leilla

Novelist Margaret Atwood's decision to travel to Tel Aviv to share a literary prize worth a million dollars has ignited a controversy in which the septagenarian author and vice-president of the literary human rights organization PEN International has come under fire by Palestinian rights activists. Ms Atwood's acceptance of the Dan David Prize, whose previous laureates include Al Gore and Tony Blair, is viewed by Ms Atwood's critics as a betrayal to the ideals she supposedly represents, and an unwitting endorsement of Israel's race exclusive policies.

The Canadian author's insistence that refusing the blood-spattered trophy would be tantamount to "censorship" rings as false as her commitments to justice as an anti-apartheid activist, and as a writer who has made tyranny and oppression recurring themes in her novels, elevating her from fiction writer to public intellectual. I say "false" because "justice for some" is hardly an ethical stance with any merit, and certainly not one that will maintain her status as an "oppositional intellectual". Sadly, this "intellectual" has made no effort to research the subject of Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian land and its unyielding, systematic oppression of the Palestinian people (as many Jewish and Israeli scholars and activists themselves have bravely condemned). Otherwise, she would use the occasion of the invitation to condemn an increasingly murderous regime and call upon its people to support sanctions, boycotts and divestments until their government accepted the rule of International law and reversed its policy of displacement and expulsion of Arab people from their ancestral lands. Instead the once outspoken author has chosen to put monetary interests ahead of the principled moral stances she has taken in the past, in order to lay claim to a tainted prize given each year to fame-hungry "artists" looking to boost sagging sales of their product while making all the appropriate noises to the press about free speech.

Ms Atwood's blandly centrist posturing is symptomatic of a malady particular to the cosseted and fossilized members of a wealthy nation's cultural elite, for whom "free speech" is a largely unexamined term that by default, advocates the right of establishment opinion makers laboring for the warlord and robber baron class to set the agenda for public discourse. Thus the multi-billion dollar media conglomerate behind South Park and its wealthy creators are portrayed as underdog champions of free speech, bravely confronting an encroaching Islamic Goliath, just as the Canadian author's flaccid, self-serving justifications for fence-sitting is spun into a battle against "censorship" . It's hard to pinpoint Ms Atwood's definition of the word "censorship" unless it means, "Can I just enjoy my windfall without having to listen to a howling mob of Debby Downers"?

On the surface, Ms Atwood's Tel Aviv itinerary seems a worthy endeavor undertaken by an energetic senior citizen who has put aside her basket of knitting to embark on a fact finding mission devoted to sniffing out the roots of a decades-long conflict, while indulging her recent interest in issues related to water scarcity. How she will gather facts on the ground from a plush Tel Aviv hotel suite surrounded by her sycophantic handlers remains to be seen. Her new friends at the cosmopolitan gathering place will likely remind her that "Jews made the desert bloom", omitting the part about how Israel diverts water supplies from the Palestinians to nourish the soil beneath its illegal settlements. Unlike Ms Atwood, I am no poet. However, I can't help but indulge the thought that so much spilled blood must have had a hand in making Israel's ill-gained desert outposts a shimmering oasis of well-watered lawns, swimming pools and flower beds on one side, and a parched, barren human cattle pen on the other.

Last year Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami defended his decision to accept the Jerusalem Prize in a rambling, incoherent public statement to his detractors that ultimately demonstrated his worthiness to be be recipient to this dubious honor. As this year's winner of the Dan David Prize, Ms Atwood is Israel's most recent stooge-laureate of a cynically motivated, prize-giving institution that lures artists from overseas to be unwitting apologists for its government's long standing system of ethnic cleansing. Sadly, Ms Atwood has fallen into the same trap, and like her Japanese prize-coveting counterpart, has released a factually deficient statement accusing her critics of being intolerant, politically motivated advocates of censorship, while she, the feisty Grande Dame of capital 'L' literature rises above her host nation's open air prisons where the view on the ground reveals deficiencies on both sides of the conflict. Something tells me the feminist author would take a less even-handed approach to the subject of domestic violence.

It's from this lofty perch that Ms Atwood declares herself an "artist" (emphasis on the last syllable) and more importantly, an "individual". Unlike her more earthbound detractors, this ethereal entity insists, by virtue of her divinely held privileges, that she is a "neutral observer, and as such, more intellectually equipped to observe the situation on the ground as one who hovers celestially above the rest of humanity. She might want to consider the possibility that those pretty cloud-like bursts of white phosphorous dumped on civilians fleeing from relentless ground and air assaults are anything but neutral - as are the well-heeled and carefully vetted representatives of Tel Aviv's cultural elite with whom she will have lively discussions over tea and crumpets about scarce water resources, global warming and the burdens of being the Mideast's only "democracy" (sic). Throw in a Palestinian bird enthusiast and score valuable PR points for demonstrating your nation's "diversity". ("See? We don't discriminate against our non-Jewish (non) citizens. We grant special privileges to a handful of them, allow them access to water, even sparing them the cattle prods when they wander without permits into our cocktail parties". ) While 'bird enthusiasm' is a noble and worthy career choice, you have to wonder why Palestinians engaged in fields closer to Atwood's own were not on the guest list. In the words of the Palestinian students she saw fit to ignore, it might be because:

"In the Gaza concentration camp, students who have been awarded scholarships to universities abroad are prevented every year from pursuing their hard-earned opportunity for academic achievement. Within the Gaza Strip, those seeking an education are limited by increasing poverty rates and a scarcity of fuel for transportation, both of which are direct results of Israel's medieval siege. What is Tel Aviv University's position vis-a-vis this form of illegal collective punishment, described by Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, as a "prelude to genocide?" Not a single word of condemnation has been heard from any Israeli academic institution!"

Ms Atwood, who scholarly credentials on the subject of conflict in the Middle East has so far been limited to glancing at the op-ed columns in her daily newspaper, repeats the same half-truths, obfuscations and outright lies that are routinely and mechanically recited in the establishment media - namely, that the crisis currently playing out in the Middle East is the result of two warring powers of roughly equal stature stubbornly rejecting compromise.

"I sympathize with the very bad conditions the people of Gaza are living through due to the blockade, the military actions, and the Egyptian and Israeli walls. Everyone in the world hopes that the two sides involved will give up their inflexible positions and sit down at the negotiating table immediately and work out a settlement that would help the ordinary people who are suffering. The world wants to see fair play and humane behaviour, and it wants that more the longer the present situation continues and the worse the conditions become".

