A tweet worth reading on the NFL player protest.

[applegrove]

pdxbuckeye at Daily Kos

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/5/26/1767268/-A-tweet-worth-reading-on-the-NFL-player-protest

"SNIP........

KD@kdreamcatchers

Rosa Parks was not protesting the bus. Ghandi was not protesting the food. The colonists were not protesting the tea. The players are not protesting the flag or the anthem. They are protesting injustice.

.......SNIP"

[Trust Buster]

1. But, the other examples you cited did not protest in the capacity of an employee.

[applegrove]

2. Free speech gives the rich the right to endlessly fund campaigns under citizens united.

Last edited Mon May 28, 2018, 03:00 PM - Edit history (1)

If free speech is money, it can be kneeling to the anthem wherever it takes place. Also why is Nascar not banning the confederate flag or confederate gear at car races. Surely that is more of an insult to the American flag.

[smirkymonkey]

42. This!

[applegrove]

46. Free speech and citizen's United compared to players kneeling is someone

else on this board's idea. I cannot claim it as my own. I think it is brilliant.

[grumpyduck]

3. Does it matter?

The second the NFL accepted money from the Defense Dept. for doing "patriotic" stuff on the field, they left the door open to people, including employees, making statements.

[Pluvious]

14. This related meme has percolated up at Reddit...

[smirkymonkey]

43. Excellent. Saving that one.

The hypocrisy is astounding!

[Different Drummer]

52. Very appropriate! n/t

[EffieBlack]

47. Not to mention that there is no question that they acquiesced to repeated demands by the president

of the United States to take this action to shut down their players' protests.

The government can't pressure and coerce a private company to take an action that works to its political benefit and then, when the company does as instructed, claim that the action was a purely private decision involving no state action.

The government and the NFL have been working in concert on this issue for years, as you pointed out. This is state-mandated action by the NFL.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Why do you imagine being an employee in a US-taxpayer-funded stadium should make a difference? n/t

[Trust Buster]

6. Because, the players are contracted employees of a business. Any business needs to attract the

Broadest customer base possible to be successful.

[Moostache]

10. I believe FANS should start taking a knee too.

Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere, period.

Fuck the NFL owners and their 'ratings'...and their 'businesses' too...without players (MAINLY African-American players) they have an empty stadium, some grass and a flag to beat off in front of for all I care.

[Takket]

34. The NFL tossed the right to that argument when they cut a deal with the military

I don't protest the anthem where i work, but then again the military doesn't pay my employer to have me participate in patriotic ceremonies either. You want to dance with the government you better expect to dance with the constitution as well.

[Trust Buster]

37. Nope, that won't happen.

[EffieBlack]

48. Beautifully said!

I hope you don't mind if I steal - I mean, borrow - it.

You want to dance with the government you better expect to dance with the constitution as well.

[applegrove]

5. Are they paid to stand on the field and sing? Is that in their contracts?

[Trust Buster]

7. That is why allowing the option of staying in the locker room is a reasonable solution. Thanks.

[applegrove]

8. And defence department paying for the anthem does not make it a public event?

Right. You are just paid to protect the biggest wedge issue the GOP cultivates: racism.

Cannot have the GOP base connecting with their favourite players on a viceral human level about injustice. Where would the tax cuts for very rich people be then?.

[Trust Buster]

9. The NFL is a private business and not a political platform.

[Kirk Lover]

13. In the end you are correct they are the employer and they can set the rules. nt

[digonswine]

15. It would be good to remember that-

Fuck Ron Paul is quite popular here. As it should be.

[sharedvalues]

19. The NFL CLAIMS it is separate competing teams. If so they are colluding now.

The NFL wants to have it both ways.

When it helps them to say they are one business, as with Kaepernick, they say they are one business.

When it helps them to say they are separate competing teams, as with antitrust concerns, they say they are separate competing teams.

Since the NFL often claims they are separate competing teams (a farce, but let’s go with that), if any owner said a single word to any other owner about not hiring Kaepernick, that is COLLUSION.


Kaepernick should get a fair shot at being hired by one of the separate nfl teams. But because he NFL has set up a communist system where there is no free market for players, he is not getting that shot.


So no. The NFL is NOT just a single private business and they do NOT get to collude to exclude employees for their political views.

But good luck getting that illegal behavior prosecuted. See “The Chickenshit Club”. Also, America needs stronger antitrust law.

[EffieBlack]

49. It is in a symbiotic relationship with the government and, thus, this decision constitutes state

action subject to constitutional restrictions.

