Baseball Jumps in Bed w/ Pentagon

[OKTexas]

This thread is about politics --- not sports. Let's get that clear at the start.

>> ...if you’ve been to a baseball game at any time in the last decade, you’ve probably noticed some changes. Military or law enforcement members now perform flag ceremonies before the start of the game. Military recruits are enlisted right on the field. Surprise reunions of deployed men and women and their families play out before an audience of thousands. There’s always the obligatory ovation for wounded warriors. And this year saw a flyover by three F-18 fighter jets during the playing of the national anthem.

The games have morphed into choreographed patriotic events. Who’s paying for all this hoopla? As it turns out, you and I are, through the tax money that we send to the Pentagon.

Former Arizona Republican senators John McCain and Jeff Flake issued a report a few years ago that found that since 2013, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the Pentagon has shelled out at least $6.8 million for Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and other sports leagues to “honor” troops with cheap stunts at sporting events. The details are listed in a new Senate report.

The total tally may top $10 million — and even reach $100 million, if you count the military’s marketing deals with NASCAR.

For millions of your tax dollars, the Pentagon is buying things like ceremonial first pitches for recent veterans, club-level seats for vets at football games, and airport greetings for returning service members.

If that sounds crass to you, you’re not alone.

... Patriotism is a good thing. It can be unifying and inspiring. But what we’re seeing at sporting events isn’t patriotism. It’s nationalism — propaganda, even — and it’s potentially dangerous.

The Pentagon even pays for “sponsored” renditions of God Bless America.

Irving Berlin wrote that song in 1918 as a show tune for a revue called Yip Yip Yaphank. ...Since then, it’s become an official part of Major League Baseball games. In several stadiums the tune has replaced Take Me Out to the Ballgame in group sing-alongs during the seventh-inning stretch.

In fact, this former show tune has become mandatory in some places.

In 2008, a fan at Yankee Stadium was restrained and then ejected by police officers for attempting to leave his seat for the restroom while the song was playing. The following year, three minor league fans of the now-defunct Newark Bears were ejected from the stadium for refusing to stand during the song.

If it’s freely chosen, standing for the national anthem is patriotic. Forcing people to stand for God Bless America isn’t. This is about more than taxpayer money. The government has no business propagandizing the American people. --- John Kiriakou, former CIA counterterrorism officer and former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

​

This Paid Patriotism Scandal, starring the US Pentagon in the role of Pimp, is sadly not a new story. It's the same Jingoism song and dance (literally) that brought NFL players out to the field for the national anthem about ten years ago, which, unknown to the general public because it was never part of the telecast, became a fake "issue" when some photographer who obviously wasn't doing the Jingo Dance snapped quarterback Colin Kaepernick's picture, sitting out the song.

Your tax dollars at work, fans. And you non-fans, you're paying the same thing for mass Jingo-ball choreography literally forced on a captive audience who came there for a completely different purpose, that being to specifically get away from . Good to know as April 15 approaches, right?

Just in case it didn't sink in:
"God Bless Ameirca" replaces "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" --- the exact event they all came there for.
Now try to imagine being forcibly ejected for refusing to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame".

Next time you go to a sports event and they try to force you to do the mandatory Jingo Dance, pull out your Earnest V. Starr flag and walk out of your seat. Do it in droves. We won't all fit in the bathroom so go get something to eat or drink. Just walk around until the Jingo Exercise peters out. Flatly refuse to sit in the back of the bus and make them arrest us all until it sinks in to them that they can't coerce people.

Got virtually a whole baseball season in front of us. Do it. Resist Big State.

Statist-enforced mob mentality ---- where it leads:

Authoritarians LOVE this shit. And they rouse the unwashed to do their authoritarian bidding with phrases like "get that sumbitch off the field, he's fired".

PLAY BALL.

You poor fucking freak, it's all part of military recruitment.


.

 

[Pogo]

This thread is about politics --- not sports. Let's get that clear at the start.

>> ...if you’ve been to a baseball game at any time in the last decade, you’ve probably noticed some changes. Military or law enforcement members now perform flag ceremonies before the start of the game. Military recruits are enlisted right on the field. Surprise reunions of deployed men and women and their families play out before an audience of thousands. There’s always the obligatory ovation for wounded warriors. And this year saw a flyover by three F-18 fighter jets during the playing of the national anthem.

The games have morphed into choreographed patriotic events. Who’s paying for all this hoopla? As it turns out, you and I are, through the tax money that we send to the Pentagon.

Former Arizona Republican senators John McCain and Jeff Flake issued a report a few years ago that found that since 2013, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the Pentagon has shelled out at least $6.8 million for Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and other sports leagues to “honor” troops with cheap stunts at sporting events. The details are listed in a new Senate report.

The total tally may top $10 million — and even reach $100 million, if you count the military’s marketing deals with NASCAR.

For millions of your tax dollars, the Pentagon is buying things like ceremonial first pitches for recent veterans, club-level seats for vets at football games, and airport greetings for returning service members.

If that sounds crass to you, you’re not alone.

