Taking the Knee

Thoughtful article.  The author reminds us that when Kaepernick took the knee (actually, IMO, I find that it seems more respectful to "take the knee" as that action is tough on the knees while standing is easy on the feet) during  Obama's reign,  there was hardly any press on it.


Edward Curtin at DissidentVoice
The Super Patriotic Draft Dodger’s Rag: “Fire the Son-of-a-Bitch”

    So I wish you well, Sarge, give ’em Hell!
    Kill me a thousand or so
    And if you ever get a war without blood and gore
    I’ll be the first to go  
 — Phil Ochs, The Draft Dodger’s Rag


    Guess that makes me a proud bitch.
 — Teresa Kaepernick, Colin Kaepernick’s mother’s in response to Trump’s comment about her son
 
In the true spirit of patriotic opposition, Colin Kaepernick took a courageous knee when he protested the current and historical treatment of black Americans and people of color during the playing of the National Anthem.  For his patriotism, the NFL has made sure he remains unemployed, and now, when our reality-television president urges NFL teams to fire any “son-of-a-bitch” who dares follow Kaepernick’s example, the NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell releases a sanctimonious statement calling Trump’s demented words “divisive comments,” revealing an “unfortunate lack of respect” for NFL players.  NFL owners and others chimed in with the word of the day – “divisive.”  Exactly who is being divided from whom is left to speculation?

The hypocrisies of this lurid spectacle continue to mount daily.

Kaepernick knelt on principle during the Obama presidency. His was a lonely act.  Now that the buffoonish Trump tweets and speaks his grotesqueries, it has become easy to emerge from the woodwork and join the crowd in supporting the man who made his solitary witness.  Cheap grace, the German theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer termed the desire for “salvation” without paying a price.  He said this before being executed by Hitler for his opposition to Nazism..........