Clearing Your Conscience Is On Sale Now! is a performance that reflects on the legacy of yesterday and today’s troops through dirty laundry and song. At the beginning of the Iraq War, the yellow ribbon campaign was omni-present, representing and affirming patriotism and support both for the troops and the war. I noticed over time, the yellow ribbons (which came in the forms of magnets, bumper stickers, pins, lawn ornaments, etc.) became more and more scarce, although the war still continued. The yellow ribbons, once displayed with swelled pride, have now faded on our car’s bumpers, eroded on our lawns, and have become virtually extinct in our stores.

The inherently inert effectiveness of a yellow ribbon when applied to troop support is overshadowed by the symbol’s collective influence on patriotic morale. With little substance behind the sentiment, I feel that these ribbons have come to symbolize our guilt over our tarnished history of the treatment of troops in an unpopular war, a paranoid need to appear patriotic for the sake of public acceptance, and the influence of feel-good shopping in America.