Colin Kaepernick, the NFL quarterback who sparked a player protest movement by taking a knee for social justice during the national anthem, has just signed on as the centrepiece of an advertising campaign with Nike that will last until 2028.

I have mixed feelings about this.

It might be inevitable, but I always find it distressing when activism is transformed into product. A recent and particularly ham-handed attempt at this occurred when Pepsi used Kendall Jenner as an instrument to co-opt the symbolism of the Black Lives Matter movement in an effort to sell soft drinks.

The ad was a failure in just about every way, but it was particularly stupefying to watch one of the most privileged people on the planet try to show us that drinking Pepsi was actually an act of resistance, and that protest itself was more like going to a really sexy block party than say, having a fire hose turned on you.

No matter, Colin Kaepernick stands on different ground, and everything I have read about him suggests he’s a good and sincere man, one who has quite clearly been denied an opportunity to work because of the way he has been expressing his political beliefs. There are rational, if unappealing, arguments on both side of this issue, but his activism, and the price he’s paid to for it, and the money he has donated to it, seem real enough. So real, in fact, that although he hasn’t actually played football for over 2 years, his jersey is still amongst the top sellers.

Nike, who not long before they signed Kaepernick, extended their deal with the NFL to supply them with uniforms and equipment for the next eight years– at a price in excess of a billion dollars– saw an opportunity to have their cake and eat it, too. The NFL is a monolith, a powerful institution that is comprised of almost 70% black players, players who are almost certain to suffer lasting and severe brain injury as a result of their jobs.

It’s a gladiatorial spectacle that has always exploited it’s workers for the benefit of gamblers and billionaires, and as wonderful as the game might be, the league that governs it is really kind of evil, and in spite of Nike’s deep and longstanding partnership with the NFL, they want to be seen as a white hat corporation. When we see that swoosh, we’re  supposed to think of commitment and excellence and fighting against the odds. We’re supposed to think of character.

Nike doesn’t want us to think about how they enable and profit off a violent and dangerous sport that cares little for the combatants,  so they hire the iconoclastic Kaepernick to sell shoes to us, thus “seizing control of the narrative.” Nike now pays Kaeprnick for his activism. In the old days, people would say they bought him. And so, with Kaepernick as the face of Nike’s campaign, we are to believe that they are the Rebel Alliance and not the Death Star.

We are to believe that Nike is about civil rights, not sweat shops.

Anyway, I don’t begrudge Kaepernick a single thing. I like his protest and I like him, and I hope that the fortune he has now earned makes him happy, and gives him an opportunity to further his activism and do whatever the hell he wants. He has earned that. Just don’t believe that Nike “has seen the light.” No, they’re just presenting the face they think we want to see, while keeping their own concealed.

This is a newsletter posted to the Super Yacht Community message board after the demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia :

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Recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia have shaken not just the USA, but the global community, too, including those of us who belong to The Super-Yacht Community.

Many of our members have been rattled by the proletariat uprisings in the US and across Europe, and have been wondering whether or not being a white supremacist is really grounds for termination.

First off, everybody should just stay calm and keep in mind that the vast majority of the people in the Super-Yacht Community are job creators, not job leaches (consumers), and so we really don’t have to worry about getting fired.

If you don’t have a job at let’s say, The Bulk Barn, then Black Lives Matters can’t take it away from you for wanting to protect history, can they?

Regardless, The Super-Yacht Community has never been an insensitive or selfish group, and we’re well aware that many of the people who help to sustain us ( Ferrari repairmen, avocado specialists, bikini makers, personal assistants, personal physicians, personal nutritionists, mindfulness coaches, topiarists, helicopter pilots, addiction specialists, nannies, hunting guides and taxidermists, high-end sex workers, off-shore bankers, professional sports teams, etc.), are still vulnerable to loss of employment and social standing due to unfashionable political beliefs.

For instance, supermodel and beloved Super-Yacht Community member Tanya Mityushina has a brother named Dimitri.

(Dimitri is the one on the far right holding the “Nog Ar Nog) shield.

He worked as a DJ at a nightclub in Miami called Waves of Fire. Here, Dimitri enjoyed multiple revenue streams and unprecedented sexual opportunities. This young man was going places, but unfortunately his image was caught on camera while he was exercising his freedom of speech at a demonstration in Virginia and this (as well as his spirited thoughts on eugenics) resulted in in his termination.

