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Boycott Both Bengals vs. Browns Games


Rick

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2 hours ago, LostInDaJungle said:

These guys are literally killing themselves getting concussed every Sunday, and the thing that makes you want to boycott is them kneeling during the anthem? Wife beaters get a slap on the wrist, but this is just too much?

 

Keep in mind this is the same guy who wanted us to bring Pacman here, so you can see where his priorities lie.

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1 hour ago, RayDoggBengal said:

You know what's really disrespectful to me.  Carrying the American flag in one hand and the flag of people who tried to overthrow America in the other.

What is totally disrespectful to me, Ray...is that I had ancestors on both sides of the battlefield--in one engagement actually shooting at each other. The one in gray owned a small piece of land in Eastern Virginia--but worked it himself (along with my great-great grandfather). Owned no slaves. Went to war in order to help defend his home. The one in blue was an ordained Methodist minister, who volunteered with a bunch of Oregon pioneer veterans--fully committed to the ideas of abolishing slavery. But he also helped drive out native Americans from their land in the post-war period. 

 

So which statue would be the best one to tear down--if they were even well-known enough to merit? Would my great-great-great grandfather's headstone be worthy of defacement--just because he has "Captain, CSA" on it? Or my other ancestor's because he is included in a plaque of a frontier skirmish where the native population was pushed out (after that group had raided, killed, and burned an entire settlement)? 

 

I am not sure there is an answer--given the present day hysteria. 

 

 

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31 minutes ago, Le Tigre said:

What is totally disrespectful to me, Ray...is that I had ancestors on both sides of the battlefield--in one engagement actually shooting at each other. The one in gray owned a small piece of land in Eastern Virginia--but worked it himself (along with my great-great grandfather). Owned no slaves. Went to war in order to help defend his home. The one in blue was an ordained Methodist minister, who volunteered with a bunch of Oregon pioneer veterans--fully committed to the ideas of abolishing slavery. But he also helped drive out native Americans from their land in the post-war period. 

 

So which statue would be the best one to tear down--if they were even well-known enough to merit? Would my great-great-great grandfather's headstone be worthy of defacement--just because he has "Captain, CSA" on it? Or my other ancestor's because he is included in a plaque of a frontier skirmish where the native population was pushed out (after that group had raided, killed, and burned an entire settlement)? 

 

I am not sure there is an answer--given the present day hysteria. 

 

 

No one is talking about defacement of headstones, that's not the issue.  Should the plaque be removed?  If it was/is on Native American land yes.  Where it is now, my thoughts are yes but that's not my battle to fight.  Statues of people who wanted to keep my people in slavery, and break up the US, yes they all need to come down.

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7 hours ago, USN Bengal said:

Rick, as a disabled retired veteran of the US Navy, I understand your point of view.

 

However, let me interject something...

 

Many people are upset that NFL players (amongst other sports athletes) are not standing during the national anthem. They say that it's a sign of major disrespect to veterans, especially the ones who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

 

Indulge me if you please...

 

The "Golden Generation", the ones everyone refers to as the saviors of the American way, did indeed fight against the tyrants attempts at world oppression from Germany, Japan, Italy, and a small smattering of others. When the U.S. entered World War II, Jim Crow segregation had permeated every aspect of American society. When black men volunteered for duty or were drafted, they were assigned to segregated divisions and often given combat support roles, such as cook, quartermaster and grave-digging duty. According to British personnel in the BEF, meals in the US Army were served with the white servicemen being served in one line and the black servicemen and officers in another. Because of black protests against the Army's treatment of its black soldiers, military leadership began to attempt to address the issue beginning in 1943, but segregation in the armed forces remained official policy until 1948.

With the exception of 18 female African-American nurses who had served in World War I, the Army Nurses CorpArmyAaaa, established in 1901, remained white until 1941, when pressure from the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses, and Eleanor Roosevelt , caused the Army to admit black nurses. A quota of 48 nurses was set, and the women were segregated from white nurses and white soldiers for much of the war. Eventually more black nurses enlisted. They were assigned to care for black soldiers, and served in the China-Burma-India theater, Australia, New Guinea, Liberia, England and the Philippines.

 

So, besides the history lesson, my point is this;

 

Black men and women volunteered to serve to fight world oppression when they couldn't escape racial suppression back home. You and I fought for the rights of ALL citizens to protest, and these black men and women, and ANYONE else who cares about people of color has the right and should be supported for doing so.

 

I stand with them now, although I didn't at first, because I didn't take the time to walk in their shoes.

 

It's not about respect for our vets and America, it's about the lack of respect and equality for people who volunteered to defend this country that won't treat them as equals.

 

Just my $.02, and I'll move this thread to J & D.

Bravo Zulu!

