leilla

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.

The National Temperance Beverage

Obama-Cola

By JENNIFER MATSUI

In 2004, American voters were offered a choice between two presidential candidates in an elaborately staged "taste test" based on consumer preference for one brand of Cola over the other. More recently, voters were faced with yet another soft drink challenge, but this time it was based on the dominant brand's ill-advised attempt in 1985 to "mess with success" and re-launch its product under a "new" label. Unlike the Bush/Kerry campaign that pitted competing (but otherwise identical) corporate interests against one another, election 2008 more closely resembled an internal struggle within a single corporate entity.

This time around, GW played the unenviable villain role of the Coca Cola exec responsible for his company’s disastrous decision to tamper with the formula and packaging of a beloved, much touted brand of carbolic soda, while Barak Obama played the dissenting marketing genius who comes to the rescue and restores the poisonous product back to its original flavor. Having put the genie, so to speak, back into the bottle, the whiz kid replaces the despised and disgraced CEO much to the relief of customers and shareholders alike. In this fictionalized retelling of the story, the youthful upstart's deceptively bold campaign to oust his former boss is launched with the support of his enthusiastic and idealistic marketing team, most of whom were eventually given the pink slip once the new CEO settled into his upper floor suite. McCain’s minor role as hired mouthpiece attempting damage control for the outgoing CEO was a comical and insignificant aside to bigger picture premise of an arrogant and deluded leader being challenged by a charismatic and visionary upstart. Never mind that the “visionary” envisioned nothing more radical than a return to the recent past of putting the requisite amount of high fructose corn syrup in aluminum cans.

While Pepsi may have profited handsomely in the short term from Coca-Cola's mishandling of its newly launched product and the public relations fiasco that followed, it was Coca Cola that ultimately prevailed, outselling the rival brand two to one within six months of reintroducing the old formula as "Coke Classic". In subsequent retellings of the events in 1985, Coca Cola's swift and repentant capitulation to consumer demand would be upheld as an example of "the power of the people" in shaping corporate policy, citing the example of millions of angry Coke drinkers bombarding the company's Atlanta headquarters with angry letters and staging public events to express their anger over what they felt was the company's arrogant disregard of customer loyalty. What is most often overlooked in this updated David vs Goliath parable is how the beleaguered Behemoth, while publicly licking its wounds, was in fact, laughing all the way to the bank, even as the competition gained short term windfalls over the ensuing "scandal". Also absent from this feel good retelling of 'The People vs New Coke' is how this so-called consumer movement was not in fact a spontaneous rising up of angry citizens against an arrogant giant but a mostly media-generated spectacle that took its talking points from Pepsi's PR department, hoping to cash in on the "controversy".

The media/entertainment industrial complex pushes forward these faux story lines, substituting substance with empty calories while prioritizing the trivial at the expense of truth telling. Our system of governance in collusion with its corporate overseers relies on a lazy and willfully misinformed citizenry to effectively function. Like the carefully orchestrated spat between the identical blonde "frenemies" of The Hills, the presumed enmity between Team Obama and Team Bush (and even Team Clinton) was a merely a plot device to enhance the selling points of deodorant and hybrid cars during a profitable election cycle.

Voters, not unlike soft drink aficionados can be counted on to rally around a non-cause perpetrated by multiple corporate entities all profiting from a well orchestrated marketing blitz - just as they can be counted on to take these falsely constructed narratives and marketing campaigns at face value, eschewing facts for factoids, truth for "truthiness" and reality for the MTV version. Coverage of November's landmark presidential election puts forward a similar feel good spin on what really amounts to a a staged confrontation between costumed rivals. Admittedly, it's difficult not to applaud the triumphant outcome of the "underdog" in this elaborately choreographed "battle". The poised and telegenic President-Elect is a flawless package, even if his sleek exterior conceals the same corrosive elements that defined his predecessors. Once again, a multi-lateral marketing campaign yielded a simulacrum democratic movement under a new slogan. "Yes, we can!" heralded as a stroke of (marketing) genius on par with "I have a Dream" (but without all the pesky nuance, intellectual depth and angry black guy connotations) was less a continuation of Dr King's groundbreaking speech than having evolved from the brain trust that once declared Coca-Cola "The Great National Temperance Beverage".

By the time he officially enters the White House with his revived cabinet of Clinton appointees, President Obama will have calmed the angry public backlash at the executive responsible for tampering with an established brand of “soft” Imperialism and exposing it as a crude, corpse strewn land grab. Like the subsequently re-branded ‘Coke Classic’, Brand Obama has never been about “change” but merely reversion to an executive branch that pretends to “feel your pain” while continuing to inflict it even more brutally on vulnerable and impoverished populations overseas.

Still weeks away from officially taking office, and already President-Elect Obama's early supporters; those insignificant and ultimately embarrassing hordes of anti-war "progressives" who dug into near empty pockets to launch his grassroots campaign are feeling the sting of betrayal with each passing news cycle announcing his cabinet picks. Perhaps we should not be surprised by his choice of hawkish economic and foreign policy advisors and "experts", or the appointment of Lady MacClinton herself as Secretary of State. After all, contrary to popular belief, no one at Coca-Cola was fired or otherwise penalized for their role in perpetrating what is widely perceived as the worst marketing decision ever made for the simple reason that for all its bad publicity, the "miscalculation" proved ultimately beneficial to the architects of this "failure". "Catastrophic success" then as now describes the unintended benefits that befall the mighty in the wake of a seemingly insurmountable setback.

Presidential candidate Obama might have questioned Senator Clinton's judgment in authorizing the war in Iraq with her 'yes' vote, but having measured the decorous curtains in his plush new quarters, perhaps he can afford to be magnanimous towards his former nemesis Bill Clinton. No doubt the old horn dog is salivating over the prospect of spending quality time with his next booty call while the Missus waddles across the world stage to collect her next consolation prize.

What pundits describe as the "seamless" White House transition currently underway should give us more reason to despair than hope. This smooth and apparently amicable transfer of power that the pundits insist is proof that civility and pragmatism are being restored to the nation's highest office merely confirms that "change" and "hope" are, and always have been, euphemistic terms for "Business and Empire as Usual". That should have been obvious when the "anti-war" candidate shifted his rhetorical stance from ending the bloodshed in Iraq to escalating the US military presence in Afghanistan. His groveling campaign speech to AIPAC was another indication that his conscience and intellect were impediments on the path to his “historic” presidency; short-term glitches in an otherwise flawlessly executed marketing campaign. His swift post-election appointment of Likud Party poster boy Rahm Emanuel as Chief-of-Staff, Joe “I am a Zionist” Biden as Vice-President, and of course, the selection of Hillary ("I will obliterate Iran") Clinton to lead the State Department are further indications that the next US president is gearing up to serve as Israel’s next outsourced leader.

