For those who missed his speech, my rant in honor of Harold Pinter

[Talismom]

In her beautiful piece from the NYT, Dec. 8,'05, Sara Lyall describes how the playwright Harold Pinter "turned his Nobel Prize acceptance speech...into a furious howl of outrage against American foreign policy".
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120805M.shtml#1

Even after some 25 years of following US foreign and domestic policy in the alternative press and attending congressional subcommittee hearings in the '80s on El Salvador and Nicaragua, I find myself as Ms. Lyall describes Pinter, "bristling with controlled fury", after reading his speech.

How dare these arrogant, bastards commit such horrors in our names, with our hard earned resources and how dare we allow it!? Given my fury and the trouble I have with it, I wonder how my fellow citizens can work and care for their kids and celebrate the holidays and sleep at night without taking responsibility for DOING SOMETHING, ANYTHING to change the situation. Pinter describes how these thugs who call themselves our leaders use language to "keep thought at bay" and how their words form a "voluptuous cushion of reassurance" that "may be suffocating" our "intelligence and critical faculties...". I refuse to sink into that cushion, damn it! I have notified my representatives, some in-person, that I will not go passively, supporting their lame, DLC-type acceptance of this fascist movement but will support alternative candidates if they do not speak out and express their indignation and intention to remedy these wrongs! Even as a minority party they have influences in their own districts and can speak out loudly and clearly in defiance and let people know of the wrongs that the mainstream press will not describe and make people realize how their government is misrepresenting them and being taken over by the corporations!

When I say it, it can be seen as the rantings of a conspiracy theorist. When someone in power uses their power to make an argument and show proof and rally their constituents, it can be seen as strength and righteousness and leadership! Where is the leadership and why can't we muster a movement to take this nation back before it's too late? I hope it isn't too late already. But if it is, I don't care if the bastards read my email and come take me away. I'll fight them with everything I have to the end!


The Nobel Lecture: Art, Truth and Politics
By Harold Pinter
The Guardian UK

Wednesday 07 December 2005

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120805M.shtml

Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been America's favored method. In the main, it has preferred what it has described as 'low intensity conflict'. Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you dropped a bomb on them in one fell swoop. It means that you infect the heart of the country, that you establish a malignant growth and watch the gangrene bloom. When the populace has been subdued - or beaten to death - the same thing - and your own friends, the military and the great corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go before the camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This was a commonplace in US foreign policy in the years to which I refer.

(snip)

The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading - as a last resort - all other justifications having failed to justify themselves - as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.

(snip)

Many thousands, if not millions, of people in the United States itself are demonstrably sickened, shamed and angered by their government's actions, but as things stand they are not a coherent political force - yet. But the anxiety, uncertainty and fear which we can see growing daily in the United States is unlikely to diminish.

(snip)

[neweurope]

1. Keep this kicked - a most important speech!

There were a few threads about it - and I was very surprised how little DUers responded to it. An important speech that was printed everywhere in the world. Reading it is a must. For those who find the first part (about his writing) tedious - skip and read the second half. The second half is only about American and British foreign policies.

--------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[Talismom]

2. Thanks for encouraging others to go to the part about the US.

I had meant to say that also but forgot. Bush to The Hague is right!

[neweurope]

3. Please keep kicking this. It is most important. Printed all over the

world. It should get better known in the US!

------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[Wind Dancer]

4. One can't ignore the words of wisdom spoken by Pinter.

Nice rant, Talismom. I agree with you completely.

He forces even the deepest thinkers to acknowledge the damage done by this country which can only lead to dire consequences. The dumbing down of the public will only serve the elite to further their goals of world domination regardless of the opinions of "focus groups" or opinion polls.

What has happened to our moral sensibility? Did we ever have any? What do these words mean? Do they refer to a term very rarely employed these days - conscience? A conscience to do not only with our own acts but to do with our shared responsibility in the acts of others? Is all this dead? Look at Guantanamo Bay. Hundreds of people detained without charge for over three years, with no legal representation or due process, technically detained forever. This totally illegitimate structure is maintained in defiance of the Geneva Convention. It is not only tolerated but hardly thought about by what's called the 'international community'. This criminal outrage is being committed by a country, which declares itself to be 'the leader of the free world'. Do we think about the inhabitants of Guantanamo Bay? What does the media say about them? They pop up occasionally - a small item on page six. They have been consigned to a no man's land from which indeed they may never return. At present many are on hunger strike, being force-fed, including British residents. No niceties in these force-feeding procedures. No sedative or anaesthetic. Just a tube stuck up your nose and into your throat. You vomit blood. This is torture. What has the British Foreign Secretary said about this? Nothing. What has the British Prime Minister said about this? Nothing. Why not? Because the United States has said: to criticise our conduct in Guantanamo Bay constitutes an unfriendly act. You're either with us or against us. So Blair shuts up.

-snip-

We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'.

How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice. But Bush has been clever. He has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice. Therefore if any American soldier or for that matter politician finds himself in the dock Bush has warned that he will send in the marines. But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and is therefore available for prosecution. We can let the Court have his address if they're interested. It is Number 10, Downing Street, London.

Death in this context is irrelevant. Both Bush and Blair place death well away on the back burner. At least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency began. These people are of no moment. Their deaths don't exist. They are blank. They are not even recorded as being dead. 'We don't do body counts,' said the American general Tommy Franks.

[Talismom]

5. Thanks for posting some more of the speech FDinNC. It was tough

for me to pick out three paragraphs when he said so much that needed to be said.

[kitkat65]

6. Wow. Just, wow.

"A writer's life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We don't have to weep about that. The writer makes his choice and is stuck with it. But it is true to say that you are open to all the winds, some of them icy indeed. You are out on your own, out on a limb. You find no shelter, no protection - unless you lie - in which case of course you have constructed your own protection and, it could be argued, become a politician."

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

7. Patti Smith has Pinter's speech as her top news story

with the following introductory paragraph:

WE SALUTE HAROLD PINTER

Harold Pinter, an outspoken critic of US foreign policy and the war in Iraq, will be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Ill health will prevent him from attending the ceremony in Sweden but his powerful and heartfelt speech will be screened. Below is an excerpt of that speech. We thank him for the depth of his conscience and send him our well wishes.

http://www.pattismith.net/news.html

(So go out and buy the 30th Anniversary Reissue of "Horses" - you won't regret it!)