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I will add this to why I love my country and respect our flag. My 91 year old mother is officially labeled as a slave by our government and Germany. My mother survived a Nazi concentration camp during WWII. She told me many stories of her watching them shoot Jews and others in their heads while leaning over a huge mass grave. They would then fall in the grave. Her job was to cover them up with dirt. She said some would still be moving as the dirt covered them up. She said their blood would seep above the dirt. One time she had to go through dead men bodies looking for her brother the Nazis killed earlier in the day. The German government does pay her monthly checks for her time in their concentration camp and the forced labor. She really had no choice but do what they told her or be shot in the head. As a young girl in the war, she was abused by the Nazis. And her horrible, “nightmareish” stories go on and on. My father from America fought in WWII and Korea. He met my mother in Germany after the war. She was sick and asked him for an  aspirin for her pain and sickness. She had nothing but the clothes she was wearing. He was a career enlisted man in the US Army. I was a career Army rat. I also enlisted in the Navy. I learned from my father and my mother to LOVE America, LOVE our flag, and serve her. So, I have a different perspective than those who don’t stand up for our national anthem.

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Rick with respect to your family history, it's fascinating but it's also completely random.  In other words you could have just as easily been born in a small fishing village in Bali - it's not something you accomplished.  Not trying to be a dick about it because it's definitely an interesting & dramatic read, but you seem to equate it with this love of symbolism or think it somehow endows you with a greater sense of patriotism than everyone else.  It does not.  

 

These guys are using their cushy position as NFL players to make a statement.  They've all seen how it tanked another rising star's career in Kaepernick, yet they chose to go ahead and do it anyway.  They're risking their entire livelihood, a quite lucrative one, for something they think is more important.  You say they're only doing it for attention & that's both cynical and ridiculous.  What attention are they gaining that isn't completely negative? 

 

And why should I boycott a football game over it?  What would you have their employer, the Cleveland Browns NFL franchise, do about it? Force them to stand or be fired, thus violating the very Constitutional Rights you claim to hold so dear? Or is it the symbols you're more concerned with, because championing civil rights actually requires more effort than standing for a few minutes or flying a bit of cloth?

 

It's funny that you would expect an organization as monumentally hypocritical as the NFL to make this stand for you. You may disagree with the players, but to argue that it's because you're a bigger patriot than them is a dangerous road to go down.  You know next to nothing about any of them.  They could be the sons of Medal of Honor winners for all you know.  Would that make their position more important to you? 

 

I'd also like to mention that war fucking sucks.

 

War. Fucking. Sucks.  It's not something to be celebrated.  Yes, I'm very glad we won most of them & I appreciate the people that fought in them, but we owe those people our apologies as much as our admiration.  

 

 

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23 hours ago, RayDoggBengal said:

No one is talking about defacement of headstones, that's not the issue.  Should the plaque be removed?  If it was/is on Native American land yes.  Where it is now, my thoughts are yes but that's not my battle to fight.  Statues of people who wanted to keep my people in slavery, and break up the US, yes they all need to come down.

But who makes the call what is "right" in the removal of history? My ancestor's unit on the Confederate side was attached to General James Longstreet--one of the CSA's most capable generals; and one who fought quite effectively against the federal armies in several different theatres. He has several statues in the southern states--and at Gettysburg. Except this man, after the war, became--what was anathema to his fellow southerners--(gasp) a REPUBLICAN. He was strongly reconstructionist, worked hard for freed slave rights, and even organized his own militia of freed slave volunteers to battle the fledgling supremacist movements in the South. Is he OK, or should his statue come down too? 

 

On the other hand, US Grant owned slaves before and all through the Civil War. He only freed his at the end because it "was hard to find help" during the war. Lots of statues and $50 bills to consider there.

 

in many ways, I get the sentiment--although I do not agree at all with the present means of achieving it. History is history, with all of the bad stuff. Sometimes just remembering the past--and continuing to work so that some things never happen again, is about the best you can get in this broken world. Jewish people remember their slavery every year at Passover--but also their deliverance. Roman Emperors used to order the destruction of images of whatever Emperor who came before them. It never addressed the wrongs. 

 

I tend to stay out of this forum--the endless Orwellian Eurasian war here only accomplishes dominance/submission, and frayed feelings. Not my cup of tea. A book I read advises me: "as much as it is possible for you, live in peace with all." Good words. 

 

 

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39 minutes ago, Le Tigre said:

Who was never a party member. But whatever. 

 

If it is all about who wins and who loses in war as the baseline for who gets remembered, take down the Vietnam Veterans Wall. 

Interestingly enough, Rommel and Lee seem to have a bit in common.  Neither were ideologues, but soldiers that basically fought for the home team.  Does that excuse them fighting for an amoral cause?