As he prepares to fulfill his duties overseeing the vast corporate/ military apparatus required to sustain his newly adopted homeland, the last thing we should expect from this "agent of change" is, say, a rational and humane response to the humanitarian crisis currently playing out in Gaza as Israel's deadly blockade of the occupied territories intensifies, or a swift withdrawal of US troops from Iraq as promised early on his campaign. Nor should we expect the media under an Obama presidency to relinquish its role as the propaganda arm of an National Security State comprised of a willfully misinformed electorate unable to distinguish between Brand A Cola and its political counterpart. After all, voters, content to passively adore their beloved candidate from a viral YouTube video or a Huffpo blog post extolling his sterling qualities, did not set a mandate for their "agent of change" or otherwise instruct him to implement policy that represented a significant departure from the current one. It was enough, it turns out, to project one's hopes on to an abstractly held notion of "change" and bask in the warm glow of being part of a movement, even if the movement was little more than a disgraced brand's temporary recall of a product tainted by bad publicity.

The one time community organizer turned politician has finally revealed himself as a viral marketing phenomenon on par with Max Headroom, Coca Cola's virtual, lantern jawed mascot whose appeal rested on his ability to convey nothing and everything simultaneously. Depending on the psychological profile of the consumer, the remote, disembodied Cola mascot was either a figure of strength and authority or a "new wave" icon thumbing his digital nose at the old order. The enigmatic shape shifting Max Headroom was reborn in the Senator from Illinois who similarly and deceptively conveyed youth and rebellion while advocating the same kind of muscular foreign policy of his predecessors. This cynically contradictory message did not appear to cause discomfiture among Obama's centrist base, who insist to this day that the "grassroots" nature of his early campaign and the "cool" factor he was able to engender in a process that traditionally overlooks the role of young voters somehow mitigates the President-Elect's transformation from agent of "change" to establishment hawk waiting to serve out Bush's third term.

Where "Classic" was once stamped on a hastily reconfigured pop can to distinguish it from its internal rival, "Hope" became the official slogan of a disgraced brand desperately seeking to re-establish its dominant market share with a quick fix solution. Just as consumers never noticed that the cheaper sweetening agent that had replaced liquid cane sugar in the "old" Coke was now the staple ingredient of "Classic" Coke, most of us remain blissfully non-cognizant of the sleight of hand deceptions going on behind the scenes as Brand USA relaunches itself as a continuation of the status-quo.

A very special thanks to Zeljko Cipris for sending this.


Class Leader’s Request

Kobayashi Takiji



Dear Teacher,

I will not be able to attend school after today. Everyone has been bullying me and making fun of me, I am not able to study, and I cannot pay the money I had intended to give for the war. As you know, I’ve studied harder than anyone and wanted to become a great person but even Yoshimoto and Hiraga say they don’t want to be friends anymore with someone who won’t contribute money to the war. If even Yoshimoto and Hiraga won’t play with me, school will be like hell.

Teacher, I can’t tell you how much I want to pay for the war. But at our house we don’t even have a penny. My father has been out of work for six months now. My sisters aren’t eating enough, they've lost weight little by little, and they keep crying all the time. Every time I come home from school, the house gets emptier and emptier. So how can I ask my father for money? But because everyone says it’s for our country’ sake, I made up my mind the other day and actually asked him. Father thought about it for a while, then his face got really angry and he said to ask the teacher the meaning of for our country’s sake. After that my father started to cry and said that from tomorrow he’d have to go begging because there’s no longer anything to eat, and that he’d take me along too.

Dear Teacher, when my father was about to go to sleep he said that if only we had the money that’s now being used for war then people like father everywhere in Japan would have plenty to eat. Teacher, you’ve always taught us that we must help those who are poor and helpless, and that we mustn’t fight with others. So why is it all right to fight a war?

Teacher, I feel sorry for my father so please make the war stop as soon as possible. That way father and everybody else can live easily. Father says that the longer the war goes on, the more expenses there’ll be, the less there’ll be for everyone to eat, and Japan will get to be like Russia for sure.

Teacher, if I can’t get out of having to pay for the war, then everybody will keep bullying me, and I won’t be able to go to school any more. Please, stop the war as soon as you can. Around the row-houses where we live it’s said that if there’s no work for another month, everybody will march on the town hall. Then Japan will get to be like Russia for sure.

Please do everything you can.



An elementary school teacher who often comes to my place to talk about things brought me this letter. It’s written by a seventh-grade class leader. The original text hasn’t been changed. As I read it, I thought: He’s almost got it. This class leader will learn about reality from life, with which he’ll soon be colliding.

December 10 1931


[Original title: Kyuuchou no negai (Japanese text available online on Aozora Bunko)]

From Wikipedia:

Kobayashi was born in Odate, Akita and was brought up in Otaru, Hokkaidō. After graduating the Otaru School of Higher Learning, which is the current Otaru University of Commerce, he worked at the Otaru branch of Hokkaido Takushoku Bank. His most famous work is Kanikosen (Crab-Canning Boat) in 1929. It tells the story of several different people and the beginning of organization into unions of fishing workers. He joined the Japanese Communist Party in 1931, and was killed under torture by Tokkō police two years later at the age of 29.

Many thanks to our friends at Counterpunch and Smirking Chimp, and all the readers who shared their comments and opinions with us.

Mamet, Enter Stage Right

Apostasy Now!

In his trenchent dissection of Christopher Hitchens' conversion from Trotskyite leftist to neoconservative apologist for American imperialism, Norman Finkelstein notes that political apostasy always seems to turn in one direction--to the right, which happens to be where the power is: "The would-be apostate almost always pulls towards power's magnetic field, rarely away. However elaborate the testimonials on how one came to 'see the light,' the impetus behind political apostasy is--pardon my cynicism--a fairly straightforward, uncomplicated affair: to cash in, or keep cashing in, on earthly pleasures." (Finkelstein, "Fraternally yours, Chris.")

