The same White House occupant who wants pastors to inject his politics into their Sunday professions wants footballers fired for making their own political statements during Sunday ceremonies.
Sioux Falls pastor Kermit Rye says those star athletes kneeling during the National Anthem are saying something God wants his people to hear:
I have agonized, as I hope you have, over the silent protest that began with one man kneeling at a football game. Kneeling in the Christian tradition is usually a sign of obeisance — of reverence or of deference. This is true in other religions as well.
There is much for which we are grateful here in America. I, for one, want always to show respect for our flag and the country it represents. And I do not think anyone, black or white, should disrespect police officers whose work is difficult to begin with as well as dangerous. But I want also to listen to any cry for justice that I understand is important to God [Kermit Rye, “From the Pulpit: Reflecting on Kaepernick, God’s Will Supersedes Tradition,” that Sioux Falls paper, 2017.11.03].
Justice or tradition: what’s more important?
Typical. . . If the protest doesn’t get one’s message across redefine the message. . . No matter how many different ways, the sport actors, this “pastor” or those in the blood chasing media, describe their protest of the National Anthem, whether it be because of cops, racism, Trump, prisoners running the prison, Kaepernick, justice or whatever, they chose the wrong time, place and anthem. The people of this Nation are not stupid and though they have all heard all the different reasons for the protest, they “SEE” the kneeling during THE PEOPLE’S anthem and they consider the source. This is why the protest is failing.
The “people’s anthem” is what now? Could it be now the country that has declared a war against the west? https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/britain-sex-dossier-scandal?spMailingID=12295253&spUserID=MjMyMTgxODA1NDM4S0&spJobID=1280518491&spReportId=MTI4MDUxODQ5MQS2
Here is what we can expect from our brand new, shinny “people’s anthem” Bow down servants to Putin, the shirtless wonder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOAtz8xWM0w
Thank Kismet we have dingbat wingnuts that can’t read and so make up reasons why people are protesting. Players were pretty clear what the kneeling was about. Wingnuts and their right wing bomb throwers decided to change the message to rally their base- just like they always do. Now the original message is partially lost in a convolution of wingnut making.
Old Serge,do you enjoy ****ing on the constitution?
OldSarg, come out of the closet.
This issue of kneeling during the national anthem always makes me feel so disconnected from the rest of the nation. I just don’t understand why it’s a big deal.
I am okay with the NFL team owners disciplining their players for it. If it’s so important to stand and to present oneself during the national anthem, then make it part of the contract and penalize for non-compliance. (On the other hand this should be coming from the various NFL team owners and not from the president of the United States.)
On the other hand maybe it would be okay not to play the national anthem every time there is a game. After all, people are not showing up in order to hear the national anthem. Instead they’re there to play (or watch) a game. Yes, our tradition is starting the game with the national anthem, but that doesn’t mean we have to go on like that forever. I’d be okay with the NFL clipping out the national anthem entirely, making the event a sporting event rather than a political one.
Nice false choice.
How about the tradition of justice?
Or the justice of a tradition?
I’m guessing if people knelt before a football game to pray for the salvation of all souls in the stadium, you’d freak out. Whether it was before, after or during the playing of the national anthem.
Especially if it was a Christian doing the kneeling and praying.
I’m guessing you don’t like people hanging out the John 3:16 signs at NFL games. During the anthem or after.
Or holding up anti-abortion signs. Calling for justice for the unborn, including the right to live. You would wig out, no?
So please line out for us why you think doing a protest/demonstration of kneeling during the playing of the national anthem is for “justice.”
Funny how this issue breaks down politically….
If this is seen as a legit way to behave during the anthem because of the players’ intentions; what’s to keep the anthem time from becoming a bulletin board of grievances: voter ID; player contracts; American defense policy; tax policy; abortion; free speech; the right to bear arms; wearing pink shoes;?
In a league where owners-with-agreement-by-players-union tell players what to wear right down to their jocks (they don’t wear ’em anymore) including initials on shoes, it doesn’t seem unAmerican to tell players to stand during the anthem, or quit the team or pay a fine.
