Libertarian Librarian

There was much hue and cry when Harold Pinter was chosen, back in October, to be this year's Nobel Lauerate in Literature. Rightwing blogs like Powerline and Michelle Malkin's decried Pinter's vehement opposition to the Blair and Bush coalition and general undying hatred of America. Leftwing blogs, such as Daily Kos and alicublog, generally applauded the selection.

Here's my view, for whatever that's worth. Pinter can write, and was deserving of receiving the award. That said, I will say that I don't like his plays much-- not my style. I should also note that this opinion is based on limited data-- I've only ever actually seen one. But the style has had manifold and long-reaching impacts on playwrights and audiences for decades-- you don't get compared to Samuel Beckett if you suck.

Pinter is also a foaming at the mouth Communist, makes no apologies for it, and is therefore a legitimate target of derision and criticism from people who believe that Communism is a really bad idea that lends itself incredibly well to facistic totalitarianism. Did his radical leftism endear him to the notoriously "progressive" selectors of the Nobel committee? Of course it did. The only really surprising thing about his selection is that it didn't happen sooner.

So what? Well, Pinter is back in the blogosphere, and to a lesser degree the mainstream media, after delivering his Nobel acceptance speech. The speech is described as a "furious howl of outrage" (NYT) and applauded by leftwing blogs around the world, including Daily Kos, Martini Republic (which both bemoan the lack of mainstream coverage of Pinter's rant), Busy, Busy, Busy, and even Boston's NPR blog. Rightwing blog response has been a bit slower, but it is starting to catch up, as Malkin has a brief post, and Right Reason weighs in-- but so far nothing from Little Green Footballs, one of the most virulent Pinter bashers.

So what? Couple of things, I guess. I find it interesting that many folks on the left are embracing Pinter's speech so wholeheartedly. I find it odd that more folks on the right, or even the center, haven't taken issue with his speech. And I found the speech itself fascinating in a number of different ways. Which is why I'm going to talk further about it-- all of this is just preamble. Backstory to give you an idea of who Pinter is and what folks think of him.

I'll cover his speech in two-parts, the first reflecting on the actual literary topics he covers (about a quarter of the whole), and the second reflecting on the political topics.

Listening to Pinter talk about the creative process is fascinating to me because this is completely not how my own creativity is expressed. I know I am not a literary genius, but I do think I have some ability to write interesting, enjoyable stories, so to hear Pinter talk about the characters interacting with him is both foreign and intriguing. Mine simply do not do that. I get flashes of scenes from time to time, and I am often surprised by where the writing takes me, but it is not this sort of organic process that Pinter describes. Other authors, Stephen King notable among them, have described the creative process similarly-- on ongoing interaction between the author, the characters and the plot.

Would my writing be better if my mind worked that way? Maybe-- I do think my fiction would be more prolific, as for me writing is... hard. The end result is very satisfying, and at times the words do seem to flow quite freely, but in general the actual process is hard. I have an idea of the scene I want to capture, but to actually get down on paper what I am, very roughly, imagining can be tedious and time-consuming. Occassionally, even very unsatisfying.

So, fun to hear how a noted literary mind goes about his business. Had Pinter stopped there, it would have been an enlightening speech. Had he proceeded to explain how these basic ideas and interactions with the characters became a polished performance piece, it would have been even more interesting. Sadly, instead, he spends the majority of his speech railing against America and the West in general, and Bush and Blair in particular.

Bother. But alright, since he chose to go that way, I choose to analyze his speech and come to the conclusion that he really ought to stick to plays and shut up about world politics. If only. But no, so here goes:

As every single person here knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq had a relationship with Al Quaeda and shared responsibility for the atrocity in New York of September 11th 2001. We were assured that this was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq threatened the security of the world. We were assured it was true. It was not true.

This tired old thing? Pinter leads with this? His plays may have style and substance, but his political analysis is off to a bad start. One of the reasons for the invasion of Iraq were the likely existence of WMDs-- a reason that was as firmly believed by Bill Clinton as it was by George Bush. It was also only one reason. People on the left never seem to mention the other reasons: Hussein's continued flouting of U.N. resolutions, the liberation of millions of oppressed Iraqis, the support of terror thoroughout the Middle East by Hussein's government. As to the rest. There was a relationship between Al Quaeda and Iraq, Harry, and no direct connection between Iraq and 9/11 was ever claimed. For someone so concerned with other assuring us of what is and isn't true, you are awfully bad at getting the facts straight, Mr. Pinter.

Now Pinter launches into a diatribe about the U.S. role in commiting atrocities around the world during the Cold War. Mostly hyperbole like the following:

Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been America's favoured 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.

Nice. I told you he was a talented writer, didn't I? Malignant growths, gangree, great corporations, etc., etc. Wow, America sucks-- except that there is no evidence here, merely Pinter asserting that it is so. In fact, the only example of this "commonplace" occurrence that Pinter offers is that of Nicaragua, the Sandinistas and the Contras. The Sandinistas were "intelligent, rational and civilized." The Contras were rampaging mobs of killers.

Actually, the Contras probably were frequently rampaging mobs of killers, and our association with them certainly is a dark moment in our history, but lets remember two things. One, the association was revealed and repudiated-- which is a far cry from the "superficially recorded, let alone documented" claim of Pinter-- and two, there is quite a lot of evidence that the Sandinistas were little, if any, better than the Contras. Their government was corrupt, the "democracy" they touted was a farce, and their connections to Cuba and the U.S.S.R. were undeniable.

