05w49:1 Pinter vs. the War Criminals Posted December 10th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 49 number 1 (Pinter vs. the war criminals) ——————————————————————— 2005 Nobel Lecture ‘Art, Truth & Politics’ | Harold Pinter http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture.html “… language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you, the author, at any time. But as I have said, the search for the truth can never stop. It cannot be adjourned, it cannot be postponed. It has to be faced, right there, on the spot. The truth is something entirely different. […] Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any of this territory since the majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed. […] The truth is to do with how the United States understands its role in the world and how it chooses to embody it.”NOTE: with choice of video or text Pinter blasts ‘Nazi America’ and ‘deluded idiot’ Blair | Angelique Chrisafis & Imogen Tilden http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4688521-103690,00.html “The playwright Harold Pinter last night likened George W Bush’s administration to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany, saying the US was charging towards world domination while the American public and Britain’s ‘mass-murdering’ prime minister sat back and watched. Pinter, 72, was at the National Theatre in London to read from War, a new collection of his anti-war poetry that had been published in the press in response to events in Iraq.”article date: June 2003 Bush on the Constitution: ‘It’s just a goddamned piece of paper’ | Doug Thompson http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml “GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the [Patriot] act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. ‘I don’t give a goddamn,’ Bush retorted. ‘I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.’ ‘Mr. President,’ one aide in the meeting said. ‘There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.’ ‘Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,’ Bush screamed back. ‘It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!'” U.S. bans use of torture | CBC http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/12/07/torture051207.html “The White House has tried to argue that rules against torture don’t apply beyond U.S. soil, in places like Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or Afghanistan. But on Wednesday that all changed. Speaking in Kiev, Rice made a definitive statement. ‘Those obligations [against the use of torture] extend to U.S. personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the United States or outside of the United States,’ she said. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said it was ‘about time.’ ‘Shame on us that it took so long for the administration’ to make the determination not to use torture, she said. A Democratic Senator called Rice’s statement an ‘almost total reversal of U.S. policy.'” —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Saturday 10 December 2005 @ 12:58 PM
