This past week, I tried to make sense out of a developing story....involving the NBA Dallas Mavericks basketball team, the National Anthem, mass media, and the White House.
So the Mavericks went and made up a rule that you didn't have to play the National Anthem at the beginning of games. The hint was.....we didn't need that American-kind-of-stuff....it's a bold new world that we live in.
Part of this episode....I think....revolves around the international sales of the NBA gimmick to places outside of the US (I won't state the obvious country, but you can guess).
So this National Anthem thing quickly grabbed attention. In Texas....a lot of negative attention. With the NBA headquarters, because the owner hadn't discussed this tactic....a lot of attention.
The NBA 'lords' quickly said 'no', telling the Mavericks not to start this trend. It wasn't the direction that the league wanted to entertain.
So the media came to the White House press speaker....Jen Psaki....and she said that President supported the mavericks (really owner Mark Cuban). Chief reason? Well...."They felt the anthem didn't represent them" (referring to the players or fans of the clubs). The the comment was said: “we as a country haven’t lived up to our highest ideals. (Presidents observation)
I sat there for a fair amount of time....pondering over this.
Generally, around the globe, if you opened up the back-door and said immigration is totally open....you'd have around 500-million people want 'in' and frankly....they don't give a damn about this 'living up to highest ideals' BS (sorry if I offend you).
Just from China alone, if you had the 'free-ticket' for entry into the US, there's probably 50-million Chinese who would sign up and just skip the ideals chatter.
On highest ideals? Well, when you had Nazis walking Jews into concentration camps....and you needed some impossible Army to come out of nowhere and just halt the atrocities going on.....you weren't looking for idealistic people, you just wanted some rough characters who'd be willing to land on Normandy in impossible conditions.....hike across Europe, and bring down the Nazi apparatus.
Presidents, Senators, and cabinet officers may attempt to portray themselves as idealistic, but idealism doesn't really deliver much. It's the non-idealistic folks that matter in the end. It's determined and sometimes rough characters who fill sandbags....help folks when tornados have decimated a neighborhood....brought supplies into hurricane affected areas....or sheltered folks in the middle of blizzards.
Did the President even name the violations of people who failed on 'highest ideals'? No, he just left it out there. He didn't want to suggest that probably both Republicans and Democrats have failed. He didn't want to chat over justices or judges who failed. He didn't want to mention a hundred-odd military officers who failed. Maybe this chat would be worth a whole afternoon on the front porch....but in the news media frame of the landscape....it's a 1-star topic.
The idea of rough characters? They are folks who'd you call around 10 PM....explain your favorite cow was having birthing troubles with the Vet just unwilling to come out, and this neighbor would come over and spend three hours working the issue and save the cow and calf at 1 AM. It wasn't ideals that resolved this....it was determination and the character of the neighbor you called.
It's the same way when some guy is thrashed around by some accident and seriously injured to the extent that he can't handle his crops or tend to his farm. Then some tough folks step....fairly determined and full of character to see that things get done, and the injured guy doesn't have to worry about his situation.
So if you are looking for some idealistic nation....maybe just skip that BS, and settle for people who have determination in their blood and fully capable of handling some rough situations in life, without the social media 'fakeness'.
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