So if the anthem isn’t going to be shown on teevee anymore, is the DoD going to ask for its money back for all the paid-for military worship services at NFL games that nobody is going to see?
Steve in the ATL
@low-tech cyclist:
Georgia Bulldogs are 7-0. Now you are up to speed on all important issues relating to football.
A Ghost to Most
@Roger Moore: I get this, but wonder how we apply it to Rump cultists down the road.
low-tech cyclist
It was one thing to blow one weekend, or even a week, on this thing that’s gotten inside Trump’s brain. But it’s way past time to say Trump wants to talk about kneeling during the anthem rather than:
* Puerto Rico
* ACA sabotage
* CHIP
* Las Vegas
* North Korea
* Iran
* Hell, even unarmed black men getting gunned down by the cops, which was the (now largely lost) point of the protest in the first place.
I’m really, really tired of running after whatever shiny object the Orange Abomination is chasing this week.
Suzanne
@Corner Stone: People haven’t had issues with the NFL and its conduct—at least no issues worth truly protesting—until it became a way to choose and express Which Side You’re On in the culture wars. That is shitty.
Much of the discussion surrounding Weinstein right now is focusing on how many people in his orbit knew and covered up or turned a blind eye or kissed and made up out of a desire to preserve their careers. Those people are rightly being criticized for that. I genuinely believe that NFL fans who knew about the shitty things the NFL has done for years yet who continued to buy tickets and merchandise and never did so much as leave a tweet saying something like “Hey NFL, stop being a bunch of shitheads” are similarly open to criticism.
It’s just interesting (read: disheartening) to see what the lines in the sand are for people.
boatboy_srq
@Ruckus:
This puts you among servicepeople and the professionals that serve servicepeople. This is a distinct segment, and that sense you’re right.
But that group accounts for the merest fraction of US society. And your “Doritos-chomping, ButtLite-swilling” segment only accounts for a small percentage as well. The range that do the TYFYS two-step are widespread.
I work in NoVA, which is US Federal Contractor central. TYFYS is big here – despite the fact that none of the people using that phrase would dream of living in communities where most contemporary servicepeople grew up and call home. Before moving here I was in Tampa Bay (somebody alert Betty Cracker – I’m admitting that we’ve lived in the same part of the world here) is equally TYFYS: the economy is very CENTCOM-centric, although it bleeds into the financial, medical and entertainment sectors pretty quickly. Ocala is too, and that’s cattle-and-horse country. It’s a big part of FundiEvangelism, although finding Fundies that volunteer AFTER conversion is difficult for the same reasons. You see signs of TYFYSism in Arlington, Longboat Key, Miami Beach, Charlotte, Baltimore and Boston – and again, it’s often visible among the communities that would never think of sending their kids off to fight, and are making the gesture as much from relief as anything else. The only times I’ve sensed any sincerity in the sentiment is from the younger generation of servicepeople to their service elders (because they get what a sacrifice service is) and from the communities whose sons and daughters and husbands and wives are the ones that go.
Roger Moore
@moops:
I wonder if playing dumb and asking them to explain it to you would work as well for offensive jokes as it does for crazy conspiracy theories.
boatboy_srq
@encephalopath: Perhaps the people insisting that the whole kneeling thing isn’t about racial inequity haven’t actually read the anthem’s third verse:
Emphasis added.
Racism, and slavery, are baked into the piece, as they are baked into the founding moments of the US. Protesting the anthem, by the descendants of those impacted by the events of 1812-15, is entirely legitimate when the language of this verse is included. But of course starting that dialogue would be as likely to be the nation’s undoing as – well, at least as the consequences of the election of 2016, certainly.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
His debt to the law is settled for the crimes he’s convicted of. There’s also a court of public opinion and dog killers aren’t generally welcome. Nevertheless he went back to the sports-entertainment business. If Cosby were 25 years younger and went to prison for his crimes then earned parole, I would not pay to see him perform live. I will likewise not line up and pay to get OJ’s autograph, buy O’Reilly’s next “Killing” book, subscribe to McAfee’s software. “Dead to me” is a very applicable sentence.
joel hanes
@Roger Moore:
>> why … men in this country have an authoritarian streak.
> Because patriarchy and white supremacy put them ahead of Those People.
I’d call that partially true, and a bit misleading.
Even rhesus monkeys have an emotional reaction to unfairness, and most people find
unfairness upsetting. It grates when you get seriously penalized for wearing a red shirt,
but you see that some other person wears a red shirt and draws no penalty.
I was raised by in an authoritarian, patriarchal family, and I’d describe the mechanism thus :
– when you’re a kid, particularly a male kid, being raised by an authoritarian father, there are
consequences for not obeying, and for “not respecting” e.g. backtalk or arguing . Those consequences
are often physical.
– physical punishment produces rage in the punished, which must be swallowed, because
no backtalk and no “disrespect”
– so now you’re an adult and you see some person who doesn’t “obey”, or act with “respect”
THAT’S UNFAIR: YOU HAD TO OBEY AND SHUT UP.
All the anger you had to swallow (internalize) when you were punished for not “obeying” is triggered;
the obvious remedy is to use or threaten physical punishment to make the non-conformist “obey”
or “show respect”
And so authoritarianism tends to propagate down the generations.
No Drought No More
“There are vast swathes of folks who see taking a knee during the national anthem as tantamount to pissing on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and pooping on Mom’s apple pie”.
I could have told you that by my senior year in high school, over 40 years ago. During my 1st period P.E. class, in the last week of my senior year, I refused to stand for the pledge of allegiance. It was not a political act or statement; I merely reasoned that after 12 years of popping up like a jack-in-the-box every morning, I’d sit that pledge out. A “coach” was not amused. That motherfucker had the nerve to tell me (on the way to the vice principal’s office) that it was a disgrace that “good Marines had died” for the likes of me.
