Unity Through Towels a No-Go

I can't say I didn't see this coming: the National Wave, which hoped to "unite" America by making everyone wave "uniting towels" at the behest of Hulk Hogan, has been cancelled. While this may sound strange to an outsider, to the small town of Freedom, PA (in Beaver County), it's been a part of daily life... mainly because the Freedom Group of America, the non-profit organization founded just to promote the event, erected a gigantic countdown sign next to the town's municipal building.

The sign appeared last year at a huge street festival celebrating the announcement of the National Wave. I, along with a thousand or so other folks, came out mainly to see Hulk Hogan and Donnie Iris. Everyone in attendance was given a towel and was assured that more of the same towels would be spread throughout the United States. Then, on July 4th 2008, everyone in this divided and bitter America would come together and wave their towels in one united motion. With Hulk Hogan as the main spokesperson for the event, it seemed like a goofy but possibly successful idea... until the Hulkster got into a number of messy front-page stories involving divorce, reckless children, and reality television addiction. The turmoil in Hulk's life is seeping in to every project he's involved in, including American Gladiators and, of course, The National Wave.

That is the official reason The Wave was postponed for a year (read: cancelled). The secondary reasons all feel more plausible: their plan to distribute and sell the towels across the country put the organization in debt over $200,000, and as of last month they had only produced 1,000 towels (which is about the amount of towels they had on-hand at last year's event). Aside from the really fancy sign, the lack of planning and promotion for the event lead me to believe that it would be doomed. It felt as if the entire county (or at least those who remembered to look at the sign) was awaiting Godot... until Godot's son got into a terrible racing accident and was imprisoned.

I've always believed that the entire idea was fundamentally flawed for one simple reason: America isn't divided. Their entire reasoning behind the waving of the towel was that it would bring this country together, just like we were after 9/11. That unity, however, came about because of a simultaneous feeling of vulnerability and strength, not because some folks sold everyone on the idea of waving a towel. Since then, we have merely returned to the way we were.

America, and the idea of a republic, is based on the ideas of disagreement and competition, cooperation and partisanship. Saying that America is "divided" is just an wimpy way of acknowledging that not everyone agrees on everything all of the time. It's a political buzzword, like "hope" and "change," that's not really founded in fact, but instead is really, really marketable. We merely appear divided because half of America wants less government and a firm commitment to finishing the war in Iraq and the other half wants more government and less involvement abroad. These are worthy sides that deserve discussion, rather than being swept away with the flick of a terry cloth--which in itself may be divisive, since that is the essential way of celebrating something in Pittsburgh but not necessarily across the entire nation.

I'll give the National Wave folks credit for trying something bold. They're not admitting defeat yet, but I'll be very interested to see, when July 2009 rolls around, if anyone is even looking at that sign.