"Please rise if you are able. . ."

On the passive resistance of blind obeisance in the face of immoral techno-fascism

Photo: Blalla Hallmann’s acrylic painting, Ecce-Homo (Heim mir reicht’s, 1990)

Last evening’s men’s Hockey East college matchup between the UNH Wildcats and the Boston College Eagles in Durham, NH was the best game I’ve seen all year (I’m a season ticket holder). UNH, a scrappy middling team with many local New England young men, fought the top-ranked Eagles, a college hockey juggernaut packed with future NHL regulars, to a 1-1 draw with their back-up goalie, Rico DiMatteo, filling in for starter Jared Whale who was—scarily—blackboarded off the ice unconscious the night before at BC during the first game of the back-to-back matchup. DiMatteo made several outstanding acrobatic saves to keep the Wildcats competitive, though the Cats dominated at times. NY Ranger’s first round draft pick, sophomore Gabe Perreault, scored for BC, both in regulation and in the eventual shootout, which the Wildcats lost. Poor Rico Dimatteo faced two first round draft picks in the shootout—23rd overall pick Perreault and 8^th overall Ryan Leonard—with both scoring. . .as well as the projected first round overall pick this year, freshman James Hagens, who scored the shootout winner spoiling a Cinderella game that DiMatteo will remember his entire life. However, as I sit typing this essay, the highlight of my evening—in true Bartleby fashion—was not standing for the National Anthem at the start of the game and the empowerment I felt.

UNH v. BC 3/1/25 Men's Hockey Highlights

I do not care to elaborate on the plethora of reasons why I chose not to stand because I started this Substack to largely avoid toxic politics, but the answer should be frightfully obvious to anyone with a sense of moral decency. Let’s just state that I feel the USA has reached a turning point—especially in the last 48 hours—where one cannot maintain silence with a good conscious. This decision has weighed on me all year. I did not stand for the anthem during one other match this season, but my “stand” went largely unnoticed. Who truly notices a non-descript 59-year-old man sitting? Especially when a game is not a sellout but only at half capacity. And the arena announcement politely asks people to stand and remove their caps “if they are able.” That 59-year-old guy could just have a knee issue. Why confront him?

To be clear: I don’t boo the anthem and have stood in the past when a children’s choir is announced to sing it when I had planned to sit in protest of one of the other countless outrages that have occurred since Inauguration Day. My protest is not meant to intrude or even be rude, like say when Canadians vociferously booed the US National Anthem during the Four Nation Tournament¹ a week ago, an event that made national news. While that effort was also legitimate protest, it wreaked of national tribalism, which cheapened the gesture considerably. The power is in passive silent resistance, and it is a resistance that, despite being a proverbial drop in the bucket, I have used sparingly until now.² I implore other decent Americans to follow Bartleby’s example. Due to last night being a marquee event and a sellout, my passive resistance was more noticeable.

During the song, the twenty somethings in the row in front of me were visibly puzzled and kept looking back at me for an explanation. I simply shrugged my shoulders and kept scanning the printed roster handout marveling at how many drafted players are on the BC Eagles. They probably figured it out. Then I noticed a fifty something year old guy a couple of rows closer to the ice who had MAGA voting veteran imbued in his mien staring at me with utter disgust looking for a confrontation. I was having none of it and returned the stare with enough contempt to silently convey exactly what I was thinking of both him and the anthem; he chose to keep his trap shut. I got nasty looks from him and his party the rest of the game. So be it.

Now I am emphatically not trying to be some sort of Colin Kaepernick whose actions I largely disagreed with because he used the publicity garnered to simply rail against a “corrupt” system [yawn]; he gave countless interviews saying the system was so crooked that voting makes no difference. He offered no solutions, but his act was so polarizing and poorly executed that it may have affected the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.³ So much for the lesser of two evils false analogy. That ship has long since sailed and I don’t care to regurgitate the arguments here.

Suffice to say that I am no Colin Kaepernick and don’t really expect much pushback as an aging male other than nasty glares from faux patriots, many of whom revel in their veteran status as if we are all supposed to bow in endless obeisance and thank them repeatedly for their sacrifices. I simply can no longer tolerate a mindless show of circle jerk patriotism considering what the current criminal mafia cabal is inflicting on both its own largely unwitting populace and the world. My act of silent protest felt empowering and I’m not giving it up anytime soon—especially when I attend my next NHL game— even though hockey games cater to military macho types who drool over Trump’s every word;⁴ Trump spoke at that very Durham arena this past fall utterly polluting it with hatred and lies. The University is complicit in renting the arena to him. And the University makes a willing choice to coddle veterans every single game with a request that we all rise and cheer those who have served our country. All well and good, but there is never a similar request for schoolteachers, civil servants or others with dangerous jobs, but again, that is a separate essay.⁵ I give these glory hounds a polite clap for their service, for which they were remunerated; my applause is apathetic like the effort I might make cheering a performer for an encore when I’d rather get to the parking lot ahead of the rush. What increasingly galls me—however— is that event attendees are supposed to stand for a non-descript song in a ridiculous wind-friendly key with doggerel lyrics; the song is only worth my attention to see how a performer navigates the mediocrity of the material. Why don’t we just cut to the chase and start substituting the Horst Wessel Lied for our Star-Spangled Banner?

We are at a point in US society where silence is complicity. I’d prefer to make my silence a statement of utter contempt for and disagreement with the current US government. The National Anthem has no place in sporting events that do not involve face to face international competition, e.g. the Olympics. It may have had its place during the World Wars, when it became commonplace, but its inclusion at events now is a call for blind obeisance, at a time when silence makes one complicit in crimes and the sudden selling out of the aspects of the United States that should make us proud.⁶

I implore those with a sense of morality and decency to continue to support organized sports, but to draw attention to the fact that our government is utterly repugnant and criminal by not standing when requested to do so for a mindless display of patriotism.

Postscript: Between periods, I was sifting through Instagram and Neko Case had a fabulous photo of her slender musician middle-finger with the caption: “My beautiful Ukranian bird flies high in the face of our coward of a Nazi President. FUCK YOU, TRUMP.” Crass and to the point. May she also post that photo on her Substack, Entering the Lung. Solidarity in resistance!

1. Not that I don’t applaud the actions of Canadian citizens who are under attack by a petty tyrant.

2. I usually attend games with a very visible member of the community who is under attack by the local Republican-controlled Select Board that is trying to put his family farm out of business. I don’t want him to have to deal with any further heat. Thus, I stand when attending games with my neighbor, but, lately, opt to sit when he has other obligations, like last evening.

3. Kaepernick was also an employee, and employers have a right to not have employees make political statements. A fan who willingly attends an event has more leeway.

4. I long ago came to terms with the fact that hockey is a predominantly white sport controlled by Republican interests. I choose to specifically not try to glean the opinions of players and to just enjoy the sport as a spectacle. If a player breaks that rule, however, I will notice. Hence my loathing for the Russian Alexander Ovechkin, a.k.a. Putin’s bitch. There is a reason that Russian players were not invited to the Four Nations Tournament, though the sport is allegedly apolitical. Hence my utter disrespect for hockey legends Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Orr, who have both outed themselves as MAGA tools. Ditto for the fossilized Canadian mascot Don Cherry who outed himself as an intolerant anachronism years ago.

5. Truckers, fisherman, miners, merchant marines. I worked for a decade as a military sub-contractor, deployed on ships waiting for an international crisis, and no one thanks me for my service.

6. I have always been a vocal critic of the USA and its policies. However, I also understand the value of America and that I am an American.