Pinter Blasts Bush in Acceptance Speech

[daddyphatsax]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051207/wl_uk_afp/nobelliterature

Harold Pinter's acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature was excellent. Best part is here:

"The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala,
El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force of universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis."

Comments?

-If anyone is wondering about my stand on this (I see the SS mod post), I definitely agree with Pinter and I think Bush should be tried as a war criminal.

 

[Genx87]

Everything is Bush or America's fault. I bet this guy doesnt wipe his arse right in the morning, gets a shat stain in his panties in the afternoon and manages to find a way to blame everybody but himself.

 

[Steeplerot]

Originally posted by: Genx87
Everything is Bush or America's fault. I bet this guy doesnt wipe his arse right in the morning, gets a shat stain in his panties in the afternoon and manages to find a way to blame everybody but himself.

:roll: You sure told em rush jr!

 

[techs]

Unfortunately the guy has a very good point.
It is indisputable that the number one supporter of dictatorships in the world is the United States.
Only a blind fool would look at the US support for dictatorships with money, arms, expertise, etc and say we are not the number one enabler of dictatorships.
Even in the Middle East where we are supposedly bringing democracy countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc, etc are dictatorships that only survive with US support.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: techs
Unfortunately the guy has a very good point.
It is indisputable that the number one supporter of dictatorships in the world is the United States.
Only a blind fool would look at the US support for dictatorships with money, arms, expertise, etc and say we are not the number one enabler of dictatorships.
Even in the Middle East where we are supposedly bringing democracy countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc, etc are dictatorships that only survive with US support.

I think some of the dictatorships were foolish mistakes by our govt trusting people.
Castro wasnt supposed to be a communist dictator but once he got a whiff of power he held on tight.

It doesnt make it right but to act like we as a nation purposefully go out to erect dictatorships makes the issue way too simple.

The ME situation is an economic vs political situation. We could subvert those nations at the expense of the world economy and then our own economy. Or we can support them with the hope they will move in the right direction.

With Iraq however I think it will put added pressure on the ME to start moving towards a more modern political situation. I find it interesting a man so well regarded cant see past his nose and recognize this. But ideology will do that to some people.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

Originally posted by: daddyphatsax
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051207/wl_uk_afp/nobelliterature

Harold Pinter's acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature was excellent. Best part is here:

"The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala,
El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force of universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis."

Comments?

-If anyone is wondering about my stand on this (I see the SS mod post), I definitely agree with Pinter and I think Bush should be tried as a war criminal.

So we should try Dubbya for everything the US has done since WWII? How does that work? And should we line up Clinton, Bush 41, Carter and Ford while we're at it? Maybe we should dig up Ike & Kennedy for good measure too.

What Pinter calls criminal, clinical, manipulation, some might call good foreign policy.

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: techs
Unfortunately the guy has a very good point.
It is indisputable that the number one supporter of dictatorships in the world is the United States.
Only a blind fool would look at the US support for dictatorships with money, arms, expertise, etc and say we are not the number one enabler of dictatorships.
Even in the Middle East where we are supposedly bringing democracy countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc, etc are dictatorships that only survive with US support.

I think some of the dictatorships were foolish mistakes by our govt trusting people.
Castro wasnt supposed to be a communist dictator but once he got a whiff of power he held on tight.

It doesnt make it right but to act like we as a nation purposefully go out to erect dictatorships makes the issue way too simple.

The ME situation is an economic vs political situation. We could subvert those nations at the expense of the world economy and then our own economy. Or we can support them with the hope they will move in the right direction.

With Iraq however I think it will put added pressure on the ME to start moving towards a more modern political situation. I find it interesting a man so well regarded cant see past his nose and recognize this. But ideology will do that to some people.

Last I looked a billion and a quarter Chinese can wake up and say another day under tyranny with the help of the U.S.
Seems we like dictatorships that help US companies make short term profits!

 

[murban135]

There was a little event going on after WWII that you might remember, the Cold War. Sometimes, in order to counter the communists we had to choose the lesser of two evils. Name one post WWII right wing dictator who killed one quarter of the amount of people that the Russians or the Chinese communists killed. When will the apologists for the Communists be accused of war crimes?

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: techs

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: techs
Unfortunately the guy has a very good point.
It is indisputable that the number one supporter of dictatorships in the world is the United States.
Only a blind fool would look at the US support for dictatorships with money, arms, expertise, etc and say we are not the number one enabler of dictatorships.
Even in the Middle East where we are supposedly bringing democracy countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc, etc are dictatorships that only survive with US support.

I think some of the dictatorships were foolish mistakes by our govt trusting people.
Castro wasnt supposed to be a communist dictator but once he got a whiff of power he held on tight.

It doesnt make it right but to act like we as a nation purposefully go out to erect dictatorships makes the issue way too simple.

The ME situation is an economic vs political situation. We could subvert those nations at the expense of the world economy and then our own economy. Or we can support them with the hope they will move in the right direction.

With Iraq however I think it will put added pressure on the ME to start moving towards a more modern political situation. I find it interesting a man so well regarded cant see past his nose and recognize this. But ideology will do that to some people.

Last I looked a billion and a quarter Chinese can wake up and say another day under tyranny with the help of the U.S.
Seems we like dictatorships that help US companies make short term profits!

Yeah and? Maybe you didnt read what I wrote about political vs economic in the ME.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: murban135
There was a little event going on after WWII that you might remember, the Cold War. Sometimes, in order to counter the communists we had to choose the lesser of two evils. Name one post WWII right wing dictator who killed one quarter of the amount of people that the Russians or the Chinese communists killed. When will the apologists for the Communists be accused of war crimes?

The guy is probably still bitter the Soviets lost.

 

[Starbuck1975]

It is indisputable that the number one supporter of dictatorships in the world is the United States.

I would argue that the former Soviet Union is directly or indirectly responsible for some of the worst dictatorships in the world, and has America beat by a landslide.

Last I looked a billion and a quarter Chinese can wake up and say another day under tyranny with the help of the U.S.

Western influences, particularly from the United States, are slowly eroding the fabric of Maoist China, just as it did in Stalin's Russia...Communism, in any of its manifestations, cannot resist the winds of capitalist change...I suppose it is lost on you that the outsourcing of jobs to China is slowly but surely increasing the quality of life in China, and causing social change in all but the most remote of rural areas.

If anyone is wondering about my stand on this (I see the SS mod post), I definitely agree with Pinter and I think Bush should be tried as a war criminal.

Pinter's speech is directly linked to the Cold War foreign policy decisions that instated dictatorships the world over...Bush is not responsible for Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile...Bush did inherit the fallout of those foreign policy decisions, as manifested in the 9/11 attacks...that Bush failed to manage or direct America in a post Cold War world is a criticism you can also direct at his father, and at Clinton...similarly, every President, both Democrat and Republican, since the end of WW2, had a hand in this pie of misdirected foreign policy.

Furthermore, Pinter is writing from the privileged hindsight of history...those foreign policy decisions, at the time, met strategic objectives to defend America's sovereignty, framed within a Cold War mindset. Today we can look back and say "what were they thinking," but decision makers at that time did not have the luxury of fully understanding the ripples of their policies.