Good art is always dangerous, always open-ended. Once you put it out in the world you lose control of it; people will fit it into their minds in all sorts of different ways.
Patriotism in America, as I understand it, is a matter of suffering, when the country fails to live up to its promises, or actively betrays them.
No failure in America, whether of love or money, is ever simple it is always a kind of betrayal, of a mass of shadowy, shared hopes.
