Kaepernick's NFL crusade is based on a lie

Lately, our country has been steeped in controversy over NFL football players protesting vaguely expressed grievances. The chosen vehicle of dissent? Refusing to stand for the national anthem or staying in locker rooms during its playing.

The players claim that they are not disrespecting the anthem, the flag, the country and the troops. But, of course they are. Why? Because the players are (or were) “taking a knee” during the short three-minute pregame ceremony instead of using their off-field time to voice their dissent. Most fundamentally, “When = Why.” But exactly what are they protesting? Aside from some very vague complaints about “oppression” or “inequality,” no one really knows. To the fans watching this spectacle, the players look like a bunch of nuns genuflecting before receiving holy communion and, of course, they ask: “What the hell is this all about?” The anti-American liberal left agenda is what it’s all about.

Former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick (Kap), is the godfather of this movement. He initiated the “take a knee” ritual during the 2016 season. His purpose? To protest his “country” and, more particularly, “police brutality” against blacks. Kap is a disciple of Black Lives Matters (BLM), a Marxist-rooted organization funded by ultra-leftist billionaire George Soros for the avowed purpose of protesting the supposedly disproportional killing of blacks by white police officers. There’s just one problem. The facts don’t support BLM’s premise. According to the Centers for Disease Control, police killings of blacks have declined nearly 75 percent since 1968. And a 2016 Harvard University study found that, in regard to the use of deadly force by the police, there was no racial bias. The movement’s martyr is a young black man named Michael Brown from Ferguson, Missouri. In its propaganda blitz, BLM falsely claims that Brown was wrongly gunned down in August 2014 by a white police officer, Darren Wilson, as he was attempting to surrender by raising his hands and shouting: “Hands up don’t shoot!” The only problem is that this scenario is completely false. The left-leaning Washington Post said it best in a Jonathan Capehart article titled “Hands up, don’t shoot was built on a lie.” And a grand jury found that Brown, having robbed a convenience store, was fatally shot while trying to wrestle officer Wilson’s gun away from him. So there was neither any “Hands up, don’t shoot...” nor any wrongful homicide.

But that did not stop BLM from embracing a false narrative and launching their angry and hostile demonstrations nationwide. BLM adopted their own anarchistic “anthem” ­— “What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want them? Now! Pigs in a blanket... Fry ’em like bacon!” And Colin Kaepernick, along with praising former murderous Marxist dictator Fidel Castro and his homicidal henchman, Che Guevara, also openly embraced this disgusting cop-killing scenario at NFL games by wearing pig decorated socks. And the Kap’s latest caper? Donating $25,000 to a group honoring convicted cop-killer Assata Shakur. BLM went on a rampage, staging thousands of protests and demonstrations all across the country. But, unfortunately, rather than winning over constructive support for their cause, BLM generated more division, hate and heightened tension which, most sadly, led to the fatal shooting of white police officers all across the U.S., with five being shot in Dallas alone.

Today, white policemen have far more to fear from the black criminal element than vica versa thanks to BLM. Black lives do matter. But black lives do not matter to Black Lives Matter! Blacks are merely pawns to be played to advance the left’s agenda. And black NFL players are being shamelessly used and exploited by BLM and other leftist groups. BLM loves to spout such standard liberal slurs as “white racism,” “white supremacy” and “white privilege.” But BLM is just as guilty as any “Old South” slave master brazenly exploiting blacks to bring in a bumper crop of cotton when they, instead, use them to achieve their own selfish political ends of bringing down our own democratic republic and replacing it with a new totalitarian socialist regime, one in which blacks will be more enslaved than ever. These shameless Sunday gridiron displays, these protests which have supplanted patriotism, are rarely about specific and well articulated dissent. They are just the latest leftist assault on America’s most cherished institutions and traditions — the flag, the anthem and the troops.

David Hadly is a resident of Kalispell.