According to this cursory, lackluster analysis, the people imprisoned within the occupied territories have had a hand in creating the intolerable conditions they live under despite the fact their free and fair elections have been overturned by Israeli authorities, their leaders routinely imprisoned or targeted for assassination, or installed as paid stooges to carry out Israel's security operations. By Ms Atwood's lazy reckoning, the Palestinians themselves are somehow complicit in their own misery. Never mind that one side has no military, no air defenses, only limited and largely illusory political autonomy, and whose already scant institutions and infrastructure lie in a still smoldering pile of rubble. Meanwhile this deliberately starved population only survives on the meager, "diet"-inducing rations their Israeli occupiers call "humanitarian assistance". Inflexible indeed. Israel's long standing commitment to derailing every attempt to negotiate a peace settlement by refusing to halt or dismantle settlements is yet another inconvenient fact Ms Atwood prefers to overlook in a statement that reads more like a hastily signed condolence card than confirmation of a principled, well-reasoned stance.

Ms Atwood's powers of keen and relentlessly fine-tuned observations - the hallmark of her deservedly lauded fiction - are nowhere in evidence outside the rarified air of her novel writing efforts. When it comes to facts (Israel is guilty of war crimes and is in violation of countless UN resolutions, not to mention its Apartheid style of governance that grants democracy for a few and apartheid for the many) the Canadian novelist has a tin ear, playing mostly deaf to the chorus of condemnation that has dogged her since accepting the prize. Antoine Raffoul, a London based architect and founder of '1948: Lest We Forget' - a Palestinian rights organization publicly addressed her (and co-laureate Amitov Ghosh) in an open letter, politely pleading the case that their presence in Tel Aviv was in opposition to the values that the two authors presumably uphold as human rights advocates.

"We writers belong to a space one can call 'Republic of writers' and do not do cultural boycotts," Atwood sniffed in response, conveniently overlooking her support of sanctions and cultural boycotts of Apartheid-era South Africa. More recently, the author pulled out of the fledgeling Emirates Airline international festival of literature to protest the organizers' decision to withdraw their invitation to an author whose book was considered too controversial. Curiously, the free speech advocate couldn't spare a similar show of solidarity with the blacklisted Palestinian writers whom she is unlikely to meet in Israel.

According to Atwood, "writers" are members of that elite, oft-awarded coterie of establishment liberals who lend their support to fashionable causes while attending cocktail receptions in their honor; a term that in other words doesn't apply to rabble like Mr Raffoul, or the group of Palestinian students whose passionately articulated open letter to the author was greeted with a dismissive acknowledgment of having received it. Not surprisingly, The Republic of Writers, like its warm ally Israel, doesn't grant citizenship to its Palestinian members, or anyone outside the highly fortified, well-appointed compound where Queen Margaret reigns as self-crowned head of state.

The prickly monarch goes on to dismiss criticism of her decision to accept half of a million dollar prize from a foundation run by a photo booth tycoon with ties to Zionist organizations. Dan David, the billionaire philanthropist for whom the prize is named, was overruled by his foundation's board of trustees when early on in his philanthropic career he nominated Muslim bashing Italian xenophobe Oriana Fallaci a prize for journalism. Clearly, the choice of Margaret Atwood as blood money beneficiary for her "moderate" (but no less ideological) brand of selective advocacy for human rights is meant to thwart unwanted scrutiny on this generous endowment at the hands of a right wing entrepreneur who conceals his zealotry behind a blandly institutional cloak of high culture. Mr David's critics allege the tycoon is aiding and abetting his government's propaganda efforts by dipping into his own personal slush fund to launch a charm offensive aimed at silencing Israel's critics.

It's probably too late to hope that Ms Atwood's atrophied powers of reasoning and compassion will compel her to recognize the ironies inherent in her host nation's insistence that "Never Again" means business-as-usual when applying Nazi methodolgy to rid one's country of a despised ethnic group. Based on her own reasoning, Ms Atwood might consider attending the next conference Iranian president Ahmadinajad hosts, where invited dignitaries debate the existence of the Holocaust. After all, how is this Iranian led peanut gallery aimed at burnishing its president's standing among anti-US allies any different from the political stage craft Israel is orchestrating to shore up international support for its own beleaguered leadership? By her own admission, there is no topic off-limits to "dialogues across borders", so why draw the line at holocaust denial? Or for that matter, a Dubai book festival?

Ms Atwood's disingenuous claims that the prize is "is a cultural event" and not "as has been erroneously stated, an “Israeli” prize from the State of Israel, nor is it a prize “from Tel Aviv University, but one founded and funded by an individual" proves she is either woefully unskilled at using a search engine, or that she has deliberately overlooked her billionaire benefactor's unsavory, or at least questionable business and political ties in order to claim a cash prize. With its lucrative ties to the Israeli defense industry, Tel Aviv University is hardly a benign institution, nor one that is unaffiliated with Mr David's philanthropic enterprises. Dan David laureates, according to their contractual obligations, are required to donate ten percent of their prize money to the university.

Margaret Atwood and Amitov Ghosh are not only aiding Israel's propaganda efforts, but helping to directly fund its war machine. Whether they realize it or not, Ms Atwood and her prize sharing cohort-in-hypocrisy have earned a black mark on their legacy by putting a price tag on their advocacy of human rights.

_______

President Obama, as his now less-than-enthusiastic enablers would have you know, is a "pragmatist", forced to govern from the "center" in deference to his more unstable, trigger happy Republican colleagues whose support he depends on to institute his compromised, watered down policy objectives from lobbyist-written bills for health care reform (sic) to his small 's' troop surge in Afghanistan. Escalating the conflict in Afghanistan, they will tell you, is a "necessary evil", and a lesser one at that if you compare the president's sleeker strategy of mass murder to the swifter methods of nuclear annhilation preferred by his Republican cronies. In the same breathe they will tell you that his long term strategy of securing the peace in Empire's 'Last-gasp-istan' reflects his "bigger picture" objectives, overlooking the obvious and cynical politics-as-usual motives for committing more troops to his more "wisely' chosen battlefield. Never mind that this ill-defined "big picture" is no more than a portrait of a fearful, 'doomed to serve out one term' president with his eyes narrowly focused on his chances for re-election in 2012 when he can cite a gradual withdrawal of forces to demonstrate his ability to end wars rather than escalate them - all the while puffing up his "bipartisan" leadership to appeal to the 'swingnuts' among undecided voters. (Few of whom, it should be noted, will vote for the dithering Murderer-in-Chief since his appetite for dead Muslims will never match his Republican opponent's promise to put the remains of Osama bin Laden in his Foreman grill and serve them at his next tailgate party/inauguration dinner).

