The entire country should be taking a knee during the national anthem

[Snake Plissken]

The plutocratic shitshow being run in Washington is about as far from what our founding father envisioned as it gets

Every one of Kavanaugh's votes was bought and paid for by special interest dark money, our rights are being sold to the highest bidder and we aren't even allowed to know who is doing the bidding

[violetpastille]

1. Agree

Though I don't f*** with football.

If we stop buying what they are selling they will start to notice.

Pull in. Make soup. Save String. Carpool.

Let's do "Greatest Generation: The Return".

When you see someone buying a Frappacino say, "Brother, Don't You Know There's a WAR ON?"

I'm actually serious.

[avebury]

2. Imagine a massive march on Washington DC

where hundreds of thousands of people all take to their knees during the national anthem with a gigantic flag hung upside down as a sign of distress in this country.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. Disagree. That is a specific action for a specific protest.

I mean, go ahead and kneel if you're protesting police violence against communities of color. But to run in on a protest saying "Everything is shit and your protest seems to piss Republicans off, I'm in!" is a shitty move.

[Snake Plissken]

4. I guess you're right, since Kavanaugh are those who funded him are such champions of civil rights

it would be wrong to protest them in that manner. what was I thinking.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. Not quite sure what this has to do with Kavanaugh's beliefs?

Part of being a good ally is to avoid claiming tactics for other issues as your own.

[Snake Plissken]

6. That doesn't even make any sense

Are you suggesting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was wrong for using tactics he learned from Gandhi when he visited India in 1959?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. No, not at all.

I’m saying that kneeling for the anthem is a specific protest, done by a specific population, to protest a specific thing. Random everyday people kneeling for the anthem will be seen as protesting police violence.

[Snake Plissken]

10. You're saying, no, not at all

But you are describing exactly what Dr. Martin Luther King did and saying it's wrong, as if certain types of protested should be copyrighted or trademarked, and only be allowed to be used by a single group

Even though in this case, the same exact right wing oppressors who give the police their cover to kill innocent Black men are the ones being protested

[MountCleaners]

11. MLK and Gandhi weren't in the same country

I agree that kneeling about anything other than police brutality seeks to bury the original message.

[Snake Plissken]

12. what buries the message is allowing all the messages to be isolated and scattered

Exactly how the right wingers want it, and exactly how they work very hard to keep it.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

13. Under what umbrella do you want to unite all these "isolated" and "scattered" messages?

Kneeling a year ago with the message "not in my name" -- after all, much of white supremacy as well as the carceral state is based on the idea that white women must at all costs be protected from black men -- would have been solidarity. Running up now and saying "sorry I didn't speak out earlier, dudes, but shit has gone to hell for me and I see that kneeling during the anthem is a way to piss people off, for sure!" is opportunism and appropriation.

[Snake Plissken]

14. Seriously, you're attitude is how exactly how we end up with people like Trump

While you're wasting your time creating these silly meaningless rules, the right wingers are just kicking down the door and doing exactly what they need to do to win.

Quite honestly I couldn't care less about this imaginary protest etiquette you're trying to created, I'm not interested in losing and patting myself on the back for losing politely.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

15. These aren't rules or etiquette, nor are they meaningless. This is what building coalitions looks

like; it takes a thorough understanding of the perspectives and symbolism each group brings to the table. Other populations might not want the same outcomes you do. You've talked about "winning"; how, exactly, would a wider population than athletes kneeling at the national anthem bring about "winning"? This isn't politeness or a bad attitude; it's a serious call for having clear goals and effective strategies. Athletes kneeling for the anthem to call attention to police brutality was exactly that. Piggybacking on it helps no one.

[Snake Plissken]

17. I stand corrected, they're not meaningless,

We should learned from them and be sure nobody ever talks us into abiding by them , because they are exactly how the Republicans control all three branches of government with a minority of support, by conditioning us to play by these nonsensical rules while they do exactly what it takes to win.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

18. Look, I get it, it's difficult to build solidarity. If there were easy answers that brought sure

wins consistently, we would have found them by now. Understanding that those on the left have variegated and sometimes directly competing goals and issues is important to building winning strategies.

[Solomon]

7. Why dont you stop jumping in every thread

trying to ruin a great idea. Other people kneeling is a damn powerful statement.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

9. You give me too much credit.

[Sqee]

16. I've stood for the anthem every time I have been present when it was played during my entire life.

It's going t be a LOOOOOOONG time before I ever stand for the anthem again.

[Initech]

19. Our government is now being run by a fucking news network.

[Snake Plissken]

20. It's being run by a handful of billionaires who control the content of a news network and blogs

Trump has no idea he is being controlled by the media, he is genuinely stupid enough to think the thoughts they pump into his head every day are his own, that is why Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Saudi Arabia, played him with such ease.

He likes to think he's a skilled con man, but in reality he's an easy mark, unfortunately he successfully branded himself to a segment of society that is even easier to influence than himself ... angry White male underachievers who are looking for someone to blame for their condition in life, other than themselves, similar to what Hitler did in 1930s Germany.

[Initech]

21. Oh they're playing him like a fiddle.

He wakes up (assuming he sleeps at night at all) yelling at Fox and Friends, and then Hannity whispers sweet nothings in his ear at night. This is not normal.