Support the Troops is Not a Ribbon

I am amused and somewhat offended by all the people who drive around with these colored ribbon stickers on the back of their vehicles. Pink ribbons are for breast cancer awareness. I am aware of breast cancer and how pervasive and devastating it can be, and It wasn't any ribbon that made me aware. It was the fact that my niece got it before she was thirty, and one of my co-workers lost his wife to it at age 35. But the ribbon that annoys me most is the "support our troops" yellow ribbon.

Putting a ribbon on your car does nothing to support our troops. It may give you a feeling of pride, but what the troops need is real support. Letters from home, gift packages from home, sending them magazines and books to read, helping their families get along without them; that is supporting the troops.

Here is how you can help the troops:

1. Support the USO and send a Care package to a soldier.

2. Adopt a soldier pen pal.

3. Correspond with a soldier and send what he needs.

4. Donate to the American Legion Family Support Network.

5. Donate to Fisher House and provide a place for family members of wounded soldiers to stay near where they are being treated.

6. Help build and modify homes for severely handicapped veterans.

7. Donate blood for the wounded.

8, Provide phone cards to serving and wounded military so they can keep in touch with their families.

9. Ship books, DVDs and supplies to deployed and hospitalized soldiers.

10. Provide a satellite phone for a platoon in Iraq.

11. Donate your frequent flyer miles for use by soldiers on leave and their family members.

12. Help dependents of deployed military buy groceries at the commissary


And while you are at it, how about providing some additional support for the children of Iraq:

1. Operation GIVE. Toys and other items for Iraqi children.

2. School supplies for Iraqi children.

3. More help for Iraqi children.

Instead of wasting five bucks on a bumper sticker or car magnet, enriching an entrepreneur, send that same five bucks or more to one of the truly helpful organizations.

What's in a Name?

Communication in general and political discourse in particular are deteriorating rapidly because of terminology. The use of words that conceal rather than reveal is growing geometrically in this politically correct age.

A leading example is in the area of discussions about government policy concerning abortion. The anti-abortion faction that believes that abortion is simply murder of an unborn child does not want to appear to be negative, so they are not "anti-abortion"; they are "pro-life". Who could be opposed to life? The implication is that any who oppose them have no regard for life.

In perfect symmetry, the pro-abortion crowd, who want no restrictions on a woman's option to kill her fetus before it is born, do not refer to themselves as "pro-abortion"; they are "pro-choice". They avoid the implication that death is involved, and characterize the decision to abort a child as just another female choice, similar to hair color or breast augmentation. Anyone who opposes their viewpoint opposes "a woman's right to choose".

The damage this causes is subtle, but fatal to any reasonable discourse. It starkly polarizes an issue that is affected by myriad subtle factors, and about which a reasonable discussion would be appropriate. "I am right and you are a murderer". "No, I am right and you hate and want to subjugate women".

There are plenty of other examples:

Insurgent - Calling a fanatic who entices children to strap on explosives and go to a public place to murder as many people as possible an insurgent minimizes the horror and insanity involved. Insurgent, because of its etymological roots, connotes a popular uprising, a replacement of the existing order by new leadership surging in and replacing the old guard. Fidel Castro and Benigno Aquino were insurgents. Calling murderous fanatics insurgents leads to the illogical position that menacing prisoners with dogs and making them wear women's underwear are somehow more reprehensible than the murder of civilians and beheading of prisoners that got the fanatics detained.

Liberal, Progressive, Conservative, Neocon - It used to be that liberal and conservative were fairly concise labels that summarized the general political outlook of a person. A conservative had a working assumption that government exists as a referee to arbitrate when citizens come into conflict, there was nothing wrong with the status quo, and that any changes proposed by government should be examined skeptically and adopted reluctantly, to conserve what is good. A liberal saw problems in society, assumed any change would be an improvement, and looked at government as the solver of problems. Over time, "liberal" became connected in the mind of the public with being liberal with other people's money. Liberal became a negative descriptor, so liberals took to calling themselves "progressives", implying their opponents are against progress. Since "liberal" had become a pejorative and "conservative" had not, liberals soon took to using the term "neoconservative" or "neocon" to label their opponents. Neocon carries overtones of knee-jerk reactionism, probably because of its similarity to neolithic.

When we stop using these code words, perhaps we will be able to regard our opponents as merely persons with a differing opinion, instead of evil incarnate. If we avoid the euphemisms, maybe we can discuss our differences while respecting our opponents, and the nasty and abusive tone in politics can be toned down to a discussion of differences and a compromise that both sides can live with.

Well written doesn't mean right

An email from my sister called my attention to a personal attack on President Bush by one of the best authors currently writing today, E. L. Doctorow.


As always, his piece is well written, because he is one of the best writers at work in the US today. But I see no description in his biography of any training as a psychologist or psychiatrist, much less as a medium. How can this man produce such an intimate psychological portrait of a man he has never met? I believe what you see in this article is more revealing of Mr. Doctorow's psychology than of George Bush's.

Just a few points. Mr. Doctorow says that World War II was a war of national survival, but the war against terrorists is not. I find that logic hard to follow. Eisenhower was the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. The attack on the US came from Japan, which I am led to believe is not in Europe. We included Germany as an enemy, not because they attacked us, but because a) they allied themselves with our enemies; b) they had a policy of extermination towards anyone within their control that they found to be racially or morally deficient by their standards; c) they were ruled by an amoral dictator who intended to control all neighboring territory; and d) they were actively engaged in scientific development of weapons of mass destruction (it is no coincidence that a large fraction of the Project Manhattan scientists were refugees from the Third Reich). These are almost exactly the same reasons for making Saddam Hussein our enemy. No one can ask Eisenhower whether he would have led the war to liberate Iraq like he did in the war to liberate Europe, but I firmly believe he would. After all, he was a professional soldier and senior military officer who swore an oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies". That Constitution specifies that the President is the Commander-in-Chief of the military forces, and that Congress declares war against our enemies. Whether you like it or not, that is the way the war in Iraq was decided.

The idea that we should use war as an instrument of policy only when there is no other option may sound reasonable, but it is not; it is no different than saying we should never wage war. There are always other options, but in many circumstances the other options pose more of a risk. We could have continued to pay ransom and tribute to the Barbary Pirates in the nineteenth century, but President Jefferson decided it was in the best interest of the United States to destroy them. We could have tolerated British ships stopping American ships at sea and impressing Americans into the Royal Navy, but once again, President Jefferson found that to be more of a risk to our nation than to declare war on the most powerful nation on earth at that time. The criteria that Mr. Bush elucidated are the same as all 43 of his predecessors; that war should be the last choice when all other options have failed.

There are other illogicalities in this essay, too. Mr. Doctorow at one point claims that "millions of people here and around the world marched against the war". He has sanctified and exaggerated a staged political event into a groundswell of anti-war sentiment that never existed and still does not. Pacifist activists getting their act together for a few days is not any kind of indication of public opinion. Foreign policy and national security are not decided by polls or inflammatory writing or political demonstrations or foreign opinion. They are determined by the elected officials who are answerable to the voters at the next election. The Democrats who voted to authorize the war changed their position as a political strategy. That strategy failed when Mr. Bush was re-elected by a larger margin than before.