Football and Militarism

[Dbqgolfer]

9 hours ago, adc7236 said:

I certainty hope that no one would advocate for never singing it, but I am sure there are those that would. I understand your point that it may be over done and has lost it meaning to many. Your suggestion of national holidays and other special events is good, but can be left up to event organizers to choose if they want it or not.  I fear it it would die over time.  The game time anthem is a tradition that is embedded into the fabric of our society, and even though some don't care, look at their phones etc etc, its still means something to many.  If we start giving up our traditions in the county, what is next?

I just read that according to the Sacramento Bee, the California chapter of the NAACP has proposed doing away with the Star Spangled Banner as our national anthem.  They believe the third verse, which is never sung, is racist.

[husker98]

 

8 minutes ago, grandpasknee said:

Personal observation, and it is just that, but I think they ought to draft everyone at 18 years of age.  Two years of service, either military or national service (learning a trade, fixing infrastructure, schools, etc).  Would cure a lot of ills I think.  Also, would never fly.  I did do a paper on this when I went back to get my bachelors.  Had to do a survey on campus.  Quite surprisingly, over 70% of students I interviewed were in favor of it. (There was a lot more to it than just what I stated....free college for two years after two years service...the opportunity to rinse and repeat for a total of four years service and school...etc)

 

There are countries in Europe that did this for a long time and got huge benefits from it. This especially pays off when a natural disaster hits because you can mobilize hundreds of thousands  of troops, equipment, and material to swiftly apply aid to the affected regions.

 

Lots of positives, but there will be a lot of resistance too it because there are those people who believe it is a huge infringement on their rights.

[grandpasknee]

Just now, husker98 said:

 

 

There are countries in Europe that did this for a long time and got huge benefits from it. This especially pays off when a natural disaster hits because you can mobilize hundreds of thousands  of troops, equipment, and material to swiftly apply aid to the affected regions.

 

Lots of positives, but there will be a lot of resistance too it because there are those people who believe it is a huge infringement on their rights.

Yeah, my conclusion in the paper was it should be offered as a volunteer option.  Giving youngsters a ticket off the street, structure, discipline, a skill and a look at the bigger world, along with 4 - 8 years of health coverage, room and board...I think the benefits would revitalize the nation.  Might even build a little safe, love of country and I know from experience it breaks down color barriers.

[khaake]

1 hour ago, Dbqgolfer said:

I just read that according to the Sacramento Bee, the California chapter of the NAACP has proposed doing away with the Star Spangled Banner as our national anthem.  They believe the third verse, which is never sung, is racist.

I believe they have a point regarding the third verse.

[neepster]

3 hours ago, grandpasknee said:

Personal observation, and it is just that, but I think they ought to draft everyone at 18 years of age.  Two years of service, either military or national service (learning a trade, fixing infrastructure, schools, etc).  Would cure a lot of ills I think.  Also, would never fly.  I did do a paper on this when I went back to get my bachelors.  Had to do a survey on campus.  Quite surprisingly, over 70% of students I interviewed were in favor of it. (There was a lot more to it than just what I stated....free college for two years after two years service...the opportunity to rinse and repeat for a total of four years service and school...etc)

 

It's a good idea.  Makes people buy in viscerally that they are a part of the state and citizenship is not just a right but a duty.  Would be expensive though and many who say they are for it would change their minds when it came time to put up or shut up.  Maybe we should do like Heinlein suggested and tie such work to the right to vote.  At least then the voter would respect that right.  Of course that would require changes to the US Constitution which I can't see happening in my lifetime.

[adc7236]

9 hours ago, khaake said:

I believe they have a point regarding the third verse.

Its never sung.  If one person on a team  offends someone, does it make the whole team bad?  No. Does one bad apple from a whole bushel make them all bad?  No.  You simply remove the bad apple.  In the case of the anthem, you do not sing that verse.

Edited November 9, 2017 by adc7236

[khaake]

3 hours ago, adc7236 said:

Its never sung.  If one person on a team  offends someone, does it make the whole team bad?  No. Does one bad apple from a whole bushel make them all bad?  No.  You simply remove the bad apple.  In the case of the anthem, you do not sing that verse.

 

True, that verse is never sung. I am not a good person to question about the intent of the the CA NAACP, but my guess at what their issue is with keeping the anthem is that the unsung verse frames the song and places it in a context which is not at all unifying. It frames it to say that, yes, the flag is still standing, but that the flag is still standing despite those treasonous slaves who fought for the British against it because the British offered them freedom in return. It goes on to celebrate and mock the deaths of those slaves who fought for their freedom. According to that third verse, it is a flag standing over and for the home of the free men, not the slave.

Edited November 9, 2017 by khaake

[VectorVictor]

On 11/8/2017 at 10:32 AM, BigRedBuster said:

 

Just to be clear, I always stand at attention before this.  I think it's only appropriate.

 

 

Giggity, indeed.

[VectorVictor]

2 hours ago, khaake said:

 

True, that verse is never sung. I am not a good person to question about the intent of the the CA NAACP, but my guess at what their issue is with keeping the anthem is that the unsung verse frames the song and places it in a context which is not at all unifying. It frames it to say that it is a song glorifying that the flag is still standing, yes, but that the flag is still standing despite the treasonous slaves who fought for the British against it because the British offered them freedom in return, and it goes on to celebrate and mock the deaths of those slaves who fought against it. According to the third verse, it is a flag standing over and for the home of the free men, not the slave.
 

