Protest Bowl: Year II

 

I’m not watching the Super Bowl again for the second year in a row. Not that it’s a big deal for me anymore but given the fact that it’s the largest game of the year, even non-fans watch. It’s tonight and the whole weekend has been a reminder of the big game. From church themed jersey night to TV programing all centered around football.

A friend of mine said he was rooting for funny commercials, which is a great line.

Last year was the first year of my “Go To Hell NFL” protest, patent pending (just kidding). Looking back my attitude toward America’s favorite sport held a bitter edge. I loved to tell people why I was done with it. I tossed most of my Chicago Bears gear. I quit talking with my buddy about the comings and goings of our favorite team. “Who started this week at quarterback, how’s the defense look, is the running back healthy?” Sadly it kept us in touch. Not that we don’t communicate anymore, we’re too good of friends for that. But our back and forth banter decreased to a trickle.

 I blame myself for not replacing the dialogue with something else.

 But I was angry with the league and their support of Black Lives Matter. And yes, angry that more of my friends cooled on the idea of a protest. I’m not angry anymore. At the league, Yes. Always. But at consumers who love the game? No. Once you go down the boycott road it forces you to see companies as filters through which left wing agitators push their message.

 It’s tough to sort out a company’s politics, it’s tough to keep track of good guys and bad guys. Honestly I don’t want to know a company’s politics.  

But a lot of them are under pressure to apologize for past misdeeds, perceived slights against aggrieved communities. The Washington Redskins finally caved to a name change this past year. There is no courage for shareholders (or private owners) money is king. But this is the world the left wanted. It wants all businesses to pay fealty to the new morality. But it’s impossible to know what’s going to be offensive in a few years, or how a marketing campaign will play in the future. That’s also the point though. The Left wants to be the decider of that too. They want to say “Yes, we told you it was perfectly fine yesterday but now you must renounce it”.

And how do these dopey corporate boards respond to the pressure? They collapse like a lineman with a torn meniscus. We see this played out all the time. Joe Rogan just issued his second apology because they strung together a clip of him using the N word on his podcast. What was the context? Does it even matter anymore? There is a serious lack of direction in the corporate world on why they exist in the first place. Right now the direction is wherever the pressure is coming from. But it’s the world they’ve created. By allowing outside voices to influence the direction of the company they’ve acquiesced to future campaigns.

Give the devil and inch he’ll take a mile. Then he’ll blame you for not having enough transgender representation along the mile.

But it’s impossible to keep up and avoid using products from spineless companies. It’s a non-stop cycle of outrage for past mistakes and ridiculous apologies.

So I get not boycotting football. It’s a product after all and it’s such a part of our lives it’s tough to peel it off in one full tear. But we have to say no to something, to someone, eventually. If not our allowable speech will consist of such narrow confines it won’t be worth listening to.

 Do a quick inventory in your head of all types of speech that might be restricted in the future, sex and gender issues, the dangers of obesity, the dangers of drug use. We’re already close on the first two. It’s become controversial to define men and women. Overweight women are regularly featured in add campaigns designed to change the image of fat people as unhealthy, like the fat girls dance group.

How about morality? Marriage is only marriage if it’s between a man and a woman. Is it possible even this truth goes away? It certainly is when you let the enemy tell you what’s acceptable speech and what’s not. At the very least don’t participate in it. If we can’t risk losing some comforts now, what will we say when all contrary speech is effectively outlawed? It’s impossible to boycott and protest every company that runs afoul of your personal belief system. It’s impossible to keep track of all the craziness from the left in this country. But make no mistake, we are at war.

This is mostly played out behind the scenes. Dark forces pull the strings of their loyal slaves from all corners of society, business, media, Hollywood, sports and pop culture. I don’t think of my little football protest as a boycott but it is. It’s not part of a larger effort to hit the league where it hurts, it would be nice though. For me, I can’t watch another game and pretend like the NFL didn’t bend the knee to a hate group. And then, make the players swear allegiance to a bunch of grifters who got rich watching American cities burn.

Go To Hell NFL indeed.