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FROM MY CORNER: The National Anthem Revisited

Howell Hurst 2020 Presidential Election, American News, Defining Trump, People, People Politics, Poverty, Presidential Election, Racism, Trump

FROM MY CORNER

The National Anthem Revisited

I note that there is quite a bit of rumble-writing in the media about national reporters who are not unbiased when speaking of Trump. Andrea Mitchell, for one, expressed that she sided with The Eagles rather than Trump in the recent verbal battle about athletes not standing during The National Anthem.

Let’s analyze this situation, shall we?

Yes, it is a journalistic tradition that reporters should – when they are reporting hard news – remain neutral. However, I note that it is also a tradition firmly established in recent years that corporate networks and stations and publications specifically and officially do side, as a profit-defining strategy, with one particular political viewpoint or another.

So, it appears the practice is valid for discussion. Are we establishing that it is OK for corporate entities to have opinions, but not their reporters? And what about, as Andrea did, commenting on a news item that is only questionably “hard core news,” whose very subject, dissenting athletes, is debatable as to its hardness, as to its definition as being objective news.

Athletes not standing and saluting Tbe National Anthem is a philosophical statement by the athletes. It is not disrespectful to either the nation or The Anthem. Anyone thinking so is immune to the concept of metaphor or symbolism being executed by the athletes. Anyone thinking so is being hoodwinked by slick talking politicians with axes to grind and bank accounts to nurture.

The athletes demonstrate, on the contrary, that they are protesting the practice of politicians themselves abusing the spirit of The National Anthem for their own political benefit by attributing to it some sort of inviolable sanctity.

The ultimate hypocrisy is when politicians, in violation of our laws, financially profit from their official positions, as Mr. Trump clearly does, while accusing athletes of disrespecting The National Anthem as the athletes attempt to highlight the politicians’ illegal actions.

The worst part of all this is the fact that so many Americans are so ill-educated and essentially illiterate, and devoid of cultural comprehension, that they do not even see through the rotten subterfuge of the fast talking, money-grubbing politicians.

I don’t stand for The Anthem anymore either because the nation’s top politicians have so abused it by their behavior. I don’t like the anthem’s warlike symbolism, and I think it has become out of date in its insensitivity toward the abuse by politicians of millions of mainstream Americans struggling to support themselves while our politicians in intimate cahoots with the financial powers that be steal us blind.

I’ll stand for it again when the politicians stop taking all the corporate money and selling the rest or us short, and when the police and their political bosses stop treating some Americans as sub human citizens while cashing in on their addictively-acquired corruption.

I’ll also stand for it when some middle class Americans stop falling for the illogical and unethical double-speak of leading politicians clearly in the business of filling their back accounts with the dirty money supporting their dirty politics.

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