I thought I would write about a little experience I had this weekend while on holiday in the Miami area.
But first, some background: I'm an American citizen who was born and raised abroad. My first real extended stay in this country was for college, at a small liberal arts school in New England. Since then, I've lived in a few different parts of the country: mid-Atlantic coast, Southeast and now West Coast.
While I feel like I've really come to identify with being American over the last 10 years, I still feel distinctly foreign at times. This weekend was one such time. The area we were staying at was just outside of Fort Lauderdale, FL. We went to an IHOP for breakfast one morning - the place was packed. And while the crowd was quite racially diverse, everyone seemed to possess a common thread: a distinct American-ness about them that I couldn't see in myself. It prompted me to muse, rather patronizingly, that these were the kinds of unthinking hordes that would enable a man like GW Bush to even get close to the office of the presidency.
So, I was much chastened a few moments later, when the group seated in the booth behind mine started to talk about the situation in Iraq. They were 2 elderly white couples. One of the women started to talk about the recent helicopter downings and how horrible it was that our young people were dying for such an ill-defined cause. Then, one of the men mentioned that there had been nearly 200 killed in combat over there, to which the first woman responded that the real number of killed was close to 400. They went on to discuss the situation in more detail, mentioning so-and-so's grandson was over there etc. The conversation ended with the first woman saying, "That Bush - I've lost faith in him."
So that little exchange heartened me considerably.
But then, later that day, I witnessed what to me was a blatant bit of nationalistic-militaristic propaganda, but to the 70,000 others at the football game, seemed to be a perfectly acceptable way to honor the troops and the nation. The singing of the national anthem before professional sports games always seemed odd to me, but at this game it was taken to a whole other level. Probably because it was a few days after Veterans Day. Anyway, after unfurling a gigantic flag on the field and playing the anthem, they showed a clip talking about the brave men and women in uniform fighting for our country etc. It might have been a commercial for the Army, but I'm not sure. Then, someone got up and said a prayer. That was followed by two military helicopters flying very low over the stadium, emblazoned with the flag. At one point, the crowd spontaneously erupted in chants of "USA, USA!"
I wish the troops well and hope that they all come home safely, and chip in for fundraisers whenever I hear about them. But I felt like what I witnessed there was more than about "supporting the troops". If that was the real goal, then they could have easily publicized any number of good causes that try to raise money, or put together care packages for the troops. It was about something else, some kind of attempt, whether concious or not, to whip up the crowd into a nationalistic frenzy.
Whatever it was, it gave me the creeps. And it made me feel distinctly un-American.
So anyway, just some musings.
