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battleangel · 5 months ago

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A History of Violence

I wonder if Kris Jenkins who was recently drafted in the second round by the Bengals, same name & same position as his father who was a Pro Bowler who played 10 seasons for the Panthers, Patriots & Jets, ever bothered to read what his father told the New York Times in 2011 about what it was like playing in the trenches in the NFL?

Kris Jenkins - View of Life in the NFL Trenches

Article Excerpt

"N.F.L. fans, people outside, they have no clue what goes on. This isn’t like playing Madden. This isn’t like being the popular kid in high school. When you do those things in the real world, and it don’t work out, you still have your health. The thing about football is you’re directly playing with your life, the quality of it and the longevity of it. The stakes are up there.

You ever been in a car crash? Done bumper cars? You know when that hit catches you off guard and jolts you, and you’re like, what the hell? Football is like that. But 10 times worse. It’s hell."

Nothing is questioned, nothing is learned.

Cycle and history of violence from father to son continues.

The son will just repeat everything his father went through.

Life in the trenches, on the line.

His fathers New York Times article was only written 13 years ago — did his son even bother to read it?

Article:

"The debate about concussions wasn’t there yet. I’ve had more than 10, including college and the pros. Nobody cared. And that’s the thing. We play football."

Are we as an audience, as fans, as a nation of football loving fanatics so blasé about the same violence that was visited upon the father being visited upon his son?

Does that not even get us to collectively pause before checking pre-season match ups in preparation for Week 1 next month?

America's collective Christmas in September — footballs back!!!!!!!

Do actual thoughts ever creep in amongst the unbridled ebullience, enthusiasm and unchecked joy of, "Football!!!!!!!!!!!!".

Or is the unthinking emotion inherent in football fanaticism across all levels, players and non-players alike, the point?

The pure emotion and the short circuiting of logic.

Its probably not a great idea for me to go bash my head against that dudes head 70 to 80 times a game, every game, every season.

But, its football!!!!!!!!!

So, nothing else matters?

Unlike rules now protecting quarterbacks and other positions from helmet to helmet hits, absolutely nothing has changed for offensive & defensive linemen and running backs — you're still smashing yourself head first into a concrete wall — as a running back, 20 to 30 times a game and as a lineman, 70 to 80 times a game.

No matter how much the NFL lies about this and tries to pretend the issue is concussions, its not — the existential issue threatening the sport of football itself is the repetitive SUBconcussive head impacts involved in every blocking and tackling play in football.

They are absolutely unavoidable and occur literally over a thousand times every single season.

It is these repetitive subconcussive head impacts — average 1500 hits to the head per season in high school, football & the pros — that 10 to 15 years after their playing careers are over, can cause neurological disorders and conditions like CTE, Parkinsons disease, Alzheimers disease, ALS and dementia in former players.

We have seen the movie before.

Im pretty sure Will Smith was in it.

And even that movie was nothing but masterful subterfuge from the NFL as they named it as their eternal smokescreen — Concussion — instead of what actually turned Mike Websters brain into CTE mush — Repetitive Subconcussive Head Impacts.

Doesn't have the same Hollywood ring to it, does it?

But it doesn't make it any less true or the NFL any less deceptive.

The NFL's own disability paperwork for former players says players can be compensated as early as 36 for early-onset dementia.

Is a game really worth someone losing their literal mind at 36?

When do we question the every day violence inherent in every tackling and blocking play in football?

Article:

"I remember one game, at Carolina, my second year. We played Arizona, and the double team weighed 780 pounds combined. They just kept double-teaming me, hoping I would fold and cave in. I didn’t. But that was probably the most painful day I had.

From the double teams, over the years, I wore the left side of my body down. I was past hurt.

I was at the point of numb. Like my body was shutting down nervous systems, so I didn’t have to deal with pain.

The numbness started at the very beginning. I couldn’t feel part of both arms. I couldn’t feel part of both legs. It was worse on the left.

I’m just starting to get feeling back in my left side. Look, football is no joke.

But I’m going to say this much: somebody has to be the grunt. That’s why there’s no better position on the field than interior defensive line. Forget quarterbacks or specialists. They’ve got it easy. If we don’t come to play, nobody else on defense can do their job. We’ve got the toughest job on the field. We don’t care about our facial hair. We play a grimy position.

