{"id":85797,"date":"2017-10-25T05:30:19","date_gmt":"2017-10-25T09:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=85797"},"modified":"2017-10-23T20:22:34","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T00:22:34","slug":"column-from-here-and-back-again-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=85797","title":{"rendered":"COLUMN: From Here and Back Again"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jim Coufal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Vomiting Over the News<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Recently (9\/12) Emanuel Clay wrote \u201cThe behavior of these NFL players (kneeling during the national anthem) almost made me vomit.\u201d<\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I\u2019m truly sorry you didn\u2019t vomit, Mr. Clay, rather than saving your bile to pour out in a letter of ahistorical tripe. As a lawyer, I\u2019m surprised you want to limit the players\u2019 Constitutional right to (non-violent) dissent\u2014whether you agree with what they are dissenting about or not. As a combat veteran, I\u2019m surprised you don\u2019t realize you fought to purportedly defend all our Constitutional rights.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Instead, you take the typical stand of many not so \u201csilent\u201d citizens, wrap your self in the flag and glorify the military. The flag and the national anthem are not exclusive to the military; they are symbols representing \u201cwe the people,\u201d who are supposed to be treated equally.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Your diatribe represents the thinking of many who call themselves \u201ctrue patriots.\u201d People who stand in the cultural history of America, a history of violence and gun worship. In the big picture, since our founding in 1776, the United States was at war, internally or somewhere around the world, 216 years out of 237. There has been only one five-year period where we were not at war. The current war in Afghanistan is the longest continuous war in our history. War\u2014violence\u2014is simply accepted as the way to solve problems, a sort of forced patriotism.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Looking at our day-to-day culture, we have substituted gladiators fighting in a coliseum with boxing and mixed martial arts, football and violent television, movies, true crime and news coverage that keeps violence at the forefront. We wait for the \u201cshowdown\u201d and the \u201cshootout,\u201d for someone to \u201cmake my day,\u201d for \u201cguts and glory.\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I really suspect that if there was to be a public execution to be held at Times Square, there would be a crowd cheering it on, not different than many happenings from our history (lynchings, etc.).<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
More recently, Leona Forbes wrote that she believed Kaepernick and his sports associates had crossed an unbreakable border (10\/21\/17), saying, \u201cborders create loyal attitudes, unification and behaviors to maintain, not degrade freedom or the identity of the country.\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
This sounds like a call for obedience, not for critical thinking. It sounds like Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders telling journalists that it is inappropriate to question (the lies) of a four-star general. Ours is not to reason why\u2026and all that.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
We thank and admire Jefferson, Washington, Adams, the men of the BostonTea party and the Minutemen for crossing the border that required bending to the will of the British Empire; we thank Matilda Jocelyn Gage, Susan B. Anthony and others for crossing the border of their time to bring about woman\u2019s suffrage; we thank Martin Luther King, Lyndon Johnson and others for breaking down the barriers to civil rights; we thank those who broke down the border of the Berlin Wall … and there are so many other examples of heroes and heroines standing up to dissent and breaking down unjust barriers. Dissent is patriotic; without it, the\u00a0status quo<\/i>\u00a0is unthinkingly locked in place.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Jesus was a dissenter, Martin Luther was a dissenter, Gandhi was a dissenter, Mandela was a dissenter.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Bottom line is that Kaepernick and his fellow dissenters are NOT dissing the flag or the military. They are asking for a full, truthful look at the injustice black Americans have endured\u2014which takes uncommon courage in the face of white privilege\u2014since the earliest time of colonization to the current time.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
If one does not see this, they are either blind to history and current events or a racist.<\/div>\n
\n
Jim Coufal of Cazenovia is a part-time philosopher and full-time observer of global trends. He can be reached at madnews@m3pmedia.com.<\/em><\/strong><\/h5>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vomiting Over the News Recently (9\/12) Emanuel Clay wrote \u201cThe behavior of these NFL players (kneeling during the national anthem) almost made me vomit.\u201d I\u2019m truly sorry you didn\u2019t vomit, Mr. Clay, rather than saving your bile to pour out in a letter of ahistorical tripe. As a lawyer, I\u2019m surprised you want to limit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23677,23808,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-mjP","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/coufal-CMYK.jpg?fit=226%2C228&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}