Billionaire NFL Owners Move Against Individual Freedom

Terrible

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

So the NFL introduces a new rule that a team can be punished if its players don't stand for the national anthem. What if one player kneels? Will the entire team be punished as collective punishment Israeli style? Will their mum's house be bulldozed? Apparently to kneel in order to bring attention to any social issue, issue, rape, racist attacks, government overreach, war, poverty, lack of health care, education costs. the Predator in Chief calling immigrants animals and murderers, is disrespecting the anthem.

Leaving aside how a protest against police murders of unarmed citizens is "disrespecting"an anthem. Why is an anthem played at a football game at all? I personally can't stand anthems. I generally stand at them simply out of respect for workers who died fighting for what they believed was a just cause and I pick my battles. But if a person doesn't want to stand at an anthem then that's their choice. It's not my anthem. It's not a song praising the merits and history of the working class. By using it all they are doing is dragging us in to their triumphant refrain. The Internationale is the best workers' anthem. The very force behind all this nationalism doesn't give a damn about workers especially when they return from the conflicts they send our kids to.

All the flag waving is for when they leave to fight their wars. When they return, if they do, inevitably damaged, sometimes physically and always emotionally, the "patriotic" cheerleaders are short of money.

Perfectly fine. Doesn't disrespect an anthem, just women.

Some religious groups do not stand for anthems. Will they be the next targets? Also remember this; the folks that run the NFL are all billionaires, a gang of thieves if there ever was one. I saw a post the other day condemning the M-13 gang and their power. They say the same about workers organizations, that the unions have too much power, they call them big labor. The heads of the NFL, the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, the National Association of Manufacturers and the other multiple other bosses' gangs make the M-13 look like a club from Mr. Rogers neighborhood.

I suggest folks drag themselves away from the basketball games once in a while or the other distractions they place in our line of sight and wake up and smell the roses.