David Mamet's recent announcement of his own apostasy ("Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal" Village Voice, Mar. 11, 2008) has little of the fanfare that surrounded Hitchens' hitching of his caboose to the Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitz train, just before it disappeared over the cliff and into the abyss of Iraq, but it does confirm Finkelstein's observation, in his Hitchens' piece, that political apostasy in American culture is less about a revolution in principle than about the absence of any principle at all. Mamet's new conservatism revolves around the same center of gravity that shaped his former brain-dead liberalism--his ego--and thus represents less a change of heart than a repackaging of his vanity in a more attractive, if not more lucrative, get-up.

It's hard to miss the real subject of Mamet's latest advertisement for himself: after citing Norman Mailer's critical about-face on Waiting for Godot, Mamet begins his article with two entirely gratuitous paragraphs about a prize he once won for writing "the world's most perfect theatrical review" for New York Magazine. He then proceeds to write an entirely favorable, if not perfect review of his own very theatrical sense of self-congratulation, suggesting that the sham political stance that Mamet has now discarded was less an adherence to a certain set of principles, or even doctrine, than the calculated pose of an ambitious young careerist who pantomimed the opinions of his peers in the manner of a young trophy wife taking a superficial interest in her mogul husband's hobbies and business ventures. "When in Rome. . ." could have been Mamet's career-defining mantra while he was weighing his Hollywood options.

While never a keen observer of politics, young Mamet was undoubtedly shrewd enough to notice that his chosen vocation, with its poor at best prospects for financial success and its roots in revolutionary social movements, was hardly hospitable terrain for the conservative viewpoint. He might have bristled at its "fey" conventions, striking the occasional "maverick" pose by admitting to his misogyny and his "liberal" use of the F bomb, but he was content it seemed, to align himself with his left leaning peers, no doubt daunted by the critical fall out that would ensue had he pursued his long held dream of re-working Beckett into a vehicle for Jerry Bruckheimer.

That the author of a body of work best summed up as "Penis Monologues" is not only a dick head, but a paid shill for neo-con cause shouldn't come as any real surprise for anyone who has seen "The Unit", Mamet's prime time wet kiss to US military interventions, and the highly trained grunts who commit its most egregious abuses, with the added twist of focusing in part on the wives holding down the fort as their menfolk battle evil-doers and the neglected household chores that await them after each mission.

Mamet's rather unspectacular public denouement of his former political stance has all the controversy of Paris Hilton announcing that her next career move involves a stripper's pole. His conversion to the "dark side' should hardly elicit shock to anyone who doesn't define a political ideology to a set of superficial lifestyle choices and the casually formed, inconsistent opinions one develops in the course of a lifetime devoted to non-thinking. Even low-rent turncoat David Horowitz could lay claim to an element of surprise in his public apostasy stunt, had his irrelevance not gotten in the way of an otherwise lucrative career "outing" academics and baiting Muslims.

In summary--and it's very easy to summarize--Mamet's transformation from "brain dead liberal" to mature, thoughtful conservative is based on the following clichés:

As a "child of the '60s," the "liberal" Mamet assumed that the government was corrupt, that big business exploits human beings in the name of profit, and that "people are generally good at heart."

At some point, Mamet's wife helped him (although it's not at all clear how, or why), as they were riding in their car, to the realization that he was a "brain-dead liberal," and that "NPR" (i.e., National Public Radio") really stands for "National Palestinian Radio." (Note: The reference to Palestinians, and the bizarre implication that the mass media is biased in favor of the Palestinians, and therefore, in the minds of the brain-dead, "anti-Semites," is not pursued in Mamet's essay; rather, it dangles awkwardly in the wind, like a smelly sock.) At that moment, Mamet understood the essence of the liberal position--"that everything is always wrong"--and it conflicted with his growing sense that everything is not wrong, indeed, lots of stuff is quite right as rain!

As if to demonstrate the profound truth of this life-transforming insight, Mamet proceeds with an enumeration of various matters that seem, from his perspective, good and righteous about America, but there is something unsettling about his list of things that aren't totally fucked up--perhaps because the list might as well have been cribbed from a high-school freshman's civics homework.

For example, Mamet helpfully observes, the Constitution establishes a separation of powers, and that's a good, no, a "brilliant" thing (when it isn't being subverted by our President with the rubber-stamp endorsement of both houses of Congress); similarly, the current President isn't really all that bad, and not all that different from Presidents Mamet used to admire when he was still brain-dead; and, "the Corporations" (Mamet's quotation marks--as if now, now that he's grown up, any reference to corporate greed and exploitation is necessarily tongue-in-cheek) can't really be so terrible because, after all, they satisfy Mamet's "hunger for those goods and services they provide" (emphasis added).

The newly matured and brain-functional Mamet realizes that just as corporations are actually A-OK, so he was mistaken in believing that people are pretty good overall. Unlike corporations and the military, he now sees that people, in general, "behave like swine"--greedy, lustful, duplicitous, and corrupt.

Finally, Mamet, having outgrown his youthful brain-dead innocence and embraced a healthy, mature skepticism, describes how he began to "question" his youthful distrust of the "Big Bad Military" which is, after all, made up of soldiers "who actually risk their lives to protect the rest of us from a very hostile world"--such as, presumably, Iraq's fearsome arsenal of weapons of mass destruction--and concludes his list of feel-good juvenile clichés and slogans with the rather bizarre but no less juvenile, nonsensical and entirely empty observation that the government, the military and the corporations (this time, sans initial capitalization or quotation marks; this time, he really means it!) "are just different signposts for the particular amalgamation of our country into separate working groups, if you will." What? No, I won't.

Mamet asks (rhetorically), and answers (rhetorically):

"Are these groups [What "groups"? The government working group and the corporation working group? Are we including the military focus group?] infallible, free from the possibility of mismanagement, corruption, or crime? No, but neither are you or I."

Take that, you brain-dead liberals!

After gotten over the "Hey, nobody's perfect!" intellectual hump, Mamet is ready to unleash the full force of his apostastic climax, the lynch pin of his transformation:

"things appeared to me to be unfolding pretty well."

Ergo, you'd have to be "brain-dead" to think otherwise. (One wonders if Mamet was listening to Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, By Happy" as he worked on his essay.)

One of the more disturbing aspects of Mamet's mini-confession is that despite having evolved beyond his liberal brain-dead state, he still seems deeply confused about some pressing issues of political principle, such as how liberals and conservatives are supposed to think of government, i.e., whether it's a good thing or a bad thing.

