Bill O'Brien will kneel...JJ Watt says kneeling is no disrespect to the flag or military

[Troll Toll]

How long are they going to try to argue that the “Star Spangled Banner” isn’t about the flag? lol, football players are ######ed.

[Ecmic82]

5 minutes ago, SydneyBillsFan said:

Errr...what?

 

I thought that the excessive force used by a police officer on a black man was the root cause of current social unrest.

 

Where are you getting your news from?

That's not a root cause. It's a symptomatic effect.

[Arkady Renko]

12 hours ago, K-9 said:

Why is it that some people just can’t accept everyone’s explanation for why they are taking a knee? Clearly no disrespect is intended yet some people are intent on being offended. Why the insistence, the need, to make it about something it isn’t? It’s a lot more than, “It’s my flag, it’s my country, it’s my military.” Some sort of psychological phenomenon is at play here.

 

Kaepernick said he was doing it because he didn't have pride in his country because of how the country oppresses people of color.  I understand why he feels that way.  But I don't know why it's so hard to see that some people who do have pride in their country are hurt by that.  The anthem used to be about national unity.  Now it has become yet another culture war battlefield.  Seems unfortunate to me. 

 

I also think Kaepernick is getting too much credit for the change in the national mood.  The mood would have changed without him kneeling. 

Edited June 15, 2020 by Arkady Renko

[SydneyBillsFan]

1 minute ago, Ecmic82 said:

That's not a root cause. It's a symptomatic effect.

 

I disagree.

 

There is absolutely NO link between an irrational individual's behaviour and corporate greed / power.

 

None whatsoever.

 

This whole thing has descended into a virtue-signalling farce.

[Ecmic82]

1 minute ago, SydneyBillsFan said:

 

I disagree.

 

There is absolutely NO link between an irrational individual's behaviour and corporate greed / power.

 

None whatsoever.

 

This whole thing has descended into a virtue-signalling farce.

That's all noise to my point.

 

I'm saying you're wrong that the root cause of current protest is "the excessive force used by a police officer on a black man."

 

That is not the root cause.

[Rob's House]

5 hours ago, Kirby Jackson said:

Oh man this conversation is getting weird. If you don’t agree that athletes have a larger platform than 99.99% of the population you aren’t smart. That’s not up for debate. It’s a fact. That’s all that I ever said. The reason that their voices matter is because they have an audience.

 

This supports the position that they can use their platform to speak while they're not on the field.

 

NFL players have far greater reach through traditional and social media, through which they can share their views.

 

If he weren't in the NFL no one would give a rat's ass what Colin Kaepernick had to say about anything. But the celebrity status he enjoys because he played in the NFL gives him an exponentially larger audience than his intellectual acumen would ever afford him.

 

I don't understand why that isn't enough and we have to be subjected to their already overexposed opinions on game day.

 

 

[SydneyBillsFan]

10 minutes ago, Ecmic82 said:

That's all noise to my point.

 

I'm saying you're wrong that the root cause of current protest is "the excessive force used by a police officer on a black man."

 

That is not the root cause.

 

Then I'll respectfully agree to disagree and leave it at that.

[nedboy7]

2 minutes ago, Rob's House said:

 

This supports the position that they can use their platform to speak while they're not on the field.

 

NFL players have far greater reach through traditional and social media, through which they can share their views.

 

If he weren't in the NFL no one would give a rat's ass what Colin Kaepernick had to say about anything. But the celebrity status he enjoys because he played in the NFL gives him an exponentially larger audience than his intellectual acumen would ever afford him.

 

I don't understand why that isn't enough and we have to be subjected to their already overexposed opinions on game day.

 

 

 

Yes.  You are quite the victim.  How do you survive thru game day?? 

2 hours ago, Cal said:

A lot of anti-Americans on here. Sad.

 

Is an anti-American someone who doesn't agree with you? 

[Ecmic82]

8 minutes ago, SydneyBillsFan said:

 

Then I'll respectfully agree to disagree and leave it at that.

I mean, if you think all the social anxiety and unrest that we're now witnessing has it's origin in the George Floyd killing, and that none of those feelings of unrest existed in America before George Floyd's murder (the literal definition of a root cause), then yeah, we're going to disagree on that. Common ground isn't going to be found.