Or, I suppose, tell them all to kneel, or quit.
As someone said 70 years ago: “In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
In this cynical, ironic age when late night comedians are seen as the bearers of virtue, maybe it’s a fool’s errand to even play the national anthem in public anymore. It’s all joke. Imagine Letterman, Kimmel, Col-BURT, the other jimmy, standing at attention for the national anthem. It’s a joke, man.
Let’s all say screw it, drink beer and watch football and cheerleaders.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
It is a joke man. Just do as you say, watch the expensive game and drink the expensive beer. It is damn game, that is all. We pay for the friggin stadiums they play that damn game on as well. We should be able to do as we damn well please. sorry that police gunning down citizens is acceptable to you. Yeah, that’s the ticket alright.
BTW, those initials on shoes and uniforms are paid advertising by Nike and others that the owners want to get a cut on. It is all about the money man.
So some think it is okay for the plantation owner to take away constitutional rights from players because he pays them?
Why bother to pray? See how much good it did Texas church goers. Why bother to video the players and give them more attention. Shouldn’t the cameras be focused on that damn flag? Whitey righties just want to destroy the NFL union so they can pay players a minimum salary and reap even more profits and they are turning the constitution on its head to achieve their goals.
To Mike from Iowa: (I”m so sorry you are from Iowa; I suppose you are still there. I say NFL players should all kneel as protest of the injustice of you having to be in Iowa. )
I know you probably don’t care but since you dissed prayer: It’s worth noting that Jesus didn’t get all his prayers answered either, including the big one about getting a pass on the crucifixion. So don’t think that those who pray think it will get them out of every jam they are in….
I’m praying you can escape Iowa.
Or as you call it, Ioway.
(just ribbin’ from a superior state)
I’m not sure God (or whoever/whatever is in her place) is a football fan.
Back in 1990 the Supreme Court upheld the right to burn the U.S. flag in protest. A few years later Antonin Scalia told CNN: “If I were king, I would not allow people to go around burning the American flag. However, we have a First Amendment, which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged — and it is addressed in particular to speech critical of the government,” Scalia said. “That was the main kind of speech that tyrants would seek to suppress.” The constitution is more important than the flag and perceived patriotism.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/29/politics/flag-burning-constitutional-donald-trump/index.html
Now I’m not a bible expert, but isn’t there a warning against idol worship? It seems to me that a Christian should be wary of excessive flag worship.
There is no god, but if there was it would be a cribbage fan.
A moth-eaten rag on a worm-eaten pole
It does not look likely to stir a man’s soul,
‘Tis the deeds that were done ‘neath the moth-eaten rag,
When the pole was a staff, and the rag was a flag.
~Sir Edward B. Hamley, 1824-1893
My name is James Bradley and I’m from Antigo, Wisconsin. My dad is on that statue and I just wrote a book called “Flags of Our Fathers” which is #5 on the New York Times Best Seller list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind me.”
“Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is Harlon Block. Harlon was an all-state football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all the senior members of his football team. They were off to play another type of game. A game called ‘War’. But it didn’t turn out to be a game. Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands. I don’t say that to gross you out, I say that because there are generals who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war.”
“You guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and 19 years old.”
(He pointed to the statue) “You see this next guy? That’s Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire. If you took Rene’s helmet off at the moment this photo was taken and looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection because he was scared. He was 18 years old. Boys won the battle of Iwo Jima… Boys… Not old men.”
“The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They called him the “old man” because he was so old. He was already 24. When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn’t say, ‘Let’s go kill some Japanese’ or ‘Let’s die for our country.’ He knew he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, ‘You do what I say, and I’ll get you home to your mothers.'”
“The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona. Ira Hayes walked off Iwo Jima. He went into the White House with my dad. President Truman told him, ‘You’re a hero…’ He told reporters, ‘How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my buddies hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?’ So you take your class at school, 250 of you spending a year together having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira Hayes. He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes died dead drunk, face down at the age of 32… ten years after this picture was taken.”