On page two of his essay, Mamet recalls that during his brain-dead phase, he "accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt" But on page three, he seems to remember the opposite:

"What about the role of government? Well, in the abstract, coming from my time and background, I thought it was a rather good thing"

This volte-face raises the question: Has the brain truly recovered?

In any event, and regardless how Mamet may or may not have thought of government during his early vegetable years, now he knows better: the government "should not intervene"! That is a sign-post of maturity, the mark of a man who isn't brain-dead!

Mamet conceives of his life--and therefore, your life, all lives--as a kind of balance sheet, every event and idea falling either in the credit or the debit column, depending on how it affects David Mamet. Add up the respective totals in each column, and you can find out what you really think, about politics or anything else, for that matter:

"but tallying up the ledger in those things which affect me and in those things I observe, I am hard-pressed to see an instance of where the intervention of the government led to much beyond sorrow." (I'm sure the Iraqis, the Afghanis and the Palestinians would be the first to agree with the formerly brain-dead sage on this, but that doesn't affect David Mamet, so it doesn't count.)

But if the government doesn't intervene, Good Lord!, how will us ordinary folks possibly survive or, like David Mamet, prosper?

Mamet's answer is Zen-like in its simple-mindedness:

"I wondered and read, and it occurred to me that I knew the answer, and here it is: We just seem to."

To "work it all out," that is. Get by. Deal with it. Do OK--for a while at least, until we're dead. That's it. I'm OK--You're OK.

Mamet doesn't identify the ideology ("Brain-Addled Conservatism"?) has replaced his brain-dead liberalism, and his essay provides no insight. He does say that at about the same time as his fateful car ride with his wife (the "National Palestinian Radio ride"), he began reading Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, Shelby Steele, and Thomas Sowell, whom he absurdly refers to as "our greatest contemporary philosopher" (as if to announce to the world that he's never read any philosophy and isn't interested in the subject). These authors have led Mamet to what he calls "a free-market understanding of the world," which he prefers to "that idealistic vision I called liberalism."

One might expect the author to conclude with at least some explanation of why the free-market vision "meshes more perfectly with [Mamet's] experience" than the idealistic vision, but one would be disappointed in that regard: the reference to "free markets," like the reference to "National Palestinian Radio," leads nowhere.

All of which leads to the conclusion that Mamet hasn't really "changed his opinion," as he announces at the outset. Rather, one has the sense that politics doesn't really interest Mamet at all, and perhaps never has, at least as politics is generally understood, namely, as a rational conversation regarding what principles of political philosophy ought to govern our understanding of the world and how the world might be improved.

Perhaps during Mamet's brain-dead phase, he was a "liberal" according to Rush Limbaugh's caricature, that is, someone who resents the success of others, expresses that resentment as a phony appeal to the "common good," and is all to happy to repudiate the notion of a "common good," and thus "liberalism," as soon as he or she achieves sufficient material success to replace resentment with self-satisfaction. This sort of thing happens often enough, but why take the next step of trying to justify to the world one's decision to sell out, as if the world is to blame, always and inevitably in the form of an all too public announcement that one has finally "grown up"?

In David Mamet's case, I don't believe it for a minute.

Stella Dallas can be reached at lout1956@gmail.com

Jennifer Matsui can be reached at: jenmatsui@mac.com

It is with great sadness that we say good bye to Keith Foskin, a good friend, a very talented painter, educator and all round extraordinary person. On February 3rd, Keith died of a heart attack while skiing in Colorado. He was only 51. I never met Keith in person, but he was a long time pen pal, and best friend of my good friend, Bill, who kindly put us in touch with one another, as one political junkie to another. To say that he was generous, sensitive, kind, brilliant, and funny comes out sounding like a cliche, but in Keith's case, it's all true.

But I will leave the final word to Bill who wrote this:

Keith was a fabulous painter, web designer, and political activist. He was involved in a number of anti-war events in the US over the past several years and exhibited his work widely. I thought I would share some links of Keith's work and views. He was part of a Ground Zero Memorial exhibition:

http://www.911-groundzero.org/wow/gallery/f/foskin.html

Some other recent exhibits and images:

http://abstractearth.com/displayitems.asp?discipline=Painting_-_Drawing&layout=&page=37&item_medium=All%20Mediums&item_type=All%20Types
http://www.njc.edu/liberalarts/events.html
http://ilidio.150m.com/pessoal/Pintura/pintura1.htm

And here's a broader collection of Keith's work:

http://www.colostate.edu/Colleges/LibArts/kf/

And a recent course syllabus:

http://www.colostate.edu/Colleges/LibArts/kf/class/dada.html

And the news of his passing:

http://media.www.collegian.com/media/storage/paper864/news/2008/02/05/News/Csu-Staffer.Dies.While.Skiing-3188370.shtml
http://www.today.colostate.edu/index.asp?url=display_story&story_id=1003835

Keith was an incredible individual with an intense passion and concern for others. He had an enormously warm heart and was remarkably humble about himself. This has been a devastating and heartbreaking loss for myself and Keith's many close friends, so I thought I would share both my grief and more importantly, Keith's fine work.

(Photo courtesy of Rick Kastelein)

See original here:

http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/1894/81/

A quick word of thanks to all of you who took the time to drop us a line chez Cryptoir to express your opinions on 'Electric Larryland'. That includes the commentariat over at Dissident Voice and Smirking Chimp, and the Counterpunch readers who wrote to us directly.

We'd also like to thank Jeff Tiedrich of Smirking Chimp, Rick Kastelein of Atlantic Free Press, Jeffrey St Clair of Counterpunch and the 'Axis of Editors' over at Dissident Voice.

To the surly reader who demanded to know what my "qualifications" were, I can only reiterate here. . . none whatsoever. I didn't know you needed a license to write about Larry King. I thought it was enough that I watched the first three episodes of America's Top Model Season 1. Now I know why my resumes are always returned to me shredded. As for my co-author Carl, you can find his previously published work over on the comments section of perezhilton.com He's the guy who always writes "First" and "OMG, Britney is such a skank". Based on his witty and insightful commentary, I just knew I had found a kindred spirit, so I tracked him down and asked him if he wanted to co-write an article with me on Larry King. I didn't ask to see his license. It was enough that he showed up to our top-secret meeting at the Olive Garden in his 'Team Aniston' T-shirt.

