Knuckledraggers protest
#160742
09/25/2017 03:50 AM
09/25/2017 03:50 AM
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Knuckledraggers protest backfires. Americans Nationwide Burn NFL Tickets, Shirts in Solidarity With Trump Steelers Coach Didn’t Want Army Vet To Stand For Anthem Villanueva, a former Army Ranger who served three tours in Afghanistan, was the only Steelers player to stand for the anthem ![[Linked Image]](http://americanmilitarynews.com/wp-content/uploads/20170924115936-1-600x338.jpg) In 2016 Villanueva commented on Kaepernick’s protests saying, “I don’t know if the most effective way is to sit down during the national anthem with a country that’s providing you freedom, providing you $16 million a year … when there are black minorities that are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan for less than $20,000 a year.”
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
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Re: Knuckledraggers protest
#160746
09/26/2017 03:41 AM
09/26/2017 03:41 AM
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Will NFL Demand Respect for Old Glory?
By Patrick J. Buchanan
“America refuses to address the pervasive evil of white cops killing black men, and I will not stand during a national anthem that honors the flag of such a country!”
That is the message Colin Kaepernick sent by “taking a knee” during the singing of “The Star Spangled Banner” before San Francisco ’49s games in 2016. No NFL owner picked up his contract in 2017. But a few players began to copy Colin and to “take a knee.”
Friday night in Alabama, President Trump raged that any NFL player who disrespects Old Glory is a “son of a b—-h” who ought to be kicked off the field and fired by his team’s owner. And if the owners refuse to do their patriotic duty, the fans should take a walk on the NFL.
And so the stage was set for NFL Sunday.
Two hundred players, almost all black, knelt or sat during the national anthem. The Patriots’ Tom Brady stood in respect for the flag, while locking arms in solidarity with kneeling teammates.
The Pittsburgh Steelers coach kept his team in the locker room. Steeler Alejandro Villanueva, an ex-Army Ranger and combat vet, came out and stood erect and alone on the field.
For NFL players, coaches, commentators, owners and fans, it was an uncomfortable and sad day. And it is not going to get any better. Sundays with the NFL, as a day of family and friends, rest and respite from the name-calling nastiness of American politics, is over.
The culture war has come to the NFL. And Trump will be proven right. Having most players stand respectfully during the national anthem, while locking arms with other players sitting or kneeling in disrespect of the flag, is a practice the NFL cannot sustain.
The mega-millionaire and billionaire owners of NFL franchises are going to have to come down off the fence and take a stand.
The issue is not the First Amendment. It is not whether players have a right to air their views about what cops did to Michael Brown in Ferguson, or Eric Garner in Staten Island, or Freddie Gray in Baltimore. Players have a right to speak, march in protest, or even burn the flag.
The question NFL owners are going to have to answer soon with a definitive “yes” or “no” is this: Do players, before games, have a right, as a form of protest, to dishonor and disrespect the flag of the United States and the republic for which it stands? Or is that intolerable conduct that the NFL will punish?
Trump is taking a beating from owners, players and press for being “divisive.” But he did not start this fight or divide the country over it.
Kaepernick did, and the players who emulated him, and the coaches and owners who refuse to declare whether insulting the flag is now permissible behavior in the NFL.
As Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Sunday, team owners and Commissioner Roger Goodell have strict rules for NFL games. No NASCAR-type ads on uniforms. Restrictions on end-zone dances. All shirttails tucked in. Certain behavior on the field can call forth 15-yard penalties for unsportsmanlike conduct, or even expulsion from the game.
Our Supreme Court has denied coaches of public high school teams the right to gather players for voluntary prayer before games. Why not an NFL rule requiring players to stand respectfully silent during the national anthem, and, if they refuse, suspend them from play for that day?
Or will the NFL permit indefinite disrespect for the flag of the United States for vastly privileged players whose salaries put them in the top 1 percent of Americans?
If watching players take a knee on the gridiron before every game, in insult to the flag, is what fans can expect every week, Trump again is right: The NFL fan base will dissipate.
Sunday’s game exposed a clash of loyalties in the hearts of NFL players. Do black players stand in solidarity with Kaepernick? Do white players stand beside black teammates, if that means standing with them as they disrespect the flag under which hundreds of thousands of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have died?