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On 8/22/2017 at 4:57 PM, RayDoggBengal said:

You know what's really disrespectful to me.  Carrying the American flag in one hand and the flag of people who tried to overthrow America in the other.

 

 

The party of Lincoln us upset that people are taking down statues of guys that fought against Lincoln. 

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Oh the concern for "erasing history" is totally legit.  They took down those statues of Hitler and Mussolini and now nobody has ever heard of the Second World War.  I remember on TV when those Iraqis toppled the huge statue of Saddam - very confusing for the troops who immediately forgot what they were doing as soon as it hit the ground. 

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This is not that complicated. The greatest stains on this country's history derive from racist premises. Sadly, this is as true in the 21st century as it was in the 17th century.

 

And if you or your ancestors went to war to preserve those racist premises--or even worse, to try to assert them as positive values--then you, and they, deserve disapprobation.

 

And by the way, Grant owned one slave and he freed him in the late 1950s. His wife's side of the family owned slaves. I think Julia owned four. None of this is worthy of praise. But at least we ought to be level-headed enough to be careful of the facts.

 

As has been common knowledge for the LAST 100 YEARS, the memorials to those who took up arms in rebellion to the political principles upon which this nation was founded, especially those in government spaces, were the result of the imposition of Jim Crow. The false deification of those insurrectionists has to be put in it's proper context--not in a bunch of government sanctioned statues in front of court houses (and even in Congressional halls)--but in books.

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Or, what Jamie linked to... .

 

I wrote this column a quarter century ago to commemorate the Gettysburg Address. I'd write it a little differently now, but it isn't too bad as it stands.:

 

The next time someone urges you to be practical, stop for a moment to ask yourself whether or not it might be most practical to be an idealist.

 

Consider the period of our Civil War. Think about Abraham Lincoln, our enigmatic president who is now shrouded in myth.
 
Lincoln was an idealist. How can this be so? After all, this was a man who was a master politician. He had a gift for seeming to be led by public opinion; at times he seemed to be catering to the radical abolitionists in his party, on other occasions he relied on the Peace Democrats. He played one faction against the other, he balanced an often intractable Cabinet, he prosecuted a war by casting aside generals until he found Grant, who understood the "arithmetic" of a bloody war of attrition, bringing to full advantage the resources and power of the North against a weaker South.
 
Furthermore, he arrogated powers to himself which were not expressly within the purview of the administrative branch. He violated a strict construction of the Constitution, and alienated Congress, by suspending the right of habeas corpus; he issued the Emancipation Proclamation--presenting what could be considered as perhaps the greatest bill of attainder of all time, and he did it in a way that was fait accompli to both the Constitution and Congress.
 
Where is the idealism in all that? These seem more like the actions of a despot seeking practical solutions to immediate problems. And while this seems to be a plausible assessment of these actions, such a conclusion could not be further from the truth. Lincoln's behavior was suborned by, and consistent with, his idealism. We can deplore his unlawful acts and yet admire his purpose.
 
How so? Are not the means supposed to be consistent with the ends? Ought not morality be a matter of practical behavior as much as part of lofty ideals? Yet, in time of war, some laws get left by the wayside. If Lincoln broke laws, and he did, and if Lincoln violated the structure framing those laws--the Constitution, and he did, then how on earth could he lay a claim to idealism? What higher lawfulness could there be that might justify his behavior and satisfy the claim?
 
The solution to this mystery is contained within his brief masterpiece, the Gettysburg Address. While the battle itself represented a turning point in the Civil War, and is rightly accorded a place in our history because of the heroism of those who fought there, Lincoln's address supplies the meaning. Without meaning, battle is simply slaughter, and while Lincoln is right in asserting that the honor goes to the warriors, it is important, especially now, to understand what could have justified what would otherwise be meaningless barbarity.
 
The higher lawfulness, and Lincoln's central purpose, was to preserve our vital form of government. Democracy, and more specifically, a democratic Republic, is founded on the principle of majority rule. Union. At all times. Without exception. It was the belief of Lincoln, and of many others, that democracy could only survive if the idea of majority rule were held sacred. A functioning democracy is a special clumsily beautiful way of governance, especially when it embodies elegant ideals such as liberty and equality. Our Civil War, at least from Lincoln's perspective, challenged one of the three fundamental conditions of a functioning democracy.

 

The first condition of a functioning democracy is its establishment: Government of the people. That is our Revolution in a nutshell. Monarchism is not government of the people, nor is despotism.
 
The second condition of a functioning democracy is its administration. The constraints imposed by the Constitution, underscored by the principle of majority rule, provides the best hope for administering justice by the people. In this way, liberty and equality become more than ideals, they become practical goals towards which to be striven.
 
The third condition of a functioning democracy is its maintenance. That is what was challenged by the secessionists during our civil war. Lincoln's view was that this challenge could not go unanswered. The majority rules and the minority cannot exercise recourse to circumvent that decision. Withdrawal, with or without bullets, endangered everything upon which this nation was founded.
 