If there is one reason to watch 'Larry King Live - unrelated, that is, to a perverse pleasure in testing the limits of banality and tedium to life-threatening extremes - it's the chance to play "Are You Optimistic? - a drinking game based on the CNN host's Tourette's-like penchant for asking his squirming guests if he/she is "optimistic". For the uninitiated viewer, this usually occurs whenever 'The King of Talk' has run through his entire repetoire of non-sequiter softball questions before his hour of dead airtime is up, thus opening up the playing field for a spirited round of blood alcohol poisoning that the whole family can enjoy. And unless you enjoy the thrills of competitive flatlining, watching this Gab-Fest equivalent of a frontal lobotomy (without the benefit of a bottle in front of you) is like having to endure, fully conscious, botched brain surgery performed by a Borscht belt hack on the back alley abortion circuit. And being fully sober throughout an entire episode of LKL means being unable to fully appreciate the mawkish, shlock appeal of Larry, CNN's even dumber 'Cable Guy'.

If you are not yet familiar with this updated version of a perennial party favorite based on the CNN host's trademarked interview technique, the rules are simple: The players have to take a slug of Pruno (or some other lethal brand of bathtub gin) every time LKL's befuddled old host manages to rouse himself from his mid-interview snooze to growl, apropos of nothing, "Are you optimistic?" Some of you may remember this game as 'WMD' (What Me Drunk?) where each player takes a shot of Rum and Ectasy-spiked Kool-Aid every time Bush quacked out the words "Weapons Of Mass Destruction" during the build up to the invasion of Iraq.

Whether it's the revolving cast of 'Dancing With the Stars' or Bob Woodward on the "hot seat", (or whatever you call the plush, mink-upholstered, vibrating Barcalounger LKL's guests recline on during their "interview") they will inevitably have to brace themselves for a barrage of smoke filled soap bubbles lobbed at them by a hideous mutant hybrid of Grandpa Simpson and Junior Soprano

Presumably, Larry's now trademarked non-sequiter gives him a chance to inject an air of "gravitas" into a program that normally revolves around a game of footsie between the sycophantic host and someone connected, however peripherally, to the missing/murdered white girl du jour. Or just as frequently, anyone outside of a mausoleum or oxygen tent who has ever tapped Angie Dickinson. Seemingly, Larry doesn't conceal his preference for guests whose careers peaked during the Eisenhower era over his network's in-house stable of pundits and "experts" who are grudgingly invited on to his show to share their insights on topics ranging from the latest extreme weather disaster to Hillary Clinton's chances for the White House. You get the feeling that if Larry had his way, his "political team" would be made up of Bindi Irwin, Don Rickles and the ghost of Natalee Holloway (with Wolf Blitzer filling in for Bindi on the days she had to attend Brownie camp).

If the purpose of every mainstream TV and radio host is to define the framework within which people are allowed to think and ask questions, then Larry, like Oprah, simply strip that function down to a bare minimum in much the same way ketchup can be considered, technically speaking, a "vegetable". Remarkably, no one on his show (at least to my knowledge) has ever replied to this oft-blurted question in the negative*, no doubt mindful of the unwritten rule that they stick to reciting whatever upbeat, power-serving sound bites are making the rounds of the talk show circuit that week. Political discourse within the narrow parameters of America's corporate media is a hologram facsimile of a democracy, where the "players" (those carefully cultivated specimens from some corporate funded think tank) intone pre-scripted, self-help based bromides from little Larry or tiny Tim Russert's Fisher-Pryce teleprompters.

The inevitable, "Are you optimistic?" -- has the advantage of connoting seriousness in a way that soothingly resonates throughout the nation's McMansions and 'Double Wide' trailers alike, offering a brief, highly controlled respite from the "all terror all of the time" imperative of network and cable news. In 'Larry Land', and elsewhere on the American McMedia landscape, the world's more pressing problems (or in the less 'inflammatory' parlance of the day, "issues") from melting polar caps to African genocide are shrink-wrapped into easily digestable nuggets of conventional thinking labeled as wisdom - all grist for the magical thinking mill.

According to a March 2005 New York Times' profile of CNN president Jon Klein, the network was seeking "to spend less time reporting the news of the day" (Huh?) and focusing more on "emotionally gripping, character-driven narratives pegged to recent events". Thus, the government's runaway spending became 'Runaway Bride', while coverage of the world's troubled spots becomes more and more focused on the high-profile personalities who organize the money-raising minstrel shows for their suffering populations. Although CNN continues to hemmorage viewers under his stewardship, "Kleinie" (unlike FEMA's unfortunate "Brownie) will continue to be rewarded for doing "a heck of a job"... increasing FOX's numbers.

Arguably, Goebbels himself couldn't have come up with a better dog and pony show than LKL to instill a conditioned, non-response in the citizenry that comes with an imaginary proximity to power, and the illusion of engaging in the democratic process through "live" phone calls, all carefully screened to maintain a sealed echo chamber like atmosphere. This aspect of talk-based media is enhanced in the participatory format perfected by Rush Limbaugh and his countless blowhard imitators who are able to convince their listeners that acting against their own interests is imperative to the continuing survival of the "free world". Here is proof that Democracy is not only alive and well, but that we – meaning us Dittoheads – are a part of it! We have a voice, even if it amounts to a collective, "Ditto", or gushing praise for Larry from a caller in Nebraska.

Whether the subject is global warming or celebrity drunk drivers, you can count on Larry to mask his ignorance of the subject matter by dumbing the conversation down to a level that even a none-too bright hotel heiress would insist was "too banal" and "an insult to single-celled invertebrates everywhere". "OK", you're thinking, "So he's as dumb as a bag of wilted turnips, but at least no one can accuse him of playing the kind of "Gotcha" journalism" that occurs the moment a high-profile personality says something revealing, or worse, honest. When Jimmy Carter momentarily veered off-script to compare Israel's race-based policies to Apartheid, he was roundly condemned by the establishment media, who used the opportunity his "gaffe" afforded to play "hard ball" with the Nobel laureate, launching an endless tirade of indignation and the kind of tough questioning that was curiously absent in the build up to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Carter's extended "Ooops!-moment" confirmed what we already knew, namely, that when the truth is spoken in America's political culture, it is always a gaffe, an embarrassing slip of the tongue, that must be atoned for by way of repeated public apologies, if not a month-long visit to a Hollywood rehab facility. It must have been a relief for the beleaguered former President to appear on Larry King Live to chat amiably off-topic about his charity projects and vineyards.