... Patriotism is a good thing. It can be unifying and inspiring. But what we’re seeing at sporting events isn’t patriotism. It’s nationalism — propaganda, even — and it’s potentially dangerous.

The Pentagon even pays for “sponsored” renditions of God Bless America.

Irving Berlin wrote that song in 1918 as a show tune for a revue called Yip Yip Yaphank. ...Since then, it’s become an official part of Major League Baseball games. In several stadiums the tune has replaced Take Me Out to the Ballgame in group sing-alongs during the seventh-inning stretch.

In fact, this former show tune has become mandatory in some places.

In 2008, a fan at Yankee Stadium was restrained and then ejected by police officers for attempting to leave his seat for the restroom while the song was playing. The following year, three minor league fans of the now-defunct Newark Bears were ejected from the stadium for refusing to stand during the song.

If it’s freely chosen, standing for the national anthem is patriotic. Forcing people to stand for God Bless America isn’t. This is about more than taxpayer money. The government has no business propagandizing the American people. --- John Kiriakou, former CIA counterterrorism officer and former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

​

This Paid Patriotism Scandal, starring the US Pentagon in the role of Pimp, is sadly not a new story. It's the same Jingoism song and dance (literally) that brought NFL players out to the field for the national anthem about ten years ago, which, unknown to the general public because it was never part of the telecast, became a fake "issue" when some photographer who obviously wasn't doing the Jingo Dance snapped quarterback Colin Kaepernick's picture, sitting out the song.

Your tax dollars at work, fans. And you non-fans, you're paying the same thing for mass Jingo-ball choreography literally forced on a captive audience who came there for a completely different purpose, that being to specifically get away from . Good to know as April 15 approaches, right?

Just in case it didn't sink in:
"God Bless Ameirca" replaces "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" --- the exact event they all came there for.
Now try to imagine being forcibly ejected for refusing to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame".

Next time you go to a sports event and they try to force you to do the mandatory Jingo Dance, pull out your Earnest V. Starr flag and walk out of your seat. Do it in droves. We won't all fit in the bathroom so go get something to eat or drink. Just walk around until the Jingo Exercise peters out. Flatly refuse to sit in the back of the bus and make them arrest us all until it sinks in to them that they can't coerce people.

Got virtually a whole baseball season in front of us. Do it. Resist Big State.

Statist-enforced mob mentality ---- where it leads:

Authoritarians LOVE this shit. And they rouse the unwashed to do their authoritarian bidding with phrases like "get that sumbitch off the field, he's fired".

PLAY BALL.

You poor fucking freak, it's all part of military recruitment.

Let us know when you find a definition of "recruitment" that includes the concept of "mandatory".

 

[OKTexas]

This thread is about politics --- not sports. Let's get that clear at the start.

>> ...if you’ve been to a baseball game at any time in the last decade, you’ve probably noticed some changes. Military or law enforcement members now perform flag ceremonies before the start of the game. Military recruits are enlisted right on the field. Surprise reunions of deployed men and women and their families play out before an audience of thousands. There’s always the obligatory ovation for wounded warriors. And this year saw a flyover by three F-18 fighter jets during the playing of the national anthem.

The games have morphed into choreographed patriotic events. Who’s paying for all this hoopla? As it turns out, you and I are, through the tax money that we send to the Pentagon.

Former Arizona Republican senators John McCain and Jeff Flake issued a report a few years ago that found that since 2013, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the Pentagon has shelled out at least $6.8 million for Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and other sports leagues to “honor” troops with cheap stunts at sporting events. The details are listed in a new Senate report.

The total tally may top $10 million — and even reach $100 million, if you count the military’s marketing deals with NASCAR.

For millions of your tax dollars, the Pentagon is buying things like ceremonial first pitches for recent veterans, club-level seats for vets at football games, and airport greetings for returning service members.

If that sounds crass to you, you’re not alone.

... Patriotism is a good thing. It can be unifying and inspiring. But what we’re seeing at sporting events isn’t patriotism. It’s nationalism — propaganda, even — and it’s potentially dangerous.

The Pentagon even pays for “sponsored” renditions of God Bless America.

Irving Berlin wrote that song in 1918 as a show tune for a revue called Yip Yip Yaphank. ...Since then, it’s become an official part of Major League Baseball games. In several stadiums the tune has replaced Take Me Out to the Ballgame in group sing-alongs during the seventh-inning stretch.

In fact, this former show tune has become mandatory in some places.

In 2008, a fan at Yankee Stadium was restrained and then ejected by police officers for attempting to leave his seat for the restroom while the song was playing. The following year, three minor league fans of the now-defunct Newark Bears were ejected from the stadium for refusing to stand during the song.

If it’s freely chosen, standing for the national anthem is patriotic. Forcing people to stand for God Bless America isn’t. This is about more than taxpayer money. The government has no business propagandizing the American people. --- John Kiriakou, former CIA counterterrorism officer and former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

​

This Paid Patriotism Scandal, starring the US Pentagon in the role of Pimp, is sadly not a new story. It's the same Jingoism song and dance (literally) that brought NFL players out to the field for the national anthem about ten years ago, which, unknown to the general public because it was never part of the telecast, became a fake "issue" when some photographer who obviously wasn't doing the Jingo Dance snapped quarterback Colin Kaepernick's picture, sitting out the song.

