...but still see CK as scum. The two are not mutually exclusive.
I am not sure what CK being in, or out, of the NFL has to do with anything. He has a very vaunted platform and a massive contract with Nike. Sadly, he has pull with a certain population in the U.S.
While I may disagree with the issue, as I do not think it is systemic, and not close to being so, I respect the good people in it, who feel the need to make change, even if I think they are wrong.
But respect someone who glorifies a murderer? Someone who praises a ruthless communist thug? Someone who indiscriminately calls cops "pigs? And someone, when given an opportunity to make the change HE himself says is SO important but then chooses to hide on election day?
No. I'll pass on a POS like that. He is all yours.
It's that time of year, the NFL will be put on the spotlight and their reaction to this whole police brutality issue. Oh and Drew Bree sure didn't help himself or the situation with his comments and his two "walk back" haven't settled in..yet.
So looks like the kneeling may take place again but with a broader participation. Looks like more marque players are getting involved and this just might resonate through out the league. This one just feel different.
I don't think the argument that it's Anti Military or un-patriotic will fly....Nah not this time, but to some...it'll bug them. But will they NOT watch football? No sports on TV for awhile, they've been bored and they need to bust out.
With potentially empty stadiums, will more players take a knee? No one in the stands, who will see....Cameras can focus on the flag and not the kneeing I dunno. It'll be there and it could be hard to ignore but....
I never found the first "Colin Kaepernick" to be offensive to the flag or military...But I got the message, I get it.
And just another tibbit, I'm not an NFL guy so maybe that's why I couldn't give a shit.
I am not much of a flag waver in the first place, but I am offended when I pay to be "entertained" and the people I am paying to entertain me try to influence me politically, religiously or in any other way.
Years ago I was at the Chick Fil A bowl in Atlanta, my seats were several hundred bucks, no problem, great seats, hopefully a great game, cute girl with me. I am a happy camper. The national anthem is played, I stand for it like virtually everyone else, the anthem end and I am ready to get my thousand dollars worth of entertainment started and then some fucking preacher comes on and asks everyone to stand AGAIN, so he can read his little fucking prayer on my fucking dime, I sat my ass right back down and yes I was right in the middle of the fucking bible belt, but I will tell you I was a bit pissed. I was paying to be ENTERTAINED, not to be preached to. I feel the exact same way about players kneeling except that it's slightly less offensive since it doesn't hold up the game, it still doesn't take away from the fact that in their own way, they too are "preaching" at me and that's not what I am there for, especially being preached to by a bunch of multi millionaires.
Will I watch NFL this year? I am still undecided, if I am subjected to a bunch of SJW bullshit, most likely I will simply tune it out like I have the last couple of seasons.
appreciate all it stands for and respect all the sacrifices that have made to support OUR way of life.
Like you, I absolutely do NOT consider, kneeling during the national anthem to be disrespectful. Can never get into another person's mind and truly know what they are thinking. But IMHO what they did to Colin Kaepernick was beyond unjust. Was it racist, was it political, were owners caving in to outside interests? Who will ever know ALL the factors affecting their stupidity.
Yes, GaGa you spent good money on those tickets. But I would prefer to be inconvenienced by someone who is honestly trying to make a valid point, I agree with, than a religious fanatic, who is disingenuously trying to force his religious beliefs down my throat.
A good number of the owners are liberals, or at least Democrats, and thus would be more open to a CK argument and yet none of them did i.e. hire him.
Maybe is was many of the players, privately, that told coaches and ownership they wouldn't play with a scum like CK?
They had their reasons and I for one, I'm glad that maggot is not in the league.
Not to mention he didn't start protesting until he started warming the bench and had nothing to lose.
Was I more irate at the preacher at the College Bowl game I went to? Yes. That was worse, but it hardly means that I want to be preached to by the likes of Colin Kaepernick when I have been subjected to more racist behavior than he ever will.
participant in demonstrating my outrage at unfairness or racial prejudice of any kind. Not pious or self-righteous by any means but have been in a number of make or break situations that fortunately, have gone my way because the mechanism available to deal with them, was forced to treat me fairly. Maybe my upbringing as well, but I lean very heavily in that direction when conscious of it.
Even though you and I may disagree on a vast number of issues, if I witnessed any of the racist behavior you experienced, whether I was a fan of yours or not, whether you were the purist of the pure or not, I would have been quite vocal and whatever else the situation warranted to call those people out. This would get my anger aroused as a red flag arouses a bull. A few times when out and about with a friend or two of color, have encountered such situations and still can feel the anger recalling these events in my mind. And still have a few of the bruises as reminders as well.
