Kate Zambreno

The day America went to war I was out in the northwest suburbs and ran into a friend I hadn't seen since high school. As we hugged goodbye and made vague noncommittal plans to meet again, my eyes glossed over the gold-embossed flag pinned tidily onto her red cardigan. Immediately, I blanched. Oh no, I thought, she's one of them. I rashly attributed the decision to accessorize a la Betsy Ross to a suburban mentality that I had left behind. I was equating pro-America with pro-war and condescending in my mind toward my friend for following a mother who'd tied a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree. That's a lot of baggage in a pin.

Attendees of this year's Academy Awards worried over choosing just the proper neutral-yet-concerned accessory that would also complement their Harry Winstons, struggling between peace signs or American flag pins and finally deciding on neither. A few celebrities wore the tasteful Picasso-influenced gold dove pin. Likewise, a private war is being waged on the lapels of everyday citizens. Here in the city, the navy blue "No War" button with the white star is fighting with patriotic flair in an accessory street theater of sorts.

Of course, it's judgmental to surmise one's politics based on the fashion choices, isn't it? Like the ad campaign for the early nineties drugstore perfume Exclamation, political buttons allow passersby to make a statement without saying a word. To wear red, white, and blue somehow equates checking Republican, replacing French with freedom, enrolling your next of kin into the army, saying things like, "Oh, that Rush Limbaugh, he's a clever one." On the flip side, no longer can we identify radical dissenters by their fashion, as ex-hippies wear suspenders and Baby GAP sells bellbottoms, save for their buttons and a nostalgic waft of patchouli.

Was it Lenin who predicted that ethics would be the aesthetics of the future revolution? "No blood for oil" replaces "make love not war" as a rallying cry during antiwar protests, supporting the troops becomes the human face of supporting the war during patriotic rallies. At least the motley crew of antiwar protestors has a sense of irony, with clever slogans and human bumper stickers that craftily reclaim duct tape and plastic sheeting.

It's a Siamese struggle, symbolized by the poster spotted at a rally, of Saddam and Bush side by side, asking "Twins Separated at Birth?". The propaganda during gatherings of both those who support and those who oppose the current conflict reflects the theatrics of abortion rallies, all smoke and mirrors and rhetoric, fetuses and wirehangers replaced by images of slain Iraqis, molested by one of two Big Brothers. The name claimed by one side of the abortion debate begs the question, who isn't pro-life? The same for the name seized by the antiwar naysayers. Does pro-peace negate patriotism? Can a No War button and an American flag co-exist peacefully side by side on the same lapel or book bag? I mean, who isn't pro-peace?

Maybe that should be a button.

(2003-03-26)

Also by Kate Zambreno

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Everything 101
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Doggie smile
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Afterlife, unlisted
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