Your tax dollars at work, fans. And you non-fans, you're paying the same thing for mass Jingo-ball choreography literally forced on a captive audience who came there for a completely different purpose, that being to specifically get away from . Good to know as April 15 approaches, right?

Just in case it didn't sink in:
"God Bless Ameirca" replaces "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" --- the exact event they all came there for.
Now try to imagine being forcibly ejected for refusing to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame".

Next time you go to a sports event and they try to force you to do the mandatory Jingo Dance, pull out your Earnest V. Starr flag and walk out of your seat. Do it in droves. We won't all fit in the bathroom so go get something to eat or drink. Just walk around until the Jingo Exercise peters out. Flatly refuse to sit in the back of the bus and make them arrest us all until it sinks in to them that they can't coerce people.

Got virtually a whole baseball season in front of us. Do it. Resist Big State.

Statist-enforced mob mentality ---- where it leads:

Authoritarians LOVE this shit. And they rouse the unwashed to do their authoritarian bidding with phrases like "get that sumbitch off the field, he's fired".

PLAY BALL.

You poor fucking freak, it's all part of military recruitment.

Let us know when you find a definition of "recruitment" that includes the concept of "mandatory".

The military doesn't run the fields, you need to talk to the locals about that.

.

 

[Pogo]

This thread is about politics --- not sports. Let's get that clear at the start.

>> ...if you’ve been to a baseball game at any time in the last decade, you’ve probably noticed some changes. Military or law enforcement members now perform flag ceremonies before the start of the game. Military recruits are enlisted right on the field. Surprise reunions of deployed men and women and their families play out before an audience of thousands. There’s always the obligatory ovation for wounded warriors. And this year saw a flyover by three F-18 fighter jets during the playing of the national anthem.

The games have morphed into choreographed patriotic events. Who’s paying for all this hoopla? As it turns out, you and I are, through the tax money that we send to the Pentagon.

Former Arizona Republican senators John McCain and Jeff Flake issued a report a few years ago that found that since 2013, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the Pentagon has shelled out at least $6.8 million for Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and other sports leagues to “honor” troops with cheap stunts at sporting events. The details are listed in a new Senate report.

The total tally may top $10 million — and even reach $100 million, if you count the military’s marketing deals with NASCAR.

For millions of your tax dollars, the Pentagon is buying things like ceremonial first pitches for recent veterans, club-level seats for vets at football games, and airport greetings for returning service members.

If that sounds crass to you, you’re not alone.

... Patriotism is a good thing. It can be unifying and inspiring. But what we’re seeing at sporting events isn’t patriotism. It’s nationalism — propaganda, even — and it’s potentially dangerous.

The Pentagon even pays for “sponsored” renditions of God Bless America.

Irving Berlin wrote that song in 1918 as a show tune for a revue called Yip Yip Yaphank. ...Since then, it’s become an official part of Major League Baseball games. In several stadiums the tune has replaced Take Me Out to the Ballgame in group sing-alongs during the seventh-inning stretch.

In fact, this former show tune has become mandatory in some places.

In 2008, a fan at Yankee Stadium was restrained and then ejected by police officers for attempting to leave his seat for the restroom while the song was playing. The following year, three minor league fans of the now-defunct Newark Bears were ejected from the stadium for refusing to stand during the song.

If it’s freely chosen, standing for the national anthem is patriotic. Forcing people to stand for God Bless America isn’t. This is about more than taxpayer money. The government has no business propagandizing the American people. --- John Kiriakou, former CIA counterterrorism officer and former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

​

This Paid Patriotism Scandal, starring the US Pentagon in the role of Pimp, is sadly not a new story. It's the same Jingoism song and dance (literally) that brought NFL players out to the field for the national anthem about ten years ago, which, unknown to the general public because it was never part of the telecast, became a fake "issue" when some photographer who obviously wasn't doing the Jingo Dance snapped quarterback Colin Kaepernick's picture, sitting out the song.

Your tax dollars at work, fans. And you non-fans, you're paying the same thing for mass Jingo-ball choreography literally forced on a captive audience who came there for a completely different purpose, that being to specifically get away from . Good to know as April 15 approaches, right?

Just in case it didn't sink in:
"God Bless Ameirca" replaces "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" --- the exact event they all came there for.
Now try to imagine being forcibly ejected for refusing to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame".

Next time you go to a sports event and they try to force you to do the mandatory Jingo Dance, pull out your Earnest V. Starr flag and walk out of your seat. Do it in droves. We won't all fit in the bathroom so go get something to eat or drink. Just walk around until the Jingo Exercise peters out. Flatly refuse to sit in the back of the bus and make them arrest us all until it sinks in to them that they can't coerce people.

Got virtually a whole baseball season in front of us. Do it. Resist Big State.

Statist-enforced mob mentality ---- where it leads:

Authoritarians LOVE this shit. And they rouse the unwashed to do their authoritarian bidding with phrases like "get that sumbitch off the field, he's fired".

PLAY BALL.