We are all wired differently and different things set off, different people. This and the safety of my family are the two hair-trigger categories that can transform me from a relatively gentlemanly person, to total outrage in a nanosecond.
-- Modified on 6/5/2020 12:43:48 PM
He doesn't like people protesting America before kick off, and the anthem and flag represent AMERICA, and not a few, rogue, white racist cops.
Colin Kaepernick is a hateful, ignorant, communist loving, idiot. He supports a murderer in Che Guevara and he calls cops "pigs."
And this is the person many on the Left want to honor and praise????
Good luck with that.
But he realized that being a leader on the team what he said probably didn't help him in the locker room. But that's for him to evaluate. I'm not protecting his blind side so I can't say.
And FYI, Colin Kaepernick has been out of the league for awhile.again Jack, relax
He "might" be a trivial pursuit trivia question by now as almost everyone would have forgotten his name. I feel about him about the same way I feel about Caitlyn Jenner and the Kardashians, shameless self promoters, all of them.
Let me put it this way, when you are a superstar it takes guts to take a knee or come out as gay, when you are warming the bench, it's a way of getting attention and holds very little risk at all when your career is already dying.
But let me ask. Why do the kneelers not have to worry about the "locker room?" Many guys on those teams are offended by it.
And you will have to give me a pass on "relaxing." Remember, I live in COVID City, and my little latina cancelled on me due to the riots so I am back on the Blue Ball Express until tomorrow so throw me a bone. lol
And I not so sure that this time around and most will be offended by this. Maybe back then some were offended...but I'm thinking not so much now.
This one feels different....stay tuned.
Check out that commercial they ran on ESPN, all very prominent black football player chiming in. Very moving,
have two entirely different interpretations of this.
Was he protesting America, or something that has plagued us for so long--racism, a problem so difficult for us to adequately put our finger on, that nothing changes and frustrates all fair minded people, or was there something more sinister involved?
As stated in a previous post, we will never TRULY know, neither of us, Jack. If he was white, a KKK member, protesting the fact his family's livelihood was negatively affected when he lost the right to own slaves, then I would agree with your very harsh conclusions and doubt his motives. But the act of protesting against police brutality of minorities, that is something I stand quite firmly against.
We are at the point where it IS getting difficult to count the number of minorities who have been murdered, we should all be frustrated by this fact and this fact alone. Again, it takes one with a very disciplined mind, perspective, sense of justice, to NOT get distracted by peripheral matters. The core issue is as valid today as it was when Kaepernick began drawing attention to it, no matter how flawed he may be.
And here we are, how much time later, still trying to remedy the same problem? No wonder we are so frustrated by it! And you, Jack, being the passionate person you ARE on issues. If you were a person of color, and your teenage son was victimized by a rogue cop, have a feeling you would be screaming as loud as hpygolky, papasan, nick, laffy and I about it.
-- Modified on 6/5/2020 12:25:58 PM
YOU'RE defending Colin Kaepernick? A communist, murderer lover who calls cops "pigs?" That's who your defending? Thats' the guy you think should be the head of that movement? Or ANY movement?
Need I remind you that Kaepernick chose to sit OUT the 2016 election, thus destroying any point he was making?
In fact MANY people, who agree with Kaepernick on the issue, retreated from him for being a total hypocrite.
For when it was time for "change", CK ran and hid.
he is trying to draw attention to. In this imperfect world, at a time when we continue to "kick this can down the road," but are making little progress, yes, I will hop on any bandwagon that attempts to shine a light on this entire racial injustice matter. As long as that bandwagon is just, non-violent, and does not severely infringe on the rights of other.
AND, please allow me to remind you, Kaepernick is no longer in the NFL. So who is, what he believes, and his history is irrelevant, justly or injustly he is out of the picture.
I 1,000% agree with NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem, open and shut case. Not distracted by any of the peripheral matters associated with anyone who agrees with doing the same.
...but still see CK as scum. The two are not mutually exclusive.
I am not sure what CK being in, or out, of the NFL has to do with anything. He has a very vaunted platform and a massive contract with Nike. Sadly, he has pull with a certain population in the U.S.
While I may disagree with the issue, as I do not think it is systemic, and not close to being so, I respect the good people in it, who feel the need to make change, even if I think they are wrong.
