LABOR DAY IS HERE, AND ALONG WITH it, the end of summer. Now is the time for the final parties of the season, putting away the inflatable toys from the kids’ pool, packing up the barbecue and calming nervous children as they prepare to go back to school.
For most of us, Labor Day is nothing more than an excuse for a cookout, time to get in that last joyous relaxing day of warmth and sunshine. For others, it is, perhaps, the last long weekend of childhood enjoyment.
Labor Day began as a holiday to honor the working class in this country. Like so much of modern culture, it has become perverted, and is simply an excuse for marketers to sell off their end-of-season clearance and help Americans to engage in our favorite pastime — conspicuous consumption.
I say this having just returned from Parker, Ariz., after a weekend of jet-skiing and conspicuous consumption of the bounty that is America these days. While there, I saw the largest “truck” I have ever seen as a personal vehicle. It was a Ford F-650, raised. It was so large it made the adjacent Excursion seem petite.
In a land of conspicuous consumption, it made all other efforts seem small. I do not hesitate to say that it was grotesquely beautiful. There is something visceral about seeing such a behemoth of a truck owned by one man, for his personal use.
Simultaneously, it evoked awe, lust and disgust in me and my traveling partner. We both had the reaction of: “Oh my God! How absurd!” and “I want one.”
As we were driving around Lake Havasu, looking for a Home Depot, the radio was reporting the latest death toll in Iraq. This past week, we lost 35 Americans, and more than 1,000 Iraqis were killed.
My immediate reaction to this was,“If we are fighting to bring democracy to the Iraqi people, why are so many of them dying?” And, “Why are so many Americans dying to bring what we view as an inalienable right, to a people who seemingly don’t want it?”
The easy answer to the first question is that they have nothing else to fight over but whose God is better. The obvious answer to the second question is that we have brought the horse to the water, but cannot make him drink. We have brought the fact of democracy to a country that has no historical connection with democracy, and the people who are expected to exercise their “rights” have no understanding of what they mean.
To continue with the metaphor of the drinking horse, the problem is not that the horse isn’t at the water, the problem is that he isn’t thirsty. We may have brought the institutions of democracy to the Iraqi people, but until we make them want to participate in it, there is no ‘buy in’ on their part.
However, I think I have the solution. It came to me as I was lusting after that truck. No, it’s not more petroleum usage. But it’s close.
Wal*Mart. We need to draft Wal*Mart to open stores in Iraq. We also need some Home Depots, some Lowes, a couple of Macy’s, a Nordstrom, some Targets and Pavilions.
The quickest, easiest, fastest way to remake the Iraq society and to stop the fighting is to make them American style consumers of goods that are made in China, India and America.
If we gave Wal*Mart, and all the other companies mentioned, contracts to build stores in Iraq, we could have this mess solved in 12 months. I think the suicide bombers would shelve their suicides in exchange for a matched set of plastic dinnerware and some patio furniture.
If you think I’m so crazy, check out how much we like Saudi Arabia, and how much they like us. Dubai is buying up anything they can get their hands on, from companies in England to 50 percent of the City Center development in Las Vegas. They just need a little Martha Stewart Home Collection for Ramadan, and a touch of Christopher Lowell for the patio set, and I’m telling you, we’d see them fighting over the white sales instead of bombing each other.
Muslims are humans just like you and me. Give them a reason to live, and to conspicuously consume, and to one up their neighbors with the newest plastic party supplies, and I’ll bet you dollars to falafel, that we’d have peace in the Middle East.
Let’s send in the Wal*Mart greeters, and bring our soldiers home.
DAVID PISARRA is a Family Law attorney in the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He or (310) 664- 9969.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 28, 2007. Read the original PDF.