Here’s an Idea…
Colin Kaepernick and other athletes have received unmitigated grief from the late Bob McNair to none other than The Donald about protesting police brutality during the national anthem at their games. Up until a few days ago, league owners and commissioners have responded to such protests with everything from benign neglect to outright hostility. Fox Noise and their ilk have vilified protesting athletes by lying that they’re “disrespecting the flag” and other false equivalencies. Now it’s all stirred up again after the murder by Minneapolis police of George Floyd where the nation’s conscience was truly moved to actually doing something about systemic racism that is pervasive and especially manifest through the violence visited upon ethic groups, especially African Americans. States are finally removing Confederate monuments that were erected decades after the Civil War; policing policies are being changed all over the country. Colin Kaepernick is actually in discussion with the Seattle Seahawks after 4 years of being exiled from the NFL for daring to protest actual and deadly police brutality.
And here we go again. As the big athletic leagues finally retreat from their white supremacist stance in the name of unity, all the right-wingers on social media are most indignant about “disrespecting the flag” and other such drivel. This is one of those subjects where everyone gets offended. Right-wingers get pissed about people not standing at attention with hand over heart for the Star Spangled Banner, but then get oddly just as indignant when not allowed to wave the main flag of treason against the US, the Confederate battle flag. I’m like, make up your fucking mind. Do you support the US or treason? You can’t do both.
So, here’s my idea – Let’s just go back to the way it used to be…let’s just play ball and leave the jingoism at home. No national anthem, no marching soldiers, no football-field-sized American flags, no cynical teary eyed reunions with Dad just home from active duty posing as the catcher for little Johnny to discover after the first pitch. We can leave all the fighter jets in their hangars while their pilots can spend their weekends with family instead of smoke trailing flyovers over 100,000 drunk rednecks with blazing barbecue pits ready for NASCAR racers to drive in circles for hours in cars plastered with beer company and M&Ms advertisements.
Just dropping all these fake patriotic rituals would be a great relief for millions of us, not force professional athletes to choose between obedience and conscience, and would save thousands of hours of airtime on television, not to mention the millions of dollars spent by the US government showing off it’s latest example of overspending on new war toys. And, how refreshing it would be to get baseball games back to under 4 hours.
Enough already. Let’s just stop all this goofy jingoism. Problem solved.
El Jefe:
1That would be awesome. And now would be the time to try to start the conversation, while it’s all academic because no sports are playing. But when game days start, networks will go with what sells advertising. And Fox sports will kick everybody’s ass.
Good, simple idea, EJ. Given owners’eagerness always to run the wrong way, they seem unlikely to be receptive.
2Jingoism is faux patriotism. Cowards put magnets on their cars that say “Support out troops”and other no risk b.s. Professional sports have gone along with this and accepted pentagon bribes (cash, paid advertising)) to do so.
3Not to mention the fact that I look at those fly-over planes and think about all the fossil fuel they’re spending to do nothing but shriek, “U.S. Number 1!” then look at my solar panels and electric car and other efforts to lower consumption and think, “Why do I bother?”
And that’s not even to mention the wedge issue of, “Number 1! Number 1!” when we could be spending that energy to get along with one another. No chest pounding required.
What a novel idea you’ve come up with EJ.
4I’ve never understood this compulsion to ‘pledge allegiance’ every time a damn ball is put into play. It always seemed so unnecessary and propagandistic. I know where I live, thanks. I figure the ONLY time an anthem should be played is at an international match where teams represent nations. If I never see or hear TSSB at a sporting event again, I won’t miss it.
5Right wingers want to feel like they own the flag, along with patriotism and Jesus. Symbolism over substance. So much shit has been flung at us wrapped in patriotic and religious symbolism. If your 22 year old child comes back from the middle east war factory in a coffin covered with a flag you are comforted in knowing that just like God you sacrificed your child to save others – or so you are lead to believe. More flags, bigger flags, my flag lapel pin is bigger than yours. When a politician walks onto a stage festooned with dozens of large flags it just seems like a lot of bright colors meant to distract.
6The flag is a piece of fabric and I don’t pledge to fabric!!!
7But it does have meaning… the white strips show who’s in charge, the red strips indicate the blood of the workers, minorities, slaves, etc that keeps the blue area of the rich …well rich. And the stars show the few 1% with all the wealth & power.
So why would I respect or pledge to the flag????
Sports guru Howard Bryant has a great book that addresses all this sports/military/”patriotism”. It’s The Heritage.
Also, read Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
8It seems this all started out when our military was hurting for recruits, before the Gulf War…this was a cheap and easy recruitment effort for our Military…After the first ten years of war, recruitment was flagging, so to speak, so they, the military along with PR folks thought that a venue such as an arena filled with young fans would be a great place to advertise, “Be all You can Be”…sort of thing…and it now has morphed into right wing talking point…False Patriotism, his how Hitler and Mussolini and other fascists, came to power…along with holding up a Bible for photo events…
9I see your “stop jingoism at sporting events” and raise you to “can we just skip sports altogether?”
