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.
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DirecTV Allows Some NFL Refunds After Anthem Controversy
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @03:15PM (63 children)
After all the bitching about PC bullcrap can we finally admit that conservatives are just as bad? Instead of gender and race it is patriotism and religion.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 29 2017, @03:20PM (35 children)
You really don't see the difference between demanding the government or a company censor speech you dislike and simply refusing to give that company your business, do you? That's just sad.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @03:53PM (27 children)
They ALREADY gave that company their business. They signed a contract that stated they would not get a refund after the season started. If you weren't an illiterate dipshit republitard you would understand that. The proper course of action would be to not sign up NEXT year or cancel their service entirely. But noooooo, these people had to emulate their whiny little bitch "elected" leader and demand a refund they were very much not entitled to. They did EXACTLY what they accuse the liberals of doing and expect everyone to think it's acceptable when they do it because MAGA.
Trumpanzies are the cancer that killed America. Republitards are the carcinogen that caused that cancer.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 29 2017, @04:02PM (14 children)
You're not terribly bright, are you? There's an old phrase that goes "the customer is always right". Anyone who ignores it better have a monopoly on a need rather than a desire, contract or no contract.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @04:06PM (3 children)
nope it's "buyer beware" try again buzzhead
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 29 2017, @04:09PM (2 children)
Except it's obviously not if they're giving out refunds, is it?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @04:54PM
Can't help it if they're not following the rules
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 30 2017, @01:44AM
What's obvious is that NFL Sunday ticket is a loss leader for DirecTV, hence the refunds.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @04:38PM (2 children)
Says the 2 lumen red LED.
Emphasis added by me. That stopped applying to businesses when oligopoly became the norm and competition was something to be driven off by the politicians the businesses paid for.
Oligopoly is just as good as monopoly. Oh, wait, they have that. Also, to businesses, there's not much difference between a need and a desire. In their eyes the two are identical.
So contract law means nothing to you? At least you warn people up front that you're dishonest and they should never sign a contract with you because you'll just disregard it if you ever feel like it. Thanks for that.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 29 2017, @05:00PM (1 child)
Obviously not since it just happened.
A contract is an agreement between two parties. If both parties desire it to change, it changes. I know it butthurts you but you're just going to have to learn to live with that, it happens a lot in life.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @07:39PM
If both parties desire it to change, it changes.
Pray they don't change it further... plus ça change...
Being that the NFL plays a major role in American propaganda, I can understand why they might want to treat these players worse than the ones who drive drunk/high, shoot at people, beat their wives/girlfriends... Maybe the NFL should just use prisoners. Most of the players got a foot in jail (the other one in the grave) already anyway. I watch when they steal the ball right out of a guy's hands. Looks exactly like a purse snatching. I can't wait until they allow the players to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights during the game. And it'll make it more authentic if they wore hoodies instead of those helmets that make them look like Gay Speed Racer in spandex.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @04:39PM (4 children)
Speaking of dimness, there's another old phrase that's appropriate: "you can't fix stupid". If you had any experience on the other side of the counter, you would know full well that the customer is far from always right. All too often, the customer is a liar, a cheat, a complete idiot or simply has unrealistic expectations. If you stick to the ass-kissing "customer is always right" aphorism, you'll end up with a business that's in the toilet.
"Boo-hoo, my feelings are hurt because I don't like the fact that some people are daring to draw attention to power-abusing scumbags" is not a valid reason to break a contract with your local cable monopoly.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 29 2017, @05:05PM (3 children)
Thank you for providing a fine example of caring more about the virtue signaling of a protest than its message being well conveyed. Congratulations on being part of the reason nothing you say ever gets listened to outside of people who already agree with you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @05:41PM (2 children)
Aside from the grammatically strange structure, your school yard "well no one likes you!" mentality says a lot about where you're coming from.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 29 2017, @07:20PM (1 child)
You are implicitly conflating the people upset with the NFL protests over the anthem with an endorsement of police brutality, because it's convenient for your frame of those NFL fans as "bad guys." I don't think that being upset with the players for not standing during the national anthem does link to an endorsement of cops murdering minorities. There may be some who fall into the intersection of those two sets of people, but not necessarily all or even most.
See, white supremacists cheer when cops murder blacks and Latinos. That's vile.
Other people see what the players and NFL owners doing as flipping the bird to the fans who paid money to watch them play football, not get a political lesson. Furthermore, it has been long practice that even if you don't want to place your hand over your heart, that you should at least stand out of respect. So kneeling or staying seated is a certain clear sign of disrespect. I have never put my hand over my heart during the anthem nor said the pledge of allegiance as an adult because the country I would respect and pledge allegiance to died when I was young. I always do stand, though, because I want to show respect for those who don't feel that way (yet?).
Now, I don't personally care if the NFL players are disrespecting the country or not. It's their right. But they should not think they get to express that consequence free. Nobody's going to put them in jail for it, nor should they, but neither should the fans be obligated to endorse what they're saying by continuing to give them money. Nor is the President obligated to say nothing when he disagrees with what the players are doing. He too has the right to free speech.