“The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin Sousley from Hilltop, Kentucky. A fun lovin’ hillbilly boy. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, ‘Yeah, you know, we took two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung wire across the stairs so the cows couldn’t get down. Then we fed them Epsom salts. Those cows crapped all night.'”
“Yes, he was a fun lovin’ hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19. When the telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his mother’s farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into the morning. The neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away.”
“The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John Bradley from Antigo, Wisconsin, where I was raised. My dad lived until 1994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter Cronkite’s producers or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little kids to say, ‘No, I’m sorry, sir, my dad’s not here. He is in Canada fishing. No, there is no phone there, sir. No, we don’t know when he is coming back.’ My dad never fished or even went to Canada. Usually, he was sitting there right at the table eating his Campbell’s soup. But we had to tell the press that he was out fishing. He didn’t want to talk to the press.”
“You see, my dad didn’t see himself as a hero. Everyone thinks these guys are heroes, ’cause they are in a photo and a monument. My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo Jima he probably held over 200 boys as they died. And when boys died in Iwo Jima, they writhed and screamed in pain.”
“When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said, ‘I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who did not come back… Did NOT come back.'”
“So that’s the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima, and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys died on Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your time.”
Suddenly, the monument wasn’t just a big old piece of metal with a flag sticking out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the heartfelt words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero. Maybe not a hero for the reasons most people would believe, but a hero nonetheless.
Michael T. Powers
OLD GLORY
This famous name was coined by Captain William Driver, a shipmaster of Salem, Massachusetts, in 1831. As he was leaving on one of his many voyages aboard the brig CHARLES DOGGETT – and this one would climax with the rescue of the mutineers of the BOUNTY – some friends presented him with a beautiful flag of twenty four stars. As the banner opened to the ocean breeze for the first time, he exclaimed “Old Glory!”
He retired to Nashville in 1837, taking his treasured flag from his sea days with him. By the time the Civil War erupted, most everyone in and around Nashville recognized Captain Driver’s “Old Glory.” When Tennesee seceded from the Union, Rebels were determined to destroy his flag, but repeated searches revealed no trace of the hated banner.
Then on February 25th, 1862, Union forces captured Nashville and raised the American flag over the capital. It was a rather small ensign and immediately folks began asking Captain Driver if “Old Glory” still existed. Happy to have soldiers with him this time, Captain Driver went home and began ripping at the seams of his bedcover. As the stitches holding the quilt-top to the batting unraveled, the onlookers peered inside and saw the 24-starred original “Old Glory”!
Captain Driver gently gathered up the flag and returned with the soldiers to the capitol. Though he was sixty years old, the Captain climbed up to the tower to replace the smaller banner with his beloved flag. The Sixth Ohio Regiment cheered and saluted – and later adopted the nickname “Old Glory” as their own, telling and re-telling the story of Captain Driver’s devotion to the flag we honor yet today.
Captain Driver’s grave is located in the old Nashville City Cemetery, and is one of three (3) places authorized by act of Congress where the Flag of the United States may be flown 24 hours a day.
Old What’s its name is talking to himself. Schizoid?
Old Sarg: interesting comment…but ya gotta edit it… James Bradley’s father was NOT one of the guys raising the flag in the famous photo… although long thought to be…..
about a year ago it was established officially he was not him in the photo…..James bradley who wrote the best selling book was a little slow to admit it but finally did…. new research came out of Omaha, to show who the real guy was….
cute story bout harlon bloch, the kid at the point, his legs braced,
his pants tight on his butt, which was important.. before anyone knew who these guys were, as the photo went around the world via AP, his dear mother in Texas saw it and said right away: THat’s Harlan. I’d know that butt anywhere, I diapered it enough” and she was right… that’s in bradley’s book …..
No one is obliged to salute a system that oppresses one’s people. America does should not force conformity. America doesn’t need to. America can earn respect.