Apart from offering an alternative to controversy, Larry puts his guests through a grindingly dull regimen of aroma therapy-based treatments as pioneered by Oprah and practiced throughout the American mass media landscape. Should any of his guests actually step out of their assigned roles as Empire's keynote motivational speakers, offering something other than a cautiously upbeat assessment of current events, watch how quickly the half-napping host will rouse himself out of his stupor long enough to steer the conversation away from the less choppy waters of unguarded truth telling, while surreptitiously passing a "Do not invite back" note to his producer.

Still, if you are willing to play non-contact nerf ball, a guest spot on LKL offers even the most washed up, irrelevant "personality" a chance to appear serious and meaningfully engaged with the hot button issues of the day. To be fair, not many could resist an invitation to occupy a coveted place at Larry's table, where such luminaries like the dudes who almost sperminated Anna Nicole Smith have held court before you to expound authoritively on the awesomeness of optimism and the role it has played in their meteoric rise to the bottom of the celebrity food chain.

Perhaps it's to Larry's credit that he doesn't really differentiate between a Hoochie-Mama Has-Been actress and a former US Secretary of State under Nixon. For a former Thigh Master spokesperson, being confused with, say, the Dalai Lama on a prime-time news (sic) program is less an embarassment than a career-defining moment - up there with banging Dr Phil in Oprah's green room. And if you are Henry Kissinger, having the 'King of Shlock" compliment you on your latest boob job is a small price to pay for not being cross-examined at the Hague about your war criminal past. And if you can stand having your "rack" fiercely ogled, while sitting nipple to eyeball with the goblin-like host perched between the gothic spires of his own shoulder blades - and better yet, if you still manage somehow not to collapse in a fit of giggles - there's always an open door invitation to flog your latest policy initiative and/or QVC jewelry collection from the comfort of Larry's revolving, heart-shaped desk.

If anything, Larry is an equal opportunity fame whore. So even if your your celebrity is the kind that comes with being second runner up on 'So You Think You Can Dance', your brief, flickering fifteen minutes in the spotlight can earn you a permanent spot in his pantheon of assorted establishment movers and shakers from Madeline Albright to Marie Osmond. In this ersatz democratic environment, made up entirely of those who wield power and those who worship it, even "movers and shakers" of the jiggly blonde variety are granted the kind of intellectual and moral authority normally reserved for Nobel physicists and ancient desert prophets.

Understanding how 'The King of Talk' has attained the status (according to one media expert at least) of "world-renown (sic) journalist" (sic)

http://socialitelife.com/2007/06/23/tune_in_to_larry_king_wednesday_night_for_his_interview_with_paris_hilton.php

requires further rumination on how shoe-shining for power has become the staple format of talk shows, and indeed, the national pastime, where cozy banter between elites passes for genuine and substantive dialogue on subjects that profoundly effect our lives (healthcare, social security, employment, public education etc. . .) Wolf Blitzer requesting that those Republican presidential candidates to raise their hands if they believe in evolution doesn't inspire dialogue so much as ridicule. But sadly, this passes as serious journalism in elite circles, just as empty slogans like "The Audacity of Hope" has become a clarion call for non-action by yet the latest corporate shill on the Democratic party presidential ticket.

As Americans' faith in their political institutions continues to wane, (according to recent polls, the number of Americans who trust Congress is about the same as the number who admit to beating their wives) TV and radio talk shows provide false affirmation that we have a role in determining the direction of public policy. Increasingly, though, "public policy" is limited to what extent the law can punish Mexican workers and the "Girls Gone Wild" segment of the population.

In an age when the only guaranteed formula for political success at the national level is to alternately and seamlessly terrorize the voting public with more or less imaginary threats of mass extinction, temporary relief always comes in the form of the latest feel-good, victim-blaming nostrum as dictated from Oprah Central. An invitation to appear on 'Larry King Live' (or for that matter, 'Meet the Press' or 'Hardball') is only accepted on the tacit understanding that certain topics (for example, those that most affect the lives of ordinary Americans) are only touched upon, and only then to emphasize "personal responsibilty" within a narrow framework of "bi-partisan" initiatives.

Since the public has largely given up on their expectations that the mainstream media fulfill its essential role as the peoples' watchdog and political conscience, relentless chit-chat sessions like LKL, Oprah, and even Letterman serve an even more vital function: to provide the illusory assurances that, unlike some forsaken creature clinging to survival on a drifting ice-cap as the planet hurtles towards extinction, we will somehow endure, shopping bags and credit ratings intact - at least long enough to find out whether or not Larry King will ask Paris Hilton if she's optimistic.



*The rules of the LKL drinking game requires that if one of Larry's guests should ever snap back at him with some version of "No, goddamn it, I'm pessimistic as hell. And if you ask me that one more time, I'll shove your shrunken vulture head even further down your spinal column", participants will have to chug-a-lug a chaser of bong water after downing a triple shot of meth-laced Pruno.)

. . . continued (temporarily out to lunch)

Boys Just Wanna Have Guns

We should have seen it coming. The signs were in evidence at every turn; flashing neon billboards displaying a clear message that this particular individual was gearing up for mass bloodshed and carnage on a scale that would defy even the most gruesome of imaginations. But when all is said and done in the spirit of remorseful hindsight, who among us could have really predicted that he would erupt like this in a spectacular display of homicidal frenzy, unparalleled in its cruelty and senselessness? Beneath that placid seeming surface, few would have imagined that this creepy little non-entity harbored so much insane rage. Then again, Senator John McCain's recent remarks before an audience of South Carolina veterans about blowing up Iran were over-shadowed by another extremely disturbed individual with similar views on gun ownership.

Indeed, the "straight shooter" from Coco Solo and the cuckoo stealth shooter from Seoul have more in common than the curious coincidence of their births outside the US on turf bearing similar names and a heavy American military presence. More relevant, perhaps, is their shared fondness for macho posturing, not to mention an overblown, absurdly dramatic prose style that reveals a narcissistic pre-occupation with proving to the world that their smoldering resentments have deadly consequences.