The only thing that irks me about what the NFL is doing is that they think they have the right to engage in political statements on the job and face no consequences, when anybody else would be fired for doing the same. Go ahead, walk into your next scoping meeting with a client and treat them to your theories on why Trump is the greatest thing ever and see how long it takes before your ass is fired.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday September 30 2017, @07:53AM
Were those "other people" deprived from the "watching football" part?
Is there in any contract those "other people" signed anything to say "they'll watch football and nothing but football"?
Are the players allowed to "express" nothing but football, anything else is banned for them?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by http on Friday September 29 2017, @10:42PM
Wait, I thought it was "a free market is only possible when contracts are voluntary". So confused now, did the NFL rep hold a knife to their throats as they signed up? Or email threats against family members?
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday September 30 2017, @01:39AM
As much as I like the idea of chivalry, jousting and duels as a way to resolve issues of honour, there's no going back to it.
The point: "the customer" was replaced with "the consumer", about the same time the"hacker" meaning was replaced with the "cracker" one. Is there a way to go back to the situation before?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by unauthorized on Friday September 29 2017, @04:23PM (5 children)
Fucking hell this is uncharitable bullshit.
So they complained to the company and the company agreed to alter the contract. What exactly is the problem there? Seems like consumer demand won the day here, and that's a good thing. It's not "whining" to go up to a clerk and say "hey, this box of serial had political symbolism in it and that's not cool with me, I'd like a refund for it", and then getting a refund because the clerk or manager decided that it's reasonable to expect that the manufacturer wouldn't sneakily insert political messages in your fucking breakfast.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday September 29 2017, @05:14PM (4 children)
Because it's a double-standard, that's why.
Honestly, I'm not bothered that a bunch of conservative morons convinced their cableco, somehow, to give them a refund even though the contract they willingly signed didn't allow for it at this date. The company has every right to follow the contract to the letter and not give a refund, but it also has every right to set aside the contract and let them out of it with no penalty (probably so they could score points for good customer service etc.).
What irks me is that, if the tables were turned and this was a controversy over some issue that liberals were mad about, and they demanded a refund even though they had gone over the can't-back-out date, the stupid conservatives would all be citing contract terms and calling them "snowflakes" and telling them their concerns were stupid, and that the company shouldn't set aside the contract for these "losers", and they'll criticize the company for letting them out of the contract.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @05:30PM (2 children)
Amazingly my original post was equivocating the two groups, but conservatives still couldn't handle it. I think liberals just won the "who is a bigger snowflake" contest :D
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @07:07PM (1 child)
No, your argument is just patently stupid.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @07:16PM
Nah, I own the patent on stupidity and licensed it to the GOP. I have since retired to my private island. #jealousy
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tfried on Saturday September 30 2017, @05:51AM
I think their calculation is actually pretty simple: The point of the whiners isn't that they really want to cancel their subscription, the point of the whiners is to try to put pressure on the NFL to censor the players. In offering the refund they simply turn that around: Why, if it's so important to you, why don't you just go away? Some whiners will do just that, but most others really aren't subscribed in the first place, while those that are will come to realize that they actually subscribed for the football, not for the anthem (besides, that kneeing is not an entirely novel phenomenon, anyway).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Friday September 29 2017, @05:14PM (3 children)
No, they didn't sign anything. They might have checked a box on a web form. But DirecTV knows something you don't. Any agreement can be rewritten to more accurately reflect reality as "You mist continue paying for Sunday Ticket for the whole season OR until you discontinue DirecTV service." DirecTV is not willing to lose a customer over the NFL being stupid.
NFL fans are not soy faced nancy boys and large numbers are currently in a highly emotionally charged state, DirecTV was smart enough to see what was going on and change policy quickly enough to be heroes to those customers. When this is over their customer preference metrics are going to be way up. They won.
It is still amazing and hilarious how hard it seem to be for most people to see how this must end. The NFL will now try to reverse course after seeing the damage, ESPN and the sports media won't stand for it and the NFL will die off to perhaps half the current audience and slowly bleed out because those numbers won't support the spectacle, won't sustain the bloated salaries and there won't be the political support for government subsidized stadiums.
The League and owners are the responsible parties so it is a fair outcome. A player can do nothing while in uniform that isn't approved without being subject to fines or other punishment. They routinely punish players, deny permission for small displays like the Cowboys being denied permission to put a sticker on their helmet. The owners / league support this action. So the counter protests should ignore the players (who have fans) and go after the league who is almost universally despised already.
Football was supposed to be non political entertainment, an escape from the problems of the real world. But SJWs infect everything and had already corrupted football. Trump knew exactly what he was doing when he trolled them into suicide. But it wasn't just the NFL he was trolling, look at the media and Democrat (BIRM) reaction. They are all lining up to find a microphone to denounce the flag. This is nothing less than the Left surrendering the flag to Trump. Look at the piece in The Root headlined "Patriotism is White Privilege" for a look at what is next. SJWs Always Double Down. Always.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @05:46PM (2 children)
So then why inject the national anthem? That just offends people who don't like US imperialism. There are plenty of patriots who don't agree with the modern propaganda, and why is it a part of sports anyway? Oh right, PROPAGANDA! BRAINWASHING!