This conflict in loyalties among NFL players mirrors that of our country, as America divides and our society disintegrates over issues of morality, patriotism, race and culture.
We have been here before. At the Mexico City Olympics of 1968, gold and bronze medal-winning sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos each raised a black-gloved fist as a sign of solidarity with Black America, and not the nation they were sent to represent.
A month later, America elected Richard Nixon.
In terms of fame and fortune, no professions have proven more rewarding for young black American males than the NFL and the NBA.
Whether they soil their nest is, in the last analysis, up to them.
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
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Re: Knuckledraggers protest
#160747
09/26/2017 08:32 AM
09/26/2017 08:32 AM
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Tulsa
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Stop wrapping the flag around pro sports. Another great essay by Ryan McMaken at the Mises Institute. Desperate to fill hours and hours of air time on 24-hour news channels, media corporations have made sure the discussion of the correct posture of National Football League players has been front and center. Apparently, before grown men can chase a little toy around a grassy field for a few hours, it's absolutely essential that they take part in a variety of pro-government rituals. This was not always the case, though, and prior to the twentieth century, it was hardly expected that a ballgame be preceded by a recitation of the national anthem or any other song of national allegiance. Indeed, the current pantomime in which NFL players are expected to stand at attention for the national anthem is of extremely recent origin. As Tom Curran pointed out on Comcast Sportsnet, prior to 2009, football players "weren't on the field for the national anthem and instead generally remained in the locker room." And why did players start making a display of their "patriotism" in 2009? It turns out the government gave them taxpayer money to do so: In 2009, Barack Obama's Department of Defense began paying hundreds of thousands towards teams in a marketing strategy designed to show support for the troops and increase recruitments. The NFL then required all players and personnel to be on the sidelines during the national anthem, in exchange for taxpayers dollars. Prior, the national anthem was played in the stadium but players had the option of staying in the locker room before heading out to the field.
Furthermore, teams that showed "Veteran's Salutes" during games were paid upwards of $5.1 million dollars. In total, 6.8 million in taxpayer money was doled out to sports teams — mostly NFL teams — for so-called "paid patriotism." When the Pittsburgh Steelers elected to stay in the locker room during the anthem this past Sunday, this was denounced by many as "boycotting" the national song, although this would have just been standard practice a decade ago. Playing the Anthem: A "Tradition" Promoted by WarNot surprisingly, if we look into the history of playing the national anthem at sporting events, we find war was an important factor. Before the First World War, playing the national anthem or sporting events was quite rare. No one expected it to be done, and hiring a band was expensive. According to mlb.com, the most conspicuous early use of the national anthem was at game 1 of the 1918 World Series during World War I. Unexpectedly, during the seventh-inning stretch, a military band played the national anthem in an effort to liven up a reportedly surly and war-wearied group of spectators. Use of the anthem spread from there. The anthem's use expanded even more during the Second World War, as Matt Soniak notes: During World War II, baseball games again became venues for large-scale displays of patriotism, and technological advances in public address systems allowed songs to be played without a band. "The Star-Spangled Banner" was played before games throughout the course of the war, and by the time the war was over, the pregame singing of the national anthem had become cemented as a baseball ritual, after which it spread to other sports. But even after the war, the habit of playing the anthem at every game was not firmly in place until the Vietnam war. In most cases, the use of the anthem was not directly subsidized as it was with the taxpayer-funded paid-patriotism scam. Usually, team owners quite voluntarily employed the anthem as a marketing gimmick. In times of war, team owners were happy to use the anthem as a type of advertising to make an emotional connection between the customers — i.e., the spectators — and the team's product. Wrapping a commercial product in the flag and apple pie to increase sales is hardly unique to pro sports. But pro sports may have used this tactic more successfully than any other industry. Unfortunately for the NFL, this tried-and-true marketing strategy may be backfiring as the teams' employees — and surely many spectators as well — see no problem with using the anthem ritual as an opportunity to make a political statement. The result has been a marketing nightmare for the league. Although this has been taken up by politicians such as Donald Trump as a matter of critical importance, it really should be viewed as just a private business matter. Tho Bishop has noted that, as private firms, each team should be free to discipline or fire any employee who might cause customer