 

Pretty much all the ingredients that went into producing the current climate predate Floyd's murder. 

 

Floyd's murder was a tipping point, not a root cause.

Edited June 15, 2020 by Ecmic82

[Rob's House]

7 minutes ago, nedboy7 said:

 

Yes.  You are quite the victim.  How do you survive thru game day?? 

 

Cool story, bro. Sorry to have triggered you.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

1 hour ago, Ecmic82 said:

I mean, if you think all the social anxiety and unrest that we're now witnessing has it's origin in the George Floyd killing, and that none of those feelings of unrest existed in America before George Floyd's murder (the literal definition of a root cause), then yeah, we're going to disagree on that. Common ground isn't going to be found.

 

Pretty much all the ingredients that went into producing the current climate predate Floyd's murder. 

 

Floyd's murder was a tipping point, not a root cause.

 

This.  I think for many people, myself among them - in many earlier cases we saw ambiguity.  We lived as the focal point for a couple major sessions of social unrest here in St Louis.  Mike Brown - forensic evidence - yeah OK maybe use of force justified at the point the shooting took place?  Lamar Smith - he was a suspect drug dealer who led the police on a dangerous high speed chase - maybe he had a gun?  etc etc etc. 

We have relatives and friends and relatives of friends who were or are police officers.  We generally support the police.  We want to give them the benefit of doubt.  So we don't get involved, or we say "OK, but it's a few bad apples"

 

The video of 8+ minutes of a LEO kneeling on Floyd's neck while 3 others hold him down are very very hard to watch.  There is no benefit of doubt to be given, and the fact that they had so many prior incidents and are still on the force - it's a real "wake up and look at what's been going on" moment for a lot of people.

 

 If there are bad apples, too many law enforcement agencies are clearly not succeeding at getting them out of the bushel on their own

 

I agree, it's a tipping point where many people who've been on the sidelines are moved to action.

[BillsFan2313]

1 hour ago, Ecmic82 said:

I mean, if you think all the social anxiety and unrest that we're now witnessing has it's origin in the George Floyd killing, and that none of those feelings of unrest existed in America before George Floyd's murder (the literal definition of a root cause), then yeah, we're going to disagree on that. Common ground isn't going to be found.

 

Pretty much all the ingredients that went into producing the current climate predate Floyd's murder. 

 

Floyd's murder was a tipping point, not a root cause.

 

It's baffling that people don't realize this. 

 

Hey, silent protesting. Pshhh that's disrespectful 

 

Rioting. Pshh, that's not going to do anything, their should be another way to protest. 

 

Now talk, back to silent protesting, now people are up in arms. It's amazing.

[leonbus23]

Is it still a protest if everybody kneels? 

It seems that if real American hero Watt kneels, it kind of deflates the whole thing. 

Because, while categorically Watt and the like may be against police brutality, I don't think they're for any real systemic change. 

 

[JoPoy88]

7 minutes ago, BillsFan2313 said:

 

It's baffling that people don't realize this. 

 

Hey, silent protesting. Pshhh that's disrespectful 

 

Rioting. Pshh, that's not going to do anything, their should be another way to protest. 

 

Now talk, back to silent protesting, now people are up in arms. It's amazing.

this is a very good point - the people condemning the protests don’t seem to ever offer an actionable alternative. They look and point and say those protesters, kaepernick, all the rest are “bad americans” and hate our country. I never see people like @Cal or anyone else proposing an alternative for these people.

 

once again, kaepernick took that time and place and form to protest because it offered visibility to his cause. He never intended any direct attack on our military, our flag or our country in general. He’s said as much himself. The fact that many of you disregard his intent and take offense anyways is, frankly, your problem. 

[BillsFan2313]

6 minutes ago, JoPoy88 said:

this is a very good point - the people condemning the protests don’t seem to ever offer an actionable alternative. They look and point and say those protesters, kaepernick, all the rest are “bad americans” and hate our country. I never see people like @Cal or anyone else proposing an alternative for these people.