Fools like you are the problem, brainwashed so easily and making it near impossible for conscious people to make political change. We have hordes of morons blindly repeating establishment propaganda. We need some anti-biotics that can cure stupidity.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Friday September 29 2017, @06:35PM (1 child)
See? I tell you what is going to happen and it happens almost instantly.
I can't stop laughing. I didn't believe Trump when he promised we would tire of winning. I'm still not tired yet but I can now imagine that future. A future where victory over Evil is so total that we can lay down our arms and enjoy the victory for a moment. Evil never sleeps so that moment won't last, but it will be a wonderful moment. Something to strive for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @07:24PM
You live in a weirdly delusional reality, or you're just a Russian troll. It is impossible to tell through an internet forum, but you do you I guess.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @10:41PM
illiterate dipshit republitard... trumpanzies
You know, people who talk like that sound dumb as shit. Am I far off the mark? Can you string a coherent sentence together without resorting to childish make believe words?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 30 2017, @10:36AM
That post was so bad it gave me cancer.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday September 29 2017, @06:25PM (4 children)
You don't need to demand government censorship in order to be a snowflake. Many on 'The Left' do not demand government censorship and yet they are still snowflakes if they are oversensitive little whiners. Getting offended because someone was 'insufficiently patriotic' makes you a hypersensitive idiot as well. Their little protest hurt literally no one. I'm not sure why people are crying about it, other than them worshiping songs and flags like mindless idiots.
You don't even have to agree with what the protestors are saying in order to realize that all the people whining about this are weak-minded and pathetic.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday September 30 2017, @03:43AM (3 children)
Way to convince them to support your argument! Call em cocksuckers next, that should really make them listen!
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday September 30 2017, @11:39PM (2 children)
I don't care one bit about the efficacy of their protests. I am only saying that people offended by the mere fact that they decided to kneel down during the anthem are, in fact, hypersensitive snowflakes. I don't care about their feelings anymore than I care about the feelings of some moron complaining about cultural appropriation.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 01 2017, @03:23PM (1 child)
You're entitled to think what you like. At least until the SJWs get into power.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday October 04 2017, @01:09AM
I don't see what that has to do with oversensitive little snowflakes being offended by the microaggression of people kneeling during the national anthem. SJWs are snowflakes and so are these people. Multiple different groups of people can be snowflakes.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Friday September 29 2017, @06:33PM (1 child)
I see the difference. What I would remind the people complaining about the snowflakes is, they're complaining about people voting with their wallets. I think they're being a bit oversensitive asking for refunds, but then again, I think the people that seek authoritarianism and blind allegiance to the state aren't that bright either. I fully support the taking of the knee, and reminding the opposition every single second that they're actually the minorities in this country. More than 3 million people didn't have their votes counted, and as a result, one half of America is going to be getting into the other half's face every second it can. To remind them that kicking, or screaming, America is going to be destroyed or evolved, but the status quo bullshit is over.
Beyond all the arguments, voting with your wallet is the only expression that matters period. I exercise it on a daily basis and I fully applaud all the people asking for refunds. They're voting, and I support the kind of voting that actually ends up representing people. I may disagree with their vote, but that's okay.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @10:21PM
I don't think many people care about those wanting refunds, just the hypocrisy behind it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @03:26PM (26 children)
You confuse patriotism with nationalism.
(Score: 2) by mth on Friday September 29 2017, @03:44PM (25 children)
Nationalism is a subset of patriotism, isn't it?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 29 2017, @03:48PM (21 children)
Only to people who irrationally hate their country in the same way teenagers hate their parents. Anyone else can see the difference between the two.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by mth on Friday September 29 2017, @04:02PM (20 children)
Both start with "I love my country", but then nationalism adds "It's better than yours". So nationalism is like an extremist version of patriotism and while the distinction between the two is often clear, there isn't any hard line between them.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 29 2017, @04:09PM (19 children)
It's really irrelevant. Neither is any worse a thing than loving your family more than you love random Joe on the street. Degree of separation has always mattered and should always matter to people in regards to empathy. Those down on either patriotism or nationalism really need to go back to school and learn how tribalism helps a species thrive.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mth on Friday September 29 2017, @04:29PM (15 children)
There is a difference between not caring about Joe as much as about your family and arguing that Joe is objectively inferior because he's not family. The latter is what happens in nationalism.
To me, it seems tribalism is doing more harm than good for our species. In particular, a democracy cannot function if it includes multiple tribes and whoever is in power only cares about their own tribe. Maybe it was useful in an earlier stage of development, but even then I would think that tribalism would benefit a population (the tribe) and not necessarily a species as a whole.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 29 2017, @04:38PM (1 child)
Like I said then, you need to speak with an anthropology professor or six. I can see where you'd think that. Most globalists do. They're all objectively wrong though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @05:32PM
And you're objectively stupid on a daily basis, sooo now its more of a chicken or egg problem. I love your little fanclub that upmods every single post you make. It is usually just a single upboop so either you made a shell account or someone really wants to jump yer bones :P
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 29 2017, @07:33PM (12 children)
I agree with you--tribalism impedes human progress. Nationalism is tribalism writ large.
