It must have been around the time Godzilla leapt out of the
ocean and started eating humans, cows and other pets that I went to a Hamilton
drugstore to fill my boring, overpriced prescription. We only pay attention
to monsters when they eat our cows, our pets, or ourselves. Otherwise we ignore
them. This reaction to monsters has been genetically imprinted into our psyche
since the time of wooly mammoths, sabre-tooth tigers and the Giant Beaver. After
all, if a monster isn’t in the act of physically attacking us and ours, it’s a
simple act of anthropocentric arrogance to ignore its existence. Who’s afraid
of a Giant Beaver these days, for instance, or even acknowledges its existence?
How simple is that? Ask any teabagger. They’ll agree with me. It’s a scientific
fact.
While I was waiting at the counter of the drugstore, I
remarked for the hundredth time the pile of small magnetic ribbons that had
been sitting on this counter and countless other drugstore counters since
American troops were deployed to Afghanistan four years earlier. “Support Our
Troops” it declared against a simple yellow hue, and by this time, most people had
one displayed on the back bumper of their fossil-belching automobile. They
were ubiquitous in traffic jams.
I had resisted up til then, because I hated the wars, hated
the creeps who got us into the wars. But that day, right after Katrina ate New
Orleans, I decided I was ready for the plunge. I resolved that I would purchase
a yellow ribbon and that I would stick it right under my “Impeach
Bush” bumper sticker, in case anyone gave a damn, which didn’t seem likely in
2005.
I’d never picked up one of the magnetic ribbons before,
let alone examined one closely with the intent to buy. We love our boring lives. No wars on our own home turf, thank you very much and I was bored, waiting for my overpriced prescription. So in my
boredom I turned one of the yellow ribbons over and over in my hand, weighing
it and wondering what these things were worth by the pound, and almost accidentally
I noticed a tiny inscription printed at the bottom corner of the swirl. “Made
in China”.
Having been a worker bee myself, I understand that most
people who crank out factory products don’t spend much or any time thinking
about the widgets they’re causing to be spewed into the environment. They’re
thinking about their paycheck, their kids, their beer at the end of the day. I
don’t blame them.
But some Chinese entrepreneur, with probable connections, was making money manufacturing a seemingly inert
message so ubiquitous in our society by 2005. “Support our
troops”. What did that mean coming from
a Chinese entrepreneur?
I thought about our troops, and the meaning of words, specifically euphemisms like "support" when connected to them. This is a simple activity, I believe, that was distinctly lacking
within that now-infamous closed circle of elites who actually put those troops
in harm’s way where they subsequently needed—and did not receive--all the
support they could get from us. The monster, in other words, eats New Orleans, and we acknowledge that because it's on T.V. In stark contrast, by 2005, the wars were not.
I’ll simply state, as simply as the words on the yellow
ribbon made in China. “Support Our Troops”. Whose troops? Did these Chinese
elites and entrepreneurs have a sense of
irony? If the conversation of War is to be reduced merely to one of nation states and national
interests, did these Chinese elites and entrepreneurs equate the message on the yellow ribbon with
their country’s star rising to the point where their country doesn’t have to
fight its own resource wars? Who’s troops did they think those American boys
and girls were? Ours or theirs?
I put the yellow ribbon down, and never picked one up again,
although I’ve turned the question over and over in my hand many times since
then, weighing it as though I could somehow divine by such a simple act how
much it's worth by the pound.
We live in the age of monsters. Beware.
No comments:
Post a Comment