Piles, oh, my God, they’re brutal. I’ve had my ankles twisted. I’ve been bit. I’ve done stuff. I’ve tried to break guys’ elbows, pinching people, twisting ankles, trying to bend up their arms, pop an elbow out. Why? I had to fight back."

Tackle football is cognitive dissonance & constant dissociation.

The inherent violence of football is never seriously questioned nor is it held up under a critical lens.

The most violent, punishing plays are casually dismissed post-game by players waving their hands and saying, "It was just a football play."

Yeah — thats actually the exact problem.

Ah, pile ups. Just a good old fashioned rugby scrum.

Nothing dehumanizing, nothing to worry about.

As long as its not my dick being grabbed at the bottom of a pile as I dig my way through my second bag of Fritos Scoops, safe and secure on my couch, while those dumb fucks kill themselves for an oblong shaped ball for my entertainment.

Exploitative, much?

The spectacle of the pile up.

The brainwashing so clearly evident when grown adult men who would be ashamed to act this way publicly over anything else suddenly leap in unison into the air like feral animals as Troy Aikman shouts with unfettered glee, "The ball is loose!!!!!!".

So is our collective humanity in watching a several ton mass of flesh undulate, eye gouge, scrotum twist, bite, spit and hurt each other for...what?

Us? Them? Football?

Article:

"Mentally, we’re conditioned to be tough. We’re conditioned to feel no pain. The only injury I ever felt while playing was when one of my knees tore. That’s the only time I felt pain and was like, O.K., that hurt.

But Mondays, you wake up, and it’s hard to get out of bed. It hurts wherever you got hit. I remember one time getting hit by Edgerrin James. He put his head in my chest. I woke up, and I couldn’t even move, because it felt like my chest was going to collapse. It was sore for days. All you want to do is get the blood circulating.

Hot tub. Cold tub. Hot tub. Cold tub."

Hot tub. Cold tub. Hot tub. Cold tub.

That's brainwashing.

A dissociative brainwashing ritual to dissociate the self from the pain & violence of the game.

It's like Junior Seau when he referred to himself in third person when he was mic'd up for NFL Films before every single hit for the duration of an entire game.

Very creepy if you can find it on youtube.

It literally sounded like he was programming himself to hit, then he would hit the hole, collect himself on the ground and do it.

Hard. Goddamned hard.

Again. And again. And again. And again.

If thats not brainwashing, what is?

Article:

"The brain fog? It still hasn’t stopped. It feels like you’re punch-drunk, like someone hit you over the head. It’s like you knock yourself stupid. When you have to concentrate on things, then it becomes an issue. My head gets foggy to the point where I really can’t function."

And yet you put a helmet on your son's head and you sent him out to play the same position.

Like father, like son.

Just like fathers in the military who have sons who "follow in their footsteps".

Often, articles will speak of a newly drafted player's heritage and lineage in the sport and if his father had a storied career, the hyperbole of the newly drafted son "being born to play" is routinely trotted out.

Smacks of eugenicism, genetic determinism, militarism, rigid heirarchies, dynasties.

Capitalist masculine toxicity.

Article:

"We know it’s going to hurt. We know because pain in football is consistent over time. You’re still hurting in the off-season. You’re hurting when the next season starts.

I mean, guys play hurt, but it’s a choice. They do a pretty good job now, with all the scrutiny around concussions.

On the line, it’s still painful. By the end of the year, half an offensive line might be getting shots, draining fluid from their knees. Most stay away from cortisone now, because it’s degenerative.

Everything gets off center. Bulging disk. Herniated disk. For linemen, it starts in the lower back. Throws everything off."

What did Jason Kelce recently say on his podcast with his wife?

His back is so fucked up from playing football that he cant bend down to pick up his 1 year old daughter nor can he hold her while standing.

Kelce also played on the line as the center for the Eagles.

Is it worth it?

Should children be playing this game?

Should anyone in its current incarnation?

Has science shown that the risk of repetitive subconcussive head impacts causing neurological conditions & disorders is too high for any child to assume?

What about teenagers in high school who are legally minors and not adults?

Should they be able to assume risks as teenagers that can mentally incapacitate them later in life as soon as their 30s?

Potential suicide due to CTE in their 20s?

1500 hits per season every season starting in high school.

So, that's 6k hits to the head in four years of high school football.

Another 6k more hits to the head in four years of college football.

12k hits to the head before the pros not counting youth football prior to high school which is ages 5 to 14 aka Pop Warner.