It's still acceptable to hew to an ethos without blurring that into a tribalist or nationalist container. The ethos of America remains dear to my heart. Freedom, justice, and equality are motivating values for my life. Courage, grit, and self-reliance are virtues I strive for. I relish that our ancestors threw off the English monarchy and actively do pity Britons, Canadians, Australians, South Africans, New Zealanders who either failed to assert themselves as men, not subjects, or fell short of ending their association with that monarchy with an exclamation mark, an active rejection of royalty and its conceit that some humans are preternaturally more equal than others in the eyes of God. I mean, I love all of you aforementioned guys for every other reason, but I could never consider myself one of you for that reason.
So in all those things it can't be bad to treasure those things. It's when you come to value the container more highly than the content that you cross the line into bigotry and error. The universality of those values is radically diminished and reduced to a pale mockery of the same when you only accord them to people who belong to your tribe, and no one else. 'Freedom,' when only for Americans, is a word that a free man ought to spit out.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday September 30 2017, @03:45AM (10 children)
Support your claim with facts then, please. Keep in mind there are many thousands of years of evidence to the contrary though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday September 30 2017, @12:14PM (9 children)
I'm not sure what you mean. What part of what i wrote requires factual support, since it was almost entirely about my feelings about differentiating an ethos from a nationalist or tribalist label? Well, i do think those things and i wrote them, and that's a fact. Does that suffice?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 01 2017, @03:24PM (8 children)
That tribalism impedes human progress.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 02 2017, @12:34AM (7 children)
The continent of Africa?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 02 2017, @01:53AM (6 children)
That's lack of resources not tribalism. Witness Egypt and the rest of the Nile valley.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 02 2017, @10:32AM (5 children)
You mean the continent rich with diamonds, gold, uranium ("yellow cake"), oil (Nigeria), ivory, cobalt, cocoa, palm oil, and all kinds of other valuable minerals is poor and backward because they don't have enough of those things? Those are the definition of "resources."
It is exactly the "beggar thy neighbor" mindset tribalism brings that defeats all their natural advantages.
It would not kill you to concede this point.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 02 2017, @10:45AM (4 children)
No, I mean resources useful to emerging societies. Potable water and edible food and the like.
Look, man, tribes working towards mutually exclusive goals at frequent, though not too frequent, intervals is precisely what put the west where it is today. Think of all the technological advances that have come of wars and competitive, international-scale capitalism over the years. "Necessity is the mother of invention" is a phrase you ignore at your own peril.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 02 2017, @11:04AM (3 children)
No, it's not. It was transcending tribalism that put the West on the path to where it is today, namely in the formation of the nation-state. Suddenly France stopped being a collection of tribes called Bretons, Burgundians, Provencals, and Parisians and became French. Likewise the Germans became that after having been Hessians and Prussians and Bavarians and what-have-you. Being able to work with people who aren't in your tribe is the hallmark of the First World. Being unable to surmount the narrow confines of tribe is what counfounds the Third World.
I know you're reaching for a justification of White supremacy, but the very fact that you can even conceive of "White" supremacy means you are transcending the second-order tribalism of "Briton," "German," "French," "Dutchman," etc. to gloss them into "White." But you're only re-creating a tertiary tribalism in so doing.
Civilization means pluralism, reaching across lines, and working together under an ethos of productivity, freedom, and acceptance.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 02 2017, @03:46PM (2 children)
You're shouting us down for the nation state and saying it's what got us here. At the same time? You confuse me, man.
Aaaand we're done here. You've just gone full on SJW. Have a parting clue though: most people who disagree with you are not racists; they're simply able to recognize that you're wrong.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 02 2017, @04:48PM (1 child)
I'm not some newcomer to these parts. We all know the cut of your jib. So spare us the kewpie eyes when I or anyone else calls it for what it is. It's fine by me, really, have your opinions on race, class, and relative superiority or inferiority, but don't get cute and pretend you don't have them.
You're throwing "SJW" at me because I ascribed your motives to a worldview that you often champion and you're mad because I know that and said it. You think that it therefore cancels what I said, but it doesn't. People who disagree with me are not all racist, by any stretch, but you are. I am not saying it in a pejorative way, but a factual one.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 02 2017, @10:04PM
I'm throwing SJW at you because you just played their favorite tactic. Someone beating you in an argument? Call them a racist/misogynist/transphobe/etc...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday September 30 2017, @03:59AM
Don't worry, I'm proud to be part of a country that has accepted American political refugees seeking freedom for hundreds of years.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @06:01PM
Open your eyes dummy. Human tribalism now needs to be on a planetary scale since that is how impactful human activity is. We all share the planet and subdivided nationalism is the cancer threatening to kill us off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @06:53PM (1 child)
Actually, it is much, much worse. Fredo. Especially if your not white, but the family is.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday September 30 2017, @03:46AM
Did you know there are less than ten thousand Klan members left in the entire nation? Your cries of racism ring extremely hollow.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Informative) by unauthorized on Friday September 29 2017, @04:28PM
Much in the same way that cancer is a subset of living tissue.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday September 29 2017, @06:32PM
--Ambrose Bierce
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 30 2017, @01:52AM
Nationalism is "My country, right or wrong" Patriotism is "My country, right from wrong"
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Friday September 29 2017, @03:15PM (1 child)
"Take a knee"... "in the groin!"
