Apropos #takeaknee and the previous post:
Most of the discussion about whether NFL and other athletes should stay on their feet during the pre-game singing of the Star Spangled Banner miss the point. Kneeling is a political statement, but so is not kneeling.
The public staging of the national anthem is a political event. It began in professional baseball during World War I as a demonstration of support for the war effort (before the SSB was even officially the anthem), at a time when propaganda and repression against dissent were fierce. But you don’t need to know much history to recognize “all rise for the national anthem” for what it is.
The public singing of the anthem is a nationalist ceremony. Through it, those present confirm their loyalty to the government as a value that supersedes all others. If we had a different song about democracy and popular sovereignty as supreme values, that might be better, but it would be political too. Nationalism is simply one particular political value system, and the unthinking acceptance most people give to it doesn’t change that fact.
So athletes who make a show of not embracing the nationalist display are not injecting politics into anything; they are responding to one political statement with another that expresses their own point of view. If you don’t want to mix sports and politics, eliminate the enforced display of nationalism.
Also, the SSB is a terrible song, with crappy music and lyrics.
Also, the SSB is a terrible song, with crappy music and lyrics.
ReplyDeleteTotally. I propose instead Billy Ocean's When the going gets tough, the tough get going :-)
Bravo. Completely agree. Maybe we could start the games 15 minutes sooner and have one less commercial break if we quit playing the national anthem before every damn sporting event. The games are long enough without all the bad singing. I can remember a day when we didn't regularly play the SSB before sporting events. It seems to me that these public displays of fake patriotism really got rolling during the Reagan years.
ReplyDeleteAnother reason not to play the SSB: Francis Scott Key was a racist S.O.B. His son was even worse. But then again, what else should we expect from all those super patriots in Huntsville, AL cheering the SSB after driving to the Trump rally in their pick-up trucks with the Confederate battle flag license plate? Roll Tide.
Countries are not holy anymore — no longer one step below God (still one step below God in importance). Not since black and white television. Now we see countries as land and people. That’s your dog run and this is my dog run; and you’d better stay off my dog run. At least that’s the way television hits a lot of us a lot — and most of us at least some. Get me Marshall McLuhan.
ReplyDeleteDo you love your kids? Do you think they are holy? Maybe you do think so, but people who love their kids just as much as you do don’t think they are holy. Alternate ways of looking at the same reality; none really right or wrong.
Right now I think my country stinks: disappearance of labor unions. Democracy without labor unions is like a car without gas — it is going nowhere.
The players are not objecting to the new introduction of the national anthem before games — never been done before. They are making a complaint about the gap between our high ideals and our sad reality (permanent human condition). I don’t know how the military even gets into it — except conflated by politicians in order to play with us.
Not gonna defend the lyrics, but the tune, which is a bit difficult with an octave and a half range, is an old British drinking song, and not half bad, (especially if you imagine drunks singing it).
ReplyDeleteIt's much worse than you think. The military paid the NFL to make the players come out for the anthem and stand. It's all of 8 years old.
ReplyDeletehttps://lawnewz.com/high-profile/heres-what-should-really-outrage-you-about-the-nfl-the-national-anthem/