Penalties for Kneeling Being Considered

Oh, Lord. The protest is nothing short of racism in America as dispensed by disproportionate police violence against people of color and hundreds of other things. Their protest is in how America was founded, how it has systematically destroyed the collective hope and progress of people of color and how it continues to do so in a nation that claims to be non-racist but is in fact asleep on racism, so embedded it is in our collective mind, so entrenched in our sociopolitical DNA. Being "woke" is to acknowledge, and then pledge to fight against not only racism but the very act of being asleep on racism, which is racist in itself.

The protest is precisely that large. It is a totalizing thing. If there's one thing the NFL doesn't get, it's that the act of protesting in the point. Not the national anthem. That isn't the point. The point is to protest, and the anthem is a vehicle for that. Not being on the field isn't a protest. It's an absence.

As I talked about on the cultural appropriation thread, for me I'm always - perhaps cynically so - drawn to the upshot. OK, you feel this way, I hear ya, now...how can we get a little for you and keep that person over there happy with the compromise, too? And I see no particular upshot beyond total re-orientation of American minds to see things a certain way - apparently how you see them, although I wouldn't call your explanation of them artful - after which the policy prescriptives will become evident.

I'm on board for disarming cops in most situations. I'm on board for mass reduction of penalties on drug laws and a constitutional amendment that caps what states and cities and counties can charge for infractions like an expired sticker on a license plate or proof of insurance or parking tickets.

What's your idea?

 

I am on board for holding police accountable - I would throw the fucking book at cops when the police report doesn't jibe with video. Shit, everyone in the moment of battle can make a mistake, itchy trigger, nerves (the female cop approaching the black guy in an altered state on a two lane highway in flyover country a couple of years ago - she was acquitted).
But when cops after the fact cover stuff up... jeez.

I would also think it would be wise to amp down the rhetoric on this issue. The president calling players "sons of bitches" for their stance - that is bullshit.

I also think, since the NFLPA did such a terrible job negotiating their last CBA, that the owners have every right to impose whatever legal means they have on this "issue". This has the possibility to really, really have an economic effect on the once-impenetrable NFL. Kaep and Reid have lost their jobs over this. There is a price for them to pay for protesting.

 

Nobody is changing anybody's mind on any of this.

 

Well, nobody's changing my mind over this. But then again, I am always right.

 

Just so.

Me?

I'm waiting to hear more from Godard.

 

Nobody can control Donald Trump. If we have to rely on him amping anything down, might as well protest for his impeachment and removal from office.

 

Marchers gather at Seattle Center, call for Trump impeachment

 

The Onion is the best thing about the internet.

Jerry Jones Offers To Pay Players' Fines For Domestic Violence

 

Here's what eats at me about the "protests over the protests."

I'm not saying this is 100% true, but so many of the people who say things like "leave the country if you don't like it" believe this is all about the military. And the anthem is not all about the military.

So, the dim-witted take the stance that refusing to honor the anthem is symbolically equivalent to spitting on military graves. Well, it's not. It's about a lot of other things.

So they can all stop saying, "They're disrespecting our soldiers." Fuck that. That's not what this was about, and anyone who thinks that it is should be shouted down continuously.

And, of course, Trump simply escalated the wrongful discourse. As he tends to do.

(If this repeats anything said earlier, I apologize. It's 29 pages.)

 

It is a curious thing ... even if one were to stipulate that the anthem is “all about the military” ... this country sure as hell isn’t.

 

Why should it be? War is hell, etc.

 

Well, we shouldn’t ignore the sacrifices that have been made to further the proposition(s) to which the country is dedicated. But those certainly aren’t the be-all/end-all.