Tomorrow, 1-30-2026

That's the day a general strike will take place all over these United States to protest the nation's move to a fascist government.

That means, if you're able to do so, you refrain from going to work, going to school, and going shopping...all to protest DHS' Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.

If you can't walk off the job or attend demonstrations tomorrow, you can boycott large corporations that support the antics of the current White House...and that includes major retailers among those big businesses. (But if you've got to shop, small local businesses are okay.)

Think of all the major companies whose support of the former host of TV's "The Apprentice" in 2016, 2020, and 2024 helped lead to (among many other things) the drive to annex Greenland...tariffs galore...erasing non-White men and women of all colors from the American history books...to say nothing of masked ICE agents kidnaping, raping, and killing innocent people.

Maybe you can write letters (online or physical) to elected officials...especially Congressmembers. Urge them not to give any more loot to DHS and its ICE arm. Signing petitions and engaging in online political discussions is okay, too.

People on Facebook and on Instagram have sounded the call for a general strike...and you can also go to https://NationalShutdown.org for more information.

If this is the only way to get Corporate America's attention, well...so be it.

Guess what I'll be doing on Sundays this fall?

Well, I won't be watching National Football League action, that's for sure.

It's all because the owners of the league's 32 clubs have decided to ban kneeling during the singing/playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Players must now stand during Francis Scott Key's claim to fame...or risk getting fined. 

The only other option for the NFL's athletes: Stay in the locker room until the song's finished.

I remember all the letters that appeared in the Omaha World-Herald during the 2017 NFL campaign...letters that asked those protesting football players to air their grievances "on their own time" rather than in front of stadiums full of people (as well as in front of millions of TV viewers).

Well, those Americans who gave their newspapers such letters have now gotten what they've been on their own knees begging for.

And it probably won't take long before some of those same letter writers attack any NFL players who actually use "their own time" to address issues such as police brutality. 

In time for last Wednesday's Washington Post, Shaun R. Harper (a professor at USC who runs the school's Race and Equity Center) turned in a heck of an editorial about the circuit's new kneeling ban. 

Harper talked about how the new edict is all about ethnicity. 

Out of over 1,700 NFL players who suited up last season, 70% are Black. Seven of the teams had African Americans as their head coaches.

Every last squad in the league is owned by White people.

And starting with head honcho Roger Goodell, most of the people who make up the power structure at NFL headquarters in New York City are Caucasian Americans.

Add it all up. 

Harper did just that, talking about how the kneeling ban signals that the team owners don't give a good, good hoot about fighting racism in America. In addition, he stated that "the league is only interested in Black men as laborers and entertainers, not as citizens with the right to use their influence to awaken our nation's racial consciousness, disrupt racism, and improve circumstances for members of their communities who are harmed by racist policies and practices."

The key word is "citizens."

Later on in that editorial, Harper (he's written a dozen books; his most famous one: "Scandals in College Sports") called on NFL players to sue the league over its efforts to hold back gridders' freedom of expression (we're talking First Amendment rights, you know!).  

SRH also talked about how he joined many other African-American football lovers in boycotting last year's NFL contests to show solidarity with Colin Kaepernick and other activist players.

Shaun, I'm a year late to the "party," but here I am.

I'll continue to read about the games in the paper and online.

I just won't watch the games on TV anymore...until the Jerry Joneses and Daniel Snyders lift that stupid kneeling ban and stop cozying up to a man who wanted one of those NFL teams earlier in this decade.

That's right...Donald John Trump.

Even if Trump and his enablers/supporters don't really get it, patriotism involves more than standing at attention when you hear, as George Carlin put it, the world's only national anthem that mentions rockets and bombs.

Much more. 

Donald, have you ever read the Constitution in your life?

"Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a b***h off the field right now. Out! He's fired. He's fired!'" 

-Donald Trump at a recent special-election rally in Alabama 

With Puerto Rico in a gigantic mess because of Hurricane Maria, among other huge issues, the head of the American people finds it more important to denigrate National Football League players who've taken a knee during the singing/playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" to protest bigotry, racism, and police brutality right here on these shores.

Vintage Trump.

YECCH! 

Trump was in the Heart of Dixie on 9-23-2017 to help Luther Strange, the Republican who inherited- and is trying to keep- the US Senate seat that Jeff Sessions gave up to become this country's attorney general (or top shyster, now that Sessions has the top spot in the Justice Department). 

All the former host of NBC's The Apprentice did was unleash the biggest day of protest in NFL history. 

19 of the league's 32 squads participated in protests of some kind or another; in total, 200 players took a knee or sat down during what the late George Carlin called the world's only national anthem that mentions rockets and bombs.

