Seattle Seahawks May Stage Team-Wide Protest of National Anthem... On Opening Day, September 11th

I approve.

I approve of things which should die killing themselves.

The financial extinction of an NFL franchise will nicely set other dominoes falling as well.

Seahawks cornerback Jeremy Lane, who said he plans to continue to sit during the national anthem this season, may not be doing so by himself when the team opens the regular season Sunday against Miami.

Seattle receiver Doug Baldwin said Wednesday he is also considering sitting during the anthem before Sunday’s 1:05 p.m. kickoff at CenturyLink Field while linebacker Bobby Wagner said the team has been talking about a group action.

"I have (considered it)," Baldwin said before Seattle’s practice Wednesday afternoon. "I want to make sure I get all of my ducks in a row before I do so."

While Wagner said he didn’t know if he would sit down during the anthem he said "anything we want to do, it’s not going to be individual. It's going to be a team thing. That’s what the world needs to see. The world needs to see people coming together versus being individuals."

Wagner said he couldn’t say exactly what the team might do, saying "whatever we decide to do will be a big surprise."

There will be some surprises in store for the Seattle Seahawks as well.

But watching other men exert themselves is super-conservative and manly and we should continue being good little Entertainment Consumers no matter what.

LincolnTF commented in the last thread:

About an hour ago, Doug Baldwin of the Seahawks Tweeted this..."To express a desire to bring people together, our team will honor the country and flag in a pregame demonstration of unity.". Open to interpretation but seemingly a walk-back.

Posted by: Lincolntf at September 08, 2016 04:50 PM (2cS/G)

I think the cowards should stop being cowards and Just Do it, as Nike says. Nothing would make me happier.

It's Not Give Up Something. It's Choosing Something Better. In the comments, free range conservative says:

39 I enjoy watching professional football. But I can also enjoy boycotting professional football.

So choose wisely guys.

What I learned from the Easy Way to Quit Smoking is that cognitive behavioral reprogramming really does work.

Don't think of "quitting smoking," Alan Carr says. Think of beginning a new life as something else -- a non-smoker.

If you think you're stopping smoking, you're defining it by what you're missing.

If instead you choose to think of it as "increasing my lung capacity, available supply of money, and free time (yes, smoking takes up a lot of time)," you're defining it in terms of what you're gaining.

It makes a big difference.

I gave up football some years ago because of two things:

1. I began to felt like a child cheering on Eli Manning and Co. to have a Really Great Day when I was pretty sure Manning and Co. were not similarly sweating my blog praying, "I hope Ace writes some really good content that gets a lot of "nice post!" comments and does such a good job people tell him to take the day off."

I just began to feel like a child hero-worshipping an adult -- an adult who was actually younger than me. (I was almost 27 at the time; Manning was 26.)

2. I realized that maybe I had a better use for four and a half hours (and sometimes eight, if I watched two games) of every Sunday.

I didn't give up on football: I chose instead to spend my time more productively and thoughtfully.

And, as with breaking any bad habit: After a month of not watching football, I wondered why I'd ever bothered in the first place.

Do you have any good use for an extra free four and a half hours each week of the most precious treasure of all, Time?

I bet you do.

Fuck the media. All media. All the stupid corrupt leftist Entertainment-Political Complex enterprises. Fuck them all. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

#War.

But, but, it's TV! Alexthechick and eleven are very peeved I would dare to suggest that watching TV isn't really a great use of one's time.

I addressed them in the comments, but I thought I'd clarify here:

I'm not saying you have an obligation to stop watching the NFL. I don't think smokers have an obligation to stop smoking.

But I think it's silly to say it's somehow evil to encourage smokers to read The Easy Way to Quit Smoking, or to let people know that an extra 4.5 hours per week is a pretty nice thing.

I guess you have to decide how much you like this thing.

For me, i didn't stop watching football to make some political statement. I just realized it was a habit I wasn't particularly enjoying -- it was a Zombie Show I was watching. One of those shows you keep watching long after you have stopped taking pleasure from them, just becuase you're in the habit of watching them, and they're still on.

Zombie habits are just bad habits. If you're not really enjoying something that takes up hours of your life: stop. You will quickly find some better things. The mind wants to be engaged and to have fun. You will find fun.

I think football watching is just a Zombie habit for most. A Zombie tv show that jumped the shark years ago but it's still on and so hey, still gotta watch. Gotta see how it ends.

So basically I would not say this is any kind of obligation; I would say instead it affords an opportunity -- and opportunity you can take, or ignore, at your pleasure -- to evaluate how much you really enjoy this repetitive and dull corporate product, and if that pleasure is really greater than the pleasure you could experience from a hundred other uses of that four point five to eight hours per week.

If you decide the NFL is really just terrific, fine, go with God. You've rationally evaluated the time invested versus the pleasure received and you've determined that the accounts balance in the NFL's favor.

If, on the other hand, you find they don't quite balance... well. Then that's something to consider.

Look, all I'm really trying to do is strip something important away from institutions that despise me: That they're "cool."

You can keep watching football. Or whatever dumb tv show is the Fave Rave this month.

But the idea that these things are "cool" is what creates a sort of social default position that these are great ways to spend your free time.

But are they? What is cool about them? Can that "cool" claim be challenged, or is it forbidden that it should be challenged?*

I don't think they've earned that "cool" designator (or lost it long ago). And I think there should be a permission structure not just for people to Opt In to these Corporate Entertainment Social Bonding Opportunities, but a permission structure to Opt Out of them as well.

* I have to confess I didn't read it, but I believe Greg Gutfeld's "Not Cool" was about the questioning of -- or outright denial of -- the "coolness" of many things that our common, leftist-mediated culture insists are cool.

Not Really Sure What All the Shrieking Is About:

If I convince 8 people to not watch the NFL, in what way, exactly, does that diminish the experience for the people who still watch it?

Is it that part of the point is that it's a Networked Form of entertainmnet/social bonding in which the value of the network is proportional to the number of nodes (viewers) that are attached to it?

The NFL is never going away, so sleep easy, NFL watchers. It will always be here.

What does it matter to you if it loses viewership? It shouldn't, unless you own stock or something.

Or, the other thing I can think of: When you've defined something you do as "cool" it feels like an attack to challenge the coolness of that thing.

Well, I get that. I got pissy when people would always question why I bothered watching movies. "Why I haven't watched a movie since John Wayne died!" was a crochety comment I saw six thousand times.

And I did get angry about it. So I can't mock you for getting angry about it.

But I do think it's legitimate to question the "coolness" factor of all the tentacles of the corporate Entertainment-Political Complex.

At any rate, you are entitled to your opinion. And I'm entitled to mine.

And no cops will be descending upon you on Sunday and issuing you tickets if they catch you watching a game.

But I don't think it's a terrible thing to say, "You know, there are better hobbies out there."

One Last Point: On Pleasure-Shaming:

385 >>>363 Interesting that a football post can generate so much... passion. I really don't get it, but that's OK.

i get it, as I confess in a new update. They feel it's "Pleasure Shaming." It is that, partly.

But still, if the NFL is going to make itself controversial to the point where people now have to have political opinions about it, then 1, that's on them and 2, I get to have my own fucking opinion on it.

posted by Ace at 05:03 PM

| Access Comments