You poor fucking freak, it's all part of military recruitment.

Let us know when you find a definition of "recruitment" that includes the concept of "mandatory".

The military doesn't run the fields, you need to talk to the locals about that.

Yyyyyeahhhhh ummm.... that's what this thread is doing.

Did you even read the OP at all?

 

[Pogo]

>> When asked by Linda Cohn of ESPN how he would deal with one of his players expressing a political stance at a hockey game, he [Team USA head coach John Tortorella] bristled.

“If any of my players sit on the bench for the national anthem, they will sit there the rest of the game,” he said.<<​

Mob mentality. Where it leads.

What needed to happen there is for the entire team to remain seated. And just glare at him.

Your move, John. Bastard.

 

[OKTexas]

This thread is about politics --- not sports. Let's get that clear at the start.

>> ...if you’ve been to a baseball game at any time in the last decade, you’ve probably noticed some changes. Military or law enforcement members now perform flag ceremonies before the start of the game. Military recruits are enlisted right on the field. Surprise reunions of deployed men and women and their families play out before an audience of thousands. There’s always the obligatory ovation for wounded warriors. And this year saw a flyover by three F-18 fighter jets during the playing of the national anthem.

The games have morphed into choreographed patriotic events. Who’s paying for all this hoopla? As it turns out, you and I are, through the tax money that we send to the Pentagon.

Former Arizona Republican senators John McCain and Jeff Flake issued a report a few years ago that found that since 2013, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the Pentagon has shelled out at least $6.8 million for Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and other sports leagues to “honor” troops with cheap stunts at sporting events. The details are listed in a new Senate report.

The total tally may top $10 million — and even reach $100 million, if you count the military’s marketing deals with NASCAR.

For millions of your tax dollars, the Pentagon is buying things like ceremonial first pitches for recent veterans, club-level seats for vets at football games, and airport greetings for returning service members.

If that sounds crass to you, you’re not alone.

... Patriotism is a good thing. It can be unifying and inspiring. But what we’re seeing at sporting events isn’t patriotism. It’s nationalism — propaganda, even — and it’s potentially dangerous.

The Pentagon even pays for “sponsored” renditions of God Bless America.

Irving Berlin wrote that song in 1918 as a show tune for a revue called Yip Yip Yaphank. ...Since then, it’s become an official part of Major League Baseball games. In several stadiums the tune has replaced Take Me Out to the Ballgame in group sing-alongs during the seventh-inning stretch.

In fact, this former show tune has become mandatory in some places.

In 2008, a fan at Yankee Stadium was restrained and then ejected by police officers for attempting to leave his seat for the restroom while the song was playing. The following year, three minor league fans of the now-defunct Newark Bears were ejected from the stadium for refusing to stand during the song.

If it’s freely chosen, standing for the national anthem is patriotic. Forcing people to stand for God Bless America isn’t. This is about more than taxpayer money. The government has no business propagandizing the American people. --- John Kiriakou, former CIA counterterrorism officer and former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

​

This Paid Patriotism Scandal, starring the US Pentagon in the role of Pimp, is sadly not a new story. It's the same Jingoism song and dance (literally) that brought NFL players out to the field for the national anthem about ten years ago, which, unknown to the general public because it was never part of the telecast, became a fake "issue" when some photographer who obviously wasn't doing the Jingo Dance snapped quarterback Colin Kaepernick's picture, sitting out the song.

Your tax dollars at work, fans. And you non-fans, you're paying the same thing for mass Jingo-ball choreography literally forced on a captive audience who came there for a completely different purpose, that being to specifically get away from . Good to know as April 15 approaches, right?

Just in case it didn't sink in:
"God Bless Ameirca" replaces "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" --- the exact event they all came there for.
Now try to imagine being forcibly ejected for refusing to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame".

Next time you go to a sports event and they try to force you to do the mandatory Jingo Dance, pull out your Earnest V. Starr flag and walk out of your seat. Do it in droves. We won't all fit in the bathroom so go get something to eat or drink. Just walk around until the Jingo Exercise peters out. Flatly refuse to sit in the back of the bus and make them arrest us all until it sinks in to them that they can't coerce people.

Got virtually a whole baseball season in front of us. Do it. Resist Big State.

Statist-enforced mob mentality ---- where it leads:

Authoritarians LOVE this shit. And they rouse the unwashed to do their authoritarian bidding with phrases like "get that sumbitch off the field, he's fired".

PLAY BALL.

You poor fucking freak, it's all part of military recruitment.

Let us know when you find a definition of "recruitment" that includes the concept of "mandatory".

The military doesn't run the fields, you need to talk to the locals about that.

Yyyyyeahhhhh ummm.... that's what this thread is doing.

Did you even read the OP at all?

Actually I did, I was a recruiter in Kingsport TN many years ago, we arranged for the Golden Knights to jump in to their annual Fun Fest. It's the smallest LZ they routinely jump, about 30' square. That was our only involvement, the city ran the show. Ball parks are private property, don't obey the rules, you're asked to leave. No one forces these people to go to a game.

.