 

once again, kaepernick took that time and place and form to protest because it offered visibility to his cause. He never intended any direct attack on our military, our flag or our country in general. He’s said as much himself. The fact that many of you disregard his intent and take offense anyways is, frankly, your problem. 

 

 

Well said 

[Da webster guy]

19 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

There's nothing more American than allowing players to kneel during the national anthem. "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." 

 

A smart move for the NFL after the National Anthem would be to ask everybody in the stadium (including the players) to rise and have 15 seconds of silence to honor the brave men and women in the military to honor those who are serving/have served or died defending this country.

 

great post.

 

I'll add that kneeling shows reverence and respect.  We kneel when a player gets hurt or in church etc.

It's not like talking through the national anthem or staying seated.   

 

Furthermore, it's possible to show respect to your country but also kneel in support of making it a better place.   When people start spewing hatred toward those kneeling because they fought in a war or feel it's disrespectful to the military, they'll likely never change their view on it, but as you say Doc, if you think it through, that's exactly what we were fighting for since America began.

[JetsFan20]

3 hours ago, JoPoy88 said:

this is a very good point - the people condemning the protests don’t seem to ever offer an actionable alternative. They look and point and say those protesters, kaepernick, all the rest are “bad americans” and hate our country. I never see people like @Cal or anyone else proposing an alternative for these people.

 

once again, kaepernick took that time and place and form to protest because it offered visibility to his cause. He never intended any direct attack on our military, our flag or our country in general. He’s said as much himself. The fact that many of you disregard his intent and take offense anyways is, frankly, your problem. 

We have gotten to a point where it is now appropriate for public companies to support the BLM movement. Three years ago when the kneeling started BLM was not nearly as mainstream and considered somewhat radical/controversial. 
 

Goodell and the NFL owners are no different than Jeff Bezos and Amazon. They will absolutely still do business with the military and police departments (security in stadiums), but feel we are at a point in which support of the movement is now necessary in the eyes of the public.
 

Again-the whole kneeling situation a couple of years ago was blown completely out of proportion and just provided more evidence as to how out of touch NFL owners were. In a league where roughly 70 percent of the players are young black men they should have embraced it from the beginning. 

 

[GregPersons]

5 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

This.  I think for many people, myself among them - in many earlier cases we saw ambiguity.  We lived as the focal point for a couple major sessions of social unrest here in St Louis.  Mike Brown - forensic evidence - yeah OK maybe use of force justified at the point the shooting took place?  Lamar Smith - he was a suspect drug dealer who led the police on a dangerous high speed chase - maybe he had a gun?  etc etc etc. 

We have relatives and friends and relatives of friends who were or are police officers.  We generally support the police.  We want to give them the benefit of doubt.  So we don't get involved, or we say "OK, but it's a few bad apples"

 

The video of 8+ minutes of a LEO kneeling on Floyd's neck while 3 others hold him down are very very hard to watch.  There is no benefit of doubt to be given, and the fact that they had so many prior incidents and are still on the force - it's a real "wake up and look at what's been going on" moment for a lot of people.

 

 If there are bad apples, too many law enforcement agencies are clearly not succeeding at getting them out of the bushel on their own

 

I agree, it's a tipping point where many people who've been on the sidelines are moved to action.

 

I agree, thanks for sharing in a kind of personal way because I do think it's important to realize this is a process of learning & unlearning... there is a such thing as American propaganda, it's foolish for us to think otherwise, and obviously the enforcement officers of the state would be something that any citizen of any country would be given ample reason to believe are heroes. Your thought process describes my reaction as well. I do feel like I was tipped further, radicalized further, and forced to consider/confront a lot of things that I "sort of" knew but had not given full consideration. Like most of us here I have the privilege to not think about race or to be worried about police brutality on an individual level. 

