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October 17, 2003

Okay, okay. Imagine, for a moment, that you are one of brave men and women [substitute with other stock jingoistic expression here] serving in Iraq to [insert stock expression describing our efforts to fix up the shit we knocked down in the first place]. Your C.O. [that's "Commanding Officer" to you poor slobs who have never had the honor of defending our country to the death by crawling around in the mud while a sweaty guy hurls verbal abuse and live ammunition over your head] comes to you with this form letter describing how fabulous your work has been since you arrived in this hot, dusty country, and says "if you agree with this, sign it."

So what are you going to do? Refuse to sign it and let all your fellow soldiers know what a lily-livered peacenik you are?

Apparently, some did refuse to sign it. Either that, or they never saw the letter at all. And their letters got sent along anyway.

So hometown newspapers all over the country got the same five-paragraph letter. Even from soldiers who didn't know about the existence of said letter. Or, worse yet, two identical letters were sent to the name newspaper with different soldiers' names at the bottom! 'Doh!:

http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20031011/frontpage/121390.shtml

A seventh soldier didn't know about the letter until his father congratulated him for getting it published in the local newspaper in Beckley, W.Va.

"When I told him he wrote such a good letter, he said: 'What letter?' " Timothy Deaconson said Friday, recalling the phone conversation he had with his son, Nick. "This is just not his (writing) style."

Which brings us to an interesting conundrum.

As anyone who's ever been involved in a political cause can tell you, letter-writing campaigns are fairly common. Back in college, Amnesty International used to pass out form letters you could mail to people like the Grand Vizier of the People's Republic of Oppressed People, asking him to please stop having his political opponents tied to metal bed-frames and juiced up with car batteries.

Just a few days ago, in fact, I used an online form letter to write to my elected officials about the gay marriage bill currently in the Massachusetts State Legislature. Sure, I added a few words of my own, but the process was greatly faciliated by the Equal Marriage website's tool which automatically shot a copy to each of my Massachusetts elected officials.

But making it easier to write to your elected official is one thing. Intentionally exploiting an easily manipulated force of people by having them all sign letters and then sending them off to newspapers is something else. Gee, instead of spending its time launching a PR campaign pretending that things in Iraq are just peachy, maybe the Bush administration should spend its time actually trying to figure out how to get us the hell out of there without the country falling apart. Or coming up with ideas about how to pay for all the programs we can no longer afford since the richest Americans got their tax cut.

Just a thought.

Oh, yeah. The Red Sox lost.