So now American voters have the choice between a government that will destroy the nation quickly ("You Betcha"!) or one that will perform its controlled demolition of the economy and all its remaining institutions more gradually. For some, meaning those who have the luxury of being insulated from the scorched earth reality of American Empire, this toxic equation is perfectly acceptable. As long as it's 'their' guy in the Oval Office, it speaks of loftier ideals like "compromise", "bipartisanship" and cold hard number crunching (30,000 additional troops over a two year period . . . yada yada yada.) It avoids the embarrassing cowboy exhuberance of Dr Strangelove and instead lays out a point by point plan to further destabilize and impoverish a traumatized region, spelling out its ultimately violent objectives with the overflown, platitudinous language of a precocious high school Valedictorian.

The standard by which Obama's liberal supporters measure his "success" (It's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it ) has been significantly lowered since the reign of little King George when his universally discredited world view outlined the necessity of killing millions in order to avoid a "bloodbath" later on. In a curious reversal of logic and principles, this crackpot notion is what the nation's hope smokers are now stuffing into their pipes to neutralize the bitter, lingering aftertaste of disappointment and dashed hope. In a position that could be best summed up as "Bush foreign policy bad. Obama's good", these one time "anti-war" voters now embrace the same delusional, unprincipled logic that insists the carnage and bloodbaths of the present are somehow preferable to the ones that will ensue if US forces withdraw from the battlefield. It is enough for them that the president avoids the rhetorical gaffes of his neo-con predecessors, even if his actions mirror them precisely.

Bush gave away the Imperial game plan with his inept swagger, revealing the gulag casino state at the heart of his vision of 'freedom' both in the US and abroad, while Obama's more prudent delivery of the same talking points provides a bloodless analysis of his government's equally murderous objectives. Little King George had the disadvantage of a coronation ceremony that publicly dispensed with any illusion of democracy, and made no secret of his servitude to the crude 'oiligarchs' who greased his way to office. Likewise, Obama made his allegiances clear in his first month of office, transferring the entire contents of the treasury to his bosses at Goldman Sachs, while adopting Bush's global strategy to keep Wall Street coffers stuffed with the spoils of war. Again, the policies of this president hardly differ from those of his predecessors over the last 60 years, most of whom were vetted and groomed for office by the lobbyists whose interests the puppet-in-chief ultimately serves.

Unlike the "despots" and "gangsters" we seek to uproot in 'Bushbamastan', our leadership's more refined methods of impoverishing and terrorizing the populations overseas are preferable (honorable even) owing to our success in projecting our barbarism through an upgraded and more attractively packaged hologram. It's enough, the Hologram's supporters insist, that its empty, bellicose rhetoric simply mimics the cadences (rather than the content) of a beloved slain civil rights leader. Anyone who endured Obama's insufferable Nobel acceptance speech (the one where Bush Jr's crayon doodles, scribbles and Jell-O pudding stains were not too much in evidence) can recognize the familiar, chest pounding refrain of endless war, and the attendant infantile platitudes about the 'justness' of military aggression.

Awarding the current US Murderer-in-Chief the same prize that was bestowed upon Dr Martin Luther King Jr in 1964 is yet just another example of the Corporate State's ability to subvert dissident thought and action into establishment enabling PR. The same institutions that rely on Bono to lend legitimacy and rock star "cred" to their violent neo-colonial agenda have now appointed a youthful former community organizer to head their global operations. In Bono's case, the peace activism of John Lennon was successfully reconfigured to serve the interests of the ruling class as 'New Labour' rallied rock stars and other "anti-Establishment" figures to rise up and allow a new super elite to emerge. We can see the same brain trust at work as neo-cons embrace 'feminism' to justify their unending war on the Muslim world, invoking the dreaded veil to get western women on board with their military objectives.

"The Saviour of Hope" by virtue of being an African American man with much lauded oratory skills not so subtly evokes Dr Martin Luther King Jr in the same way a carbonated beverage laden with high fructose corn syrup can be associated with sex appeal. Image trumps substance in every political PR campaign and consumers can be relied upon to put wishful thinking ahead of common sense and reason. Where MKL's Nobel acceptance speech was unequivocal in its denunciations of using violence to bring about peace and justice, Obama by contrast, used the Oslo stage to justify colonial aggression. The most cringe-inducing part of Obama's Nobel acceptance speech was his perfunctory, condescending little nod to Martin Luther King Jr and Mahatma Ghandi - peacemakers infinitely more deserving of the honor than the preening prize winner on the Oslo stage in terms of character, courage and integrity. After giving them a verbal pat on the head, he went on to drone that unlike them, 'He' actually "governs" and therefore must deal with "the world as it is". The implication here is the sacrifices of these great men in the name of peace and justice occurred in a less significant fantasy world that "legitimate" leaders like him don't have the time to indulge. You could say that it was the first time the American president actually demonstrated any of his much vaunted and sorely lacking O-dacity. Sadly, this sudden outburst of "ballsiness" is the kind most often associated with "WTF?" (as in "Did he really just moon his audience and say 'Kiss this' to his peace advocating Nobel predecessor?)

In his pre-Oslo speech on the subject of escalating the violence against the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan by committing more troops to the already war-ravaged region, he erroneously cited Al-Qaeda as a threat to the region's security, despite Al-Qaeda's mostly chimerical presence in Afghanistan. It should be noted that the Taliban, contrary to the president's knowingly false assertions, does not have a global agenda, but merely a domestic one. It seeks to remove US forces from within its borders, whereas Al Qaeda is a borderless, loose knit band of brothers atomized throughout the Muslim world, and whose threat to global security is largely dependent on our fluctuating quotas for turbaned scapegoats. For Obama to deliberately conflate these two entirely different entities, while insisting that US security hinges upon our ability to kill anyone who stands in opposition to our Imperial aims, is an unconscionable and egregious act of cowardice, right up there with Colin Powell knowingly making the case for the invasion of Iraq with false intelligence.

