On Saturday, March 4, 2006 on my way to an anti-war picket line, I was following an SUV with that old racist, rightwing bumper sticker: "America: Love It Or Leave It." While on the picket line, someone opened his car window and shouted at us: "What have you ever done for your country?" He then shouted that his father served in the military. It's important to note that the kooks who shout nasty things at those of us who protest the imperialist war on Iraq are very few in number compared to those who respond positively by honking their car horns and giving us the "thumbs up." Also, we always have more than double the counter-pickets across the street. We're on the side of history. I had hoped that "America: Love It Or Leave It" had died with the end of the Nixon administration. I remember a reply to it: "America: Love It Enough To Change It." I've had it with flag-waving phonies and their false blind patriotism, which isn't really patriotism at all. I'll never have a bumper sticker that says: "Proud To Be American," either. Being "American," or born in the USA, is an accident of birth just as it is to be born anywhere else in the world. Therefore, it would seem to be neither a source of pride nor shame to be "American," although one certainly has more than justifiable reason to be ashamed of the politics, foreign and domestic, of the USA. One has the opportunity and the duty to speak out against injustice and, if one does that, it becomes the source of pride, not the place of one's birth.

I say all of this because I am an internationalist in my outlook. Human life everywhere holds equal value for me, regardless of race, gender, sexual and affectional orientation, nationality or place of birth, among other things.

In the summer of 1966, I decided that I opposed the Vietnam War and began to speak out against it as I was about to turn 14 years of age. By the spring of 1970, I joined the Black students in my high school in a sit-in for Black history and about a month later joined an anti-war demo at my high school protesting the Vietnam War.

If you have opposed imperialist war, you have served not only your country, but all of humanity. If you have served as an officer or shop steward in your union to help raise the living standard and protect your rights and the rights of your co-workers, you have served your class and that is a great way to serve your country. If you have worked to fight racism, sexism and homophobia to build working-class solidarity, you have served your country. If you have worked to impeach Bush and Company, you have acted on behalf of the people who have been severely abused all over the world by this reckless administration and you have served humanity. If you have done even one of these things and have been consistent over the years, you can proudly tell anyone who asks how you have served your country that you have worked to stop it from destroying itself as well as the rest of humanity.

Dave Schraeger