10The money, the emotional investment, the tax dollars for stadiums could all go to better purposes than enriching club owners and creating a new class of athleto-1%ers. Money spent on sports gambling (pro and college) dwarfs actual sports revenues by at least a 3 to 1 ratio, most of it happening under the auspices of organized crime. Once you know where the real money is, you know that sports are really about the spread. And the guys who control illegal gambling are people who are not afraid to exert certain pressures in the pursuit of profit.
Flyovers and other patriotic military displays are paid for by DOD. Our tax dollars at work?
11Great thoughts here, El Jefe. I sent them to Pete Carroll and suggested it was past time to do the right thing.
12On the subject of “respecting the flag”…
https://i.imgur.com/7MxeK19.jpg
13Many Seahawks’ fans wanted Colin Kaepernick three years ago.
https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/seahawks/the-seahawks-pete-carroll-regrets-not-signing-colin-kaepernick-in-2017-heres-how-to-right-that-wrong/
14How about we all embrace our ideals rather than destroy them in the process of protecting our symbols.
15I wish this proposal would go through but I am afraid there are just too many participates that are too simple minded to absorb the meaning behind it. They won’t go for it and they will claim you are trying to impose Sharia law. Without knowing what that is.
People assume that just because you go to church you are righteous and religious. You might be, but you could just as well have a stack of dead bodies of children in your basement.
They also assume you cheer at the flag and do the pledge and stuff like that you are patriotic. You might be, but most people doing so wouldn’t know what patriotism is.
16No anthems, flyovers, or military payments to the NFL for commercial purposes (if they were patriotic displays they’d be allowed at no charge) – – just like the Founding Fathers of Football intended.
17Suzanne Melton @ 14:
You’d think the owners would have felt which way the wind was beginning, at least, to blow when Nike’s online sales went off the charts after they aired the ad of Kaepernick kneeling.
Oh sure, some “patriots” might have bought the shoes just to burn them — until everyone else’ pointing and snickering caught their attention. But the vast majority bought them in solidarity. And those shoes ain’t cheap.
But noooooooo. It’s taken the owners this long [and how many deaths?] to cotton onto the fact that there’s profits in Kaepernick and the fans will love them if they hire him back.
18Thank you, El Jefe, for calling out those cynical “reunions” happening not just at sporting events but at schools and other places kids should be safe from prying network cameras. I thought it was just me who found them astoundingly heartless. I simply can’t imagine coming home after months away and WAITING until the cameras roll to see my kids. Heck, I couldn’t wait to see my kids after 8 hours at work. What kind of parent does this?
(And yeah, as a kid in elementary school in the 50s I thought it dumb to be pledging to a piece of cloth every morning. I guess I started young.)
19Drop all the flag-waving, anthem-playing, and military displays at sports venues? That SO works for me. Great idea! Bring it on!
20In addition, since I can’t edit my comment above: Bring Colin Kaepernick back, too, next season. He should never have been let go in the first place. The man can play football!
21Agreed. I, too, was puzzled from a young age about pledging allegiance to a piece of cloth, and the national anthem at sports events has never seemed right to me. I usually don’t participate. Besides all that, it’s a just plain awful song, both the lyrics and the unsingable tune. I would love to see the national anthem changed to America the Beautiful or maybe Woody Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land.
22El Jefe, cool! Yes end the rah rah my country right or wrong jingoism, a word last heard in junior high civics and the practice should have been retired then. Uh no, not “my” junior high years, my grandpa’s junior high years. All that flag waving has been said to be “so much sex gone sour.” iirc that was a quote from the 60s, feminist, maybe someone here can refresh my memory to properly attribute the quote.
But if NASCAR an give up the traitor flag, certainly the NFL can play football without pandering to the fascists/confederates.
23Let’s not let all these good ideas go to waste. Here he is on Twitter waiting to hear from you about…well, just everything you have posted in the comments. Especially Colin Kaepernick.
Pete Carroll@PeteCarroll
24This just in: US Soccer drops its ban on taking a knee. NASCAR, NFL, now this — what’s trump going to watch when it’s raining too hard for golf?
25Let’s see what the Supreme Court has to say about standing, kneeling or sitting during the national anthem!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4adc272b00c1d66427bd301019f86b4f81dcee4014b1220ed671929cda658012.jpg
26I’m hoping that if playing the anthem becomes the traditional place to protest, the playing of the anthem might quietly start to fade out, to avoid giving such a huge political pulpit to sports events.
Plus, I think Trump has listened to the people, and is showing he has heard. He’s decided to reward athletes who take a knee by removing himself from sports celebrations that give him this signal. I think it’s a generous gesture on his part, to let Americans of any political affiliation celebrate together without him.
27That post was one of the best well-written group of words I’ve read in quite a while. I agree with every single one of them! I love watching live sports, but always change the channel during the uber-patriotic BS. And the way Colin Kaepernick was treated turned me off to the NFL.
28I don’t write often, but I read your blog nearly every day. You give me hope that we’re not utterly lost in a sea of hate, ignorance, and corruption. Thank you for your determination and the obvious love you have for ALL of your fellow travelers on this dark strange journey.