Any way you look at it, military occupations are doomed to fail by their very nature - a fact that our educated and well-read president is undoubtedly aware - making his case for escalating his war of choice all the more reprehensible. Just as there is no correct or proper way to administer slavery, or carry out acts of rape or torture, there is no "wise" or "judicious" way of using military force for non-defensive purposes. It's convenient to label every individual who actively opposes the presence of these troops in their region 'Taliban' ("enemy combatants' we don't have to add to any civilian casualty lists) when in fact, active and often violent opposition to the US led occupation is not limited to these bearded bogey-men, but carried out by ordinary people defending themselves against foreign occupation of their land. If anything, the Taliban are the tragically inevitable outcome of the political vacuum that emerged as a result of centuries of Imperial misadventures in that particular region and elsewhere in the Muslim world. They are not, as the president falsely implies, some virulent manifestation of mental illness brought about by "incorrectly" interpreting the Koran, but a desperate response to a complete breakdown of Afghanistan's civil society, thanks to decades of colonial subjugation. The continuing presence of foreign troops only ensures more violent resistance to the values and institutions we seek to impose through military force, whether it is Taliban-led opposition to the occupation or some hastily formed militia without a globally recognized brand name. Against all reason, we believe that the defeat of the gangsters and warlords overseas is a necessary and just cause, while ignoring the threat posed by our own criminal class to the economic, political and social well-being of our plundered "Homeland" as rogue banking institutions (enabled by their political and military counterparts) use global financial markets as incendiary devices to destroy competition.

We look back in horror and astonishment at the brutal methods Latin America's Generallissimos applied to terrorize their own citizenry, when thousands of innocent civilians were "disappeared", yet we seem unable to summon similar outrage as thousands of our colonized subjects are mercilessly slaughtered, confident that our murderous rampages somehow fall into the "lesser evil" category. We are similarly reassured by Obama's reliance on anonymous drones to kill villagers in remote mountainous areas as opposed to the cruder methods of mass murder as applied in Iraq, where the poor, dumb grunts on the ground have to brutalize the populace at gunpoint in order to "secure the peace".

Meanwhile, closer to home, the American middle class is similarly 'disappeared'. We applaud with one hand gripping the remote control and the other clutching a box of Krispy-Kremes as the Dow Jones responds positively to a "jobless recovery". We further apply our intellectual laziness to the task of justifying yet more power-enabling double standards as our leaders institute socialist safety nets for Wall Street's money hemorrhaging casinos under the banner of "Too Big to Fail". Now that Goldman Sachs has appointed one of their own to the nation's highest office, its well-heeled Ponzi schemers will never have to adhere to the rules of a so-called 'free market' economy, unlike the rest of us fattened, slaughter-ready serfs who have to bear the costs of rewarding corrupt financial institutions for their failures. Luckily for them, Wall Street's top tier risk takers won't have to face the consequences of their greed-motivated acts of terrorism, owing in large part to their success in having their own profiteers serve as government appointed 'watchdogs' and 'regulators' to facilitate the smooth and endless flow of public funds into corporate coffers. We have learned too late that the president's much vaunted "O-dacity' is just another term for his jaw dropping displays of "unmitigated gall", whether it's accepting a peace prize while waging war, or overseeing the fraudulent bank bailout and comparing this act of government-led larceny to FDR's New Deal.

We are a nation of hypocrites, cheering on acts of resistance and civil disobedience overseas in one of our branded color 'revolutions', while remaining fearful and compliant at home, unwilling to take on the the dirty work required to maintain a democracy. (Somewhere a Pashtun goat herder is scratching his beard in puzzlement, recognizing this absurd double standard.) Our apathy only ensures that we are beholden to a system whereby consumers can 'choose' between a Mccandidate who drives a fuel inefficient clown car or one who is chauffered in a hybrid limousine; where one party belligerently institutes corrupt, wasteful policies and the other one entrenches them further under a subverted slogan of "Change". By justifying our knee-jerk support for the President and his misguided policies with the excuse that our dissent would only empower the clown car contingent, we have become the Kool-Aid drinking alternative to the Teabagger Party.

Another contribution from 'Z'

Dunya Mikhail, 'The War Works Hard' 1993

Iraqi poet Dunya Mikhail was born in Baghdad in 1964, studied English literature at the University of Baghdad, and worked as a journalist and editor. She became known for her stylistically innovative poetry that denounces repression and militarism. Harassed by the government for her writings, she left Iraq in 1996. "The War Works Hard" is a cuttingly sardonic tribute to the many unacknowledged "virtues" of war. In the year it was written, twenty-three US missiles struck the poet's city, destroying a residential neighborhood and killing many civilians. [From The War Works Hard; translated by Elizabeth Winslow]

How magnificent the war is!
How eager
and efficient!
Early in the morning,
it wakes up the sirens
and dispatches ambulances
to various places,
swings corpses through the air,
rolls stretchers to the wounded,
summons rain
from the eyes of mothers,
digs into the earth
dislodging many things
from under the ruins...
Some are lifeless and glistening,
others are pale and still throbbing...
It produces the most questions
in the minds of children,
entertains the gods
by shooting fireworks and missiles
into the sky,
sows mines in the fields
and reaps punctures and blisters,

urges families to emigrate,
stands beside the clergymen
as they curse the devil
(poor devil, he remains
with one hand in the searing fire)...
The war continues working, day and night.
It inspires tyrants
to deliver long speeches,
awards medals to generals
and themes to poets.

It contributes to the industry
of artificial limbs,
provides food for flies,
adds pages to the history books,
achieves equality
between killer and killed,
teaches lovers to write letters,

accustoms young women to waiting,
fills the newspapers
with articles and pictures,
builds new houses
for the orphans,
invigorates the coffin makers,
gives grave diggers
a pat on the back
and paints a smile on the leader's face.
The war works with unparalleled diligence!
Yet no one gives it
a word of praise.

Many thanks to 'Z' for sending this. The comments below are his as well:

Rabindranath Tagore, 'Worshippers of Buddha' 1936
A leading figure in modern Indian literature, the Bengali Renaissance man Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) is also acclaimed as a painter, composer, philosopher, educator, and world traveler. A friend and critic of Gandhi, Tagore was a staunch opponent of imperialism, chauvinism, and fascism. Tagore's brief poem "Worshippers of Buddha," a bitter attack on the religious hypocrisy that incites a supposedly Buddhist nation to wage aggressive war, is directed primarily against Japan which was at the time moving toward all-out war with China. [From Tagore for You]

The war drums are sounded.
Men force their features into frightfulness
and gnash their teeth;
and before they rush out to gather raw human
flesh for death’s larder,
they march to the temple of Buddha,
the compassionate,
to claim his blessings,
while loud beats the drum rat-a-tat
and earth trembles.