Got to love the news's new favorite phrase.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @05:35PM
So much for free speech and conservatives "not fascist!" slogan.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Friday September 29 2017, @03:16PM
Pray to your American slavemasters, but not while kneeling!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @03:16PM (12 children)
Go ahead and protest elsewhere (like in front of a courhouse), give media interviews, whatever you want, but when you are on the field, you're being paid to do a job: play ball.
Don't inflict your politics on a captive audience who came for something else.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @03:23PM (2 children)
Don't let your quest for Justice interfere with our blood-lust for violence.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @03:42PM (1 child)
Do the NFL players protesting the US national anthem fund the injustice they see by sending (or allowing to be taken) their money to the Internal Revenue Service? Fully 75%+ of the US federal budget comes from PERSONAL income taxes - NOT corporate or business taxes.
Starve the beast. Don't fund injustice. If criminals come to harm you, treat them as the criminals they are.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Friday September 29 2017, @05:32PM
If they're mad about the way cops treat black people, not paying your federal taxes isn't going to help that much: the police are mostly funded by local taxes. You'll do better refusing to pay your property taxes (which is pretty hard to do actually, since if you have a mortgage the lender pays it for you). One thing you can do, if you have a local sales tax, is to never buy anything in your locality and buy everything outside the city boundary. Of course, then you're just helping some other locality's shitty cops (assuming they also have a local sales tax). Really, the only thing you can do without resorting to illegality is to pack up and move to someplace where the cops are better, but the problem is that most of the people most affected by bad cops aren't in a financial situation to afford that. Also, it's pretty hard to tell just which areas are going to have cops that treat you better personally; it's not like there's Yelp reviews showing the safest places to live if you're black. I'm wondering now if someone's bothered to compile any data to that effect. That's probably one of the best things minorities could do right now, so at least the ones who can afford it can move to safer communities (safer for them, not safer in general; a place that's safe for lily-white people could be very dangerous for a black person).
(Score: 5, Informative) by tangomargarine on Friday September 29 2017, @03:59PM (1 child)
I mean, technically this is before the game, when nobody is on the field yet...
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday September 29 2017, @07:35PM
That's my understanding. The games are still being played. That's their only obligation, and they are fulfilling it. So what exactly are these subscribers receiving or not that warrants backing out of a contract? A little protesting? That's it?? Seems a feeble, special snowflake excuse to back out.
Remember the huge fuss over Janet Jackson's mammary moment during a Superbowl halftime show? Maybe some of the outrage was fake, and actually motivated by racism. The brouhaha then and this time around strikes me as overwrought. Maybe foreign protesters should switch from burning American flags to burning American footballs.
Wonder if the players put on turbans while on the bench, would that be too offensive for these snowflakes? How about a hat with the initials BLM on top? Maybe just wear bandannas? Sport a logo in support of abortion rights or gay marriage, or, heck let's pick a settled issue, women's suffrage? Maybe a Confederate battle flag inside a big red "no" symbol? Play some video footage of a General Lee statute being removed on their big board in the stadium? Be hilarious if some group decided to pay to run such footage during a commercial break, thereby handing the NFL a quandary. Do they take the money and run the spot, or not?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @04:50PM (2 children)
I never in a million years would have thought the riots next year would have been sparked by some sportsball drama.
I'm forming a very, very strange sociological picture of the USA. The older women go to church, the older men go to sportsball, and the young folks go to wherever it is SJWs go to get salvation.
Simply put, what these players are doing is akin to going to a church and refusing to join in prayer.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @05:39PM
Off with their heads!
Your analysis of their outrage does make a lot of sense. Some recent comments made me realize that football, cheap beer, and nationalism are all tied together in the modern US propaganda stereotype. Infringe on any of those and you draw emotional outrage from the brainwashed masses, logic is out reactionary stupidity is in.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday September 29 2017, @05:47PM
Simply put, what these players are doing is akin to going to a church and refusing to join in prayer.
No, it's not that exactly.
To use your strained analogy, it's like the churches have *hired* a bunch of extremely (world-class) talented young people to provide their music services (instrument playing, chorus singing), but when the minister preaches about how awful young people are, and about how bad young minorities are in particular (and most of these hired musicians/singer sitting in the choir are minorities). and the congregation all loudly agrees with this, the hired musicians decide to protest by refusing to stand during parts of the service, and refuse to bow their heads in prayer. So now the congregation is mad that these hired hands are "disrespectful", but they also don't want to give up their world-class musical performances. You can't have it both ways. Employees have every right to protest, and employers have the right to fire them (according to certain rules and regulations), but that could very well mean they won't have any employees, or will only have incompetent employees. So the church can fire the "disrespectful" mostly-minority musicians, but now they're going to be stuck with volunteer singers from the congregation who can't sing on-key.