 

And IIRC, Francis Scott Key wasn't exactly fond of dark-skinned folks to boot and was a proud slave owner.  The third verse really resents blacks who fought for the British in the War of 1812 because they were promised freedom from slavery. 

 

It's frankly not a great song to use as an anthem if we're trying to unify everyone, to be quite honest. 

 

 

Edited November 9, 2017 by VectorVictor

[Guy Chamberlin]

America the Beautiful is a terrifically lovely song.

[Guy Chamberlin]

Baseball has largely been shielded from the controversy, but it's worth noting that the player given his own day every MLB season would likely back Kaepernick

Jackie Robinson: 'I Cannot Stand and Sing the Anthem. I Cannot Salute the Flag'

African-American baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson wrote in his autobiography that he couldn't sing the anthem or salute the flag because "I know that I am a black man in a white world."

 

 

 28K

 

CLAIM

Baseball player Jackie Robinson said, "I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world."

RATING

 TRUE

ORIGIN

Baseball Hall-of-Famer Jackie Robinson, who died at the age of 53 in 1972, would simply be remembered as one of the greatest players of all time were it not for the color of his skin and the special circumstances of his career. On 15 April 1947, Robinson became the first African American to play major league baseball since the game became completely segregated in the 1880s. He had been hired away from the Kansas City Monarchs, a Negro League team, by Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey, who, in what came to be called “the noble experiment,” carefully orchestrated Robinson’s introduction to the general public, first via a stint with the minor league Montreal Royals, then by calling him up for his major league debut with the Dodgers at the start of the 1947 season.

With the color line officially broken, the way was paved for more African American players to enter the major leagues, bringing 60 years of segregation in baseball to close. Jackie Robinson ultimately became a much-beloved public figure and an emblem for the changes in race relations that were gradually beginning to occur across America. Years later, Martin Luther King Jr. would honor Robinson as a “legend and a symbol” who “challenged the dark skies of intolerance and frustration.” What many people didn’t realize was how hard it had been for him.

When he came to write his autobiography, I Never Had It Made, with Alfred Duckett in 1972, Robinson said he felt proud, but seemed bitter as well:

It hadn’t been easy. Some of my own teammates refused to accept me because I was black. I had been forced to live with snubs and rebuffs and rejections. Within the club, Mr. Rickey had put down rebellion by letting my teammates know that anyone who didn’t want to accept me could leave. But the problems within the Dodgers club had been minor compared to the opposition outside. It hadn’t been that easy to fight the resentment expressed by players on other teams, by the team owners, or by bigoted fans screaming “African-American.” The hate mail piled up. There were threats against me and my family and even out-and-out attempts at physical harm to me.

Some things counterbalanced this ugliness. Black people supported me with total loyalty. They supported me morally: they came to sit in a hostile audience in unprecedented numbers to make the turnstiles hum as they never had before at ballparks all over the nation. Money is America’s God, and business people can dig black power if it coincides with green power, so these fans were important to the success of Mr. Rickey’s “Noble Experiment.”

Some of the Dodgers who swore they would never play with a black man had a change of mind when they realized I was a good ballplayer who could be helpful in their earning a few thousand more dollars in World Series money. After the initial resistance to me had been crushed, my teammates started to give me tips on how to improve my game. They hadn’t changed because they liked me any better, they had changed because I could help fill their wallets.

Robinson wrote that despite developing genuine friendships with some of his teammates, and feeling genuine love from many of the fans, he had never stopped feeling like an outsider in his own game, and in his own country:

There I was, the black grandson of a slave, the son of a black sharecropper, part of a historic occasion, a symbolic hero to my people. The air was sparkling. The sunlight was warm. The band struck up the national anthem. The flag billowed in the wind. It should have been a glorious moment for me as the stirring words of the national anthem poured from the stands. Perhaps, it was, but then again, perhaps, the anthem could be called the theme song for a drama called The Noble Experiment. Today, as I look back on that opening game of my first world series, I must tell you that it was Mr. Rickey’s drama and that I was only a principal actor. As I write this twenty years later, I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made.

[Apathy]

Are people seriously complaining about singing the National Anthem at sporting events? GOOD GOD your lives must be pathetic. How does this effect your life in any shape or form?

 

Can the mods move this to the Politic forums?

[zoogs]

4 hours ago, adc7236 said:

Its never sung.  If one person on a team  offends someone, does it make the whole team bad?  No. Does one bad apple from a whole bushel make them all bad?  No.  You simply remove the bad apple.  In the case of the anthem, you do not sing that verse.

 

One way of dealing with a racist verse in the national anthem's song is to avoid singing it, while continuing to lionize its author as a real American Patriot and to glorify that time he put these words, including the third verse, to paper.

 

Another way is to choose something else as our national emblem, because our choice reflects who we are and what we stand for. There's a reasonable debate to be had here.

 

@Dewiz, I think some of us prefer to live our lives with our eyes open, instead of reflexively clinging to every tradition and insisting on its merits while rejecting all forms of reflection. I was taught this crazy idea growing up that this capacity for introspection -- and this commitment to the values we profess -- were the kinds of things that made America great.

Edited November 9, 2017 by zoogs

[Guy Chamberlin]

I had my hand on my heart at last night's Golden State Warriors game. Didn't mind at all. Still find it an interesting debate. But yeah....I actually thought I WAS in the Politics forum.

[khaake]

25 minutes ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

America the Beautiful is a terrifically lovely song.

+1