They pray for success;
for they must raise weeping and wailing
in their wake, sever ties of love,
plant flags on the ashes of desolated
homes,
devastate the centres of culture
and shrines of beauty,
mark red with blood their trail
across green meadows and populous markets,
and so they march to the temple of Buddha,
the compassionate,
to claim his blessings,
while loud beats the drum rat-a-tat
and earth trembles.

They will punctuate each thousand of the maimed
and killed
with the trumpeting of their triumph,
arouse the demon’s mirth at the sight
of the limbs torn bleeding from women
and children;
and they pray that they may befog minds
with untruths
and poison God’s sweet air of breath,
and therefore they march to the temple of Buddha,
the compassionate,
to claim his blessings,
while loud beats the drum rat-a-tat
and earth trembles.


..........................................................................................................................


It is one of the stunning ironies of modern times that Israel, a highly aggressive state armed to the teeth by the US, is seen by so many Americans as a plucky little country justifiably defending itself against terror. Thanks to the US mainstream media, and the work of zealous Zionist commissars, most Americans simply do not yet know that the Israeli state has for decades been stealing Palestinian land, cramming its people into ghettoes and bantustans, tormenting and killing them by the thousands, and lying about its actions.

As these atrocities continue – and the current bloody onslaught against Gaza's civilians is only their most recent chapter – will the American people awaken at last to the true nature of what has been going on, and will they compel US policymakers to stop writing blank checks to Israel?

Critical reading material on Zionism is abundantly available, if only one looks for it. There are, for instance, books by Jewish historians Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappé (both bitterly hated by Zionists), and Ghada Karmi's Married to Another Man: Israel's Dilemma in Palestine. The title of Dr Karmi's book refers to a report by two European rabbis who went to Palestine in 1897 to see whether the land was indeed empty and suitable for the creation of a new state. Seeing that the land was already populated, they cabled back: "The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man." If only their hint had been taken, so much needless tragedy could have been avoided.

For a brief and remarkably honest – though chilling – statement by a passionate Zionist, a reader can take a look at "The Iron Wall," a 1923 essay by Vladimir Zev Zhabotinsky, a person honored to this day as one of Israel's founding heroes. The entire essay is available on the internet and can be easily found.

We have listened to proponents of Zionism over and over for so many years now. Isn’t it high time we lent an attentive ear to the other side too? It will certainly not make us anti-Semitic, and it may just change the way we look at the world – and align us more closely to the majority of humankind.

Seldom a day goes by that I am not reminded of how much easier life would be if we all just applied ourselves to the simple task of recognizing the benefits of siding with power and took comfort from the false sense of privilege and entitlement that comes with championing the status-quo. One more than one occasion, I've been encouraged to tone down the "rage" element in my writing, concentrating instead on jotting down my thoughts on current affairs in the hopes of one day seeing them in a "real" magazine. But in order to realize this non-ambition of mine, I will have to be sure to maintain a tone of cool "objectivity" and stick to topics that will better guarantee my smooth passage into "nice" society among people who avoid words like "atrocity" when they don't apply to Tibetan monks or Darfur refugees.

And when the subject of the conflict in the Middle East is broached, I should manage a discreet and "knowing" little sigh, having recognized the signal to return to the much more pressing issues of the day like gay marriage or this year's Oscar nominees. Unluckily for me, I have no intention of being a "fair and impartial" observer of anything - least of all injustice. After all, "objectivity" in the political context usually functions as passivity and an inability (or unwillingness) to confront power, which is never "objective" about anything. Truth, on the other hand, can never be underestimated, however much its detractors protest the unwelcome incursion of inconvenient facts into their power-serving narratives, using subterfuge and fraudulent notions of "objectivity" to defend the indefensible. Worst of all, truth provides the basis for courage, and without courage, power cannot be confronted.

Indeed there is no shortage of facts that could lead one to conclude that the unmitigated tragedy that is unfolding right now in Gaza is anything but a singular act of violence and state terror perpetrated by a heavily armed and funded military power against a defenseless and imprisoned population - as opposed to a two-sided, evenly matched conflict between equal powers as our fact-filtering media takes great pains to imply, even insisting in some cases that small, fertilizer based Qassam rockets launched over a prison wall pose a credible threat to Israel's continuing existence as a political and geographical entity.

But for now, I will leave the heavy lifting required to properly analyze the unfolding and escalating atrocities being inflicted upon the people of Gaza in the capable hands of all the worthy scholars and activists who provide a much better service to the cause of justice than I ever will. In fact, I will be the first to admit that I lack the brain power to truly grasp the scope and complexity of this horror, or the imagination to fully appreciate the depraved ingenuity of its architects. In many ways, I am even thankful that I don't have the faculties necessary to truly comprehend the levels of fear and despair every Palestinian is experiencing right now as their homes are being rubbled, their children slaughtered, and their dignity and honor defiled by the monsters who wear the Israeli army uniform.

These seemingly endless reserves of contempt (not to mention, bewilderment) I am learning to live with are no match, either, for how the Palestinians (and Israelis of conscience) are feeling towards the leaders who robbed these soldiers of every last shred of their humanity in the first place. Nor do I have the stamina to endure even for a day the frustrations and humiliations the Israelis relentlessly inflict upon Palestinians in the "best" of times, whether it's through direct intimidation, harassment, or just as brutally, all those punishing bureaucratic procedures like checkpoints and constant demands for documentation, the interminable waiting, the endless lines. . . We can only interpret the ever-changing and maliciously implemented rules Palestinians in the Occupied Territories have to submit to, even as they are being denied a human being's most basic, fundamental needs like going to work, visiting nearby friends and relatives, or seeking medical services, as constant reminders that they are not merely prisoners, but a contained "livestock" herd facing the same fate as farm animals suspected of posing the risk of contagion to "human" populations.

I don't have the expertise, so to speak, (or even the bandwidth) to list every "minor" act of cruelty that is inflicted upon the Palestinians as collective punishment every day for the crime of not being Jewish in the "Holy Land". Comparing this system of state brutality against an ethnic "other" to Apartheid is a euphemistic understatement. Holocaust is a more accurate term, but this holocaust, unlike its more famous predecessor with a capital 'H', has continued unabated for sixty years and intensifies every passing day, while we wring our hands and mumble some platitude about the failures of both sides to seek more peaceful means towards ending the conflict. Implicit in this simplistic view of the situation is the notion that total submission to Israel's continuing occupation of Palestinian land and its brutal control over every aspect of Palestinian life is the only course of "action" Palestinians should pursue if "peace" is to be achieved.

