Let's stand, sit, kneel, or lay down ...

So, players from whatever teams have decided to kneel, hold arms, raise fists ...

The following comes from ESPN:

Dolphins running back Arian Foster told ESPN's Bob Holtzman that he plans to take a knee and raise his fist during the national anthem. He said some of his teammates will join him. Foster said Dolphins players met Friday and agreed to make their own decision on how to handle Sunday's anthem.

"It's our job as professional athletes to make a positive impact on our communities and to be proactive when change is needed. Together we are going to continue to have conversations, educate ourselves and others on social issues and work with local law enforcement officials and leaders to make an impact on the Kansas City community."
Kansas City Chiefs players

Foster said he has had conversations recently with 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Peters said Friday he supported Kaepernick but didn't say whether he planned to protest during the anthem.

"I salute Colin for what he's doing for a great cause,'' Peters said on Friday. "I'm 100 percent behind him. What's going on in law enforcement, it does need to change and it does need to change for ... everybody, not just us as black Americans.

"I feel that over the past year it's been displayed that's what's been going on across America and across the world and just on my [part] I don't think nothing's been done about it. We see what just happened over here in, what's it, Charleston? It's hard. As much as we have influences on the world and all these fans all around the world, once we come out like Colin did, it becomes a big huge thing like he's disrespecting the flag. He didn't say none of that. He spoke up about something he felt he needed to speak up about. I salute him for that. I'm going to back him up.''

In a statement, the Chiefs said: "After having a number of thoughtful discussions as a group regarding our representation during the National Anthem, we decided collectively to lock arms as a sign of solidarity. It was our goal to be unified as a team and to be respectful of everyone's opinions, and the remembrance of 9/11.

"It's our job as professional athletes to make a positive impact on our communities and to be proactive when change is needed. Together we are going to continue to have conversations, educate ourselves and others on social issues and work with local law enforcement officials and leaders to make an impact on the Kansas City community."
Players from several teams, including the Green Bay Packers, Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Texans, helped to hold the edges of giant flags at their games.

Most certainly it is their right, but ... it is also the right of the people to reply.  And I believe the people will.  If they don't, well, they've just let these individuals dictate national policy ... not the people.

You know what you can all do, spend 20 hours a month and visit poor communities, educate the kids, tell them to avoid a life of crime and death.  Tell them they can achieve, if they try, but they must avoid a number of things that would be considered harmful along the way.  That when injustice occurs, stand up - don't burn down.  Get into law enforcement or the Courts and change it.  That's what you could do, or donate 10-20 million to the communities for education.   Your kneeling or sitting down is inappropriate and does NOTHING to help anything or anyone.  NOTHING. 

It isn't even symbolic.  It's ironic.

Mental Illness: Western Civilizations Fault

I am slightly at a loss for words, and for that matter coherence in my thoughts ... I guess it is true, mental illness.

We do not sell young girls panties in vending machines.

We do not have an entire underground business selling children that everyone knows about, understand exists, and we all pretend it doesn't.

We do not repress every emotion for the sake of productivity, nor do we work as passionately, yet we do work more than any people in any country on earth.  Perhaps we do emphasize certain values that place us at greater risk for certain diseases, but the trade off is, we are not a society of sexual deviants who pretend while at work and then unmask themselves in their treatment of women and children. 

We do not condone the behavior you find in many countries where they have little mental illness - in fact, there are so many holes in this story ... what do people do in Japan or Korea or ..., when they have problems that overwhelm them?  Easy, if we did what they do, we would have so few people with mental illnesses.  Further, because we shine the light on our imprefections, willingly or otherwise, all of the unseen are seen - unlike in Japan where an entire class of people are marginalized and unseen politically, economically, or perhaps medically.

Western values cause mental illness?

Thank God for our values, I really do not want your values - we happened to have won several wars to prevent those values from being forced upon us.  Does that mean our values are inherently better and healthier ... pretty much.  There are some issues, for sure, but not even in the same league.




The Times
August 10, 2006




Western values 'are causing mental illness'


THE rapid spread of Western business practices in Japan has caused widespread mental illness and is responsible for a deepening demographic crisis, government officials say.

Statistics indicate that 60 per cent of workers suffer from “high anxiety” and that 65 per cent of companies report soaring levels of mental illness.

Meanwhile, the size of the Japanese population is shrinking, and for the first time the Government has acknowledged that the falling birth rate is linked to job-related factors. Directors of the Japanese Mental Health Institute blame the same factors for rising levels of depression among workers and the country’s suicide rate, which remains the highest among rich nations.

Merit-based pay and promotion are of particular concern because they are at odds with the traditional system, built on seniority, that has reigned supreme in corporate Japan. In the harsh new atmosphere of cut-throat rivalry between workers, the Institute for Population and Social Security argues, young people do not feel financially stable enough to start families.

The trend is put down to Japanese companies’ attempts to globalise by adopting working practices more closely in line with US and British models. Larger numbers of temporary staff, a greater willingness to sack people and greater pay disparities are the downside.

A spokesman for the Mental Health Institute said that the emphasis on individual performance was driving Japanese workers — particularly those in their thirties — to mental turmoil. “People tend to be individualised under the new working patterns,” he said. “When people worked in teams they were happier.”





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
silly

Europe v US: Work Ethic

European attitude toward work:

Europe is a class-based system, whether in practice today or historically. Like anyone burdened by traumatic events (in this case a classed society - aristocracy and nobility versus peasants), they live under that past and have never escaped from its allure. Who doesn't want to be nobility - to not work, to lazy around all day and eat grapes. Marx believed we should all become poets. For Europeans, work is a bad thing, it is something you do in order to do something you prefer doing. Work is a bad thing - a place you go for punishment. The ideal for Europeans is to not work, to be like the aristocrats - to be free of work.

In America, we value work - we value the entrepreneur, we value the ideal of freedom achieved through work. We do not seek to become aristocratic, we seek to be free.

Europeans seek to be equal to the best - to sit on the chaise and gobble down grapes.

Two different value systems.


I prefer ours in terms of where I would want to live and raise children.

I prefer theirs in terms of a place to go for vacations.











European