Truncated match.
PICList
Thread
'Harold Pinters Speech'
2003\02\04@235818
by
Gareth Bennett
|
The famous English playwright, Harold Pinter's, recent speech at the Turin
University (Nov 2002).:
I am deeply honoured to receive this degree from such a great university.
Earlier this year I had a major operation for cancer. The operation and its
after-effects were something of a nightmare. I felt I was a man unable to
swim bobbing about under water in a deep dark endless ocean. But I did not
drown and I am very glad to be alive. However, I found that to emerge from
a personal nightmare was to enter an infinitely more pervasive public
nightmare - the nightmare of American hysteria, ignorance, arrogance,
stupidity and belligerence; the most powerful nation the world has ever
known effectively waging war against the rest of the world. "If you are not
with us you are against us" President Bush has said. He has also said "We
will not allow the world's worst weapons to remain in the hands of the
world's worst leaders". Quite right. Look in the mirror chum. That's you.
The US is at this moment developing advanced systems of "weapons of mass
destruction" and it prepared to use them where it sees fit. It has more of
them than the rest of the world put together. It has walked away from
international agreements on biological and chemical weapons, refusing to
allow inspection of its own factories. The hypocrisy behind its public
declarations and its own actions is almost a joke.
The United States believes that the three thousand deaths in New York are
the only deaths that count, the only deaths that matter. They are American
deaths. Other deaths are unreal, abstract, of no consequence.
The three thousand deaths in Afghanistan are never referred to.
The hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children dead through US and British
sanctions which have deprived them of essential medicines are never referred
to.
The effect of depleted uranium, used by America in the Gulf War, is never
referred to. Radiation levels in Iraq are appallingly high. Babies are born
with no brain, no eyes, no genitals. Where they do have ears, mouths or
rectums, all that issues from these orifices is blood.
The two hundred thousand deaths in East Timor in 1975 brought about by the
Indonesian government but inspired and supported by the United States are
never referred to.
The half a million deaths in Guatemala, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua,
Uruguay, Argentina and Haiti, in actions supported and subsidised by the
United States are never referred to.
The millions of deaths in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia are no longer referred
to.
The desperate plight of the Palestinian people, the central factor in world
unrest, is hardly referred to.
But what a misjudgement of the present and what a misreading of history this
is.
People do not forget. They do not forget the death of their fellows, they do
not forget torture and mutilation, they do not forget injustice, they do not
forget oppression, they do not forget the terrorism of mighty powers.
They not only don't forget. They strike back.
The atrocity in New York was predictable and inevitable. It was an act of
retaliation against constant and systematic manifestations of state
terrorism on the part of the United States over many years, in all parts of
the world.
In Britain the public is now being warned to be "vigilant" in preparation
for potential terrorist acts. The language is in itself preposterous. How
will - or can - public vigilance be embodied? Wearing a scarf over your
mouth to keep out poison gas? However, terrorist attacks are quite likely,
the inevitable result of our Prime Minister's contemptible and shameful
subservience to the United States. Apparently a terrorist poison gas attack
on the London Underground system was recently prevented. But such an act may
indeed take place. Thousands of school children travel on the London
Underground every day. If there is a poison gas attack from which they die,
the responsibility will rest entirely on the shoulders of our Prime
Minister. Needless to say, the Prime Minister does not travel on the
underground himself.
The planned war against Iraq is in fact a plan for premeditated murder of
thousands of civilians in order, apparently, to rescue them from their
dictator.
The United States and Britain are pursuing a course which can lead only to
an escalation of violence throughout the world and finally to catastrophe.
It is obvious, however, that the United States is bursting at the seams to
attack Iraq. I believe that it will do this - not just to take control of
Iraqi oil - but because the US administration is now a bloodthirsty wild
animal. Bombs are its only vocabulary. Many Americans, we know, are
horrified by the posture of their government but seem to be helpless.