Let's not forget, though, that "peace" in this context is a subterfuge term to describe the abject capitulation to the enhanced measures of domination that is incumbent upon Palestinians to submit to, with little or no regard to their rights to self-defense. What well-meaning hand wringers most conveniently overlook as they lament over the wrongs inflicted on and by both sides (in the name of "objectivity", of course) is the seldom discussed fact that Israel had already violated the terms of its illusory "ceasefire" with Hamas when it implemented its deadly blockade of Gaza six months earlier - an internationally recognized violation of its responsibilites as an occupying power - and an obvious attempt to provoke a cross "border" assault by Hamas militants in order to justify its own brute measures of "containing" its unwanted and slaughter-ready "livestock" population. Never mind, either, that Israeli soldiers murdered six Palestinians during this so-called ceasefire in November 2008, citing the victims' affiliation to Hamas as a justification for this slaughter.

Again, the "objectivity" our society's privileged sector insists is integral to our understanding of the conflict merely stands as tragic testament to the American media/military/entertainment complex's success in shaping public discourse to serve the needs of wealth and power, providing an exclusive, cushy forum from which war criminals can air their grievances 24/7.

For those who don't enjoy the luxury of inhaling the fine cigar aroma of the nation's op-ed pages, but rather get their "news' first hand from from the mortar shells raining down on their homes, "objectivity" is merely an other rhetorical ploy to bring them in line with Tel-Aviv and Washington's larger aims of expanding their sphere of dominance in an oil rich region.

We shouldn't be surprised at the scale and scope of this tragedy since it goes back decades with the slow destruction of the economy, infrastructure, institutions and overall sustainability of the occupied territories, the fragmentation of Palestinian land into isolated and locked down Bantustans disconnected from the surrounding economies of its neighbors. So far Israel has achieved its intended goal of creating a failed non-state almost wholly dependent on the scant food aid "allowed" in at the whim and mercy of its jailers. Adding insult to injury, these starvation measures are lauded in the media as "humanitarian" interventions, carried out under the auspices of an International law-abiding nation, going that extra mile to observe the protocols of the Geneva Conventions.

Worse even, this deliberate dismantling of Palestinian society and the institutions that sustain it, has been carried out with the full cooperation of the so-called "International Community". Even among Arab leaders in the region, corrupt politicians offer their complicit support to the genocide through discreet diplomatic channels. In the meantime, the criminals we have elevated to levels of leadership stand united in condemning the Palestinians for the least resistance to their worsening plight, while condoning Israel's war crimes as acts of "self defense". I could go on, but I know I haven't even begun to scratch the surface.

I will also be the first to admit that I am neither burdened by history or displacement, but merely a casual observer with the remote control easily within reach. And to my shame, I don't hesitate to use it. It's hard enough to fathom any of the atrocities going on in the world on any given day, let alone imagine one that is endless, deliberately worsening, and with the intended goal of provoking a humanitarian crisis. It is no longer possible to deny the fact that Israel's long standing strategy is to derail the prospect for peace with the Palestinians altogether in the belief that a viable, democratic Palestinian state would only impede its ultimate geo-political aims of further expanding its ill-gained and legally unrecognized borders. For all its talk of "peace" and "co-existence", Israel's road maps only lead to more enhanced measures of forced expulsion of the human shaped pot-holes its artillery tanks absorb along the otherwise smooth paths leading to its targets of annihilation.

I wish I knew how to compartmentalize my empathy (and yes, my sense of outrage) into neat little packages to be doled out on a "time and place" basis. And again, only to those who "deserve" it most, based on their proximity to high profile advocates like Bono and the Dalai Lama. Or at least conform visually to our standards of "victims" like those wizened, semi-comatose African babies whose blighted existence can never be expressed through acts of defiance or resistance, but rather compliancy and helplessness in the face of "unavoidable" tragedy. We in the West approve of these kinds of victims because they pose no threat. On the contrary, they remind us how "good we have it" and provide countless opportunities to throw a celebrity-studded shindig in their honor. For the bargain basement price of what it would cost to feed and educate an African child well into adulthood, we can pick one up as the ultimate red carpet accessory. Conveniently, we read only gratitude for our beneficence in those terrified, staring eyes, rather than see a mirror upon which are own depravities are reflected. When Palestinians are reduced to this state, perhaps then we can spare a thought to their predicament.

As the images of terrorized and slaughtered children make their way out of Gaza through some of the more unfiltered media portals, the endless litany of absurdities dribbling from the mouths of Israeli government officials and their faithful scribes in the US media in the meantime, have become as blood chillingly surreal as any government radio broadcast in Rwanda during another genocide the world just happened to tune into between sit-coms and commercials for suppositories and teeth whiteners.

In the face of this ceaseless barrage of misinformation, we can only exercise our own right to self-defense against these relentless assaults to our intelligence and integrity before we become casualties ourselves. After all, when we choose to put our humanity on hold by adhering to some self-serving notion of "objectivity" in the face of avoidable tragedy, shouldn't that count as a death of sorts?

My Israeli acquaintance is continuing her campaign of idiocy on my FB page with the stealth regularity of a non-too bright kitten pouncing on your feet while you try to sleep. Justifying atrocities is a full-time job, I guess. And when the facts are not on your side, you just have to keep up a steady campaign of bullshit to compensate for your non-argument.

Keep them coming, Irit. Your deranged, genocidal fantasies serve as a valuable reminder of what we're dealing with here in terms of your government's real objectives, which of course have nothing to do with "self defense" and everything to do with expansionism and the violent expulsion of a despised ethnic group. Sound familiar? Luckily for you, the US media functions as a filter that puts an elegant, "objective" spin on what you crudely express here, using the subterfuge notion of "neutrality" and "impartiality" to justify state terror and ethnic cleansing. I'll give you credit for honesty, though, unlike the official spokespeople and apologists for your Zionist regime who pretend to actually care about Palestinian casualties. Unfortunately fo you, people living in the empirical world, as opposed to the mythic one (meaning the fantasy theme park where "Chosen People" use their imaginary superiority to oppress vulnerable populations) can recognize the sight and smell of shit, even as they are being told it's a fragrant bouquet of roses.

