Harold Pinter's 2005 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

Here is a link to one of the greatest, most important things I have ever read. In 2005 the great British playwright Harold Pinter won the Nobel prize for literature. I had never heard of him prior to this award, but after reading his acceptance speech he instantly became an idol. It is a beautiful and terrifying exposé of truth in both art and politics, specifically the truth as presented by the US government. Here is one of the most damning excerpts:

"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 for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.

"I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It's a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, 'the American people', as in the sentence, 'I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people.'"

From the beginning of his career Pinter was a staunch opponent of both British and American foreign policy (in fact he would argue that there is no distinction). Sadly we will not be able to read further critiques. He died last year.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture-e.html