Cracked Pot Meditations – The Very Spiritual Reason Not To Stand During The National Anthem

On January 11, 2016, I began a daily practice of writing a joke meditation of the day, called Cracked Pot Meditations. I was still recovering from the treatment of cancer, and I was having very challenging cognitive issues, so I chose just to put something simple and easy to write every day. Posting it to the blog allowed me to hold myself accountable. Some of those meditations were poorly written and unedited. I have gone back and begun editing these and adding an illustration, starting with the April 27th meditation. I hope you enjoy.

Meditation for August 28th

The Very Spiritual Reason Not To Stand During The National Anthem

Colin Kaepernick, a hand egg player who plays the quarterback position, sat in protest during the playing of our national anthem. Surprisingly, this created quite an uproar. People were agitated that a black person would be angry enough to choose that as a protest.

Colin Kaepernick (quah-peer-neak) said that he wouldn’t stand for a flag that oppresses black people and people of color.

People were distraught and bravely ran to their Facebook to post arguments and memes to declare Colin Kaepernick, quarterback of the Santa Clara 49ers, a complete villain.

What were their arguments?

What about black on black crime, Colleen?

Colin sat because of the crimes against blacks and other people of color perpetrated by whites and the establishment. So some scholars point out a fallacy by saying, “Yeah, but!” and stating that black people also hurt and kill other black people.

White people also kill and hurt other white people.

Actually, the biggest violent demographic is men. Men aren’t smart enough to use words or any diplomacy, so they need violence. Maybe women should sit out the anthem, but hey! Some women have been known to hurt and kill other women!

Well, here is where it is slightly different, Jethro: from 1776 till December 6th, 1865, the United States enjoyed legal slavery, and most of the enslaved people came from Africa. The Christian Bible and the curse of Ham rationalized this as ethical slavery. Then the enslaved people were freed, and everyone was happy! No. The blacks were not accepted by their own southerners, nor were they accepted by the Yankee heroes up north, so they were stuck in a land that hated them now that they were “free”. The establishment made some laws that helped whites get used to free blacks, but they kept the blacks segregated until laws were passed in 1965.

During slavery, our police department was invented to do one thing: hunt down and return slaves. The police have always been adverse to the people of color population. After the 13th Amendment was passed, the police were used to keep the prison system full of people of color. The amendment doesn’t just say no more slavery, it uses a caveat to perpetuate legal slavery:  “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”. The police went from chasing slaves to making slaves.

This means black Americans were not given the same education, housing, healthcare, and careers as their white counterparts until well into the 1970s, so now you expect blacks to be just like their white counterparts?

Legless troops stand up, so why can’t this non-troop person!?!

Soldiers are the bravest people I know. We have got accustomed to a certain amount of freedom, and we pay a lot of money, I MEAN A LOT OF MONEY, to protect that freedom. That means the soldiers are protecting Colin Kaepernick’s right not to stand up for the national anthem. In fact, the only place on earth where standing up to your flag and singing the national anthem is legal with the threat of death for disgracing the flag is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or North Korea.

You see, soldiers in the United States volunteer. They have chosen to carry out the most dangerous profession on earth. We, the United States, deploy our soldiers worldwide to ensure that not only our rights and freedoms are protected, but also the interests of our economy. Actually, it has been more about protecting our economic interests.

Colin Kaepernick does not choose his life’s circumstances. He did not choose his race, his birth class, or how people treat him, but he can choose to sit during any song he likes.

The national anthem and the flag represent us, not just the military. This has been a misguided point made by many uninformed individuals. The military is fighting for us, not a fucking song or a flag. Putting that much stock into symbols and songs is a form of ignorance about what freedom truly means. In fact, Colin Kaepernick displayed more freedom in sitting than I’ve seen in my lifetime. The military made that possible. So, veterans can feel proud that the idea that we are the land of the free and that it remains so for another day is a great success.

Too rich to say shit

Colin Kaepernick is a quarterback for a relatively successful NFL team. The NFL is one of the most excellent examples of how communism can work well, even in a capitalist society. You see, the NFL has a salary cap on the amount it pays its players. This means that no one can be paid significantly more than others. This is non-existence in Baseball (pure capitalism), and there is a soft cap in the NBA where teams pay luxury taxes to pay players more (capitalism in the key of Bernie Sanders).

You can’t fault a person for wanting to take a stand (or a sit, haha), but you can’t use their financial situation as a factor because America has shown that money is often the only way one can have a voice. You need millions of dollars and be inside a party establishment to be an elected official. You have to have millions of dollars to pay for laws to pass in your favor, so why can’t a rich person also use their fame and fortune to fight the unjust?

