This is my answer to all the blind American nationalism.  I have nothing against generic nationalism, the gentle kind, sans bloodlust.  But blind nationalism ala USA says I'm better than you because I'm an American.  I find that nauseatingly juvenile.  Maybe I'm just being contrary, I mean, some of those cheap, shredded, filthy plastic flags that hang pathetically off nearly every car antenna were put there by moderately well-intentioned people.  Placed with the same ubiquity and 'mindfulness' as the antenna standard are the flag bumper stickers and flag window decals, which number at least twice the population of this country.  Where is the nationalism in flying a disgracefully neglected, dirty, torn US flag—as do most of the businesses where I live?  It seems everybody wants to appear patriotic; perhaps this obsession with patriotic appearances is ebbing.  One can only hope.

Maybe it is just a matter of taste, but I am gagging on the overstatement.  This flag saturation is pernicious; it seems to implement the particurlarly emetic slogan of George Bush, "You're either with us or you're against us," implying that my choices are to be either an American, or a terrorist.  It implies that I, flagless, possess suspicious intent, questionable patriotism, and perhaps I even have treasonable designs.  As a mere mark to signify one's concurrence with the prevailing tribal mood, I suppose it works.  But this mindless flag-plastering fails miserably to promote anything, least of all the flag.  The US flag symbolizes a living nation that has historically defended the individual's freedom to act contrary to the majority's sentiment; it represents a brave nation that more often than not, and at grave cost, has sought justice; and despite everything, the United States flag flies over a young nation that once made a revolutionary assertion to the world: human rights preempt state's rights.  The flag represents things about my country which I describe now more with hope they might resume, rather than assurance that they persist.

These US flags, in their proliferation, seem to represent something warlike, inhumane and divisive.  I won't sport one.  I'm not with you, Mr. Bush.  But I am not against America.