In short, if you want to enjoy someone's extreme talent, you better put up with them when they make a fuss about something. Or you can dismiss them and gamble that you'll find someone as good who doesn't give you as much trouble. Good luck.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @07:02PM
I agree. Singing of the national anthem has no place on a sports field. No singing of the national anthem before the event == no possibility of kneeling during the singing of the national anthem before the event == problem solved.
That was actually very simple. Next problem please. Something more challenging this time.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @09:19PM (2 children)
Does that same logic apply to that clerk who got flak for not handing out a marriage license? Last I heard she is the sweetheart of conservatives now.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday September 29 2017, @11:19PM (1 child)
Aaaah! That's it! I knew I was missing something crucial here.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday September 30 2017, @06:21AM
Ah, kurenai, you are the most subtle of trolls! I love it!! Now get out of my bathroom. Not because is a gendered bathroom, it is my private bathroom, where the crucial things go missing.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by nobu_the_bard on Friday September 29 2017, @03:23PM (30 children)
I don't see why the big deal about the protests. They found a decent understated way to protest without being particularly annoying or overly preachy. It's not like their protests somehow make the football that then happens better or worse.
The article also notes ESPN and CBS's viewership seems to be up. Maybe there's something else happening and the executives are scapegoating and the article is just quoting sources that agree with their story.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 29 2017, @03:40PM (18 children)
The idea of a protest is to get people to hear your message and agree with you, yes? Their chosen method is turning out to be an epic fail.
It's quite important when you go to convey a message that what you're meaning to say is what the people you're speaking to are hearing. That is not remotely happening here.
What the protesters are (rightly or wrongly) saying here is that black folks are being unjustly treated by the police.
What the angry fans are hearing is "Fuck America!".
You really couldn't pick a less effective way to communicate with the fans without actively trying.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @04:18PM (15 children)
It went from a single person protesting to hundreds protesting and gained worldwide attention. Epic fail it is not.
That's what illiterate dipshit republitards are hearing. People of average or higher intelligence are hearing a protest against a systemic problem in America. When I think "America" a couple of things that immediately spring to mind are "rampant racism" and "police state." Kneeling during the national anthem is a protest against that. It's also very much free speech as protected by the constitution, something the traitor in chief swore an oath to uphold but continues to shit on every day.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 29 2017, @04:23PM (12 children)
Oh, so the protesters would actively prefer Republicans to be too pissed off to hear anything they're trying to say? Check. They're morons who don't really care about what they're saying then.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @05:49PM (11 children)
No, you're a moron that just wants everyone to agree with your world view. Undoubtedly some Republicans will have their perspective shift once their emotional reactions settle down. Ugh you are just so slimy in your double speak and general hypocrisy.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Friday September 29 2017, @08:26PM (1 child)
TMB, in the Soylent, fighting with the SJW ACs again!
AC continues, quite sensibly:
I am not sure TMB knows he has a world view. That is why he cannot conceive of anyone disagreeing with it.
The Buzztard counters:
aristarchus, in spite of a threat of being spam-modded, comments:
It matter very little what Republicans think, whether they are offended or not, because first of all the mockery is deserved. Complete control of all branches of the United States government, and they cannot even formulate a policy agenda, let alone get one enacted. And second because they are engaging in self-destruction, as per the alt-right's plan. Senator Roy Moore, anyone? Not to mention the god-emperor, Manus Parvae, the Μορον Λαβία movement, and fricking Nazis. Thirdly, it matters little what Republicans think because Republicans think very little, if at all. I mean, since William F. Buckley passed, there are no longer any intellectual Republicans.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Saturday September 30 2017, @05:57AM
Fuck Republicans! Fuck the Reagan horse they rode in on! Fuck them up their trickle down economics! Fuck their "Black lives Don't matter, unless we can get some votes off of them." Basically, fuck all Republicans, especially those that left the party after the Bush W administration made clear that these were no true conservatives. And fuck all those who, being godly imbeciles with no understanding of spirituality of the Mercy of God, only left when they realised they were being used by the Godless Bush Family. And even more those who think that The Donald, a complete and total asshole, a sinner to whom no sin is foreign, (we got all Seven? Pride? Check. Gluttony? Check. Sloth? Check. Avarice? OMG, the most Avarice ever! It is HUGE Avarice! Need we go on? Or, I will have to grab you by something), is a man of God? Which fucking god?
And then it comes down to Nixon, and Nixon's "Southern Strategy", only slightly outshone by the Clinton's "Triangulation Strategy". Yes, we just get all the Southern White Citizens Council (KKK) type Democrates to defect to the Republican side, if we can get them to forget that Lincoln freed the slaves. Yes, racists. White supremacists. Ku Klux Klan! And of course, the tag along losers, Neo-Nazis. Richard Spenser is a dick.