In Lincoln's view, maintenance of the functioning democracy was paramount because government for the people transcended his present. Government for the people implies reverence for the past, it holds hope for the future. The mortal circumstances which prevent one generation from perfectly realizing the ideals of liberty and equality do not limit those ideals in themselves. In fact, with this form of governance, the practical is united with the ideal implicitly; knowing that we are less than perfect now does not mean that our progeny cannot use our lives as lessons to create closer approximations of that perfection which our founders cherished.
 
Lincoln knew that our form of government, our democratic republic, is the crucible from which we distill our better urges for justice. If we smash the vessel, we destroy hope. If we polish the vessel and do all the practical things which prolong its useful life, then there is still hope that its contents will not sour; better yet, there is still the dream that we yet may pour forth the elixir which gives all humanity its due.
 
Lincoln was a practical politician. He was also a statesman. Many disagreed with his  actions. But his purpose was to preserve the union and the idea of majority rule. He was tenacious because his pragmatism was guided by his unwavering idealism. That the two cannot be easily reconciled is understandable, given the crisis of his time and the flaws of each and every human. Lincoln's call for his fellow citizens to perform the "unfinished work" which many gave their lives for is also a call for us today.

An idea dies when there is no one left to remember it. The ideas which are embedded in the foundation of this nation must be renewed, reaffirmed, fought for if need be. This is because the unfinished work is never finished, and within that work is life, democratic: life, itself.

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40 minutes ago, T-Dub said:

Oh the concern for "erasing history" is totally legit.  They took down those statues of Hitler and Mussolini and now nobody has ever heard of the Second World War.  I remember on TV when those Iraqis toppled the huge statue of Saddam - very confusing for the troops who immediately forgot what they were doing as soon as it hit the ground. 

In addition there are many national parks that memorialize both sides of the Civil War.  These are places for monuments, not courthouses, college campuses and the like.  The history lessons are still there for those that want to learn them.

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1 hour ago, T-Dub said:

Oh the concern for "erasing history" is totally legit.  They took down those statues of Hitler and Mussolini and now nobody has ever heard of the Second World War.  I remember on TV when those Iraqis toppled the huge statue of Saddam - very confusing for the troops who immediately forgot what they were doing as soon as it hit the ground. 

Last question on the topic, before I retire from this forum:

 

Who gets to decide what should stay and what should get removed? If you answer "the government", then always be prepared for the possibility that something you do want to see (or even say) will be handled...for your own good. 

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7 hours ago, Le Tigre said:

Last question on the topic, before I retire from this forum:

 

Who gets to decide what should stay and what should get removed? If you answer "the government", then always be prepared for the possibility that something you do want to see (or even say) will be handled...for your own good. 

 

The government decided what statues etc went in public parks before these Confederate ones started being removed.  The government put them there to begin with, too. They decide what goes where on any public land. This is nothing new. 

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On 8/22/2017 at 11:30 AM, Hooky said:

To raise awareness that there is racism in America? No shit. I think everybody is aware. What is this going to do about it?

According to the players themselves they were praying for the country.  How about we stick to the facts.

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14 hours ago, Le Tigre said:

On the other hand, US Grant owned slaves before and all through the Civil War. He only freed his at the end because it "was hard to find help" during the war. Lots of statues and $50 bills to consider there.

Do we honor US Grant as a slave owner? Do we honor him as the leader of a rebellion against our country?

Jefferson Davis does not have a statue because of his time as a minor member of Franklin Pierce's cabinet. Robert E. Lee did many great things in his life, but all of his statues celebrate his time as a CSA general.

 

If you celebrate the hoisting of a battle flag in front of your state’s capitol, and you have roads all over your state that are named after Confederate generals, and you celebrate this 19th century past, it should surprise absolutely no one when people pick up on this and imagine that the South is still at war with the North over whether blacks deserve rights and representation, or even life.
 

When you go a step further and incorporate Nazi symbolism - The greatest mass-murderers of the 20th century - it should surprise no one when people start thinking you may intend something even darker.

I'm in Richmond, and this debate has been raging since the 90's when good white people were horrified that Arthur Ashe might have a statue on their same hallowed road that memorializes their beloved confederate generals. As someone close to the flashpoint - It's always about racism. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.

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On 8/22/2017 at 11:35 AM, Jamie_B said:

No, it is to raise awareness about police brutality against minorities that as a percentage of population is much much larger than for anyone else. Racism is a part of that, but the protest is pretty specific.

 

And just like any protest it forces people to talk about the issue which is how those things get addressed.

 

It's supposed to make you uncomfortable.

According to the players themselves, they were praying for the country, not making a statement about any one thing.

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