  

And three entire teams- including the Pittsburgh Steelers- wouldn't even come out of the locker room for our national tune.  

This time, some team owners (one of them was Washington's Daniel Snyder) joined those protesting players in solidarity. 

Now if one- just one- of those team magnates would just sign the man who brought taking a knee during Francis Scott Key's claim to fame to football...

Right now, a lot of those teams are off to terrible starts on the gridiron. Week 3 of the 2017 NFL campaign is in the books, and the Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, New York Giants (a playoff team last season), San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Chargers [yep...they moved back to Tinseltown (their 1960 home as one of eight original American Football League teams) after spending the 1961-2016 period in San Diego] are still winless. 

Seven more- the New York Jets, Houston Texans, Indianapolis Colts, Chicago Bears, New Orleans Saints, Arizona Cardinals, and Seattle Seahawks (another 2016 playoff squad)- are 1-2-0 right now.

Maybe one of them could use a Colin Kaepernick...even as a second-stringer or third-stringer, if not as a starter.

All the former University of Nevada star was doing, starting with the NFL's 2016 preseason, was calling attention to racism and police brutality here in these fifty states.

He wasn't disrespecting the national anthem or the flag the song praises.

And the Constitution's First Amendment guarantees Kaepernick and America's other 321 million citizens the same right to take a knee, sit down, sprawl on the floor, etc., etc. to protest injustice.

Check this out:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech (emphasis mine), or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." 

If you've got a copy of the 2017 World Almanac and Book of Facts, crack open Page 511. You'll find the above paragraph. 

Maybe that'd be something Trump can somehow get up the courage to do. 

Oh, by the way, football isn't the only sport where players at any level you can name are taking knees in protest.

This past weekend, Bruce Maxwell of baseball's Oakland A's became that sport's first player to protest by kneeling during "The Star-Spangled Banner." 

If Trump and other Republicans found out about Maxwell's feat, how would they react?

How about you? 

If kneeling while someone sings his or her heart out prior to the beginning of a sports event doesn't cut it for you, what's a better way to protest injustice from sea to shining sea (and then some)?

 

Is This What You Want, America?

Funny...I remember being told that the United States entered World War 2, sent troops to Korea, and put soldiers in Vietnam- to say nothing of deploying fighting men and fighting women in Iraq and Afghanistan- to stop totalitarianism.

I didn't think totalitarianism (in one degree or another) would get a foothold, let alone thrive in too many places, on these shores.

It's been 22 days now since 18-year-old high-school graduate Michael Brown was shot and killed in his home town of Ferguson, MO, by one of that city's police officers, Darren Wilson.

Several nights of tense protests ensued after Wilson and his fellow Ferguson Police officers gave conflicting reports about the events that led to Brown's killing; the protests came about, too, because of mounting frustration over the lack of detailed information made available to the general public about just what took place to cause Wilson to fire those six bullets.

Within a couple of days of the death of Brown, armored trucks and other military hardware were seen in the streets of Ferguson.

Not Kiev, Ukraine. Ferguson, MO, USA. 

To top it all off, that same police department fired tear gas (8-13-2014) at an Al Jazeera America TV crew to prevent that crew from taping coverage of the protests taking place in this St. Louis suburb. 

And two other reporters- The Huffington Post's Ryan Reilly and The Washington Post's Wesley Lowery- were detained by another FPD officer at a local McDonald's the very night the Al Jazeera America crew faced tear gas. 

It didn't make one bit of difference that Lowery, Reilly, and the crew from Al Jazeera America were just doing their jobs. 

Things would've been much worse if Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon hadn't called on Capt. Ron Johnson of the Missouri State Patrol to take over the policing of Ferguson from the St. Louis County forces and the Ferguson Police. (Johnson- a man from the St. Louis area- even walked with the protesters the night he took over.)

Yes, at the core of it all was the robbery of a convenience store in Ferguson. And yes, the FPD named Brown as a suspect. 

It's also true that Brown was unarmed and had no criminal record coming into 8-9-2014...and that the initial contact between the 28-year-old Wilson (a six-year FPD veteran) and the 18-year-old Brown had nothing to do with the robbery...a theft that took place ten minutes before the killing.  

Wasn't it enough for Darren Wilson to just take Michael Brown to the police station?

Since when did being suspected of robbery warrant death to the suspect...an unarmed suspect at that?   

I mean, James Holmes got treated better by police. 

Me, I don't know about how the same Aurora, CO police responsible for catching Holmes would've treated the Ferguson protesters.

But I do know I've read where, in the past, Ferguson's Finest (?) have harassed school children...including one who was just going to the mailbox of the child's own home. 

And if you're walking down one of Ferguson's thoroughfares, even if it's the one you live on, chances are one of Ferguson's Finest (?) will stop you...just for the hell of it.