 

[daveman]

Former Arizona Republican senators John McCain and Jeff Flake issued a report a few years ago that found that since 2013, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the Pentagon has shelled out at least $6.8 million for Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and other sports leagues to “honor” troops with cheap stunts at sporting events.

Would you feel better if they spent that $6.8 million on television ads for their outreach efforts?

They already do, and sure, that's fine. Nobody FORCES a TV viewer to watch an ad.

Yes, they already spend on TV ad outreach and PR. That was not my question. Would you prefer that the $6.8 million be redirected to increase TV ad outreach?

The Pentagon is given a budget for these things. They decide how to break up that budget. Smartly, they take a multi-pronged approach. Even if they cease the partnership with pro sports, they wouldn't spend less money. They'd just use the money on another vector for their outreach program.

So what are you really complaining about? Are you offended that the military makes an effort to have a relationship with the American people?

^^^^^^^ He's offended that the American people don't do what he says.

 

[daveman]

Former Arizona Republican senators John McCain and Jeff Flake issued a report a few years ago that found that since 2013, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the Pentagon has shelled out at least $6.8 million for Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and other sports leagues to “honor” troops with cheap stunts at sporting events.

Would you feel better if they spent that $6.8 million on television ads for their outreach efforts?

They already do, and sure, that's fine. Nobody FORCES a TV viewer to watch an ad.

Yes, they already spend on TV ad outreach and PR. That was not my question. Would you prefer that the $6.8 million be redirected to increase TV ad outreach?

The Pentagon is given a budget for these things. They decide how to break up that budget. Smartly, they take a multi-pronged approach. Even if they cease the partnership with pro sports, they wouldn't spend less money. They'd just use the money on another vector for their outreach program.

So what are you really complaining about? Are you offended that the military makes an effort to have a relationship with the American people?

First off why are you vastly reducing the number to "6.8 million"? Where do you even get that? The Senate report cited $53 million not including NASCAR, which is not a sport but the principle operates similarly.

It's not the money nearly as much as the coercion. In a free society you don't go to a sporting event where you already paid and arm and a leg to get in there, just to have it interrupted and held hostages under pain of ejections and mob assaults, just so some military wankers who have zero to do with that sporting event can strut their stuff without telling you they paid the same entity you paid to interrupt your game.

What the fuck is the legitimate purpose of playing a national anthem before a game can start, to then be played by Venezuelans and Canadians and Colombians and Cubans and Japanese and Brazilians and Mexicans and Dominicans and Koreans and Australians and Germans and Taiwanese and Panamanians? Did we actually drive to a stadium in Kansas City without knowing what friggin' country we were in?

Again, people go to an entertainment venue to escape this shit, not to be browbeaten with it.

Like all leftists, per your programming, you hate the military. That's obvious. Don't even try to lie about it, leftist.

 

[Pogo]

>> In 1996 ... Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, a guard for the Denver Nuggets, refused to stand during the national anthem before games in protest of anti-Islamic rhetoric. He was suspended for his actions and received hostile responses and death threats, but the issue received widespread attention.[23][24][25] After his suspension, Abdul-Rauf stood, but with his head bowed in silent prayer.

At the same time Sam Perkins, who played for the Seattle SuperSonics, as a Jehovah's Witness, refused to pledge allegiance to any government as he stood apart from his teammates during the national anthem. << Wiki​

Jehovah's Witnesses famously won the right to decline the national fetish prayer, but they had to go to the Supreme Court, and actually lost at first before getting the decision reversed:

>> Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586 (1940),[1] was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the religious rights of public school students under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court ruled that public schools could compel students—in this case, Jehovah's Witnesses—to salute the American Flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance despite the students' religious objections to these practices. This decision led to increased persecution of Witnesses in the United States. The Supreme Court overruled this decision three years later, in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette.[2] << -- Wiki
​

--- This was after JW students were expelled and JW teachers fired. For daring to say no to Big State.

>> The case was argued in Philadelphia on 15 February 1938. During the trial, school superintendent Roudabush displayed contempt for the beliefs of the children, stating that he felt they had been "indoctrinated" and that the existence of even a few dissenters would be "demoralizing," <<​

Get that? Ve vill not haf dissent!! Ve haf VAYS!

Mass coercion mentality. Where it leads.

 

[daveman]

This thread is about politics --- not sports. Let's get that clear at the start.

>> ...if you’ve been to a baseball game at any time in the last decade, you’ve probably noticed some changes. Military or law enforcement members now perform flag ceremonies before the start of the game. Military recruits are enlisted right on the field. Surprise reunions of deployed men and women and their families play out before an audience of thousands. There’s always the obligatory ovation for wounded warriors. And this year saw a flyover by three F-18 fighter jets during the playing of the national anthem.

The games have morphed into choreographed patriotic events. Who’s paying for all this hoopla? As it turns out, you and I are, through the tax money that we send to the Pentagon.

Former Arizona Republican senators John McCain and Jeff Flake issued a report a few years ago that found that since 2013, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the Pentagon has shelled out at least $6.8 million for Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and other sports leagues to “honor” troops with cheap stunts at sporting events. The details are listed in a new Senate report.

The total tally may top $10 million — and even reach $100 million, if you count the military’s marketing deals with NASCAR.