displeasure or a loss of revenue for the team. The question of course, is whether it might be even worse — in terms of earnings — for a team to eliminate its most talented athletes. That's a business decision the owners will have to make. Everything Is PoliticalTo a certain extent, though, the pro sports industry has called down the current controversy on itself. Having wrapped their product in the political garb of Old Glory and the national anthem for decades, team owners are now having to pay the piper. Since many of their customers now expect pro sports to be political — but only political in a way that matches their particular ideology — team owners now face a headache that could have been totally avoidable. It didn't have to be this way. In recent years, many reasonable observers have complained that society is becoming increasingly politicized. Today, it's easy to find ways in which once apolitical activities have been ruined by ideological posturing. Late night talk shows are now essentially hard-left propaganda. Selling tacos is denounced as "cultural appropriation," and every Hollywood awards show is now a series of political speeches. In the case of professional sports, however, there's nothing recent about this sort of politicization. For nearly a century, pro sports have been politicized through their habitual use of the American state's symbols and songs. The Pentagon knows this, which is why it so enthusiastically shoveled millions of dollars of taxpayer money at the NFL as part of an advertising blitz. But even back in 1918, the US government knew the potential of politicizing sporting events. This is why, during the 1918 World Series, the Navy made sure it had a recruiting station at Wrigley Field. The NFL - and indeed all professional sports teams - make it a habit of extorting hundreds of millions of dollars from cities to build their stadiums for them, in exchange for having the honor of having a team in their city. I suspect it's going to be quite a bit harder for them to get the taxpayers to agree to this from now on. Onward and upward, airforce
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Re: Knuckledraggers protest
#160748
09/27/2017 05:42 AM
09/27/2017 05:42 AM
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My American Legion post will not be showing any more NFL games on their TV. And now DirecTV is offering refunds on their NFL packages . Subscribers to AT&T Inc.’s DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket who want to cancel the service because of football players’ national anthem protests can get refunds, according to customer service representatives.
The protests, which started with some players kneeling during the anthem to protest racial inequality, has expanded to teams and even owners linking arms in a show of unity. The issue has been magnified by tweets from President Donald Trump, who called the protests “disgraceful” and encouraged fans to boycott the NFL.
AT&T is the exclusive home of the Sunday Ticket, which offers the full slate of Sunday afternoon NFL games. The telecommunications company declined to comment.
The TV football package costs almost $300 a season, though AT&T offers various promotions and monthly pricing options.
DirecTV normally has a no-cancellation policy for Sunday Ticket. The Wall Street Journal reported the refunds earlier Tuesday. Onward and upward, airforce
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Re: Knuckledraggers protest
#160749
09/27/2017 06:26 AM
09/27/2017 06:26 AM
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Even Ron Paul said it's disgusting and called for a boycott.
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
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Re: Knuckledraggers protest
#160753
10/08/2017 01:09 PM
10/08/2017 01:09 PM
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Tulsa
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Colin Kaepernick now says he will stand for the national anthem is he is signed by a team. Or he can go flip burgers at McDonald's. Personally, I don't care. ...NEW YORK (AP) — Quarterback Colin Kaepernick has told CBS that he would stand during the national anthem if given a chance to play football in the NFL again.
According to a report by Jason La Canfora on Sunday, Kaepernick has been living in New York and working out privately in New Jersey with the hope of signing with a team this season.
Kaepernick kneeled during the national anthem last season to bring more attention to the killings of black men by police officers. The protests spread this season after the former San Francisco 49er was unable to sign on with another team.
The issue has grown this season as Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett recently said he was racially profiled by Las Vegas police during a confrontation, and President Donald Trump aggressively chastised players and owners for protesting during the anthem. Onward and upward, airforce
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Re: Knuckledraggers protest
#160754
10/09/2017 05:31 AM
10/09/2017 05:31 AM
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Tulsa
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KISS is more patriotic than the NFL. I wish I could go back in time about forty years and tell myself that yes, someday, this will be true. Onward and upward, airforce
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![[Linked Image]](https://hw.infowars.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/mike-rowe-fb2.jpg)