 

And while I knew that police brutality and injustice was reality, I now realize I vastly underestimated how deep the roots go, and I think if/when we begin to really confront some very difficult truths, then frankly a lot of things click into place in a sharper clarity. My view of police and racism in America has gone from a 90s box top to 1080p HD 4K.... I am much clearer on what is happening, what has been happening, and why it was so easy to ignore before. There's a history of intentional government diversion tactics, like COINTELPRO, the effects of which are ongoing today. From the way we talk about it, to the way conversations are framed and distorted. It's the same story every time. James Baldwin talked about it 60 years ago, it is the same story today. I am horrified and embarrassed and feel betrayed by ... my/our fathers/grandfathers for being complicit, for not doing more to do the morally right thing. I think this is a winnable war. Maybe not this generation. But racism and oppression and fascism don't need to exist. Especially in the RICHEST COUNTRY IN THE HISTORY OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION... it's unimaginable that there are families uncertain if they'll have money to feed their families in August. Elon Musk is working on flying to Mars. This seems tangential, but it's all connected. America could take care of its people. Universal Healthcare and Unviersal Basic Income are things supported by both left & right, but not really by anyone elected in government. There's just no reason not to anymore. It's time to call the bluff. It's time to stop the looting from the mega-rich and simply "re-distribute" the wealth in the other direction. For ONCE. Because we've been trying "trickle down global economy" for a couple generations now and I don't think it's working so well.

 

It's hard to believe how oblivious I/we all have been up until now. Because it seems so obvious now. And BIPOC were saying so. But the reality is that white people can afford for race to be "theoretical" while imposing it as a practical reality on minorities. Most white people don't really feel like there's a "white culture" really; other than the KKK, most white people I know don't feel like "white" is really part of their identity in the way that Black or Latino would be. White people identities are more based on their beliefs or activities; I'm talking in terms of cultural perception. You've never heard of "white on white crime" but wouldn't that be, idk, most serial killers & school shootings? White criminals even are celebrated; the Confederacy only lasted 5 years ... basically the amount of time Rob Johnson spent as a Bills QB... and this is an identity. Mafia -- Bills Mafia -- this is okay because it's white. "Bills Bloods" or "Bills MS-13" probably wouldn't go over so well, right? Well, what's the difference?? Again it's all obvious, it's like the FedEx arrow, or a magic eye trick... it's something that once you see it, it is obvious in so many places, in so many forms.

 

Anyway. I saw this going around on social — it's anonymous so take it for what you will — confessions of a former cop in a Medium article.

Quote

In fact, let me tell you about an extremely formative experience: in my police academy class, we had a clique of around six trainees who routinely bullied and harassed other students: intentionally scuffing another trainee’s shoes to get them in trouble during inspection, sexually harassing female trainees, cracking racist jokes, and so on. Every quarter, we were to write anonymous evaluations of our squadmates. I wrote scathing accounts of their behavior, thinking I was helping keep bad apples out of law enforcement and believing I would be protected. Instead, the academy staff read my complaints to them out loud and outed me to them and never punished them, causing me to get harassed for the rest of my academy class. That’s how I learned that even police leadership hates rats. That’s why no one is “changing things from the inside.” They can’t, the structure won’t allow it.

 

Also, the Dave Chappelle special (posted in Off Topic forum) reminded me about the Christopher Dorner story and I see it in a new light, even more tragic than it already was, which was already incredibly tragic. He wasn't "insane" in the sense of being unclear about his actions. He was "depressed" to suicide; he was left without hope. He was pushed to an extreme amount of violence. I'm not excusing it. I'm saying it was preventable. He tried. People wouldn't listen. And his story was so distorted, it's hard to look again at his "manifesto" and not just feel renewed anger at the structural failures that led to this. Dorner is something people struggle with because, while his actions were evil and wrong, his reasons and justifications and feelings were not. That can be hard for us to hold in their heads, I guess. And I remember following it at the time with the perverse interest of a car chase. It was insane living in Los Angeles for those days/week or so. I remember LAPD shooting an innocent mail carrier because they misidentified the van. I remember a few years ago the LAPD agitating the stand-off at Trader Joe's, also shooting and killing an innocent bystander. The suspect gave up willingly because the employees of TJs talked him down.

 

"All cops are bastards" is talking about the institution. On a human level, of course there are good people who happen to be police officers. There's also good people who happen to be MS-13 gang members, I'm sure. Both organizations behave the same. One has the law, the other doesn't. That's just the simple reality behind all of the pretense. 