I've been thinking that that city of 21,135 (2012 estimate) doesn't have a police department.

It's got a Gestapo.  

And this country's got too many cities where, depending on what you look like, you'd just better not be caught walking down this or that street- even if it's the street where you live and you're trying to get home.  

I recently read online about a man from St. Paul, MN, who was waiting at a shelter over by the First National Bank Building there. He was waiting on his children...but that didn't stop a bank employee from calling the police on him and getting him arrested. (Supposedly, it was his dreadlocks...and, oh, yes, his skin color.)  

If you're an American and you happen to stumble onto this post, you might want to ask yourself if the city you live in, if it isn't Ferguson itself, is a Ferguson-to-be...or has already had a Fergusonlike incident in recent years.

There's just no reason for a SWAT team to invade a rather peaceful protest. And there's no excuse for a police officer to let his dog desecrate that makeshift memorial (flowers and candles) at the spot where Brown died- the spot where Brown lay for four hours without medical attention.

48 of Ferguson's 53 officers are White...in a city where two out of every three residents are Black.

Are you adding this all up? 

Despite US Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) calling for an end to the militarization of America's police departments, many of Paul's fellow Republicans keep saying we shouldn't continue to shine the Big Light on Ferguson. They're also angry over efforts to get more Fergusonites to get out to their neighborhood polling places...especially on 11-4-2014.  

You know what, Republicans? That's YOUR tough luck!

If you're going to continue to talk glowingly and eloquently about freedom, then you've got absolutely no business calling for the transformation of "the country whose very name means freedom" into a police state.

I applaud those Fergusonites who now are calling for an end to their city's record as an Information-Age East Berlin.  

How about you? 

(By the way...sources for information for this post included Wikipedia and www.washingtonpost.com.)

I Hope They Keep It Up!

That's right...I mean the members of the Occupy Wall Street movement and its offshoots not just here in the United States, but all over this planet.

I wholeheartedly support the protesters.

I mean, what would you do if you were coming out of college (and facing a mountain of debt)...only to find the nation's biggest businesses are just not hiring right now?

What would you do if you'd just come back from Iraq or Afghanistan (be it your only tour of duty or your umpteenth), where you'd just gotten through fighting to keep America on the map...and you're ready to get back to civilian life...only to find there's no place left for you in this country's workforce?

The Americans who're coming out of college and are coming back from this country's two long-running, unfunded wars- as well as the Americans who've recently been thrown out of jobs through no fault of their own- have done it all the way they've been told they're supposed to do it. And that goes for the nation's rank-and-file citizens who are lucky to right now hang on to their jobs.

And the thanks they get are supposed to be wages that largely haven't gone up since the day a man who spent 27 years (1937 to 1964) making movies and 13 other years (1953 to 1966) hosting TV shows put his left hand on a Bible and raised his right hand in front of an international TV audience?

And all that time, CEO pay zoomed up anywhere from 240% to 300% since that day in 1981!

I mean, come on! You mean to tell me that when average, everyday people are kicked down- let alone repeatedly over a 30-year period- they're not supposed to rise up and fight back?

When everybody in the United States except the country's three million wealthiest citizens is paying the financial freight, the time is definitely right for the other 304 million Americans to protest.

Not only that...it's time to keep on protesting the nation's income disparity and Wall Street's role in it.

And it'd be great to see the Occupy movement do the same thing to Capitol Hill. After all, this country's legislative branch- especially the Republicans in it- has been just as implicit, getting its marching orders from those financial leaders and only those financial leaders.

I mean, forces such as OWS are more effective when they keep sounding the message (and sounding it repeatedly) that it's long been time for America's wealthiest to step up to the plate and reinvest in this country and in its citizens...rather than acting like traitors and shutting down plant after plant after plant (and opening up plant after plant after plant in countries whose citizens can't afford to BUY the products they're making, because they're paid so doggone little).

Change isn't easy. And it isn't always quick.

Yet if the changes we want don't happen as quickly as it takes to brew a cup of instant coffee, we're not satisfied.

That kind of attitude didn't bring about the big social changes that took place during the 20th Century.

Change isn't easy. And it isn't always quick.

And that's why we've got to keep fighting for the changes we want.

Also: If we can't go out in the streets and march, we can support the people who are able to get out there.

And contrary to what Newton L. Gingrich keeps telling people, the Occupy protesters aren't vagrants in need of a bath.

Regardless of what St. Rush of Cape Girardeau says, those protesters AREN'T human debris.

Don't let Bill O'Reilly con you into believing that OWS and its offshoots are finished. And don't let others tell you the movement doesn't have a clear focus.

That's right...this movement is about to hit its stride.