Further, let's take a look Pinter's unsubstantiated assertion that the Sandinistas were rational and civilized and that "there was in fact no record of death squads under the Sandinista government. There was no record of torture. There was no record of systematic or official military brutality." I did about five minutes of research in the New York Times and Washington Post and found numerous articles to the contrary. Indeed, about the best thing I could find on the Sandinistas was that Nicaragua wasn't as bad as many of it neighboring countries, and that the government that they overthrew was much worse. Rational and civilized. Uh huh.

My basic conclusion here-- Reagan made a mistake, and a bad one, based on his belief that Stalinistic Communism needed to be opposed anywhere and everywhere. Wrong bedfellows-- much like our support of Hussein in the past. It would've been nice if Reagan had admitted and repudiated it, but if this is the key example of a U.S. policy comparable to that of the Soviety Union and other Communist countries... well, perhaps Pinter should stick with literature.

Rambling thoughts follow on the U.S. as salesman, Gitmo, our disregard for the United Nations. Why we should hold the U.N. in high regard is not explained, and the fact that the U.S. pays roughly a quarter of the entire U.N. budget is not mentioned. And while I disagree with Bush's attempt to make "enemy combatants" outside all regulations relating to POWs and/or the Geneva Convention, I made the case to my mother-- who abhorred it-- that our system is built to respond to these types of "exceptions" and self-correct. Which is precisely what it has done. Pinter has apparently never heard of Jose Padilla.

But now we get to the heart of Pinter's demetia-- Iraq and George W. Bush:

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.

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'.

The invasion was a bandit act in the sense that Saddam Hussein was a "bad actor", a bandit, who defied the U.N., stole the U.N.'s money, bribed U.N. officials, killed thousands-- probably hundreds of thousands-- of his own countrymen, tortured thousands more, lived in golden palaces while most of his people were on the verge of starvation, and paid others to blow up Israelis. "Masquerading" as liberation, Harry? So, all those many thousands of Iraqis who voted last week are all in on the charade? The recent poll showing most Iraqis are happy with their lives, that their economic condition is improving, and that they support a democratic government is all just propaganda, Mr. Pinter?

I find it deeply ironic that Pinter would condemn the U.S. bringing "innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people," which seems to me to be a pretty dead-on balls accurate (it's an industry term) description of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. You know-- the guy we put in jail. I would ask Mr. Pinter whom he would prefer to be governed by-- Tony Blair in England, or Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Living in the former, he received a Nobel prize and accolades for his "bravery" from many leftist pundits. Living in the latter-- well, I'd say there's a fair chance he wouldn't be living in the latter, as Saddam would've have made his blathering and irritating self go away. Poof.

Pinter continues:

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.

100,000 dead is a number Pinter likes to throw around. No doubt based on a recent survey done in Iraq. The problem being, of course, that the survey is badly flawed, perhaps fatally so. But accuracy is irrelevant. Realistic statistics are of no moment. As long as we can claim that Bush and Blair are war criminals.

Pinter now reads a poem, actually a rather good one-- since it is not written by Pinter-- and describes it as a "powerful and visceral descripition of the bombing of civilians." So it is. It is also not a bad description of what Saddam Hussein and his cronies did to Iraq. Actually, it is a very good description of what Saddam did to Iraq-- but this is irrelevant because Bush and Blair are the war criminals.

Forward. A litany of how the U.S. has lots of military installations and nuclear warheads. Which is, naturally, bad. Then Pinter throws out this little gem: " What we do know is that this infantile insanity – the possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons – is at the heart of present American political philosophy." Say huh? The heart of our political philosophy? How do you make the logical leap necessary to get from "We have nuclear capacities" to "We'll blow people up with our nuclear capacities if they don't agree with us"? Once again, Pinter should probably stick to literary forms-- because his logic and argumentation capacities are sorely wanting.

But then again, maybe the literary isn't his forte, either. For while his plays may be influential and well regarded, his poetry and attempts at satire are... not. Here's Pinter's satiric "speech" for Bush to deliver to the world:

'God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden's God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam's God was bad, except he didn't have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don't chop people's heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don't you forget it.'

Ye gods, what drivel. How spiteful, trivial, and condescending. It is claptrap like this that makes all of us buffoons here in fly-over country think that the liberal elite are traiterous SOBs who think they're superior to everybody else.

But wait, there's more! Pinter follows up his lovely speech with an even lovelier poem:

Where was the dead body found?
Who found the dead body?
Was the dead body dead when found?
How was the dead body found?

Who was the dead body?

Who was the father or daughter or brother
Or uncle or sister or mother or son
Of the dead and abandoned body?

Was the body dead when abandoned?
Was the body abandoned?
By whom had it been abandoned?

Was the dead body naked or dressed for a journey?

What made you declare the dead body dead?
Did you declare the dead body dead?
How well did you know the dead body?
How did you know the dead body was dead?

Did you wash the dead body
Did you close both its eyes
Did you bury the body
Did you leave it abandoned
Did you kiss the dead body

Which makes me wonder if perhaps I should remove the "literay luminary" portion from the title of this post and just go with "complete moonbat." But then, no doubt many other brave writers find much to applaud in these repetitive, boring and ridiculously unsubtle lines-- much as they did another of Pinter's fine poems, "American Football." Apparently, compulsive fascination with dead bodies, fecal matter, and profanity is all you need to be a literary genius these days.

Sigh. To quote from King Arthur, "You make me sad."

Frankly, anyone who talks about how risky and dangerous it is to be a writer and how "fierce intellectual determination" is needed to restore the dignity of man has rather substantial "grasp of reality" issues. 'Cause last I checked, writing in 21st century England was a tad less dangerous than, well, just about any other profession in the world. Oh, and I generally believe that "fierece intellectual determination" includes trying to see things from multiple perspectives rather than approaching things with firmly set preconceived ideas of who is to blame for what.

Just a thought.

Labels: Politics