So Republicans are fucked. Fucked seven ways to Sunday. Totally Fucked. No way back from the fucking that Republicans have received. So why do they still exist? The only possible explanation is stupidity. Stupidity, and ignorance. Stupidity, ignorance, and cognitive dissonance. Republicans just do not know that they are beat, finished, dead, and over. Obama tried to explain it to them at his inaugural, he said, "the ground has shifted under their feet." You know, despite the odds against him, Obama was a real good President. He could see things like this. And it allowed him to set up the Affordable Care Act with Claymore mines all around it that the Republicans, being stupid, ignorant, and having cognitive dissonance, could not even see. So, again, to repeat our original thesis, for any Republicans in the audience, Republicans are fucked.
Now, if you are a former Republican, looking for a way out before the entire shitstorm collapses in on itself, I would warn you that libertarianism is not the refuge it appears to be. As someone wiser than me once said, Libertarians are just Republicans who smoke pot. Or in the case of Milo Yourjunkisinmyfacealot, have gay sex. But that is not the point here. The only way out, and this reminds me of the scene in the movie "Gandhi" where Gandhi has gone on a death fast to protest the violence of the partition of India, apropos here (for Republicans, "apropos" means "appropriate") is that a Muslim man comes to where Gandhi is, and demands that he break his fast. His argument (pay close attention, khallow!) is that he (the Muslim) had killed a Hindu boy, (because Hindus had killed his son) and that meant he was going to hell, but he did not want Gandhi's death on his conscience as well. A reasonable request, in the circumstances.
But Gandhi's response, and this is why he is the Mahatma, the great-souled-one, is that he knows a way out of hell. He tells the Muslim child-killer that he needs to go and find a child who has been orphaned by the violence, and adopt him as his own son, but, the child must be a Hindu, and he must raise him as a Hindu! Of course, this is too much for the man who has come to Gandhi-ji. But think about it. If you are a Republican, and you have supported tax cuts, the elimination of welfare as we knew it with Clinton, if you were opposed to Johnson's Civil Rights agenda, the only way out of hell, and Kansas, is for you to become a Democrat. Yes, no more acceptable than Gandhi's advice to the poor Muslim man, but just as true. There is a way out of hell, former Republicans. Join us.
(I hesitated to post this under my username, since I do not favor the use of profanity, but in this case it seems appropriate. If you disagree, you must be a Republican, or a Republican refugee, so fuck you. )
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday September 30 2017, @03:49AM (8 children)
It's not my world view, slappy. I don't give a happy damn what they do. I'm just saying they're stepping up on a national stage with all the eloquence of a pissy teenager who's mad at daddy and that is not how you spread a message.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by dry on Saturday September 30 2017, @04:18AM (7 children)
They're doing pretty good about spreading the message that under a thin veneer of "freedom", America is actually an inverted totalitarian state who have largely subcontracted the totalitarianism to private industry to work around the constitution.
We're talking about a country with how many people in jail? A country that allows hate speech but bans the opposite, a country that claims a right for the people to bear arms, then limits it to certain people. Could go on about the 100 mile border zones and such but why bother, you don't seem to be interested in changing your world view.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday September 30 2017, @10:20AM (6 children)
You're really bad at reading comprehension if you think any of this is news to me. The problem is, the protesters are actually on the side of the totalitarians at the moment so their speech is allowed through while anyone else is shunned as racist, no-platformed, etc... Or another example, I've gotten roughly twenty downmods for saying "they're conveying their message ineffectively" while people trying to argue with absolutely anything but a refutation of my point sit at +4-5.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 30 2017, @10:47PM (1 child)
That is because you're an idiot. All the angry people are brainwashed nationalists and the protesting is not the big deal you make it. When a protest generates outrage it is effective, it seems your brain is defective. Was the civil rights movement a bad way to protest since it kissed off so very many white people? The whiny entitlement you display is staggering.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 01 2017, @03:27PM
I haven't once argued that it was in any way a big deal. I don't in fact give two shits about it. See? Reading comprehension. Get some.
No, when a protest unnecessarily creates a large portion of the population that will never again listen to anything you have to say, that is what we call counterproductive.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday October 01 2017, @04:31AM (3 children)
Not standing for an authoritarian thing like the national anthem is siding with the totalitarians? Seems they're getting their message out as it is being talked about, though from the outside it just seems to be just another part of the American nightmare. Shit the American armed forces paid for these people to get out of the dressing room early to look patriotic.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 01 2017, @03:30PM (2 children)
I find it interesting to watch how your brain functions. Or rather malfunctions. In what way is the national anthem authoritarian? Do please point me to the particular verse that so butthurts you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by dry on Monday October 02 2017, @04:53AM (1 child)
Not so much the words, though having a war song for a national anthem does stink of authoritarianism, it's the attitude that goes with it. Just look at all the people getting buthurt due to lack of certain people not acting the right way when it is played. It's just a song, or wasn't it originally a poem?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 02 2017, @10:25AM
Nah, it stinks of being tough sons of bitches and a nation born out of the refusal to be shit on. Unless you don't know your history.
Yeah, how dare they get pissed off for someone intentionally disrespecting something they hold a deep love for? Seriously... attacking symbols of the nation is no different than shit talking every patriot's mother at once in its result and they knew it full well when they started. It is not how you win people to your cause; it's how you intentionally alienate people.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @04:57PM (1 child)
Gaining attention in and of itself is completely meaningless.
