Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo — Page 457

It’s not entirely inconsistent. Rednecks would favor both: (1) firing kneelers, and (2) a name like “The Redskins”.

Is it tax time already?

‘North Korea accuses US of declaring war’…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-41391978

(the North Korean Foreign Secretary to be precise)

darth_ender said:
I’m going to take a knee the next time I hear the national anthem in protest of the excessive police action at OT.com and the temp banning of Warbler. 😉

ooo, pushes the irony meter off the scale

darth_ender said:

Now I know why you get all the ladies.

This.

https://twitter.com/jnsanchez/status/912292192454086656

Bob Costas NAILED this. Patriotism comes in many forms, but it’s been conflated w/ bumper sticker flag waving & “military only.” 🙌

[video]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-nfl-protests-may-be-unpopular-now-but-that-doesnt-mean-theyll-end-that-way/

We don’t have any polling specifically about Trump’s recent NFL comments, but a Quinnipiac University poll from 2016 found that only 38 percent of those surveyed approved of players choosing not to stand during the anthem. But while these NFL protests may be unpopular right now, particularly with white people, similar protests in the past — involving race, civil rights and varying definitions of patriotism — came to be viewed much more positively after the fact.

Marches for civil rights during the 1960s were generally seen negatively at the time. As the Washington Post noted last year, most Americans didn’t approve of the Freedom Riders, the March on Washington in 1963 or other similar protests. In fact, many Americans thought that these protests would hurt the advancement of civil rights. In addition, but many Americans held mixed-to-negative views of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. In a 1966 Gallup survey, 63 percent of Americans gave King a negative score on a scale from -5 to +5. Now, the civil rights marches are viewed as major successes, and just 4 percent of Americans rated King negatively on that same scale in a 2011 Gallup poll.

Many Americans also viewed gay rights marchers during the AIDS epidemic negatively. According to Business Insider, the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation in April 1993 drew more than 800,000 people fighting against discrimination and seeking more funding for AIDS research. But in a Newsweek survey conducted at the time, only 23 percent of Americans thought that the demonstration did more good than harm in the fight for gay rights. Today, gay rights organizations celebrate the march, same-sex marriage is legal and much of the platform demanded by protesters seems mainstream.

yhwx said:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-nfl-protests-may-be-unpopular-now-but-that-doesnt-mean-theyll-end-that-way/

We don’t have any polling specifically about Trump’s recent NFL comments, but a Quinnipiac University poll from 2016 found that only 38 percent of those surveyed approved of players choosing not to stand during the anthem. But while these NFL protests may be unpopular right now, particularly with white people, similar protests in the past — involving race, civil rights and varying definitions of patriotism — came to be viewed much more positively after the fact.

Marches for civil rights during the 1960s were generally seen negatively at the time. As the Washington Post noted last year, most Americans didn’t approve of the Freedom Riders, the March on Washington in 1963 or other similar protests. In fact, many Americans thought that these protests would hurt the advancement of civil rights. In addition, but many Americans held mixed-to-negative views of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. In a 1966 Gallup survey, 63 percent of Americans gave King a negative score on a scale from -5 to +5. Now, the civil rights marches are viewed as major successes, and just 4 percent of Americans rated King negatively on that same scale in a 2011 Gallup poll.

Many Americans also viewed gay rights marchers during the AIDS epidemic negatively. According to Business Insider, the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation in April 1993 drew more than 800,000 people fighting against discrimination and seeking more funding for AIDS research. But in a Newsweek survey conducted at the time, only 23 percent of Americans thought that the demonstration did more good than harm in the fight for gay rights. Today, gay rights organizations celebrate the march, same-sex marriage is legal and much of the platform demanded by protesters seems mainstream.

Nothing succeeds like success. And King was such a huge success that, after enough time passed, the very people who opposed the principles he stood for held him up as an unassailable moral standard for their own cause – and as long as nobody actually bothered to find out what King thought about these matters, it worked.

Can you see it in 2047? Senator Donald Beauregard Bannon of the InfoWars Party claims that if the sainted Colin Kaepernick were alive today, he would certainly be aghast at liberal Republican-appointed justices like Sam Alito, who say police may have some sort of obligation to provide medical assistance to the people they shoot.

CatBus said:

Can you see it in 2047? Senator Donald Beauregard Bannon of the InfoWars Party claims that if the sainted Colin Kaepernick were alive today

2047 seems like an untimely death.

Just to derail the football talk, am I the only one who hates that right wing shill Ben Shapiro? People think he’s smart because he talks fast, but all he is is a die hard partisan that will defend conservative Republicanism at all cost. He’s one of the most astoundingly dishonest political sources I’ve ever encountered.

moviefreakedmind said:

Just to derail the football talk, am I the only one who hates that right wing shill Ben Shapiro? People think he’s smart because he talks fast, but all he is is a die hard partisan that will defend conservative Republicanism at all cost. He’s one of the most astoundingly dishonest political sources I’ve ever encountered.