 

The propaganda of non-stop cop stories that all of us love... every single one of us has a favorite cop TV show, cop character, cop movie, cop book series, cop video game character.... and they'd be different people/characters, too, for each one. There's so much propaganda in American media that we just don't question. The reality is police do very little. They do so much LESS than we all assumed. They deal with noise complaints, they settle disagreements, they write tickets. Otherwise they look for trouble and harass people; the amount of dangerous situations these officers are supposedly placed in — I think we're all calling BS. It seems like these "dangerous situations" are dangerous because of the police, not in spite of them.

 

They are civil servants cosplaying as Storm Troopers. They're not soldiers. The #1 immediate thing is to end police immunity. Defund the police. And end immunity. Nobody should be above the law. Including law enforcement. That shouldn't be controversial. And yet!!

Edited June 15, 2020 by GregPersons

[GregPersons]

1 hour ago, JetsFan20 said:

We have gotten to a point where it is now appropriate for public companies to support the BLM movement. Three years ago when the kneeling started BLM was not nearly as mainstream and considered somewhat radical/controversial. 
 

Goodell and the NFL owners are no different than Jeff Bezos and Amazon. They will absolutely still do business with the military and police departments (security in stadiums), but feel we are at a point in which support of the movement is now necessary in the eyes of the public.
 

Again-the whole kneeling situation a couple of years ago was blown completely out of proportion and just provided more evidence as to how out of touch NFL owners were. In a league where roughly 70 percent of the players are young black men they should have embraced it from the beginning. 

 

 

Yup. 

 

If nothing else, it's a clear example of how the NFL is unable to do anything but chase the curve. They had a great opportunity to be an ally from the beginning. They could've amplified Black Lives Matter like they do with Breast Cancer and Veteran Salute or whatever other causes the NFL sanctioned. They could've come away from this with renewed respect -- it would've been a little rocky with the MAGA people but the NFL would've been just fine. These people boycott every thing constantly, and it never matters. How many times have they boycotted Starbucks? How are they doing? 

 

That the NFL couldn't get behind BLM is grotesque in hindsight. The phrase is so clear and so obvious, too, it's just... ugh. It's not a debate. It's a magnifying glass on hate and prejudice, on racism. They do or they don't. America/ns care, or don't. The NFL, with all of the access in the world to black voices and already a supposed commitment to community work, couldn't just get on board. They were too afraid of the police.

 

So, if everybody is afraid of speaking up against the police, what does that say about where we're at? It feels like a society where you have to perform demonstrative respect to cops on a regular basis, to give them absurd amounts of money we donate to them through taxes, and also aren't able to criticize it without getting death threats.... yeah that seems about what a police state would be.

[JetsFan20]

17 minutes ago, GregPersons said:

 

Yup. 

 

If nothing else, it's a clear example of how the NFL is unable to do anything but chase the curve. They had a great opportunity to be an ally from the beginning. They could've amplified Black Lives Matter like they do with Breast Cancer and Veteran Salute or whatever other causes the NFL sanctioned. They could've come away from this with renewed respect -- it would've been a little rocky with the MAGA people but the NFL would've been just fine. These people boycott every thing constantly, and it never matters. How many times have they boycotted Starbucks? How are they doing? 

 

That the NFL couldn't get behind BLM is grotesque in hindsight. The phrase is so clear and so obvious, too, it's just... ugh. It's not a debate. It's a magnifying glass on hate and prejudice, on racism. They do or they don't. America/ns care, or don't. The NFL, with all of the access in the world to black voices and already a supposed commitment to community work, couldn't just get on board. They were too afraid of the police.

 

So, if everybody is afraid of speaking up against the police, what does that say about where we're at? It feels like a society where you have to perform demonstrative respect to cops on a regular basis, to give them absurd amounts of money we donate to them through taxes, and also aren't able to criticize it without getting death threats.... yeah that seems about what a police state would be.

A lot of these cops are pawns in all this. I blame the municipalities and department leadership whom view good police work as number of arrests/citations issued. Unlike housing/social programs municipalities make some money back off cops. 
 

Take the situation in GA for example. That kid didn’t need to be arrested. Leave the car in the parking lot and tell him to find his way home.