Thu, March 2, 2006

The bumper stickers reading "Support Our Troops" bother me for the same reason as the American flag stickers and banners that exploded in popularity right after 9/11: they seem to imply that if you're not displaying one, you should be. But, "Support Our Troops" actually goes beyond that.

Recently, I was driving on the interstate alongside a young woman whose bumper read: "Half my heart is in Iraq. Enjoy your freedom." I started thinking about that message. The first part is somewhat poetic, and quite poignant. More sympathetic and appreciative of her sacrifice I could not be. (Aside from, perhaps, the sacrifice of her significant other – the actual person in Iraq.) But the second part seems needlessly confrontational. And that's the problem with the "Support Our Troops" sticker, too. "Support Our Troops" is an imperative sentence – one which, we all learned in school, contains an implied "you" as its subject. And when are those sentences employed? Almost always when the subject isn't doing whatever the sentence asks him or her to do. "Sit down." "Come here." It makes no sense to say them to anyone who is already sitting or already here. You don't say, "Hand me that pen," if you already have the pen, and you don't say, "Close the door," if it's already closed.

So, by its very construction, this sticker is telling me that I don't support our troops. It has no need to tell me to do something I'm already doing – so that can only mean that the bearer of this sticker believes I'm not supportive of the fine men and women of our armed forces.

Why doesn't it say, "I Support Our Troops"? That's less hostile – something to be proud of, in fact. And it's welcoming. It invites us to join the bearer in supporting the troops. In my mind, it's very cynical to assume that everyone behind you in traffic doesn't support the troops. Of course we support the troops – they're putting their lives on the line to honor a commitment they made to serve this country. To assume we're not proud of them is almost as cynical as equating our level of support for the troops with our level of support for the war. Which is the only other reason I can think of to display the sticker. It's either telling me I don't support the troops, or it's demanding my support for the war in order to support the troops. And of course that isn't fair. Some of the troops don't even support the war, and you can be damn sure they support themselves. Rallying support for the troops is patriotic; rallying support for the war is politics. And rallying support for the war is the only goal that seems remotely necessary – the troops enjoy full, unqualified support from all but the most bitter Americans. The war, quite clearly, does not. To display a "Support Our Troops" bumper sticker is to participate – at least tacitly – in the conflation of "supporting troops" with "supporting war" or "supporting Bush."

I can't blame the individual sticker bearers, here. Many of them – most perhaps – don't intend this cynical message. They're just emotional about the times we live in, and they're clinging to something which seems forward-looking, hopeful, and fraternal. We're Americans! We're in this together! We'll pull through! I can't even blame the sticker-makers, because although "I Support Our Troops" would be a better sticker to sell, I know they're not thinking about it that way. Strip away the window dressing and get down to the core subtext, and every bumper sticker ever made really reads the same: "Support Our Bumper Sticker Industry."

No, this problem doesn't start with someone who's looking for a sticker to impugn his fellow countryman's patriotism (although some do). It doesn't start with a sticker manufacturer looking to feed into such a hateful expression (although some do). Where it begins is a culture of divisiveness – it's us vs. them, you're with us or against us. A culture which equates dissent with treason, thoughtfulness with weakness. And that culture has been manufactured as a political device. You know by whom – Rove. Bush. Cheney. The bad guys. Not "the Republicans," because your average voting Republican is no more responsible for the doings of the GOP leaders than your individual Christian is for the psychotic "War on Christmas" or "Intelligent Design" campaigns. The perpetrators of this extremism are those who have the most to gain from it. The neo-cons who strive to achieve absolute power by convincing an unwitting populace that its values are under attack; that it's a slippery slope from gay marriage to forced public bestiality, or from Cindy Sheehan to John Walker Lindh. If anyone needs to read these stickers, it's these guys. Rumsfeld, you support our troops. Commit the adequate numbers to get the job done safely. Congress, you support our troops. Equip them properly and give them the armor they need. Bush, you support our troops. Give them transparent, responsive leadership and a strategy that secures the peace. And Democratic leaders, you're not much better. Stop impertinently demanding the swift return of our troops, and set about ensuring their safe return.

It frustrates me that such a divisive culture has been able to take root. (And certainly I'm not immune – as any onebee reader can attest.) It saddens me that someone experiencing the heartbreak of "half my heart is in Iraq" does not reach out for comfort, but rather pushes away with a snippy remark like, "enjoy your freedom." Not only does this naively imply that without Operation Iraqi Freedom, any of America's long-established liberties would be in direct jeopardy, it also suggests that any of us whose loved ones aren't serving overseas are somehow less entitled to our freedom. That it's being bestowed upon us by people like the woman on the interstate.

In reality, we're all in this together. We'll endure the threat of global terrorism together, and we'll endure the cronyism and mismanagement of the Bush Administration together. And then we'll go on to better things. We're more alike than we are different. The key is to remember that you can oppose gay marriage and still support a woman's right to choose. You can believe in science and still believe in God. There's no reason to think a person must be all "Red State" or all "Blue State," the way the politicians (and CNN) want us to believe. The reality is, we're all shades of purple. The sooner we recognize that we can define our political choices by our beliefs, rather than allowing our beliefs to be dictated by politics, the sooner we can stop blaming each other for our problems, and start working together to fix them.

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