Why would anyone think they were protesting the flag itself? Like they would think it is too gaudy?
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It’s been linked a few times already, but it’s still worth the repost.
Willful ignorance and/or a thinly veiled attempt to misdirect attention away from the actual problem at hand. Or both.
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This is interesting. Do the owners now think it’s unprofitable to side with Trump? I watched that clip earlier today but I’m not sure where economics come into the argument (he basically says the owners don’t like being bullied, not that there’s any monetary loss involved.) Did they think Americans would actually stop watching the games because Trump told them to? (Maybe some will, probably not enough to matter.)
Basically he’s saying that “this is how rich folks just are”, they are all ego-maniacs like Trump. (EDIT: And he’s probably right.)
Everything else Sharpe says is dead-on, and needed to be said, but that threw me. These guys aren’t going to lose any money over this whole thing.
(Here’s a transcript for anyone looking to read it, though I love Sharpe’s delivery.)
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You are on Facebook? I am so, so sorry to hear that. I understand that it is not terminal if caught quickly enough.
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Yeah, that’s a big thing. When we think about people who weren’t served well by school, we usually think about dropouts and underachievers. But there are also kids who fly straight and call people “sir”, but still hate school, and they may graduate with OK grades, but mostly what they’ve learned is that education is something you just want to be done with, like passing a kidney stone. IMO, that’s a more insidious failure. Dropouts can get their GED later, but people like this have been trained to fear learning itself.
I mean, a school system that churns out cops is probably better for society than a system that churns out junkies, but I’d argue that neither is a win in terms of education.
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Everybody’s either most or least favorite Scottish economist tells us
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love”
An actual change of heart would be nicer; but it seems like a fairly good sign for the protesters when the team owners apparently see their interests as more closely aligned with supporting them against the president of the US than with telling them to shut up and get back to sportsball unless they like unemployment; despite the fact that team owners are precisely the people who would enjoy the most immediate financial gain from suppressing a few uppity human resources.
It shouldn’t be treated as evidence of their sudden awakening; but it suggests that their PR flacks have made a determination about which course will play better with the crowd.
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Again, from my mentor:
“Never try to appeal to anyone else’s ‘better nature,’ for they genuinely may not have one. Instead, appeal to their self-interest; because everyone has that…”
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There’s a great ESPN 30 for 30 about the USFL. Lots about what a chump Donald Trump is.
Well, like family reunions it must occasionally be endured if one wishes to find even one intersecting point between some people’s lives.
Most of my time on social media is spent here or on Instagram, but there are people I simply don’t want to vanish from my life, so I occasionally have to dive in to facebook, and then douse myself in alcohol afterward.
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It’s an ignorant country, Brant!
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Thank you for that comedic release, Mindy. You had me face down chortling into my desk for a good half a minute. One of my cats wandered up worried about me. 
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Well you know Brant, it may be a country full of ignorant people, but there’s no doubt that their dogs are all good dogs!
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Thanks for the vote of confidence. The problem as I see it is we have a tendency here to elevate small but very excited groups to a level of influence they don’t deserve. Less silent majority than loud fringe. The UK has similar issues.
But our level of civic literacy, engagement, And general interest in the subject pales in comparison to what I see out of friends and family in Ireland (even as we look dead identical to the UK) .
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Unfortunately, it isn’t just civic literacy, but civic indoctrination.
Teaching “this is how our government works” is fine. Teaching “this is how our government works, this is the best government structure ever, and anyone who says otherwise is a heretic” is highly problematic.
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Hey guys, guess what? The DoD has been paying the NFL to force players stand for the anthem:
It turns out that from 2011-2014, the Department of Defense spent $5.4 million in contracts with 14 NFL teams for flag ceremonies. The National Guard got in on the action too, and gave $6.7 million to the NFL for the same kind of thing from 2013 to 2015.
…Before 2009, football players standing for the national anthem wasn’t even a thing. The teams stayed in the locker room until after “and the hoooome of the braaaave,” and then ran onto the field. No one was offended, and no one was on cable news eliciting tears from disrespected military families. But then, the Department of Defense and the National Guard got involved. They began to pay the NFL millions of dollars to have ostentatious flag ceremonies before games.
…In 2015, Senator John McCain and the Senate Oversight Committee issued a statement and corresponding report condemning practice of “paid patriotism,” as charades, “conducted not out of a sense of patriotism, but rather done “for profit in the form of millions in taxpayer dollars going from the Department of Defense to wealthy pro sports franchises.”
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Gordon Brown?
/
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My US military buddies here are of the “Them being able to kneel is why I’m fighting” mindset so that’s pretty heartening.
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As far as I can figure out, the fascist presence in the military is alarming but not overwhelming.
Maybe one in four of the combat troops, barely any of the support troops. More than that were GOP voters, but not all of those are committed Trumpists.
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