In order to combat this lynching, we at the Super-Yacht Community have decided to start a Go Fund Me for Dimitri so that he might buy his own nightclub. It is to be tentatively called Tsunami Inferno, and it will be twice as large as Waves of Fire. We are looking at a target of $25 million to help Tanya’s brother get back up on his feet, so if any of you have an spare properties lying around downtown Miami, please feel free to donate!

On a melancholy note, we within the Super-Yacht Community (no longer officially affiliated with the Illuminati) and are deeply saddened that we recently lost one of our own. Glen Campbell was a great member of our community and a transcendent talent who truly made the world a better place. He will be missed.

Pace et requiem est, Rhinestone Cowboy.

And finally, please remember, if America burns there will be plenty of economic opportunity for our community.

Nisi eliphaz,

The SYC

PS: Also, keep in mind that everybody is welcome aboard Bono’s Super-Yacht “Kingdom Come” for a barbecue next week in Fiji. And yes, Ivanka will be there, so be prepared for a little larger press and military presence than usual.

Valentine’s Day Press Briefing by White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer:

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Mr. Spicer: Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for coming.

As some of the assembled press here might already know, but probably don’t, on account of being spineless merchants of ignorance and lies, is that today is Valentine’s Day.

Named after St. Valentine.

A Christian.

A Christian who was killed by Muslims.

I want those words to sit there for a moment and sink in.

No! No questions yet! We’re going to have a little time-out here and think about Muslims killing an an innocent Christian. A super Christian. The Tom Brady of Christians . That’s right, that’s how goddamn good Saint Valentine was, he was like Tom Brady.

And the Muslims killed him.

Do you know how he was killed?

Anyone?

No? Not one of you geniuses in the press corps has any idea? No, I didn’t think so.

Torture.

He was tortured to death.

Okay, moving on, I’d like to wish my lovely wife Rebecca a Happy Valentine’s Day– baby, you’re the light of my life! They say behind every great man is a great woman, and they’re right, they’re right, Rebecca.

However, the story dominating the news cycle today is the handshake between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Jerry Trudeau of Canada.

Jerry Trudeau, as you could all see– it was plain as day– has smaller hands than President Trump. Much smaller. It was funny how small they were. The President firmly guided the direction, intensity and length of the handshake. He was in full control at all times. Additionally, Ivanka, a world-class beauty, is much more attractive than Sonja, the Prime Minister’s wife. Is she older than him? We will look into that, but I believe that Sonja is older than Trudeau. Sorry? What did you say, Kellyanne? I can’t hear you above the howling from the media cages! Okay, okay, got it. Sonja is 7 years older than the Prime Minister and has had work done. How much work we are not yet sure.

President Trump, as you all know, can get any woman on the planet, and certainly would never have to stoop to marrying a woman older than him.

Saturday Night Live continues to disgust.

There is no greater example of the corrupt and biased media than this treasonous show. For the record, I was never known as “Sean Sphincter” in high school. Nothing but malicious, mean-spirited lies. Our intelligence service has discovered that next week SNL were planning on having ISIS as their special guest.

Not on our watch.

The President takes the security of the American people very seriously, in fact it is his highest priority, and from this point forward all operations at Saturday Night Live and Nordstrom will be suspended indefinitely. They are welcome to operate out of Iraq and see how they like it there. Additionally, Playboy magazine will be bringing back nudity.

National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has retired in order to spend more time with his family. Here is the full statement from Michael Flynn.

“Working with Donald Trump has been the single greatest honour of my personal and professional life. Secure in the knowledge that the world is in his large, powerful  hands, I regretfully tender my resignation, effective immediately, so that I can spend more time with my family.”

Before ending I just want to congratulate Adele for her victory over Beyonce at the Grammy’s.

Very well deserved. All lives matter, people, all lives matter.

Okay, that’s a wrap.

I continued to watch her, and just a little further up the street she joined a small group of 20-something women waiting for her on the sidewalk. They were beautiful and happy, these women. Smiles were their default setting, and as they stood there in a semi-circle chatting with one another and comparing the signs they’d made for the Women’s March, they seemed so full of light as to very nearly be glowing. They were going off to do something important,  they were going to try to influence the world rather than merely survive in it, and knowing that made me hopeful and proud.

I didn’t actually attend the Women’s March. I was a little bit uncertain if it was my place to be there or not, and so I stayed home and watched from the sidelines. But I should have known just from looking at these women, from the way they genially accepted my clumsy thumbs up from the window, that I would have been entirely welcome.

