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posted by Fnord666 on Friday September 29 2017, @03:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the have-a-seat dept.

DirecTV is allowing at least some customers to cancel subscriptions to its Sunday Ticket package of NFL games and obtain refunds, if they cite players' national anthem protests as the reason for discontinuing service, customer service representatives said Tuesday.

Under Sunday Ticket's regular policy, refunds are not to be given once the season is underway. But the representatives said they are making exceptions this season -- which began in September -- because of the controversy over the protests, in which players kneel or link arms during the national anthem.

Spokesmen for DirecTV-parent AT&T Inc. (T) and the National Football League declined to comment.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/09/26/directv-allows-some-nfl-refunds-after-anthem-controversy.html


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  • (Score: 2) by BK on Friday September 29 2017, @05:41PM (5 children)

    by BK (4868) on Friday September 29 2017, @05:41PM (#574949)

    The purpose, at least of the original protesters, is as you describe. The object of their protest gives their protest a different meaning in the eyes of their fans.

    Hell, I generally support any protest of police. I can probably never sit on a jury because I believe that most police are liars and (generally unprosecuted) criminals... but the USA flag is not their primarily symbol and is certainly not their exclusive one. While the protest itself is harmless (nobody is directly injured by disrespectful behavior), the means of protest is insensitive to many of the fans.

    Frankly, the cause of the protest is diminished by the method and object. Which is a shame because the cause is worthy... or was.

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  • (Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday September 29 2017, @06:02PM

    by Sulla (5173) on Friday September 29 2017, @06:02PM (#574961) Journal

    Going to agree with you on all of that.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday September 29 2017, @06:27PM (3 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday September 29 2017, @06:27PM (#574974)

    The fans are the voters who vote for policies enabling the behavior of the police, or for politicians who refuse to do anything about the problem. The protest is the only thing they really can do; if you have an idea for something else they can do, I'd like to hear it. Pissing off the fans and gaining nationwide attention is the best way to gain attention to their cause. Setting up a "NFL players don't like the way the police treat minorities" website isn't going to have any effect at all.

    The fundamental problem is that protests can't be polite and not interfere with peoples' day-to-day lives somehow; if they were, they'd just be ignored. They have to piss people off to get attention to something, and cause change.

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 29 2017, @07:54PM (1 child)

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday September 29 2017, @07:54PM (#575021) Journal

      "The fans are the voters who vote for policies enabling the behavior of the police, or for politicians who refuse to do anything about the problem."

      You are inferring a lot of causality there that doesn't actually exist. For what you're saying to hold true, we would have to live in a democracy, not in the oligarchy we do. There is no politician who runs on the sole issue of having cops murder minorities. They run on a basket of proposals, some subset of which might move voters to vote for or against them. But even that presupposes that politicians give a crap about what words come out of their mouths, because everybody knows the system has fallen into a state where the party label next to a politician's name is meaningless because they'll just do what the 1% wants them to do.

      In other words, you cannot hold those fans accountable for what the police do, or don't do, when they have no real power to have any effect on that whatsoever short of picking up weapons and killing all the police behaving so. Should we do that? Because then we'd be directly accountable for what the police do, or don't do, and they'd know it.

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      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday September 29 2017, @08:16PM

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday September 29 2017, @08:16PM (#575036)

        Yes, you can hold the fans accountable. We do live in a democratic republic, and our votes really do end up picking the elected leaders. We just do a terrible job of it. That's the voters' fault. Everything that the government does is, ultimately, the voters' fault. The voters have the power to vote for better leaders, and to demand action by their leaders. For many causes, they do just that: look what happened with the SOPA and PIPA bills. If the government isn't fixing the problems with the police, it's really the fault of the voters for not making a big enough issue of it.

    • (Score: 2) by BK on Friday September 29 2017, @08:07PM

      by BK (4868) on Friday September 29 2017, @08:07PM (#575031)

      The fundamental problem is that protests can't be polite

      Agreed for the reasons you state. There are two problems:

      1. The protests are out of place. You could counter that that's the point but place matters, particularly to the folks that pay to be at or to see that place; and
      2. Perhaps because of (1), the protest is as ambiguous as it is visible. The protest uses the anthem and the flag as the object rather than the police.

      If the would-be protesters turned their backs on every appearance of police, or tossed an F-bomb at every cop, or the like, we'd all know what to do. Maybe if they refused to play if police were visible on the field... Instead they are disrespecting symbols and activities that have far broader meaning. And the other owners of those symbols are offended. Not moved to understanding. Offended.

      The fundamental problem is that protests can't be polite

      So then, by this, DJT's 'protest' of the protest is also reasonable. He had to piss off the owners and the players and all the rest to get attention to something and cause change. Never thought you'd take his side, even of only procedurally, but it's fun to watch.

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      ...but you HAVE heard of me.