[sharedvalues]

17. This is a right wing talking point

Oft repeated in the right wing propaganda media.


Here’s the response:

The Molly McGuires were not protesting the coal (they were coal mine employees).

The teachers who are striking are not protesting the school (they are school employees.)




Yes, usually employees don’t protest unless they have a union behind them. Because their employers often will punish them. That’s why unions are necessary.

[Trust Buster]

25. They are employees. That is a fact. You just can't declare whatever is uncomfortable to you

A right wing talking point and claim victory.

[sharedvalues]

32. Just because corporate america has extreme power in 2018

over workers doesn’t mean it has to be this way.

In fact, it isn’t this way in other countries. Just because many American employees are at will with no union and have zero negotiating power doesn’t mean that’s the case in other countries. And it hasn’t always been this way in America either - workers before 1980 often had a lot more negotiating power.

Plus. The NFL is a special case, because they pretend they are separate companies. Is Kaepernick an employee of the NFL, or of the 49ers, a totally separate independent company from the other 31 teams? Because if the latter, as the NFL claims, anti trust law makes it ILLEGAL for the owners to blackball him.

[Trust Buster]

33. No employer of any era would want his business co-opted by employees to be used as a

Political platform. It is this way in other countries. Please feel free to cite an example if you think otherwise.

[sharedvalues]

35. Yes. No employer would want. That's why we have laws

To constrain what employers can do, so that societal goals can be advanced.



Eugene Volokh, a conservative law prof:

About half of Americans live in jurisdictions that protect some private employee speech or political activity from employer retaliation

http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/empspeech.pdf



Our country can and should constrain employers when employers’ actions are bad for the country.

One can slice and dice the EXACT issues at hand. But he general point still applies: it is American to express political views on injustice. And as a society we should want Kaepernick to use his platform. Feel free to keep defending the NFL if you want to further advance corporate power in America.


Also, care to comment on the NFL’s collusion problem which I’ve now pointed out three times?

[Trust Buster]

38. Total nonsense. The NFL has nothing to do with police brutality.

[sharedvalues]

41. You still haven't answered. NFL. Antitrust

NFL is different than any other employer.
Even if we were to agree with you that employers SHOULD have completely unfettered power over their employees.

[Caliman73]

21. You are right.

The other protesters were actually breaking the laws of their countries by their protest. They were not simply taking a knee silently and without incident, they were disrupting, agitating, and defying the law.

But, if the employer relationship is more important than the right to silently protest because the whiny asshole president made a stink, then have at it.

[lunatica]

24. They are not protesting their bosses

and you know that.

They’re still doing their job of playing the game. And their job has nothing to do with the national anthem.

[Trust Buster]

26. They are alienating a significant portion of their employers customer base.

[lunatica]

27. No they aren't

The so-called fans are not there for the owners. There there for the players. If they don’t like one the switch their loyalty to another.

That’s just bull.

[Trust Buster]

28. No it isn't. Many customers are opposed to this. That is a well reported fact.

[lunatica]

29. How many is many customers?

Is that about equal to Trump’s racist base?

What a surprise!

[Trust Buster]

30. Enough customers to concern these business owners. Many moderates included.

[lunatica]

31. No sympathy here.

They’re simply wrong just like they were with other famous peaceful protesters who changed everything. Racism is not acceptable just because racists whine about how unfair they’re being treated.

But feel free to defend them.

[EffieBlack]

51. Have you taken a poll or done the math?

Where are you getting your numbers?

[EffieBlack]

50. And many customers are alienated by the owners decision to shut the players down

[Uncle Joe]

11. Trump should've been impeached for that alone

Taking a knee during the anthem is a sign of distress, making a statement to the world that we as a nation are not as good as we could be. That we haven't lived up to our highest ideals. It's not an affront to the flag, the anthem or the military but an affirmation of First Amendment freedom of speech power. It's what our Founders envisioned when they wrote and ratified the Constitution of the United States. The First Amendment was never passed to protect popular speech, we Americans don't bow to kings and we damn sure aren't Borg. To do such a conscientious protest especially alone when hundreds of thousands or millions of your countrymen/women might misinterpret your actions or disagree while risking your well paid livelihood takes great courage. When done in good conscious for love of your fellow Americans, it's the sign of a true patriot of the highest order.

