Pamela “Shrug” Geller‘s group “American Freedom Defense Initiative” now has this ad running on buses in San Francisco:

Oddly, this mirrors Ayn Rand’s opinion on the matter also:

“If you mean whose side one should be on, Israel or the Arabs, I would certainly say Israel because it’s the advanced, technological, civilized country amidst a group of almost totally primitive savages who have not changed for years and who are racist and who resent Israel because it’s bringing industry, intelligence, and modern technology into their stagnation.” Ayn Rand, “Donahue”, 1979

The best thing you can say about Ezra Pound is that he was a brilliant polymath that influenced the artistic direction of a large share of the 20th century. The worst you can say about him is that he was a racist and a fascist with an over-inflated sense of his own abilities.

But just because Ezra Pound was an overbearing asshole doesn’t mean that he didn’t have some insight.

In a 1943 radio speech over one of his Mussolini sponsored radio broadcasts, he said:

” It is the usurer’s game to hurl the savage against the civilized opponent. The game is not pretty, it is not a very safe game. It does no one any credit.”

Ezra Pound was being Frankie Carbone to Geller’s Tommy DeVito by pointing out the niceties of the game being played. Geller, Rand before her and many others keep playing this game that do none of us any good.