'Richard McBeef', the play Virginia Tech shooter Seung Hui Cho submitted to his understandably appalled English professor spelled out in stark terms its author's seething contempt for humanity and a wholly unjustified sense of self-importance, while "Character is Destiny", the woefully ironic title of John McCain's most recent contribution to Barnes and Noble's discount table, laid out an equally corrupted worldview similarly predicated on fiction. By my reckoning, at least, Cho deserves higher marks for originality than his more banal and prolific counterpart:

McCain: "As a governor and senator, John Chafee set the standard for honesty and decency that the rest of us on our best days could only dream to emulate. "

Cho: "You prematurely ejaculating piece of dickshit."

The imaginary poetry slam continues as The Manchurian Candidate steps up to the plate. . .: (italics)

"Remember the words of Chairman Mao: 'It's always darkest before it's totally black"

. . . only to be slapped down again by 'Ismael Axe': (italics)

"I wonder why it's so sunny out. Today is one fruity day".

Encouraged by the audience's frenzied cheers, 'Ismael' gives them the raised hammer "Seoul Patrol" signal and moves in for the "kill". (italics)

"I hate him. Must kill Dick. Must kill Dick. Dick must die. Kill Dick."

Sadly for the the deceased playwright, the trophy for Best Performance By An Unhinged Asshole goes to the Beat Bard of the Beltway for his inspired riff on a Beach Boys classic: (italics)

"Bomb, bomb, bomb. . . Bomb, bomb Iran".

Special honors go to George W. Bush aka POTUS43, who scored an impressive slam dunk with his free association musings on chicken plucking, area rugs and "poofing" polls, beating out Don Imus and Alec Baldwin in the 'Hell Hath no Fury Like a Rich, Pissed-Off White Guy' category. (italics)

Whether or not Senator McCain is considering "Polls just go poof." "Remember the rug?" or even "Today is one fruity day" (my personal fave) as a replacement slogan for his next campaign bus tour remains to be seen, although some would insist that "The Straight Jacket Express" seems a more apt definition of his careening weiner cart's head-on collision with destiny as much it describes his increasingly loosening grip on reality.

Perhaps it's not entirely surprising that both the "maverick" senator from Arizona and the campus "loner" and spree killer from Virginia were able to remain mostly under the radar of mental health professionals and law enforcement agencies. After years of torments (both real and imaginary) at the hands of torturers and playground bullies, it was arguably only a matter of time before their rage would reach critical mass. The signs were certainly in evidence before either of these maniacs made headlines for their spectacular, public acts of self-immolation. John McCain's alleged but never proven homosexuality cost him his party's nomination in 2004, and it's highly probable that Seung Hui Cho's parents and classmates would have been more pro-active with their concern over his increasingly erratic behavior if it had included, say, a sudden fancy to nail polish.

It doesn't take an expert on Freud to recognize how both Cho and McCain, whether stalking their human prey" in the jungles of Vietnam or through the corridors of academia, exhibit(ed) an unhealthy fascination with the overt trappings of masculinity. Or that both men's wounded sense of manhood resulted in bizarre media-generated diatribes, noteworthy for the seemingly unprovoked nature of their attacks upon innocent civilians both real and gruesomely envisioned. As a nation, we are more threatened by "effiminate" traits in males than we are by their overt displays of testosterone fuelled rage.

Ironically, both made recent headlines wearing flak jackets with comically unintended results. Cho was described by one witness as looking like a "boy scout" (a description highly at odds with his intended persona of an "edgy" arthouse cinema anti-hero) while McCain's suffered a similar styling fiasco during a recent photo-op that was intended to make him look a mercenary gunslinger from an L.L. Bean catalogue. Unfortunately, his overly-accessorized stroll through a deserted Baghdad market inspired at least one comparison of the cocky little Senator from Arizona to Truman Capote, the "tiny terror" of Manhattan in reference to his unfortunate choice of a long, flowing scarf and sunglasses to complement his bad-ass Baghdaddy ensemble . Whether or not the ensuing ridicule caused the author of "Breakfast is Destiny" to erupt in a homicidal rage aimed at the Iranian people will no doubt spur debate among armchair Generals and fashionistas for years to come.

It's all quiet on the Cryptoir front as we bid a fond farewell to 'Stella', who has taken a temporary leave of absence to pursue her life long dream of telemarketing. Thanks to breakthrough technology in denture fittings, she is eager to exploit her newly discovered vocal abilities after years of doing little more with her mouth than sucking the icing off 'Little Debby Snack Cakes', and yelling 'Bingo' in crowded, smoke filled theatres. Texas, as it turns out, is the only state where she can realize her career ambitions, owing to some loophole in the law that will protect her from the long arms and battering rams of bounty hunters. We wish her all the best in her new home, conveniently located within one minute driving distance to 'The Olive Garden' where her newly paroled paramour works the salad bar. Unless you are Stella, none of this will make any sense whatsoever, so I apologize, dear reader, if you have wasted your precious eyeball fluids trying to make heads or tails of this piece of highly encrypted nonsense. To 'Stella', I miss you terribly. Bingo nights just aren't the same without you hollerin' "fire" before Phyllis Pinchberry can claim her prize.

Holy Mother of Chocolate Jesus. . . After almost 24 hours, 'The 'Black Snake Moan' article is still provoking a lot of outrage and invective from Misogyny Central's troll brigade on 'Smirking Chimp. It seems that white, "liberal" dudes (and their humorless, irony-deficient womenfolk) get severely bent out of shape when sexual politics are brought up by (cue up 'Psycho' shower scene soundtrack violins here) a female! You'd think that I had reproduced 'Mein Kampf' here, instead of a satire-laced takedown of a recent film's rather laughable premise. But something tells me this particular crowd wouldn't know Mein Kampf from 'Mein Humps', and trying to explain the difference to them is about as worthwhile an endeavour as trying to explain quantum theory (or even NASCAR) to a single cell amoeba.

Does one really have to sit through 'Deep Throat' before one can say with any certainty that it's not a movie about tonsilectomies? Truth be told, 'BSM' isn't even playing yet in my neck of the world. But something tells me I don't need to shell out the yen equivalent of $20 to figure out that the idea of some dude chaining up some woman for "her own good" is a really, really dumb fucking idea for a movie.