The Watergate committee was in session that day, too, if memory serves, or it was about to convene.
And here we all are again, all these years later, suffering insult by the same birdbrains a generation removed, with their same lame, republican party, birdbrain bullshit..
trollhattan
@Suzanne:
Guessing there’s a metric shitton of Weinstein clones quaking in their shiny loafers at the moment. Witnesses/victims are flooding in, emboldened by those who have gone before and they’re the tip of a regrettable iceberg.
trollhattan
@No Drought No More:
So many moments in the Nixon portion of “Vietnam” had the hair raising on my neck in how it echoes Trump, especially some damning piece of information went public and his first response was not to defend himself, but to find the leak.
Ruckus
@boatboy_srq:
I also live in CA, and I’d bet there are significant differences on that as well, even though the served/didn’t serve ratio is the same. It’s different 20 miles from where I live to where I work.
zhena gogolia
@PIGL:
It’s in Far from the Madding Crowd. A heartbreaking scene.
Brachiator
@boatboy_srq:
Nobody knows the third verse of the Star Spangled Banner (or the second verse, for that matter).
No one is protesting the national anthem. They are using that time to protest the mistreatment and murder of their fellow citizens.
Oddly enough, the events of the War of 1812 didn’t amount to much. The US got its nose bloodied and a return of the status quo, mainly because the UK had more serious problems with that Napoleon dude. All we got out of it was a shitty song.
zhena gogolia
@Villago Delenda Est:
Oh, but according to a letter to the editor that they printed, DJT is a choirboy compared to HW.
The fact that he’s also POTUS seems to have escaped them.
Ruckus
@joel hanes:
I think this is true. You are what you have learned. To change you have to either see the learning as wrong as it’s happening or you have to relearn to be different. And to relearn an upbringing is difficult.
jonas
@StringOnAStick:
Actually, by law all they’re allowed to show is the candidate’s picture, party, and a brief slogan. When you can begin campaigning is also regulated. It’s actually kind of nice for a country (and this is true across much of Europe) to not be in continual campaign mode.
Gretchen
@Nelle: suburban Kansas City – Prairie Village
Villago Delenda Est
@A Ghost to Most: Yup. Every Veterans’ Day, the vets of BJ bemoan it as well.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
And of course a lot of those protesting the protesting don’t want to believe that the cops did anything other than shoot a felon in the middle of a murder, even though the man was reaching for his wallet to get his DL after being stopped for a none existent problem – like a not burnt out taillight, or is 12 and sitting on a park bench not doing anything, or, or, or, or………… And if they didn’t protest and try to change the whole topic from protesting murder to disrespecting the troops, then more people might actually find out the truth and decide to not support their racist bullshit.
Gretchen
@Suzanne: Several years ago Ta-Nehisi Coates was a huge football fan, but became troubled as news of concussion damage started to come out, and publicly struggled with his desire to watch while knowing it was causing injuries. He wrote quite a few blog posts about it. He finally decided he had to give up football-watching.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yep. Memorial day is fine. Vets day just seems like cheerleading to get others to join in the fun of serving. Reminds me of National Headache Day. I don’t need to be reminded of either.
Suzanne
@Gretchen: I read all of that at the time. I really appreciated it. It’s hard to give up something you enjoy. I am glad that he was honest about it: it was him weighing the sacrifice of not watching something he enjoyed vs the injuries to players. He never tried to justify it, which is what made it genuine.
Sam
Any soldier knows taking a knee is not disrespectful. I saw soldiers doing that many times, usually in front of memorials to their dead comrades, all of which had many American flags.
If Trump was actually a patriot and not a blowhard, he would know that.
People who strongly object to taking a knee are showing their political colors, not their patriotism. Period.
Nelle
@Gretchen: Let me know if you would like to meet up sometime!
Gretchen
Joel Hanes: That’s a really interesting take on this that I hadn’t thought of.
Villago Delenda Est
@Sam: This is a guy who didn’t realize what he was supposed to do when Retreat was sounded.
Doug!
I hate Tom Hanks and I hate Forrest Gump
PIGL
@zhena gogolia: Thanks! Like much Great Literature, I enjoyed the first parts, but could not finish it. I remember that sad vignette well, though.
Anonymous patient
@Fair Economist:
I don’t think Baptists ever kneel to pray. They look up towards their lord, but never kneel to anyone. Unless they want to. But you can’t make them kneel. Sorry!
Anonymous patient
Plus, forcing people to make a patriotic display is the very opposite of patriotism!!
boatboy_srq
@Brachiator:
No, they’re not. But looking at the context, perhaps they should. What’s missing from most of the dialogue about the battle for Baltimore is that British units (which by that time had taken much US territory, including Washington) had been freeing US slaves and arming them as British irregulars. Britain had been moving toward abolishing slavery for some time, and had prohibited the trade seven years before the siege of Baltimore – and it was only natural to use their enemy’s slaves against them. Key’s third verse is celebrating the defeat (and presumably extermination) of those irregular units.
What Key is celebrating in the Star Spangled Banner is not the survival of a free nation, but the survival of a nation of free white males.
If nobody’s making any noise about that, then it’s only because it’s one more part of the US’ chequered past that nobody on either side has so far felt compelled to address.
Tehanu
Didn’t Tim Tebow take a knee during the anthem some years back, protesting that “I won’t stand as long as the flag protects abortion”? Where were all the complainers then? (It’s a rhetorical question….)
Boatboy_srq
@Tehanu: White dude pandering to Xtianists and protesting Big Gummint. Totes different.
/s