Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree
STAND UP FOR AMERICA
BY TAKING A KNEE WITH COLIN KAEPERNICK
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BY TAKING A KNEE WITH COLIN KAEPERNICK
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As a former marine I can say without a doubt - and I’m sure that Trump’s Chief of Staff, Gen. Kelly, could also tell him - that American fighting men and women didn’t die for a piece of cloth or a song; they died for what that piece of cloth represents, the very personal freedom that Trump is now trying to deny Kaepernick and his fellow players. While I can fully understand Trump being ignorant in the area of American patriotism since when it was his turn to serve the country he avoided the draft by obtaining 4 military deferments, but any TRUE American should understand Colin Kaepernick and the others are not disrespecting the flag at all, Trump is; they’re acting in truest American tradition of speaking out in order to make this country better, and by confronting bigots for being the lyin’ and hypocritical bigots that they are - and the bigots know it!!! But now that they’re being confronted with their own anti-Americanism, they’re trying to claim that it’s the PLAYERS who are unpatriotic!!! That’s typical racist bullshit. People of Trump's ilk also accused Dr. Martin Luther King of being un-American.
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So this country can only meet the prescription for greatness laid out by our founding fathers by constantly seeking to become better than we were the day before, and in order to do that, we must be willing to follow truth wherever it leads, and regardless to whose ox it gores. And here are the facts: This nation has NEVER lived up to the myth that the American flag is suppose to represent, so it’s past time for us to stop living a lie and begin to actually live up to the ideals in which we claim to hold dear.
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After being welcomed to this land by the Native Americans, European immigrants responded by presenting them with disease-infected blankets and then bringing in their army to eradicate them. In the end they killed as many as 100 million Native Americans in order to steal their land. Thereafter, they moved on to either kill are make the lives of millions of African slaves miserable. Then after slavery, there was the Jim Crow era in which millions of African-Americans were discriminated against, brutalized, and in many cases murdered. And during that same time the nation was involved in WWII where Japanese-American citizens had their property seized and entire families were placed in concentration camps. In addition, the United States dropped not one, but two atomic bombs on Japan - and since the men, women, and children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were innocent noncombatants, that constituted the most brutal and heartless act of terrorism in all of human history.
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But “America the Beautiful” still wasn’t done. It went on to kill 3.1 million Vietnamese - 2 million of which were also innocent noncombatant men, women, and children. Then they did the very same thing to the people of Iraq, but they were more compassionate with the Iraqis - they only killed a million of them, but for no other reason but the fact that they didn’t like the cut of their jib.
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So tell me, exactly what is it that Colin Kaepernick suppose to be so proud of that he should feel obligated to stand every time he hears a song? It’s not as if either the song, or the flag, represents a history of great acts of human compassion, it’s a flag that represents 241 years of criminal brutality, thuggery and mayhem. But in spite of all that, when Colin took the knee, he wasn’t ranting and raving about not loving this country, his actions simply suggested that we should stop lying about who we profess to be, and every TRUE American - or at least, those who subscribe to the United States Constitution - should agree with him.
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So the fact is, if we base our analysis on what is suppose to be American values as oppose to the gross hypocrisy by which we actually live, when Colin Kaepernick took a knee, he was the only true patriot in the stadium. It’s those who are condemning him who are actually the un-American heathens, and who are degrading both our principles, and the flag. These people are condemning Colin for exercising the very rights that the flag is suppose to represent. So their condemnation is an act of gross hypocrisy any way you look at it, and in this era of Donald Trump, this nation is becoming ever more renown for such hypocrisy with every day that passes.
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The truth is, sports teaches you to be one of "US" at a time when you should be training your mind to be the best "YOU" that you can be. Colin Kaepernick understood that lesson, that's why the “group-think” people are condemning him and the NFL is trying to spank him. From their point of view he's guilty of the most egregious crime that can be committed - the blasphemy of independent thought. So they feel that they’ve got to stamp it out before it begins to catch on.
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So we must join Colin in recognizing that the primary source of the problems we face today is that we have literally THOUSANDS of individual groups fighting individual skirmishes for their own particular form of justice. But the oligarchs are organized and well funded, so they can swat individual groups like flies. So what we need is for ALL of the individual human rights groups to come together under one banner (The Human Rights Coalition) and prepare to fight an all-out war (virtual, of course) for the rights of ALL.
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The National Football League is a behemoth organization with nearly unlimited power, so they make the perfect target for a massive economic assault. The Human Rights Coalition could boycott the NFL and every sponsor and media outlet associated with it to bring it to it's knees. That would send a message out to all of America - and more importantly, to all of America's bought-off politicians - that the people are fed up, and the fun and games are over. Thereafter, the skirmishes of all the previously isolated groups could be easily addressed, because we will all be standing together, and we'd have a badly wounded NFL to demonstrate that we mean business. So by joining Colin we can fight ALL injustice with just one blow.
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Thus, this moment in our history presents us with a very important choice. Like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King before us, we've got to decide whether we're going to stand together, or bend over one at a time. So if we can come up with any selfish reason for not supporting Kaepernick, we should stop complaining about any form of injustice and just bend over and spread our cheeks.
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In the words of Frederick Douglass, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
REMEMBER WHEN AMERICA WAS HAPPY, AND WE HAD DOWN-TO-EARTH PEOPLE IN OFFICE WHO WANTED TO KEEP AMERICA HAPPY?
SO WOULDN’T IT BE NICE IF SOMEBODY WOULD SAY, GET THAT DUMB SON OF A BITCH OUT THE WHITE HOUSE AND STAND UP FOR AMERICA BY TAKING A KNEE WITH COLIN KAEPERNICK?
Confirmed: NFL Losing Millions Of TV Viewers Because Of National Anthem Protests
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A headline for a story in the Sporting News this morning: "Shock poll: A third of NFL TV viewers boycotting games because of Colin Kaepernick-led protests."
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A headline for a story in the Sporting News this morning: "Shock poll: A third of NFL TV viewers boycotting games because of Colin Kaepernick-led protests."
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.