For millions of your tax dollars, the Pentagon is buying things like ceremonial first pitches for recent veterans, club-level seats for vets at football games, and airport greetings for returning service members.

If that sounds crass to you, you’re not alone.

... Patriotism is a good thing. It can be unifying and inspiring. But what we’re seeing at sporting events isn’t patriotism. It’s nationalism — propaganda, even — and it’s potentially dangerous.

The Pentagon even pays for “sponsored” renditions of God Bless America.

Irving Berlin wrote that song in 1918 as a show tune for a revue called Yip Yip Yaphank. ...Since then, it’s become an official part of Major League Baseball games. In several stadiums the tune has replaced Take Me Out to the Ballgame in group sing-alongs during the seventh-inning stretch.

In fact, this former show tune has become mandatory in some places.

In 2008, a fan at Yankee Stadium was restrained and then ejected by police officers for attempting to leave his seat for the restroom while the song was playing. The following year, three minor league fans of the now-defunct Newark Bears were ejected from the stadium for refusing to stand during the song.

If it’s freely chosen, standing for the national anthem is patriotic. Forcing people to stand for God Bless America isn’t. This is about more than taxpayer money. The government has no business propagandizing the American people. --- John Kiriakou, former CIA counterterrorism officer and former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

​

This Paid Patriotism Scandal, starring the US Pentagon in the role of Pimp, is sadly not a new story. It's the same Jingoism song and dance (literally) that brought NFL players out to the field for the national anthem about ten years ago, which, unknown to the general public because it was never part of the telecast, became a fake "issue" when some photographer who obviously wasn't doing the Jingo Dance snapped quarterback Colin Kaepernick's picture, sitting out the song.

Your tax dollars at work, fans. And you non-fans, you're paying the same thing for mass Jingo-ball choreography literally forced on a captive audience who came there for a completely different purpose, that being to specifically get away from . Good to know as April 15 approaches, right?

Just in case it didn't sink in:
"God Bless Ameirca" replaces "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" --- the exact event they all came there for.
Now try to imagine being forcibly ejected for refusing to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame".

Next time you go to a sports event and they try to force you to do the mandatory Jingo Dance, pull out your Earnest V. Starr flag and walk out of your seat. Do it in droves. We won't all fit in the bathroom so go get something to eat or drink. Just walk around until the Jingo Exercise peters out. Flatly refuse to sit in the back of the bus and make them arrest us all until it sinks in to them that they can't coerce people.

Got virtually a whole baseball season in front of us. Do it. Resist Big State.

Statist-enforced mob mentality ---- where it leads:

Authoritarians LOVE this shit. And they rouse the unwashed to do their authoritarian bidding with phrases like "get that sumbitch off the field, he's fired".

PLAY BALL.

You poor fucking freak, it's all part of military recruitment.

Let us know when you find a definition of "recruitment" that includes the concept of "mandatory".

Let us know when you stop re-defining words to suit your emotional arguments, you pussy who's afraid to sit down.

 

[daveman]

>> When asked by Linda Cohn of ESPN how he would deal with one of his players expressing a political stance at a hockey game, he [Team USA head coach John Tortorella] bristled.

“If any of my players sit on the bench for the national anthem, they will sit there the rest of the game,” he said.<<​

Mob mentality. Where it leads.

What needed to happen there is for the entire team to remain seated. And just glare at him.

Your move, John. Bastard.

Oh, gosh. Employers enforcing a standard of behavior. How terrible.

Lemme guess -- you've been fired for being a dick, haven't you?

 

[Pogo]

>> On August 24, 1990, Irish pop singer Sinead O'Connor threatened to boycott her performance if the Garden State Arts Center in Jersey, played the national anthem that night. In her own words, she explained,

I sincerely harbor no disrespect for America or Americans, but I have a policy of not having any national anthems played before my concerts in any country, including my own because they have nothing to do with music in general ... I am concerned though, because today, we're seeing other artists arrested at their own concerts ... There is a disturbing trend towards censorship of music and art in this country, and people should be alarmed over that far more than my actions...​

The Center gave in to her demands, but not without controversy. Frank Sinatra criticized her the following evening while performing at the same venue, stating that he wished that he could "kick her in the ass." <<


Sinatra was an asshole, granted. Still, mob mentality --- where it leads.

 

[Pogo]

​

OBEY the telescreen, Winston.

 

[Pogo]

This thread is about politics --- not sports. Let's get that clear at the start.

>> ...if you’ve been to a baseball game at any time in the last decade, you’ve probably noticed some changes. Military or law enforcement members now perform flag ceremonies before the start of the game. Military recruits are enlisted right on the field. Surprise reunions of deployed men and women and their families play out before an audience of thousands. There’s always the obligatory ovation for wounded warriors. And this year saw a flyover by three F-18 fighter jets during the playing of the national anthem.

The games have morphed into choreographed patriotic events. Who’s paying for all this hoopla? As it turns out, you and I are, through the tax money that we send to the Pentagon.