Millions of people, it turned out, rose to this occasion, millions were welcome.

All through the day my social media streams were flooded with images from the marches. As I was following via Facebook and Twitter, I was seeing the feeds of people I knew and loved, so they were not strangers to me, but real people– warm, intelligent and kind people with complicated and sometimes difficult lives. It was their faces, and those of their daughters and sons and partners that were looking back at me from my computer monitor, and regardless of how heavy or congested their lives might have become, there they were, all so beautiful and strong and joyous.

And in spite of the sneering rhetoric that’s been the baseline of our daily lives for so long now, the marches had a celebratory, almost parade-like quality. They were happy places, and they opened up a new space, one that allowed us the opportunity to pause and breathe deeply for a moment. 

It was incredibly moving to watch this, cathartic even, and I am not overstating things when I say that I felt like something essential had just changed in the world.

For one day our concerns and anxieties were blown away like bad weather and we felt safe and protected, encircled by a good that was spreading out in concentric circles. And everywhere you looked, you saw one of your better angels smiling back at you, there they were, thousands and thousands and thousands of them, building that shining city on the hill.

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1. America, founded on the principle of freedom to worship, has always been a post-truth, multiple-reality landscape.

2. Trump did not usher in this new era of darkness but simply illuminated it.
3. America has always been full of contradicting beliefs, none of which are rooted in facts.

4. We don’t make decision based on facts, and are in no way demonstrably rational in our actions.
5. We have always been starring in our movies, but with each individual taking orders from a different director whose a plan and reality unconnected to our own.
6. For instance, some people think the a woman’s body is so dangerous it must be shrouded in public.

7. Others that their Lord would be angry if they were so vain as to wear a button.

8. Still, more people believed that you wouldn’t get into heaven unless you are wearing a pair of Nike Decades.

9. One religion’s followers wear special underwear, carrying with them a certainty that their heavenly reward will be to live on planet Kolob making “spirit babies.”
10. Atheists, who have not been around very long cosmologically speaking, believe they’ve understood enough of the limitless universe and its timeless expanse, as to proclaim that no higher power exists.
11. These are not fringe groups.
12. Each one of these commitments is rock solid and unshakable, a central post in that person’s life. Yet none of them are based in any way on “facts.”
13. We were founded in a post-truth era.
14. Since Trump’s election, people have been talking about “fake news” and the difference between “good” and “bad” news.
15. The irony is that the media has always been a part of the economy.
16. It is a commodity that we buy, like popcorn.
17. As long as media serves a corporate entity, it does not serve the people.
18. And the less reliable media, the media that doesn’t have a paywall or registration, is a quicker more appealing option.
19. Getting news is not the problem, there are limitless options, sifting it is.
20. This means it’s easier for the wealthy/elites, who have more time and can pay for services, to be more rigorously informed than the rest of the people.
21. This further divides the inequality that is starting to define the nation.
22. We are ridiculous and we know nothing.

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1. The Dakota Access Pipeline was halted.

2. I was happy to hear this, although the truth is I really don’t know very much about it.
3. In my mind, I was on the side of Tribal Elders and Water.
4. That was how I wanted to be identified.

5. Our politics signify how we want to be identified, our tribal affiliation, more than they represent our reasoned policy positions.
6. Few people break from the orthodoxy of their tribe.
7. There were more than 4,000 veterans at Standing Rock supporting the “Water Protectors”
8. And so the police had to face not just the moral authority of the protesters and native elders, but also thousands of vets, of people just like them.
9. There was a Go Fund Me page that raised over a million dollars for this group.
10. I have no idea if this group was instrumental in getting the pipeline halted, but they had to change the dynamic greatly.
11. I would suggest this become the future of civil disobedience.
12. Crowd source militia groups to protect you as you protest.
13. Be it in Standing Rock, Ferguson, Wall Street or elsewhere.

14. Make the arms of authority confront themselves when they confront you.

15. No nation churns out angry, marginalized veterans like the USA.

It sounds official, like it has a bureaucracy and a headquarters with marble pillars. It sounds like it’s been around longer than you have. Still, when you hear it, you have absolutely no idea what it might mean. It has the effect of sounding like something but conveys no meaning.

Their broad-shouldered leader, Ammon Bundy, exuding the calm and steady manner of a high noon cowboy, announced the name on Fox news.

