This Bud's for You

Watched Game 2 of the NBA Finals, Dallas at Miami, Dirk Nowitzki and friends against the Dream Team with the Big Three: King James, D-Wade, C-Bosh. Hometown fans in white t-shirts, courtside seats occupied by attractive women, an overblown introduction of the home starting five just before tip-off, with pyrotechnics and pumping music.

Broadcasters for ABC/ESPN hype the game from all angles. Can the Maverick bench respond and contribute? Will Dirk’s finger injury be a factor? What should we look for from the Heat Magic Johnson?

The Heat dominated for most of the contest, James and D-Wade slicing, slamming and jamming to a big 4th quarter cushion, but the gritty Mavericks refused to fold and in the end, found a way to win.

Sandwiched between the B-Ball action are the commercials, targeted for consumers of beer, cell phones, cars, fast food. One Budweiser commercial showing a young soldier in fatigues coming home to a surprise party in an old barn ran several times. This Bud’s for you, glad you made it home in one piece. A hug from a brother, a kiss from a teary-eyed girl – cue the music, yank the heartstrings; this is what America is all about. Support our brave troops – run out and buy a six-pack or two.

Yesterday was a day for it, I guess, hard on the heels of Memorial Day. Standing in line at the post office in the morning I saw an ad about special mail rates for military members. Later, when I tuned in to watch the game, two soldiers were being feted by the Miami Heat – two more heroes, home from the wars; one female, one male, both black.

In the commercials and the pre-game ceremonies our soldiers are always heroic paragons of self-sacrifice who fight long wars in far away countries against implacable enemies so that the rest of us can sip beer, upgrade our cell phones, buy new cars and eat fast food. No mention, of course, is ever made of those soldiers who return maimed, broken, psychologically destroyed, or crippled. Nor is any mention made of civilian casualties in the countries where our heroes have been deployed.

Dress a pig in army fatigues and most Americans would stand up and salute. As our politics has become more and more corrupt, and our economy tilted in favor of the haves at the expense of the have nots, as we deny the logic and evidence and consequence of climate change, as our infrastructure crumbles, as high unemployment persists, the more we celebrate our warriors, the power of our killing machines, and our inherent right to unleash the dogs of war whenever and wherever we see fit.

This national obsession with military might is common to dying empires that refuse to recognize that they are dying. To prove to the world that we are still as bad-ass on the battlefield as Lebron James is on the hardwood, we manufacture new threats, new enemies, new rationales for invasion and occupation, and, tragically, we devote more and more of our resources to these foolish efforts.

And our most renowned corporations cloak themselves in patriotic garb as they sell us stuff we do not need.