Experience tells me that a film so wrong on so many levels must either be a masterpiece, (Think DW Griffith's 'Broken Blossom' or John Waters' 'Female Troubles) or more predictably, an abomination on celluloid on par with 'Philadelphia', 'Forrest Gump' and 'Driving Miss Daisy'. It's probably bad form to comment on a film that I haven't even seen, but the reviews of 'Black Snake Moan' (with very few exceptions) glaringly overlook one simple question: Why does a woman who has been gang-raped, and presumably abused all her life, require of all things, "redemption"? For the same reason, it turns out, an HIV positive man has to confess his "shame" in a crowded courtroom for succumbing to a one night stand (Philadelphia), and a promiscuous woman has to succumb to HIV and a sexless, guilt-induced marriage to her mentally challenged suitor (Forrest Gump). In other words, how else will cineplex audiences engage emotionally with characters outside the sexual mainstream, however blameless, unless their transgressions are tearfully atoned for through death and abject obeisance to middle-class values? Or as 'Back Snake Moan' helpfully suggests, forced confinement and cough syrup.

The story as far as I can make out involves Lazarus, (resurrected here as Samuel L. Jackson) a bitter bluesman seeking salvation by forcing a gang-rape rape victim (Rae) to be his involuntary houseguest until valuable lessons about abstinence are learned through a tough love regimen of blues music, steak dinners, and yes, cough syrup. You see, it just so happens that Rae (played by Christina Ricci) has miraculously appeared on Lazarus's driveway like some Bratz doll version of roadkill, thus setting the plot in motion for a complex, densely atmospheric meditation on what it would be like to have a chick chained to your refrigerator. As you may have guessed, Rae is a feral, white trash nympho in desperate need of a firm, godly hand to offer her "salvation." The filmmaker was obviously inspired by the gospels of Maxim Magazine: "Hate the sinner - love her tits, though".

Director Craig Brewer offers up his "edgy" 'Blue Velvet(een)' vision of rural Tennessee as viewed through the wrap-around shades of Hollywood's latest slick white hipster purveyor of "ghetto" cinema. That it's a vision worthy of a black velvet painting hung over a motel water bed shouldn't distract one from the artistic merits of Christina Ricci's exposed midriff. We can only hope that the upcoming 'Director's Cut' will include the edited out scene of Samuel L. Jackson in white grease paint serenading his weeping floozy with a karaoke machine rigged up from a beer cooler and jumper cables a la David Lynch in one of his more more surreal cinematic asides. But more likely, it was pitched to the suits and bean counters in some overly air-conditioned, cubist monstrosity LA office as 'Driving Miss Daisy' as interpreted by the makers of '9 and a 1/2 Weeks'.

Following a long line of tortuously obvious symbolism, lessons in tough love are presented here as a bitter elixir remedy that when repeatedly rammed down the throat, will eventually yield an aversion to fellatio. This is 'Holywood', after all, and BSM is just the latest in a long line of "sin flicks", where tired biblical conventions like "redemption" and "salvation" are an excuse to punish "Women Who Love (cock) Too Much".

Maybe I'm missing something here, but it seems to me that Rae's rapists would be more deserving candidates for a "tough love" whooping at the hands of a sexual "redeemer". Curiously, Justin Timberlake's character is also exempt from Lazarus' biblically ordained bitch slappings, despite his voluntary enlistment in that supreme institution of unbridled male aggression that is similarly presided over by a deluded 'Decider' on a mission from God. I suppose that we are meant to believe that the cuckolded cracker is going off to I-Raq to build schoolhouses for little blind leper children. Not that we really need that added dollop of bathos to the already stirred-up pot of sympathy we are meant to feel for Rae's fiance Ronnie, reluctantly leaving his hotted-up bride-to-be to battle her inner-demons alone - armed with only cut-off jeans and a shortie, shrunken T-shirt. Or maybe the dude just doesn't want to be hitched (Get it? Hitched!) to the town pump, and willing to sacrifice life and limb to delay his dreaded fate as man-meat for some redneck Bridezilla.

In any case, Ronnie's early departure to boot camp clears the way for Rae to involuntarily enlist in her own private 'Booty Camp', where the recently-risen-from-a-bad-hangover Lazarus will put her through the paces of aversion therapy. (Make no mistake about it: The US would be celebrating victory in I-Raq by now if it weren't for homefront 'ho's like Rae, serial-cheating on poor bullet stoppers like Ronnie, who, in all statistical probability will be bringing home more than just his dick in a box.) Never mind that his "service" ultimately perpetuates a system that ensures people like them remain vulnerable to the predations of poverty and ignorance. Of course, we wouldn't want to confuse the film's obviously "deeper" meaning (Christina Ricci sure looks hawt tied to some dude's dog house in her itty bitty T-Shirt) by raising the specter of politics, or God forbid, feminism. This is after all, "art" with a capital 'A' and its "visionary" premise of subverted "race" roles (black guy wields the instruments of his oppression to "liberate" a young, white woman from her carnal urges) should be enough to ease the the viewer's discomfiture with the odd notion that restraining devices - those hideous legacies of slavery and Jim Crow - can be transformed cinematically into steamy boudoir accroutements.

"Irrelevant" politics aside, the message here is that "sluttiness", or what some would simply consider a robust female libido, is a punishable disease, and only "curable" at the hands of a stern patriarch "decider" whose remedy involves steak and cough syrup. Being force fed dripping cuts of freshly slaughtered meat, it turns out, is just the thing for a girl who has performed the 'tube steak boogie' one time too many in her short and wretched life. And cough syrup? Presumably, the recycled metaphor here has something to do with all the 'whooping'.

Chalk it up to fuzzy feminist logic, but it seems to me that a crime victim would be better served by a gavel-wielding judge delivering a guilty verdict to her rapists in a courtroom, rather than a chain-wielding creepy loner dishing out divine justice in a cabin. But I suppose I am overlooking the broader, "artistic" message conveyed to Black Snake Moan's young, white male demographic through a scantily clad slutbot tethered to a beer cooler.

We can perhaps attribute the film's questionable take on justice, where the victim is forced to atone for the sins of the rapists, while the perpetrators avoid sentencing in some vengeful, vigilante dude's livingroom to the fact that the filmmakers considered the dearth of erotic possibilities in Samuel L. Jackson shackling a gang of violent yobs to his radiator while regaling them with his guitar. In all fairness, one only has to consider the tortuously convoluted plot lines required to explain why Mr Beau-Duelling-Banjos would have in his possession multiple sets of police restraints. And of course, the more burning question would remain: Just who would wear the hot pants in this extended, dysfunctional family unit made up of an elderly vegetable farmer and his motley, mulleted, homegrown chain-gang? It would take the Coen brothers to figure that one out.