Comments on: Politics in the NFL https://travelingboy.com/travel/signs-of-the-times/ Traveling Adventures Thu, 16 Jul 2020 23:27:22 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 By: Larry Jones https://travelingboy.com/travel/signs-of-the-times/#comment-1450 Tue, 10 Oct 2017 18:55:08 +0000 https://travelingboy.com/travel/?p=2696#comment-1450 To Terry the Pirate on Trump National Anthem
Trump has a way of framing an issue, making it something else. Ok, we know he is sick & self-absorbed, but I believe every move he makes is intended as a distraction from the Mueller & Congressional investigations.

]]> By: Terry the Pirate https://travelingboy.com/travel/signs-of-the-times/#comment-1448 Tue, 10 Oct 2017 18:24:10 +0000 https://travelingboy.com/travel/?p=2696#comment-1448 This “take a knee” stuff happened long before Trump was elected. Colin Kaepernick protested the St. Louis police shooting of an unarmed black man last season and the NFL blackballed him. They didn’t fine him or suspend him, he just can’t get a job as quarterback anymore. Other NFL players slowly rallied to the cause, taking knees, placing hands on kneeling players’ shoulders, locking arms, etc.

Only recently, and suddenly, has Trump weighed in. Trump always does his best to make everything about him and the media almost always accommodate. But the reality is that this has absolutely nothing to do with Trump, or the flag, or the military. Just as we marched for civil rights in the Sixties and absorbed the blows of the established order, these athletes (now in basketball and hockey as well) are kneeling respectfully to express their own plea for equality.

We politicize everything in this country and I imagine it’s unavoidable. We all see what we want to see and hear what we want to hear. We bring our biases to the table and all too often shut everything else out. I’m hopeful the polarization that has poisoned our national discussion in recent years can be slowly reversed as we discover the many ways we must work together as time moves forward.

]]> By: Larry Jones https://travelingboy.com/travel/signs-of-the-times/#comment-1447 Tue, 10 Oct 2017 18:18:46 +0000 https://travelingboy.com/travel/?p=2696#comment-1447 I find it absurd that the music for our National Anthem was lifted from an old English drinking song, praising sex & drink. What’s wrong with a National Anthem by a REAL US citizen like ‘America The Beautiful’ our ‘This Land is Your Land’? BTW, Mr. Mazer, do you have the phone number of the blond woman, sitting two rows in front of you?

– Larry Jones, Seattle

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