Well, clearly you only hate him because he hurt your feelings! Facts don’t care about your feelings!

/s

Picture perfect.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/us/politics/private-email-trump-kushner-bannon.html

WASHINGTON — At least six of President Trump’s closest advisers occasionally used private email addresses to discuss White House matters, current and former officials said on Monday.

The disclosures came a day after news surfaced that Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and adviser, used a private email account to send or receive about 100 work-related emails during the administration’s first seven months. But Mr. Kushner was not alone. Stephen K. Bannon, the former chief White House strategist, and Reince Priebus, the former chief of staff, also occasionally used private email addresses. Other advisers, including Gary D. Cohn and Stephen Miller, sent or received at least a few emails on personal accounts, officials said.

Ivanka Trump, the president’s elder daughter, who is married to Mr. Kushner, used a private account when she acted as an unpaid adviser in the first months of the administration, Newsweek reported Monday. Administration officials acknowledged that she also occasionally did so when she formally became a White House adviser. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with reporters.

Officials are supposed to use government emails for their official duties so their conversations are available to the public and those conducting oversight. But it is not illegal for White House officials to use private email accounts as long as they forward work-related messages to their work accounts so they can be preserved.

During the 2016 presidential race, Mr. Trump repeatedly harped on Hillary Clinton’s use of a private account as secretary of state, making it a centerpiece of his campaign and using it to paint her as untrustworthy. “We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office,” Mr. Trump said last year. His campaign rallies often boiled over with chants of “Lock her up!”

America’s pledges of allegiance and various showings of national spirit are pretty extreme on a world scale as far as I can tell – several Germans I know were visibly shaken and alarmed at what they saw going on in grade-school American classrooms.

Also, over-the-top patriotism knows no irony. Your typical guy pledging allegiance to the American flag while wearing a Confederate flag is completely unaware that they are mutually exclusive.

darth_ender said:

I respectfully disagree. I don’t think Jesus would ever talk that way.

I’ll allow it.

chyron8472 said:

Possessed said:

This is murrica and we stand for this song that was written during a war that was going on many years after our country was founded!

No. It’s not just a song. It’s the National Anthem of the United States of America. Its words have meaning. Its symbolism has meaning. It is not just a song. To rob it of its symbolism is to say that respect for one’s country is pointless and holds no value. It’s to say that the people who work and fight to give us the freedoms that we have were doing so without need nor purpose, and we do not honor them because who gives a crap.

But to show protest of injustice by sitting during the anthem is a legitimate form of protest, and is not inherently disrespectful toward the country itself so long as the purpose of protest is made plain.

The way I understand it is that the players are not protesting the anthem, they’re not protesting the wording or the imagery or the ideals and virtues and values it conveys that the country stands for, they are instead protesting the country because they believe that the country does not currently stand for the ideals and virtues and values set forth in the anthem.

What they are saying: “Hey, there is a disconnect in what we think and say that the country stands for, and what it actually seems to stand for, especially for people of color. We are acknowledging this in the hopes that it is rectified.”

What they are not saying: “Hey we hate the anthem and America and the veterans!”

This logic and nuance, of course, has all been lost in the conservative-driven distilled rhetoric that these people just must simply hate America and her values and everything she stands for, which is asinine to say the least, and completely shunts all attention away from the real issues, fabricating an entirely different straw man issue and ultimately solving no problems and only further dividing an already-divided populace. It feels like nobody stops to think or empathize anymore, it’s just visceral, gut, knee-jerk reactions and opinions fed to them by cable “news” channels with no thought in between.

In fact, from what I’ve heard, the whole reason it’s (usually) kneeling instead of just sitting on the bench and ignoring the whole thing is in deference to the veterans who served the country in defense of her values and ideals.

Personally, I think it is incredibly moving to see the mass kneeling going on right now (I’d be even happier if people weren’t intentionally or unintentionally misconstruing it and actually taking action to understand and empathize and reflect inwardly and make some changes, but that’s humanity for you). In a few years from now when it becomes a fad way to protest whatever (like Chyron said), maybe that’ll have worn off by then, but for now I approve.

JEDIT: Usually I hate Twitter threads and when people post them, but I’m going to break all these rules right… now:
https://twitter.com/cmclymer/status/900101086333292544

CatBus said:

America’s pledges of allegiance and various showings of national spirit are pretty extreme on a world scale as far as I can tell – several Germans I know were visibly shaken and alarmed at what they saw going on in grade-school American classrooms.

I took some Italian relatives to a drum and bugle corps show about 20 years ago, and they had a similar reaction. All the saluting and overt patriotism reminded them of bad times in Europe. While they were impressed with the performances, they found all the saluting slightly scary.