Former Arizona Republican senators John McCain and Jeff Flake issued a report a few years ago that found that since 2013, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the Pentagon has shelled out at least $6.8 million for Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and other sports leagues to “honor” troops with cheap stunts at sporting events. The details are listed in a new Senate report.

The total tally may top $10 million — and even reach $100 million, if you count the military’s marketing deals with NASCAR.

For millions of your tax dollars, the Pentagon is buying things like ceremonial first pitches for recent veterans, club-level seats for vets at football games, and airport greetings for returning service members.

If that sounds crass to you, you’re not alone.

... Patriotism is a good thing. It can be unifying and inspiring. But what we’re seeing at sporting events isn’t patriotism. It’s nationalism — propaganda, even — and it’s potentially dangerous.

The Pentagon even pays for “sponsored” renditions of God Bless America.

Irving Berlin wrote that song in 1918 as a show tune for a revue called Yip Yip Yaphank. ...Since then, it’s become an official part of Major League Baseball games. In several stadiums the tune has replaced Take Me Out to the Ballgame in group sing-alongs during the seventh-inning stretch.

In fact, this former show tune has become mandatory in some places.

In 2008, a fan at Yankee Stadium was restrained and then ejected by police officers for attempting to leave his seat for the restroom while the song was playing. The following year, three minor league fans of the now-defunct Newark Bears were ejected from the stadium for refusing to stand during the song.

If it’s freely chosen, standing for the national anthem is patriotic. Forcing people to stand for God Bless America isn’t. This is about more than taxpayer money. The government has no business propagandizing the American people. --- John Kiriakou, former CIA counterterrorism officer and former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

​

This Paid Patriotism Scandal, starring the US Pentagon in the role of Pimp, is sadly not a new story. It's the same Jingoism song and dance (literally) that brought NFL players out to the field for the national anthem about ten years ago, which, unknown to the general public because it was never part of the telecast, became a fake "issue" when some photographer who obviously wasn't doing the Jingo Dance snapped quarterback Colin Kaepernick's picture, sitting out the song.

Your tax dollars at work, fans. And you non-fans, you're paying the same thing for mass Jingo-ball choreography literally forced on a captive audience who came there for a completely different purpose, that being to specifically get away from . Good to know as April 15 approaches, right?

Just in case it didn't sink in:
"God Bless Ameirca" replaces "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" --- the exact event they all came there for.
Now try to imagine being forcibly ejected for refusing to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame".

Next time you go to a sports event and they try to force you to do the mandatory Jingo Dance, pull out your Earnest V. Starr flag and walk out of your seat. Do it in droves. We won't all fit in the bathroom so go get something to eat or drink. Just walk around until the Jingo Exercise peters out. Flatly refuse to sit in the back of the bus and make them arrest us all until it sinks in to them that they can't coerce people.

Got virtually a whole baseball season in front of us. Do it. Resist Big State.

Statist-enforced mob mentality ---- where it leads:

Authoritarians LOVE this shit. And they rouse the unwashed to do their authoritarian bidding with phrases like "get that sumbitch off the field, he's fired".

PLAY BALL.

You poor fucking freak, it's all part of military recruitment.

Let us know when you find a definition of "recruitment" that includes the concept of "mandatory".

The military doesn't run the fields, you need to talk to the locals about that.

Yyyyyeahhhhh ummm.... that's what this thread is doing.

Did you even read the OP at all?

Actually I did, I was a recruiter in Kingsport TN many years ago, we arranged for the Golden Knights to jump in to their annual Fun Fest. It's the smallest LZ they routinely jump, about 30' square. That was our only involvement, the city ran the show. Ball parks are private property, don't obey the rules, you're asked to leave. No one forces these people to go to a game.

But once they're at that game there's somebody forcing this shit on them, and when we say "force" we mean under penalty of being ejected, suspended, traded, or otherwise penalized including threats of assault and death. See several more incidences posted before I saw your post.

 

[Pogo]

>> In 1996 ... Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, a guard for the Denver Nuggets, refused to stand during the national anthem before games in protest of anti-Islamic rhetoric. He was suspended for his actions and received hostile responses and death threats, but the issue received widespread attention.[23][24][25] After his suspension, Abdul-Rauf stood, but with his head bowed in silent prayer.

At the same time Sam Perkins, who played for the Seattle SuperSonics, as a Jehovah's Witness, refused to pledge allegiance to any government as he stood apart from his teammates during the national anthem. << Wiki​

Jehovah's Witnesses famously won the right to decline the national fetish prayer, but they had to go to the Supreme Court, and actually lost at first before getting the decision reversed:

>> Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586 (1940),[1] was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the religious rights of public school students under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court ruled that public schools could compel students—in this case, Jehovah's Witnesses—to salute the American Flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance despite the students' religious objections to these practices. This decision led to increased persecution of Witnesses in the United States. The Supreme Court overruled this decision three years later, in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette.[2] << -- Wiki
​

--- This was after JW students were expelled and JW teachers fired. For daring to say no to Big State.

>> The case was argued in Philadelphia on 15 February 1938. During the trial, school superintendent Roudabush displayed contempt for the beliefs of the children, stating that he felt they had been "indoctrinated" and that the existence of even a few dissenters would be "demoralizing," <<​

Get that? Ve vill not haf dissent!! Ve haf VAYS!