His heavily armed group, who up until that point had been called patriots, terrorists, activists, militia men and Y’all Qaeda, had taken over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters in Oregon as a blow against government “tyranny” a few days earlier on January 2nd.

Their storming of the federal building, it should be noted, was clean and lightning-quick; as it being January, the charming, cottage-like structure that gave out free maps during tourist season was entirely abandoned.

Nothing much has happened since their occupation began. Bundy’s men, some of whom who are not camera ready,

have been brandishing copies of the Constitution for the cameras and making YouTube videos from their trucks for their now abandoned families.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbGdMKpHDDE

All over Oregon, wives must have been rolling their eyes, just as they did when these same husbands took off for their annual paintball weekend. It all looked very much like a Fantasy Camp for revolutionaries, and it was clear nobody was taking them seriously.

If any group other than white men had done such a thing, well, it’s reasonable to expect a different response. Imagine what would have happened if a bunch of heavily armed campus radicals took over the headquarters, or to inch closer to armageddon, black protestors or some frustrated Muslims? What would happen then?

We have a pretty good idea, I think.

No matter, what seems to be happening now is that a long-simmering and predictable feud over grazing rights has morphed into a movie-of-the-week. The white guys want the government to hand over land it owns so that they—The People—may use it as they see fit, using it for grazing, mining, logging or opening up paintball camps. As far as I know, the First Nations of America have yet to be consulted.

The Citizens for Constitutional Freedom are not impoverished. They’re not persecuted, marginalized or threatened in any sort of coherent way. Frustrated by their perception of diminishing entitlements, they want to fight back against the forces that impede their ascent, even if they have no idea who or what those forces might be.

They’re easy enough to make fun, these men. Asunder in a rapidly changing and globalized environment, they try to live as heroes in a mythic past, a place where their big sky ambitions could blossom unfettered by government, minorities or environmental regulations. 

It’s sunset in the only America these men have ever wanted to live, and so they tilt toward windmills, deserving of our pity as much as our scorn.

This took place over the killing of Cecil the lion. This particular animal, one of the most famous and iconic in Africa, was lured out of the animal sanctuary in which he lived by a hunting party that had tied a dead animal to a car, and later shot with a crossbow by an American dentist (Walter Palmer), and then after two days of bleeding and being tracked, was shot and killed by the same dentist with a high-powered gun, and then left, beheaded and skinned.

It was a big story, and it completely dominated all of my social media streams. People were heartbroken (Jimmy Kimmel wept on his late night talk show while talking about it) and generally, the public was mad enough to club the dentist to death. Threatened from all quarters and publicly shamed, Palmer closed down his practice and went into hiding.

In the midst of this raging solidarity of hate, many people took the time to point out that other atrocities, many unimaginable, were taking place in the world, too, and maybe we could pay the same attention that we do to an animal being killed, to a person being killed? I mean, in terms of popular outrage, Sandra Bland, a black woman who mysteriously died in police custody after committing a traffic violation, was running a distant second to Cecil the lion.

It’s a meaningful observation, that, but I don’t think we should jump to the conclusion that the public values the life of Cecil over Bland.

Every single person on the planet can be angry and disgusted at the thought of a rich, white American, a dentist of all things– a person who makes fake smiles for a living– going over to a poor continent, and then killing, for his pleasure alone, an awe-inspiring creature that’s both a beautiful national symbol and resource.

The horror is plain for all to see. It’s a simple story upon which everybody can agree, and it isn’t as politically toxic or geopolitically complex as racism, police brutality and entitlement, or Boko Haram. You don’t need to be informed to have an opinion on Cecil’s demise—what happened was awful and wrong. There was unanimity on this issue and it wasn’t politicized. For a moment, there was a debate-free zone on the Internet, which I think was a huge relief. For once, people could feel that they were right without having to engage in a long, complex debate, without actually having to defend their position.

We process what we’re capable of, and this was an uncomplicated story that was easily digested and then agreeably shared amongst peers. It’s not the most important story of the day, but it has great symbolic weight, and like an emoji, is breezily transmitted without the necessity of much background context or rumination.

The outpouring on Facebook isn’t evidence of a preference for the superficial over the substantive, or of some political polarity, but of people finding agreement, even celebrating it, and existing in a cease fire for a moment. And in this place where right and wrong are universally agreed upon, they find that their voice– which doesn’t carry very far in the humdrum prose of their daily lives– is now amplified, becoming powerful and vivid, strong enough to go places their bodies will never travel.