PS: How many dead Palestinian children is it going to take to satiate your appetite for blood?

Tokyo commuters are constantly reminded to "watch out for and report any suspicious bags" they might encounter, citing a "terror alert" the police have placed on the public transportation system. I bought the canvas tote you can see in the foreground that reads, "This bag contains nothing suspicious" (Ayashii mono wa mottemasen yo!") The "yo" denotes emphasis, giving the message its tongue-in-cheek tone. It's doubtful that anyone takes this so-called "terror alert" seriously, which is nothing more than a subtle intimidation tactic the authorities use to keep citizens wary and watchful of one another and to remind them that they are under surveillance. Ironically, I brought it home the same day Tatsuya bought his brand new Louis Vuitton attache case. I thought was a fitting device to prop up my cheap-o "eco" bag for the camera.

Recently, I've been the very unfortunate recipient of an Israeli acquaintance's ceaseless barrage of messages on my Facebook page defending her country's latest massacre of Palestinians. As tempted as I was to respond using a random sampling of Courtney Love's MySpace blog posts - I was thinking of the one where the unhinged former singer accuses her probably imaginary cleaning lady of stealing her designer gowns, (but sadly, not her computer and crack pipe) I thought it perhaps unfair to launch such a disproportionately reasonable attack against someone so morally and intellectually disadvantaged. The alarmingly surreal and ever-escalating levels of idiocy that "Rita" demonstrates with each unwelcome missive deserves an equally inane response, I reasoned. But as I am not in the business of "debating" atrocities, I figured an automated Courtney Love response would do the trick, having specifically chosen the borderline personality performer as my official spokeswoman for a number of reasons.

So what's the connection, you might ask, between a parasitic, blood sucking public embarassment accusing her Mexican maid of making off with her Chanel dresses, and a nation that insists it is under attack by "illegals"? Both, it could be argued, are the logical outcome of a society that rewards sociopathy, greed and narcissism to dangerous extremes. And both the famewhore and her fellow fantasists in Tel Aviv and Washington are a tragic testament to the American media/military/entertainment complex's success in shaping public discourse to serve the needs of wealth and power, providing an exclusive, cushy forum from which celebrity and war criminal alike can air their grievances 24/7. It's no coincidence then, that these two disgraced and discredited entities depend entirely on round the clock PR flaks, marketing teams, lobbyists and publicists to spin their lunacy into a narrative that justifies their belligerent behavior as the unfortunate consequence of being a victimized, misunderstood underdog.

The parallels become more damningly evident when you consider how both the increasingly deranged drama queen and her Israeli government counterparts attempt to validate their irrationality through a steady stream of mostly illegible, fact-deficient drivel disseminated by countless "news" and entertainment sources, and both relying on dubious historical claims of "legitimacy" amid dwindling public sympathy for their self-inflicted injuries. The Israeli line is, and always has been, an illogical, lie-driven smoke-screen that attempts to reverse reality, subvert justice and obfuscate facts into fairy tales to justify its own aggression, all the while maintaining with a straight face that human rights apply only to its citizens. ( Or as "Rita" - Zionism's own version of Courtney Love would say:

"The Safest place for the Jews- is Israel. This is their home and they must protect their home. And accept that. The Jews are special. No need to be jealous. No need to Hate. And if u will look inside yourself, u will realize how anti-semite u r! . . DOT COM!!!!" )

What's the difference then, between a deluded, unstraitjacked rock hag sharing her deeply disturbing, hallucinatory rants on a very public forum, and the ceaseless barrage of bile being issued from Israeli government sources and their apologists? . . . Lipstick? Or is it merely coincidence that the wealthy, blood-spattered benefactoress of a dead musician's estate, and the equally undeserving recipient of US taxpayer blood money both claim victimhood at the hands of lowly, grubby brown criminal "others", intent on robbing them of their ill-gained assets?

As the images of terrorized and slaughtered children make their way out of Gaza through some of the more unfiltered media portals, the endless litany of absurdities dribbling from the mouths of Israeli government officials and their faithful scribes in the US media have become as blood chillingly surreal as any government radio broadcast in Rwanda during another genocide the world just happened to tune into between sit-coms and commercials for suppositories and teeth whiteners.

And this is where I will give "Rita" the floor since her most recent reply to another commentator on my Facebook page who rhetorically (and repeatedly) asks her "How many Palestinian children will have to be murdered to satiate your appetite for blood"? painfully demonstrates the ironies inherent in a nation built upon the incinerated human bones of its forebearers, applying the same levels of depravity upon the indigenous inhabitants of the land it violently siezed, and collectively punishes for the "crime" of being Non-Jewish in the Holy Land.

""Once again- when whe hamas will be gone.
And as for my appetite - I am full now. Shabbat dinner... u know..."

I'll give "Rita" credit for honesty, though, unlike the official spokespeople and apologists for the Zionist regime who pretend to actually care about Palestinian casualties and conceal their more cannibalistic urges during their carefully screened press conferences.

In all fairness to Ms Love (whose appetites at least, tend towards more chemical substances rather than human ones) her meth-induced MySpace jottings (especially her incoherent, mouth-breathing musings on subjects ranging from Axel Rose to gastric by-pass surgery) actually provide a more astute analysis of the situation in the Middle-East than an Alan Dershowitz Wall Street Journal op-ed.

This is not to suggest that the Israeli government should be exonerated from crimes against humanity on the basis of insanity, or any other forms of diminished mental capacity. On the contrary, the highly strung, volatile, nation's most recent bloody outburst is less an indication of a fragile mental state than a highly effective diversionary tactic aimed at concealing its larger objectives of expanding its ill-gained and internationally unrecognized borders with the ultimate aim of forcefully expelling a despised ethnic group from their historical land.

So while Israel's ongoing rampage in Gaza gives the appearance of a reactionary power's hair trigger response to a "sudden" crisis, the fallacy of this interpretation lies in the little known and seldom discussed fact that Israel had already violated the terms of its illusory "ceasefire" with Hamas when it implemented its deadly blockade of Gaza six months earlier - an internationally recognized violation of its responsibilites as an occupying power - and an obvious attempt to provoke a cross "border" assault by Hamas militants in order to justify its own enhanced measures of "containing" an unwanted "livestock" population. Never mind, either, that the Israelis murdered six Palestinians during this so-called ceasefire in November 2008, citing their affiliation to Hamas as a justification for this slaughter. I've since learned the hard way how inconvenient facts like these only invite further moron-led incursions into one's impoverished little corner of cyberspace.