But respect someone who glorifies a murderer? Someone who praises a ruthless communist thug? Someone who indiscriminately calls cops "pigs? And someone, when given an opportunity to make the change HE himself says is SO important but then chooses to hide on election day?
No. I'll pass on a POS like that. He is all yours.
I've had conflicted feelings on this in the past but no more. I think ALL Confederate statues on public property should come down and be moved to private sites. They are nothing more than monuments to slavery and treason.
Now what do we do with statues of founders such as Washington, Jefferson, etc. who also were slave holders?
I honestly don't know.
documentary on U. H. Grant (yes H., "S" was NOT his middle initial). Not sure he had a choice and clearly the complexities of reuniting the union were challenging. But Grant went to West Point, with Lee and many of he confederate generals he fought against.
They and many of their men were allowed to keep their weapons and were allowed to go home. I know there was much more it than just this. But, the early membership of the KKK was overwhelmingly confederate military men.
Yes, Nick, Washington and Jefferson are tough ones and allowing their statues to remain, opens the person suggesting we do so, to a lot of questions.
Yet, am betting some would say the founders, while flawed, built our democracy and are partly responsible for the success we are experiencing today. While those represented by confederate statues have only one claim to fame and that is their participation in civil war, the symbolism of that war, their role in the creation of the KKK, and the racial strife they contributed to, that still plagues our nation even today.
What's your take on it?
I've actually read the biography of Grant by Ron Chernow on which the docu you saw is based. First, a minor point. His name at birth was Hiram Ulysses Grant but he didn't like it that his initials spelled "HUG." So he dropped Hiram, Then after he won his first big battles and, when asked for terms, he demanded "unconditional surrender," his troops dubbed him "Unconditional Surrender" Grant, or US Grant. He was never given, or took, the middle name Simpson.
Oh, and the founder of the KKK was Nathan Bedford Forrest, a former Confederate cavalry commander.
Now, as to the slavery issue, I agree with Laffy that the founders who were slave owners weren't also treasonous, except to England. That said, the founders made a "deal with the devil," permitting slavery because they knew the union could never be created unless the slave states were allowed their "peculiar institution." They assumed slavery would whither on the vine, but it didn't, in part because the invention of the Cotton Gin sparked a boom in cotton growing and slave labor was needed to pick it.
Even Lee and Jackson were uncomfortable with slavery and, like the founders, hoped it would whither away. Others, like Alexander Stephens, VP of the Confederacy, considered it natural, moral and lawful. Anyone who tells you the Civil War was fought over states rights and not slavery is full of shit. The "right" that the South was fighting for was the right to own slaves. But Lee, Jackson and their brethren had a choice to make: the oath they'd sworn to the Union or the bonds they felt to their state. The choice they made, made them traitors.
Finally, while it doesn't absolve them, the Civil War era was a VERY different time. Back then, only 80 years after the Revolution, the national government was still new and most peoples' allegiance was to their state. The idea that the national government was planning to invade their state was more than most could stand.
But they are still traitors who fought to defend slavery. Their statues should come down.
for the added insight.
I agree with most everything you say, but I think that it is important to recognize that most of the Confederate soldiers who fought were young individuals who were not slave owners. Any memorials to this particular group should not be lumped together with those you mention. We have forgiven the “ordinary“ German and Japanese combatants of WWII. We need to do the same for the “ordinary “ Confederate soldier.
But my opinion is they still fought to defend slavery for a treasonous country and there should be NO memorials honoring ANY Confederates on public property. Use your own example: are there any public memorials honoring "ordinary" German or Japanses soldier of WWII? I think the answer is no. At least, not outside of war cemeteries, which is where they belong. Same for Confederates.
Not in the least. Both were great men. Flawed, like we all are, but great.
Should we take down statues of MLK because he was a philanderer? Let's stop looking for perfection from our founding fathers and other great men. I can save you the hand wringing. They weren't perfect.
Look at FDR. Racist to his core. Stomped on the constitution. But he also led the nation during a very, very difficult time and defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
If those monuments come down, the Left will then go after the flag. And then what after that?
As for confederate monuments, that should be up to the people. We live in a democracy, last time I checked. Let the people make that decision, not some PC politico trying to virtue signal about how woke he is.
Actually H was not his middle initial either
He was born Hiram Ulysses Grant, therefore U was his middle initial.