"If Michael Bennett wants to sit for anthem..."

[Sox-n-Hawks]

The real question is... why doesn't the Secretary of Defense just say...

Okay... if you want to disrespect our nation's flag, "From this point forward military personnel shall not present colors at ANY sporting event."

 

[SmokinHawk]

NFL ratings are down 25% year over year. This is transforming in to an existential crisis for the league.

 

[seahawkfreak]

Yes, sorry, let's get back to the Bennett topic. In my efforts to try and argue the reason for the protests, it certainly drove into political even though I purposely stated and posted only factual and validated data for this reason.

Smokin': we can go to PM on this reply, but I'm not sure why posting false, or at least wildly deceptive stuff like the Soros connection and citing a news source with extreme bias like Washington TImes is helpful. I'd say the same if someone said the opposite and cited Huffington Post. Thus, why I posted the sources I did that are considered unbiased.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/washington-times/

Sorry everyone, carry on.

I don't know about you guys, but I watch football and other sports to be entertained, not to be propagandized. This shit just isn't ok.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha what a joke . I guess only the propaganda you agree with lmao

The black fist is like the nazi salute
The raised fist, or the clenched fist, is a symbol of solidarity and support.[1] It is also used as a salute to express unity, strength, defiance, or resistance.

Where is that white supremacy or hitler exterminating Jews ???

Well the Black Fist is a symbolic gesture used by the Black Panthers, which is a violent communist group/party. Not really a good look unless one likes that sort of thing.

 

[seahawkfreak]

The real question is... why doesn't the Secretary of Defense just say...

Okay... if you want to disrespect our nation's flag, "From this point forward military personnel shall not present colors at ANY sporting event."

And IMO the people supporting the kneeling of the Anthem and or Flag/country (sorry flag represents the country) would be completely fine with that. In fact I believe that is one of their motivations and will eventually lead to the end of the pregame ceremony because it will be labeled as too much of a "political hot button". Let that sink in, our Flag and National Anthem are "political hot buttons".

It is a tactic used in politics. Politicize something, act pissed off then piss a bunch of other people off, come to an agreement just to get rid of said politicized issue when that was the initial intent of the supposed aggrieved party. An example would be the issue of the 10 commandments being shown in government buildings or Halloween costumes on college campuses.

 

[Rocket]

He is saying what Kaep did is as bad as a sex offender. Kaep broke no laws, sex offender has. He may not want either to come his BBQ, but they are not equivalent actions.

No, he's not. It was a metaphor, not to be taken literally. It compared the situations, not the actions nor the people.
Will I have BLM protests on my lawn now?

 

[Rocket]

Many people believe "hands up don't shoot" happened in St. Louis and it didn't. This was a media lie and continues to believed by many to this day.

It wasn't a media lie, it was a lie by the dude who was stealing/walking with Big Mike. The other eye witnesses, mostly black, disproved the claim.

Then again, the media's perpetuation of the untruth could be termed "a media lie"... for they allow it to continue.
if only reporters did their jobs. If they dug for facts and/or focused on reporting accurate instead of ratings. Life would be much more simple if Walter and David were magically revived.

 

[xgeoff]

Scott simply asserted that Kaepernick is being blackballed by the NFL, which is relatively obvious. You can debate whether it's right or wrong or whether it's because of team chemistry or whatever. All those discussions have merit. But with so many teams in this league desperate for QB's, It is simply absurd to me that anyone could deny that Kaepernick is out of work because of his social justice stance.

Kaepernick's extracurricular activities and the possible negative fan reaction are surely a very large factor. Another factor is that his value as a player doesn't offset the possible negatives. This distraction/value calculus goes on for every NFL team for every player.

My response is: so what?

If by "blackballed" he means that each individual team has decided the negatives of Kaepernick's activism outweigh his benefits as a player, then that isn't an actionable injustice against Kaepernick. Let's say I do something, anything, harmful to the bottom line of my current employer that results in splashy bad PR, in an industry where PR is a major consideration (which is nearly every industry, but especially the entertainment industry). Other employers very likely will stay far away from me. So what.

*Collusion* is, and collusion is the word lurking behind Scott's usage of the word "blackball", because many conflate the two concepts. But Scott knows there's no evidence of collusion, and that such evidence is excruciatingly difficult to find sans audio footage of mustache-twirling NFL owners laughing about rejecting Kaepernick in a smoke-filled room.

This SI article is a pretty good run-down of Kaepernick's conclusion grievance why collusion is a pretty high bar to clear.

https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/10/15/colin-kaepernick-collusion-lawsuit-against-nfl

In my opinion the only way Kaepernick wins a collusion claim is if he gets an activist judge/arbitrator, and even then it can't stand up to appeal.

My commentary really isn't about whether there is provable collusion among the owners. Rather I am just making that point that Kaepernick is out of work because of his social justice stance, not because he can't play and not because there isn't a need for his services.

Was there collusion lurking behind Scott's usage of the word 'blackball'? Yeah I think there probably was. Do I think the owners have talked with each other about Kaepernick? Yeah I do. Do I think it is provable? No, I don't. And do I think that some of them feel that it is just too much risk to justify the reward, and not some insidious racist undercurrent. Yes, I think that is perfectly plausible.