Is This a Great Country, or What?

One of the funniest stories I’ve read in the past decade hit this week, when the New York Daily News ran a feature about the merchandise commemorating the death of Osama bin Laden the day before. Most of the commentary about this – including the comments section at the bottom of this news story – has been highly negative, dwelling on how such commercial transactions (including the attempts to market them) are trivializing a momentous even in World History, or how these gleeful offerings are making light of the taking of a human life, or even that these ventures prove whatever the observer’s personal beliefs about crass commercialism happen to be. I agree with every one of these points in their entirety, and I also ignore them in favor of the subtle point these merchandising efforts make about people in general and Americans in particular…

Contrary to popular belief, the average person has no more desire to be personally involved in violent upheaval, trouble and danger (commonly known as “adventure”) than they do to being eaten by slugs; the fact is that most people would not seek a career with the Navy’s legendary SEAL teams or their Army or CIA counterparts even if they were physically able to do so. Most of us just want to survive, to be sure of living beyond the next day or so, to belong to part of a community or group that accepts us for ourselves, and (if possible) to be recognized for the things we do well. If these goals can be achieved by slapping custom lettering or graphics onto hats, t-shirts or commemorative plates (and at least two of them can be), then most people will see no problem with doing so at the highest profit margin possible. The people who make stadium blankets and custom crockery may grumble a bit, since it will take them a week or two to get their products ready to ship, whereas the people who make t-shirts and hats can be ready to go in a matter of hours, but even they will probably concede that these are merely the breaks of the game…

Then we have the curious prospect of people, most of whom would never wish death upon another human being (and many of whom could not find Pakistan, or possibly even New York City, on a map) cheerfully purchasing the hats, t-shirts, blankets, plates, artwork and goodness knows what else, and proudly wearing/displaying all of it. Most of them probably have some idea who Osama bin Laden was, and the majority could probably tell you that the 9/11 Outrages were his fault, but what the purpose of those attacks might have been, how either the man or his organization fit into the scheme of international politics, or what the long-term ramifications of his sanctioned killing might be are probably beyond the interests of most folks. All most of our countrymen really care about is that our armed forces tracked down and killed a terrorist (whatever that might mean) responsible for killing at least 3,000 Americans (and some number of less important people from less awesome places) and that means that we win, America rocks, and their lives (complete with the buying and selling of tasteless consumer products) will continue uninterrupted for the foreseeable future…

We’re simple people, Americans. All we really want is to be left alone, to go about our business making things and selling them to each other at a very reasonable price, and try and carve out a piece of the pie that’s just a little bigger than our parents had. For over two centuries now, everyone who has tried to interfere with that surprisingly mundane American Dream has ended up in the mud somewhere with a bullet in their heads, and the next morning the Americans he or they were trying to destroy have gotten up early and gone on with the business of trying to sell each other cheaply-made schlock…

It’s the greatest country in the world, and we laugh at anyone who tries to say otherwise – and then attempt to sell them a crappy t-shirt…