ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on Freud's opposition between productive remembering and unproductive repetition to attempt a reading of the proliferation of American flags in the post-9/11 cultural landscape. Flags are still up, although they are fading now, not new. Taken together, the convergence of flags and signs marks a significant change in the political landscape. For in the mute dialogue between the red, white, and blue flags and the blue, dove-emblemed signs, any sense of a unified, national voice has disappeared. The very things that, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, had seemed clear enough to all are now manifestly in question: what the people stand for or oppose, what makes them feel threatened or secure, and whether, in the face of a potential war, the people want to, stand united. However, the chapter goes on, even shared power enacted as law is based on force and the threat of violence, as long as the community in question feels threatened in any way, either internally or from the outside.
