N�rnberg, Mittelfranken, 2006-07-05 - 4:18 a.m.

Since the World Cup started here in Germany you see a lot of flags hanging out of windows, fixed to cars, people waving flags or clad in flag-colors, flags painted on their cheeks.

Just on my way home the streets & public places were full of Italian & German flag colour clad people in full war paint. - The air on the streets is full of anticipation, because in few hours the Semi-Finale Italy-Germany is about to begin

I never saw that much German flag waving & showing in all of my life - & born in Germany in a time past the Nazi era - there was shame & guilt in Germany in reaction to Adolf Hitler's Nazis and their abuses. Most people felt discomfort about patriotism & especially flag-waving. - If once I saw someone having a German flag on his house or a German flag sticker on a persons jacket (may with words like "Ich bin stolz ein Deutscher zu sein" = "I'm proud to be German") - you could be about sure, that he was a Nazi, hating foreigners & all that crap.

I just read in CNN-news:
"Top German soccer official Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder said on Tuesday he was stirred by his country's rather unexpected embrace of patriotism so suddenly at the World Cup after six decades of shunning national symbols because of the Nazi past."

I also heard that a German politcian suggested these days that the "Deutschlandlied" (German anthem) should get more verses - Hmm..

When I've been in the USA a long time ago I saw people on events often wearing US-flags & all this patriotism stuff - I didn't like it either - it was disturbing - what you're so proud for? - If you're proud, then be proud for your own deeds, not hide behind the deeds of an obscure superior state building your're by chance born into. - If you'r proud for your country, than you should also be ashamed for the crimes & bad deeds your country does & ever did. - I prefer to be responsible only for my own deeds not for some strange dirty politics of people I didn't even vote for in the country I live by chance..

Coincidentally I heard these days in a Bob Dylan song these lines:

But now for the world cup they started to show & wave flags here for the first time since long time (60 years) like any other nation does. - It's like a long suppressed valve opening. The whole herd bathes in patriotic feelings. - I've never been part of the herd & ever watch cautious & with mistrust the strange behaviour of the masses, which easily joins to the bigger body of a swarm for some orgasmatic swarm feeling. - Me, as individual with an own mind & my own scheme of thoughts, beliefs, judging & truths, always try to stay aside with suspicious watch if the group swarm exstaticly starts to fly (unconscious to it's final goals).

Well as new as the flag showing (except for public reasons) is - if you walk through town you see on about every house some flags hanging, mainly German flags, but also Italian, French, Portuguesian & all kind of flags, of course also a lot of Brazil flags (sometimes by Brazilians but in most cases as tribute to Brazil football) - so I now that there's a French living opposite my house

Well I accept this flag showing somehow just for this sportive events, like any other country does too, & it's just nice on events like Olympics when all nations in a peacefull display wave their flags together - but I deeply hope they won't keep this habit here if the world cup is over & don't transfer it in political life - it's a terrible & awfull thing if patriotic armys with flag waving & hooray por patria goes to battles & wars. - A slight patriotism may be allright as long as it doesn't disembogue in superior pride for the own country & in despise for other nations.

I liked it that after the shamefull & terrible deeds of the Nazi Reich in the past Germany had learnt a way of political retarted decency, far away from ostentatious nation pride like in USA or France. - I'd prefer all nations had that decency, because this ostentatious nation pride always causes trouble. - "Imagine there's no countries" - Why do people allways want to belong to gangs (like the Reds & the Blues in California)? - Does that make them stronger? - I doubt it - it's just causing trouble..

Meanwhile Germany lost the Semi-Finale against Italy - what a relief to flagwaving & honking cars - & anyway the Italians this time played better - so in the weekend Italy plays against Portugal or France (just like German for place 3 or 4) ..