Mass coercion mentality. Where it leads.

More background, on the effects of the initial SCOTUS decision that declared the government could compel mandatory fetish-prayer (called the "Pledge of Allegiance", a bizarre and paranoid exercise that exists nowhere in the world except the US and its former colony the Philippines):

>> On June 9, a mob of 2,500 burned the Kingdom Hall in Kennebunkport, Maine.[16] On June 16, Litchfield, Illinois police jailed all of that town's sixty Witnesses, ostensibly protecting them from their neighbors. On June 18, townspeople in Rawlins, Wyoming brutally beat five Witnesses; on June 22, the people of Parco, Wyoming tarred and feathered another.

The American Civil Liberties Union reported to the Justice Department that nearly 1,500 Witnesses were physically attacked in more than 300 communities nationwide. One Southern sheriff told a reporter why Witnesses were being run out of town: "They're traitors; the Supreme Court says so. Ain't you heard?"[17]

... Partly because of the violent reaction to its decision, including the lynching of Jehovah Witnesses,[19] the ruling did not stand for long.

... On 14 June 1943 (Flag Day), the court handed down West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. In addition to Murphy, Justices Black and Douglas also reversed their opinions, resulting in a 6–3 vote. The majority opinion written by Robert Jackson echoed Justice Stone's dissent when he wrote, "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion".[22] <<

​

Mass state-sponsored terrorism. Those who ignore their own history....

 

[Pogo]

On the other hand ---- here's what happens when the People stand up to Big State.

>> In the University of California Los Angeles(UCLA) and UW game,[18] Lew Alcindor, later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, began to refuse to stand at UCLA basketball games, and in response the national anthem was played before the players left the locker room.

The same thing happened when the five starters of Florida State University's basketball team, all African American, played Tulane University in 1971 in New Orleans.[19] <<​

 

[OKTexas]

You poor fucking freak, it's all part of military recruitment.

Let us know when you find a definition of "recruitment" that includes the concept of "mandatory".

The military doesn't run the fields, you need to talk to the locals about that.

Yyyyyeahhhhh ummm.... that's what this thread is doing.

Did you even read the OP at all?

Actually I did, I was a recruiter in Kingsport TN many years ago, we arranged for the Golden Knights to jump in to their annual Fun Fest. It's the smallest LZ they routinely jump, about 30' square. That was our only involvement, the city ran the show. Ball parks are private property, don't obey the rules, you're asked to leave. No one forces these people to go to a game.

But once they're at that game there's somebody forcing this shit on them, and when we say "force" we mean under penalty of being ejected, suspended, traded, or otherwise penalized including threats of assault and death. See several more incidences posted before I saw your post.

It ain't government so they have every right to do so. Don't like it boycott them.

.

 

[Pogo]

Let us know when you find a definition of "recruitment" that includes the concept of "mandatory".

The military doesn't run the fields, you need to talk to the locals about that.

Yyyyyeahhhhh ummm.... that's what this thread is doing.

Did you even read the OP at all?

Actually I did, I was a recruiter in Kingsport TN many years ago, we arranged for the Golden Knights to jump in to their annual Fun Fest. It's the smallest LZ they routinely jump, about 30' square. That was our only involvement, the city ran the show. Ball parks are private property, don't obey the rules, you're asked to leave. No one forces these people to go to a game.

But once they're at that game there's somebody forcing this shit on them, and when we say "force" we mean under penalty of being ejected, suspended, traded, or otherwise penalized including threats of assault and death. See several more incidences posted before I saw your post.

It ain't government so they have every right to do so. Don't like it boycott them.

One of many examples I submitted of coercion was a student denied a diploma for refusing to sing Jingo Balls.

You put a "funny" on that.

You think government-sponsored institutional coercion is "funny"?

 

[OKTexas]

The military doesn't run the fields, you need to talk to the locals about that.

Yyyyyeahhhhh ummm.... that's what this thread is doing.

Did you even read the OP at all?

Actually I did, I was a recruiter in Kingsport TN many years ago, we arranged for the Golden Knights to jump in to their annual Fun Fest. It's the smallest LZ they routinely jump, about 30' square. That was our only involvement, the city ran the show. Ball parks are private property, don't obey the rules, you're asked to leave. No one forces these people to go to a game.

But once they're at that game there's somebody forcing this shit on them, and when we say "force" we mean under penalty of being ejected, suspended, traded, or otherwise penalized including threats of assault and death. See several more incidences posted before I saw your post.

It ain't government so they have every right to do so. Don't like it boycott them.

One of many examples I submitted of coercion was a student denied a diploma for refusing to sing Jingo Balls.

You put a "funny" on that.

You think government-sponsored institutional coercion is "funny"?

More commie lies, he was denied participation in the graduation ceremony, he got his diploma. That happens sometimes when people don't play well with others.

.

 

[Stormy Daniels]

First off why are you vastly reducing the number to "6.8 million"? Where do you even get that?

From your own OP. If you can't be bothered to keep up with your own statements then meeting adjourned.