Harold Pinter acknowledgement speech

[Occhidiangela]

Dear eppie

You are wrong again. I am not defending George Bush in my post. You are reading something into the post that is not there. My aim was to apply some critical analysis to Mr Pinter's speach, to jab at his residence in English "has been" land and false Utopia, and to offer some reality based comments on the utopian standard he chooses to apply to US policy for 60 years.

And still Occhi, I don't understand your way of thinking. Like always, the "the europeans misbehaved before us, so we are also allowed now-theme" is one of your important arguments again.

"Allowed" is not the issue, eppie, "is able and can" is. Powers do things to change the world, for better and worse. I find intriguing his silence, given his utopian standards, on China. He has an axe to grind, and he is using a bully pulpit to grind it selectively. Well, he earned the time and the bully pulpit by winning the prize, so he did. As a political activist, why waste an opportunity?

You probably ask "should" (a subjective assessment) and that is a well asked question. Pinter has done so through out his career as an activist. I asked the same on this forum a few years ago, when I expressed my misgivings about trying to implement democracy in the Mid East at the point of a bayonet, and my belief that Iraq would break into three nations versus one if we went in there.

Why don't you just try not to see everything as a europe against USA problem.

Why don't you try not seeing things as you versus George Bush, I could ask with the same opacity of thought, but I won't.

I will ask you to not see everything I write as anti-European, since it isn't and I'm not. You forget that I lived 9 years of my life in Europe, and like it very much, even though some of the political posturing strikes me as self destructive, false and counterintuitive. Quite a bit of American politics strikes me the same way. :o

Mr Pinter focused his comments in that speech on the US government. Thus, my rejoinder is to him, a Brit not a European, and his deliberate omissions based on the expected audience he was speaking to, the elites of the Nobel committee.

This is not Occhi versus Europe, and indeed, I am not anti Europe, I am anti-Eurotrash, a very small but loud sub set of Europe who whine to the world's ending about the evil empire that is America. When you place yourself in that camp, perhaps unintentionally, during forum conversations by the positions you take, you mistakenly deduce that I must be anti-Europe. I am anti-wanker. :o

At this moment in time there is a government that does nbot play by the rules, so it shoudl be that government that is critisized.

I see, eppie, only America does not play by "the rules." Right. What other bridge are you going to try to sell me? Any "True Scotsmen" around? :P When you spew the slanted saliva that Pinter does in some of his points, you echo his unspoken assertion that "everyone else" plays by the rules, or "a perfect nation does so" which is nonsense. Cheating is rampant, else the Sanctions would have worked and there would be no war . . . I think. Maybe Wolfowitz and FEith and Cheney and a host of others, Bernard Lewis comes to mind, could have come up with another excuse if the Sanctions had worked and been ended under the conditions set by the Security Council. (ya know, the 90 day time limit in 1991?)

Geopolitics is bound very loosely by rules, some of which are poorly enforced, some of which are not enforced, and some of which are unenforceable without resort to force. See my comment on "play is continuous." This is not a football match we are talking about, it is deadly earnest stuff. It gets people killed.

Bad people are everywhere and have always been there. Blaming an entire people for the mistakes of one man is not correct...but he does not do that.

He blames America, and American policy since WW II, although I think you are right in that his ire is aimed at the political class. Where do you think they come from? ;) His charges against the current administration are not without grounds, and you will note that I DID NOT DEFEND them. I even noted that he wasted an opportunity to go after more than Pres Bush. Go back and read the post.

I think you should start thinking more in a "bad things  versus good things" way instead of a "I have to defend George Bush way".

And I think you should not try to put words in my mouth, and make sure you understand what I wrote before you rebut it.

Better yet, how about neither of us tell the other "what to do" OK?

Pinter does far more than cast stones (some well earned, I might add) at the Bush administration, who are new comers: he attacks a whole series of American policies. I choose to rebutt some of his BS, while I agree with some of his points.

Did you not notice the agreements in your speedreading of my post?

Or did you read my entire post? Could it be you assume that "Occhi is posting, he must be slamming Europe." Not well played, eppie. :(

I don't see a point in a Nobel prize for literature.

You have a point there, but since the foundation chooses to spend their money that way, why not? Blowing things up, Nobel's area of excellence, has fallen out of favor with the committee. While I have more respect for the Nobel Prizes for science, let's give Mr Pinter his due. He would not have made the short list of nominees if he weren't very good at what he does -- which he is. B)

PS: Nobel prizes are not infrequently, wait for it, influenced by politics. Go figure! So are the Olympics.

No, eppie, they shouldn't be, but they are, and that is the crux of the biscuit. I find Mr Pinter's outcry too weighted to "should be" versus "are" in the messy continuum of geopolitics.

Occhi

EDIT: How did you interpret this passage of mine? Curious.

In the process of cleaning up Europe's centuries of garbage, and in trying to play at the game as the rules keep changing, America has gotten its hands filthy. America has been heavy handed in Latin and South America since T Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson opened the policy door to embryonic imperial ambitions. He and I would agree on that were we to share a pint. I wonder if the Chinese will get as dirty, in 50 or 100 years, cleaning up our geopolitical garbage. Since they don't waste as much energy in hand wringing, maybe they'll just clean off their hands and get on with it, and hence do it more cost effectively.