Rage Against The Machine

A Yellow Ribbon Instead of a Swastika!

The Ironic T-Shirt Corporation created the Anti-Ribbon to express our opinion that the yellow ribbon and 'Support Our Troops' slogan is a form of propaganda, and pro-war propaganda at that. We believe that whether they know it or not, people who put yellow ribbons on their car are telling the rest of the world that war in Iraq is okay, and that war, in general, is an acceptable, viable solution to our problems.

We read a Noam Chomsky quote dealing with yellow ribbons as propaganda a long time ago that became one of the inspirations for the Anti-Ribbon:

'Americanism. Who can be against that? Or harmony. Who can be against that? Or, as in the Persian Gulf War, 'Support our troops.' Who can be against that? Or yellow ribbons. Who can be against that? Anything that's totally vacuous. In fact, what does it mean if someone asks you, Do you support the people in Iowa? Can you say, Yes, I support them, or No, I don't support them? It doesn't mean anything. That's the point. The point of public relations slogans like 'Support our troops' is that they don't mean anything. They mean as much as whether you support the people in Iowa. Of course, there was an issue. The issue was, Do you support our policy? But you don't want people to think about the issue. That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything. It's crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something: Do you support our policy? That's the one you're not allowed to talk about.'

Noam Chomsky

From 'Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media', edited by Mark Achbar, p.79