I am thankful that Australia Day is over for another year. I say this because overt signs of nationalism disgust me. This is an inherited or conditioned affliction and is one of the reasons why I could/can never truly become an American. I just realised/saw something in the way I write and think. This refusal to blindly love and conform to a fictitious national image has set me apart from my fellow citizens for the past week, but I have hidden it well.
The last week has been difficult because of this affliction. I could not go out without having to keep my disgust in check, straining every muscle and tendon in my face so that I would appear perfectly impassive to the insanity around me.
The state's newspaer has been running a promotion where with a coupon and $2 its readers could obtain an Australian flag which they could attach to their car. One flag it seems was not enough for many of my citymen, who insisted on buying two, one for each side of the car. One driver I saw tonight had decided that two had become too common so they had bought four. I can only pray this madness ends tonight and the flags are gone tomorrow.
The cost of the flag is particularly amusing to me. The Australian $2 coin has on its face an Aboriginal elder. The fact that this token is being used to purchase (I am guessing the majority of the flags) the symbol of those who destroyed the Aboriginal civilisation and society is, as I said, amusing to me.
That is all.