Even 5 year olds endure on average 336 hits to the head every season in Pop Warner.

5 year olds!

Kindergartners!

Ask yourself where else you could hit a 5 year old child 336 times in the head over the course of a few months without being arrested and jailed?

Is it really okay just because it's football?

Does that truly justify that amount of head impacts to a 5 year old child?

Wouldn't we call that abuse if it was happening in the Boy Scouts or any organization other than Pop Warner?

Should it be happening at all?

In service of whom and for what?

Football? Glory? Masculinity? Manhood? America? Pride? Militarism?

All of the above?

Article:

"I can’t blame anybody for my death. I made the choice to play football. I made the choice to walk through the concussions. I could have stopped. I could have said, my head hurts. It was my choice, as a man."

But who told you that playing through permanent brain injuries is what makes you a man?

Can't we blame that person?

Your father and your coaches from youth, high school, college all the way to the pros?

Militaristic views of masculinity kills boys and young men for the game of football.

It's a militaristic war game that simulates combat yet kills people in slow motion for real.

The violence suffered by players in football is as celebrated as militaristic ideals of what soldiers suffer through in war: valor, courage under fire, physical courage, endurance, stoically fighting through unimaginable injuries & pain, the quarterback heroically leading his squad as their captain marching his troops down the field to victory just like any military commander complete with a chevron like system that awards stars for each year or season of service very similar to how stripes function in the military.

This militaristic ideal of masculinity is endlessly promoted, encouraged, rewarded and valorized in football just as it is in the military.

Football is Americas killing fields.

High school players — teenaged boys, not adult men — die every year playing football.

Over a million boys play high school football each year and only a handful die or suffer permanent, disabling and/or catastrophic injury.

Would you be so glib about the numbers though if it was your son or your brother or your boyfriend or your best friend who died playing high school football?

What if they were permanently paralyzed from the neck down playing college football?

It's easy to treat the above numbers as a statistic or rounding error when you can close out of the Facebook support page for the now dead or disabled high school or college player and get ready for Chiefs/Ravens next month.

What if you couldn't just X out of the Facebook page because you had to quit your job to take care of your disabled son for the rest of your life?

Or what if your brother killed himself from having CTE from playing college football?

The reality is, we can drop a "sad crying" emoji on a Facebook status and move on — the families of the young boys and men sacrificed to this sport definitely can't.

Go ask Tyler Sash's mom if she's "moved on".

Hasn't science proven at this point that tackle football just doesnt work the way it is currently played?

Why are we okay risking future Junior Seaus, Mike Websters, Justin Strelczyks, Phillip Adams, Tyler Hillinskis with every boy and young man that straps on the pads and helmet and charges on to the field?

Is it 10% of players that get CTE? Is it 20%?

Is it more? Is it half?

More than half?

The truth is we wont know until a CTE test is developed for living players.

Pop Warners Chief Medical Director is working with the FDA to develop the test as I type this.

Why do you think that is?

The NFL's own study funded through a university admits that NFL players are 19 times more likely than non-NFL players to develop neurological conditions and disorders.

19 times!!!!!

As long as its not your brain getting scrambled right?

And you can just sit there and watch the leagues reigning back to back MVP and reigning Super Bowl Champ slowly deteriorate their minds while accumulating permanent brain damage for your entertainment.

Pass the chips.

Article:

"We consider football a gladiator sport because we understand you’re going to get hurt. You’re putting your life on the line.

You might not die now, like in an old Roman arena, but 5, 10 years down the road, you could. You know that.

I wouldn’t change anything.

During my career, I kept my mouth shut. This now, speaking out, it’s about telling you my life. There’s no agenda, no vendetta. This is what football’s really like.

The first warning is the first meeting you have with an agent, when you realize this is real. My choices count at this point. I’m going to be prostituting myself for the next 18 years of my life.

That’s the first warning.

The next one is that good old combine.

That’s when you realize, when you march in that room half naked, I’m a number now."

No, thats when you realize that the NFL is MODERN DAY SLAVERY.

It's a modern day meat market.

6% of the US population is Black male. 75% of the NFL is Black.

0% of the owners are Black. Only 2 out of 32 coaches are Black.

Almost all of the NFL owners are white with very few exceptions and exactly none of them are Black.

The NFL is a modern day plantation.