Such protests reflects the power of our democratic republic, not weakness, no one in North Korea or other autocratic nations would dare do such a thing. Without the Constitution of the United States' substance, structure, law, freedoms and ideals, the flag loses meaning, it becomes just an ambiguous pretty symbol with different meanings for every individual that views it. These freedoms are precisely what our military men and women fight and die for, it's the glue that holds us together despite our differences. As a former Marine along with every other individual in the military, the President and every member of Congress we swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, not the flag.

Apparently the President either forgot or never knew this when the holder of the highest office in the land trashed his oath, tried to turn the First Amendment into toilet paper, degraded himself and his office by using profane slurs not only against the protesters (few as they were at the time) but their mothers as well. He may have even broke the law by either influencing or trying to influence private entities in regards to their employment decisions all because he didn't approve of their political protest. These actions are a much greater threat against our democratic republic.


Thanks for the thread applegrove

[applegrove]

12. .

[Uncle Joe]

18. ..

[smirkymonkey]

44. +1000

[marieo1]

16. minngal

Only an idiot would think otherwise. I am proud of the NFL players that take a stand by kneeling. No one else is doing a thing to stop it. The media reports it a couple of times and then it just goes away. I just don't get it!! We all have to hang in there and support each other.

Another thing I don't understand how can they (NFL and the other party) call themselves patriotic at all, when they just go along with all the unpatriotic things going on in this administration.

[Izzy Blue]

20. What's next for NFL, players' protests after new anthem policy?

Snip:

"The new policy that owners ratified on the final day of their two-day spring meeting at an Atlanta hotel does not quite guarantee the end of the players' protest movement.

The policy gives players the option to remain in the locker room rather than be on the field for the playing of the anthem before games. Owners and the league said their expectation is that any player who opts to be on the sideline for the anthem will stand. The new policy gives the league the right to fine a team if one of its players protests during the anthem.

But the issue of whether a player would be disciplined for protesting during the anthem is left to that player's team to decide, under the new policy. Christopher Johnson, the chairman of the New York Jets, wasted no time making it clear that there will not necessarily be uniformity in the approaches taken by the 32 teams toward players' protests. He told Newsday on Wednesday that he would not discipline any Jets player who protests during the anthem and he would pay the league's fine of the team if that happens.

It's not clear if any other teams will be as tolerant. But Jed York, the chief executive officer of the San Francisco 49ers, told reporters Wednesday that he'd abstained from the owners' vote on the new anthem policy. The 49ers and Seattle Seahawks have been particularly supportive in the past of their players' right to protest. Meanwhile, the league has not specified how much a team would be fined if one of its players protests during the anthem.

The NFL Players Association announced almost immediately that it would study the new policy and challenge any aspect of it that the union believes violates the sport's collective bargaining agreement. DeMaurice Smith, the NFLPA's executive director, took to social media to lament the owners' action.

"History has taught us that both patriotism and protest are like water; if the force is strong enough it cannot be suppressed," Smith wrote on Twitter. "Today, the CEO's of the NFL created a rule that people who hate autocracies should reject.

"Management has chosen to quash the same freedom of speech that protects someone who wants to salute the flag in an effort to prevent someone who does not wish to do so.

"The sad irony of this rule is that anyone who wants to express their patriotism is subject to the whim of a person who calls himself an 'Owner.' I know that not all of the NFL CEO's are for this and I know that true American patriots are not cheering today."

Philadelphia Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins also was critical of the new policy."

more
http://www.dailyherald.com/sports/201805...hem-policy

Quote this message in a reply

[raven mad]

22. We read it on dailykos earlier this afternoon.

In turn, sent to my daughter, my ex (2 tours Vietnam, bronze star w/the "V" for valor) and my stepson.

Yes!!!

[Marcuse]

23. The players are not protesting the flag, anthem, pledge, eagles or any other symbol or fetish.

They are protesting the fact that the republic for which it stands lacks liberty and justice for all.

The employer’s right to impose working conditions is subject to the CBA. By unilaterally changing them, the NFL is inviting labor chaos which plays into the hand of a president who hates the private corporation that twice, with extreme prejudice, rejected his attempts to join it. Similar to his war on Amazon.
https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/05/23/nfl-new-national-anthem-protest

[Snackshack]

36. Do these people

Realize that the NFL does not do this show of patriotism out of altruism.

The NFL charges the Military to do this before games.

[Scurrilous]

39. K&R

[Cha]

40. Exactly! trumpers too Ignorant

willfully or otherwise to know.

Link to tweet

[spanone]

45. K&R...