Donald Trump wants to make America great again. I’m sure he believes that America was a little better before than it is now. What does he do? He runs for president. He isn’t a politician. He has no policy experience at all. He is not just a savvy businessman who inherited his wealth; he is also a skilled entrepreneur. Do you fault him for being too rich to make America great again? He is literally trying to destroy the Great Experiment, but because he’s rich, he gets to do whatever he wants. There are professors of economics and political science who are better policy makers than Trump, but they lack the financial backing. Money and power are what make a statement heard.

So, real freedom of speech is for the rich only; they get to amplify their voices that the poor can’t.

If you don’t like it, feel free to leave it!

This is my favorite argument against any criticism of the country. If you “hate” America so much, why don’t you “leave” it? There are two disses in this. One reason is that the person making this statement wants the offender to leave. The sayer is also saying good luck finding a place as great as here.

Colin is from here. He was born an American. He also works here, and all of his stuff is here. The great thing about being American is that you get to be born here, still criticize the shit out of where you are born, and you get to.

This is the supposed meaning of the national anthem, but it has been corrupted by racism, religion, corruption, greed, and Ronald Reagan.

Kaepernick even says, “When there’s significant change and I feel like that flag represents what it’s supposed to represent in this country, I’ll stand.” He is saying that the flag and the anthem mean something meaningful, but right now, the United States isn’t acting as if they do. We aren’t walking our walk.

Now we can delve into an ontological debate. The United States of America is made up. There is no reality of borders and existence other than us saying it does, and I might disagree with the borders and the existence of the government, and there really isn’t a way to debate it because, at the end of the day, it is all made up.

Our founding fathers were influenced by the Enlightenment theory that religion and monarchy were no longer considered important, so they needed something to believe in that would shape their morals and ethics. These people believed that nationalism was the replacement.

Like religion and monarchy, nationalism is subject to interpretation, and depending on who interprets it, especially those in power, can assign different meanings, some of which aren’t fair to everyone. Some interpretations will require some people not to have the same power as the ruling classes.

So, while secular compared to religion and monarchy, it is still subject to religion being a tool for crowd control, and monarchy has just changed to nepotism, and the rich are now the ruling class. The cops are there to protect the ruling class and not the people. They are protecting the property and economic interests of businesses and the rich from the tyranny of the masses.

Look at this person who is better than Colin Kaepernick, who stands up!

Yes, that is a powerful image of a legless vet standing up for the national anthem. Yes, this person who died in Iraq is a hero and also black, but is much more respectful to the national anthem.

What this argument tells me is that all people must be the same. This means that black people should act white and people with legs should act like people with legs.

Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t stand up for the national anthem, and it is just that Jehovah is better than the United States of America, and I don’t see racist rednecks getting all bent out of shape over that one. One is a literal myth about a skydaddy that we are on a first-name basis with, and the other is a fairly well-supported opinion about police brutality against people of color.

People point out Glen Coffee and Pat Tillman as heroes more deserving of our affection. Glen Coffee and Colin Kaepernick are the same age and drafted in the same round. One is a quarterback and the other is in the military. If that logic is sound, then there would be no NFL; just a massive army of former professional athletes. Someone has to throw the old pigskin around on Sunday, unless we are going to start fantasy military leagues and betting on military conflicts.

What about college football? Here are all these young athletic men who could be standing up for the flag instead of not being paid to play football. In patriotism as rednecks see it, there should be three great college football teams: Army, Navy, and Air Force. Now we have a bunch of educated football players instead, who want to fuck up our white democracy. (Since this was written, players in the NCAA can be paid and endorsed for their likeness.)

Besides, the military has had a minority problem since they allowed people of color to join, and that is the whites are underrepresented in active combat troops compared to the actual population of the United States and overrepresented in the reserves. Whites are enjoying their freedom because of the combat troops of color.

Why were people disgusted with Tim Tebow and not Colin Kaepernick?

Again, Tim Tebow was celebrating a myth, while Colin Kaepernick is fighting injustice. Plus, no one likes Tim Tebow. At the very least, and this is not to say Kaepernick is a good quarterback, but he can throw left-handed.

Also, Colin Kaepernick has prayer circles after games. So he also believes in the very myths that seek to destroy people of color.

So, why is kneeling during the National Anthem spiritual?

Humility is striving for perfection, knowing that perfection is unattainable, yet worth pursuing. The United States is not perfect. I know, you might think we are, but we have a few flaws that we need to work out. The rich ruling class doesn’t have our best interests in mind, and voting for the representatives of the ruling class isn’t going to change anything for you; they will just protect their interests.

While I do believe that violence could be a pretty good solution to taking out the small minority of rich people making our lives miserable, doing things like kneeling during the National Anthem can bring attention to injustice, and that we as a country need to do better.