Article:

"I loved New York. I loved playing there. I loved the spotlight. I was fine in New York, but I also played for Eric Mangini. We started 8-3, Brett Favre, all of that. Everybody told Mangini, stop with the long practices, you’re killing us. You practice too hard. We’re on turf."

36% of all injuries that occur in the NFL are due to turf & 1/4 of all concussions are a result of players heads slamming against turf.

So...

Why won't the NFL replace turf with grass in their stadiums as the NFLPA has been asking for for years?

Because they're cheap as hell and would rather injure their own investments then pay for grass.

The owners & the league have the same exact disregard and disdain for their own players.

The NFL has agreed to switch out turf for grass for the World Cup because the soccer players refused to do what NFL players are forced to — fuck their bodies up on turf.

It proves the NFL and owners could do it and, in fact, they did do it so they could host the World Cup in their football stadium — unless it's actually for the players in their own league.

In that case, you're shit out of luck.

Should have played soccer.

Article:

"What you hear from guys like Ray Lewis, James Harrison, what they’re saying is we’re well aware what we’re signing up for. The violence, we love it. The madness, we love it. We love measuring ourselves in it.

Those guys express themselves with their pads. You soften the game, you’re taking away their freedom of expression. Nobody wants to see flag football, and now, you might as well give guys flags, tell them to hug afterward, all that."

Did he even read the beginning of his own article???

Constant cognitive dissonance is the distillation & essence of tackle football — by the players, the audience, coaches, trainers, medical personnel, announce team, play by play, color, pre-game & post-game hosts, team & network journalists.

I see no repetitive head impacts causing CTE.

I hear no repetitive head impacts causing CTE.

I speak no repetitive head impacts causing CTE.

Article:

"The violence is what I remember. Like against Buffalo in 2009, when I had the game of my career. Or the time I slapped a lineman out of the way in Houston with one arm. Winning, the physical part, the mayhem, finding the line between insanity and sanity, that’s the exact reason why you play. That’s the reason fans like football in the first place.

A guy like James Harrison, he’s possessed, and that’s the guy you love to play with, love to watch. He doesn’t need to be babied."

Protection from permanent brain damage & trauma, fans bloodlust, coaches unreasonable demands, neurological disorders & conditions, neurological symptoms including suicidality, depression, memory loss, confusion, irritability, volatility, aggression, amnesia, mental incapicitation, deteroriation & decline is being "babied"??????????

Article:

"The N.F.L. is too big to fail. If that happened, it would be a slow death. It’s still the ultimate game. For us, it’s like legal prison rules. You have to protect your manhood, your well-being. You’re going to be challenged. You’re going to be tested."

"You have to protect your manhood."

Protect The Shield.

Brainwashed into the cult of American masculinity.

Just like all the other 2.6 million young boys & adolescents playing youth football.

Another million playing in high school.

100k playing in NCAA college football.

1600 play in the NFL.

All brainwashed into the cult of masculinity.

Millions of young boys and teenagers sacrificed on the altar of tackle football, Americas true religion.

Article:

"There aren’t too many places a 400-pound guy with an attitude can go and beat the crap out of somebody and not get locked up for it. I have a violent streak. I have to fight it out of my system. We signed up for it. All of it. We’re not trying to be sane or rational."

What does an 8 year old playing tackle football for Pop Warner sign up for?

Tradition, rigid authoritarianism, toxic masculinity, ideals of manhood worth sacrificing your body, mind, memories, personality, self and literal life for.

A 13 year old football player committed suicide after an egregious hit and post concussion symptoms that lasted for over a year in 2018.

He played through the hit and practiced in pads the very next day — think that might have made his concussion worse?

Prior to the hit, he was a straight A student, a voracious reader, erudite, sociable & well-liked.

After the hit, he became withdrawn.

He lost vision in one eye. He lost his balance frequently.

He was unable to read for more than a few minutes at a time.

He started tackle football at 9.

He played two ways as a linebacker and running back and was known as a ferocious hitter who never complained of pain.

He attempted suicide, was hospitalized, seemed to be improving, then the second suicide attempt was tragically successful.

Dead at 13 for the sport of football.

When is enough enough?

Football is a game, it's a magical talisman, it's a sport, it's a crucible, it's a maker of men, it's the distillation of manhood and masculinity, it's what being a man is.

It's worth bashing and battering your brains repeatedly.

It's worth your mind.

It's worth not knowing who you are at 50.

It's worth you committing suicide.

Just remember to shoot yourself in the chest so your brain can be donated and studied.