Something that I think has been increasingly lost on people is that the whole goal of protest is to sway people to your side. Many protesters today are arguably turning people against their cause. That is effectively the same as engaging in effective protest against the cause they think they're supporting.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday September 29 2017, @07:29PM
I'm not sure why this form of protest is such a big deal. The fact that people can get so angry over people being - in their view - insufficiently patriotic, or choosing not to respond to the national anthem or flag the way others might, indicates to me that something is deeply wrong in this country, and it involves heavy amounts of toxic nationalistic propaganda. This really should be no big deal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 30 2017, @01:56AM (1 child)
You and your kind are not their intended audience. They're hoping to make the case known to reasonable people and together we'll pull you bigots into modern times.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday September 30 2017, @03:51AM
Blah blah racist. Blah blah misogynist. Blah blah islamophobe. Yer shit is tired.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 29 2017, @03:43PM (3 children)
Yeah, I dunno. Maybe it's people tuning in to see what the teams will do during the national anthem. But that's short term. Football fans are not your typical progressives who favor peace over war but really want to see muscle heads bash each other on the sports field. Rather, they tend to be the folks that put bumper stickers on their cars that read, "These Colors Don't Run" over an American flag, or "Love it or Leave it."
I don't think those guys will stick around, and that's a critical share of the NFL's audience. And if the NFL viewership does shatter over this, then the entire cable TV industry will implode, too, because sports are the biggest reason for cable continuing to exist.
But you know, professional sports need to be brought back down to earth. It's insane that cities spend multiples more on sports stadiums than they do on schools for their kids or in making sure their drinking water is safe. It's crazy that little kids are taught to aspire to play professional sports instead of becoming scientists or engineers whose work actually benefits mankind. How many Einsteins have we lost out on because they were conditioned to think playing basketball was the only avenue to advance?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday September 29 2017, @05:34PM (2 children)
I don't think those guys will stick around, and that's a critical share of the NFL's audience. And if the NFL viewership does shatter over this, then the entire cable TV industry will implode, too, because sports are the biggest reason for cable continuing to exist.
Honestly, if that happened, I'd be cheering. Not because I want to see these players lose their careers (they'll be Ok, they've already been paid a fortune and have contracts that will last a little while at least, paying them millions, but future players won't have such a lucrative deal), but because I'd love to see the NFL lose much of its power and money, and I'd especially love to see the cable TV industry implode.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 29 2017, @06:25PM (1 child)
It's part of the great circle-jerk of power. We've seen the media knocked off its pedestal. Hollywood has been devalued. Congress is pretty much permanently in the doghouse now--everybody hates them. The 3-letter agencies are persona non grata. Wall Street still needs to be crushed, but I hope that will also happen.
I do credit Trump with all that. It's not that he meant to. He's a narcissist, and he does it all for the lulz. But because he's President the authority of that position is shattering the authority of all those other groups. Rather, the illusions of authority and competence are being shattered. It would be much more comforting if he was doing it on purpose and had an actual plan to recast the country as something better for everyone, but at least he's doing part of what I hoped for in getting some of the assholes that need to get got.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday September 29 2017, @08:20PM
We've seen the media knocked off its pedestal.
We have? Still seems pretty powerful to me. Some of the players have changed though.
Hollywood has been devalued.
It has? The revenue numbers I've seen show them to be making more money than ever.
Congress is pretty much permanently in the doghouse now
Maybe, but what effect does that have? It's not like the people can choose an alternative Congress. We're stuck with them and their laws no matter how unpopular they are. And Congresspeople are very popular: everyone likes their Congressperson, which is why they keep getting elected. They just don't like *everyone else's* choice of Congressperson.
The 3-letter agencies are persona non grata.
This hasn't curtailed their power one iota.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday September 29 2017, @03:49PM (4 children)
It's pretty clear by now that the reason the protests are controversial is that a lot of people don't like what they are saying with their perfectly reasonable actions. And no, it has nothing to do with "respecting the flag": Kneeling before something is a pretty darn respectful gesture - just ask General Zod.
What is actually at issue is that there are a lot of folks out there who think cops should be able to kill whenever they want without any kind of consequences. The thinking goes that a cop is a better person than a civilian by virtue of being a cop, so if there's any kind of dispute between the cop and the civilian the cop must be right. It's basically pure authoritarianism. I think some who support this kind of thing are under the gravely mistaken impression that their kind of people never end up on the wrong end of a cop's gun.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @03:58PM
Are you sure most people even know what it is about? I heard this was going on awhile ago and just learned it was about the police from this thread...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @04:12PM (2 children)
Actually, I bet most people are like me and just assume its some anti-trump thing.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday September 29 2017, @04:24PM (1 child)
But it wasn't, because they started a year before Trump was elected.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 30 2017, @12:11AM
I'm not saying it is correct, just what people may think from hearing about it on the radio or whatever. Anyway, that was my experience.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Friday September 29 2017, @03:55PM (1 child)
Get your politics out of my amphitheatre!
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @05:51PM
Fine, no problem. No more national anthem or other nationalistic propaganda methods in any public event! Done.
you're welcome :D