Instead of replying to Rita's previous all cap screed about the "terror" that Israelis are living under (and the "horrors" they endure daily by having to share the same oxygen as Arabs) from one of Courtney's sixty page long laundry lists of "stolen" luxury items from her rubber room, replete with endless, mispelled, digressive, meanderings about Buddhism, Botox, Lindsay Lohan, unscrupulous realtors, and the legless green spiders who live in other people's eye sockets, I responded against my better judgment with the following:

"However inconvenient it is for Israelis living within the range of largely useless Hamas rockets, at least you have the luxury of being able to seek shelter out of harm's way. Palestinians on the other hand, regardless of where they live in the densely populated Gaza strip, are immobilized targets with no means of escape from your government's relentless ground and air assaults.

If your leadership was sincerely concerned about your safety and security, it would seek a genuine political solution to the crisis and not use its own citizens as human shields for propaganda purposes - flouting the "victimhood" of Israelis living within range of Qassam rockets, while quitely celebrating behind the scenes as their scant casualty numbers rise. Why would your own government do that, you might ask? Because it gives the impression that the crisis is a two-sided, evenly matched conflict between equals, rather than a singular act of violence and state terror perpetrated by a heavily armed and funded military power against a defenseless and imprisoned population.

I find it curious that you would champion the cause of injustice, for not only Palestinians, but for your "own" people, whom your government cynically exploits in order to achieve its deadly, self-defeating geo-political aims. Sadly, I consider you a casualty of sorts, in all this. When one becomes a willing and complicit agent of cruelty, ignorance and denial, shouldn't that count as a death?"

Rita's continuing assaults on my FB page as well as the injuries she continues to inflict upon her own dignity would leave even another self-harming, strung out singer less known for her voice than her refusal to be rehabbed scratching her busted, crack-coated beehive in incredulity over Rita's own seemingly endless appetite for self-destruction.

But one final note to "Rita" who interpreted a polite request of mine to take her "special" self elsewhere, as not only proof of my "anti-Semitism" but an implied threat to exterminate all Jews. (Seriously, folks, I am not making this up). So, Rita, here it goes:

"The only 'anti-anything-ism' I am engaging in here is of the viciously ignorant slime bag variety. But keep them coming. Your deranged, genocidal fantasies serve as a valuable reminder of your government's real objectives, which you have unwittingly laid out here in the unsparing light of day. On behalf of all people of conscience, I thank you for your invaluable contributions to undermining your own cause". (I might have added 'DOT COM!!!! if I only knew what it meant).

Earlier, I got this response to the previous post, which I also posted on Facebook.

"I'm feeling grief & sadness more than anger, at this point. I wonder how ugly, how excruciating does it have to get before we change our behaviors and learn to coexist".

A noble and heartfelt sentiment from a kind and well-meaning person, but one that overlooks the fundamental reality of this ongoing crisis. Would we apportion a share of blame to a rape victim for not making nice with his/her unconvicted rapist after his repeated and brutal attacks on the victim? Why then, do we expect the Palestinians to refrain from exercising self-defense? For better or worse, the rocket attacks launched on Israel by Hamas (an organization that is willfully conflated with "terrorism" and scary Islamic bomb makers and the like, despite being the democratically and overwhelmingly elected political leadership of the Palestinian people) serve as an SOS reminder to a largely indifferent world that the situation there, even without Israeli tanks and air strikes, is untenable and demands nothing less than International condemnation and sanctions against Israel.

The situation in Gaza is too often attributed to a failure on both sides to peacefully co-exist, when history repeatedly demonstrates that the Israeli governments past and present define "co-existence" with its Palestinian non-citizens as "put up and shut up or face the wrath of world's fifth largest military power". When you consider that one side is imprisoned in the most densely populated territory on earth without any means of escape, and denied the most basic of necessities in the best of times, it becomes impossible to frame the crisis as a two-sided conflict, exacerbated by "extremists" and resolved once Hamas stops firing rockets.

In 1967, israel seized an additional 22% of land internationally recognized as Palestinian territory and continues to this day to allow illegal Jewish settlements on historic Palestinian land. In the meantime, it has inflicted a daily regimen of humiliation upon Palestinian civilians, compounded by often violent measures to bring them in line as non-citizen "cockroaches". Comparing this system of state brutality against an ethnic "other" to Apartheid is a euphemistic understatement. Holocaust is a more accurate term, but this holocaust has continued unabated for sixty years and intensifies every passing day, while the world gives a "shit happens" shrug and goes on with its shopping.

Contrary to popular belief, it is Israel that has always negotiated in bad faith, using the latest "cease fire", for example, to lull the world into complacency while it geared up to unleash state terror on the most vulnerable population on earth, having deliberately provoked "militants" to act in self-defense - a notion that for some reason, does not apply to Palestinians. Instead, they are given the "choice" of slow starvation or swift extermination.

The defenseless, desperate and terrorized citizens of Gaza are being exterminated. This is genocide. There is no other word for this mass slaughter. It's not enough for these monsters to starve and imprison an entire population, allow settlers to illegally occupy their land, deny them fuel, food, water and medical supplies, restrict their movements, destroy their fragile infrastracture and livelihoods, withhold the meagre funds and food supplies that barely sustain a child's daily nutritional requirements, bomb their mosques, and demolish their homes, now they have to crush them with tanks and airstrikes. This is all necessary to "protect" a nation that possesses an enormous nuclear arsenal against a population that is fifty percent under the age of fifteen.

To those who insist that israel is acting in self defense - that an unsteady barrage of short-range rockets launched over a prison wall somehow poses a credible threat to the world's fifth largest military power - then you are not only a moron but a maniac on par with the Santa Claus psycho who went on a Christmas day killing spree after his wife filed for divorce. Does anyone honestly believe that these "terrorists" launch those largely useless missiles into your well-manicued lawns and swimming pools because they are jealous of your superior gardening techniques? I've got to hand it to you. You really DO make the desert bloom. Amazing what the blood of slaughtered innocents can do for landscaping. The next time your neighbor's dog poops on your lawn, blow his brains out and disembowel the dog while his children watch. If that fails to teach the motherf***r a lesson, then track down his family, friends and relatives with every explosive device in your arsenal and take them out as well. It's your right, after all. Fucking guy lets his dog shit on your lawn.