Unless Europe finds the solidarity, intelligence, courage and will to
challenge and resist US power Europe itself will deserve Alexander
Herzen's definition (as quoted in the Guardian newspaper in London
recently) "We are not the doctors. We are the disease". Harold Pinter
---
First They Came for the Jews by Pastor Martin Niemoller
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no-one left to speak out
for me.
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2003\02\05@021101
by
James Newton, webhost
2003\02\05@050633
by
Russell McMahon
|
NO opinions on the erstwhile forbidden subject are expressed herein.
Only an opinion on the acceptability of expressing an opinion.
> Mr. Bennett is no longer with the PICList. Please do not follow his
example.
> Even if you agree with him, this discussion is not for this list. We can
not
> solve the problem with PIC's nor are we qualified or able to solve the
> problem with any other means at our disposal. (unless one of you is
> Superman?)
We are indeed qualified. And only we are.
What can one man do?
It's ONLY all the one men standing together that can do anything in such
matters.
Nuremberg established that it is no defence to say "What could I do? I had
my orders ..."
(No offence intended PLEASE! - I hope I state recognised fact of what the
victors then were trying to convey to the whole world for all time.)
> I recommend you express your feelings on the subject of Iraq with your
> family, friends, church and your elected representatives.
>
> But not on this list.
I only partially agree, for the little that it's worth :-).
IF he had been a practising member of the community and
IF he had pointed to an offlist reference and
IF he'd used a proper [OT]: tag
then I would hope that he might have been able to air such an important
topic with suitable delicacy.
You can't solve the problem with PICs but you had surely better believe that
the problem is highly likely to affect your PICs in a very very substantial
way in the near to medium future. (Supply, ability to pay for, client base,
....).
Of course that is a VERY strained connection but you get the point. If we
all sit here in our cosy worldwide PIC community and whistle Dixie (or
whatever the equivalent tune of one's own land may be) and pretend that the
world will look after itself we stick our heads in the sand ((any similarity
to line in the sand unintentional :-) )) until too late.
The "no politics" rationale is well understood. And messrs ?Stephens &
Bennet obviously waded in well past the boundary, but if we can handle
subjects as sad as Space Shuttles, bizarre as lacquered nails (my fault),
and diverse as Norwegian legal rulings, Segways, Metal working, Alcoholic
beverages and more
then I'd hope we can risk allowing at least a glimpse at Niemoller's warning
(now over 50 years old).
" ... Look away!, look away! ..." indeed :-(
Russell McMahon
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2003\02\05@054823
by
Dave Dilatush
James Newton wrote...
>Mr. Bennett is no longer with the PICList. Please do not follow his example.
>Even if you agree with him, this discussion is not for this list. We can not
>solve the problem with PIC's nor are we qualified or able to solve the
>problem with any other means at our disposal. (unless one of you is
>Superman?)
>
>I recommend you express your feelings on the subject of Iraq with your
>family, friends, church and your elected representatives.
>
>But not on this list.
Thank you.
If I want to read or offer political opinion, there are thousands
of places on the internet where I can do so. But this kind of
stuff does not belong here.
It doesn't matter which end of the political spectrum a person is
from: TAKE IT SOMEWHERE ELSE.
This is the PICLIST, not some damned chat room.
DD
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2003\02\05@070055
by
Sean Alcorn - PIC Stuff
|
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Russell,
> The "no politics" rationale is well understood. And messrs ?Stephens &
> Bennet obviously waded in well past the boundary,
Did I miss something? I saw James announce that Mr. Bennett was no
longer with us, but I never saw him (or any of the other moderators)
announce anything about Scott Stephens - I was most certainly waiting
for it!
Regards,
Sean
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Russell,
<excerpt><fixed>The "no politics" rationale is well understood. And
messrs ?Stephens &
Bennet obviously waded in well past the boundary,
</fixed></excerpt>
Did I miss something? I saw James announce that Mr. Bennett was no
longer with us, but I never saw him (or any of the other moderators)
announce anything about Scott Stephens - I was most certainly waiting
for it!
Regards,
Sean
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2003\02\05@070922
by
Andy Kunz
2003\02\05@071133
by
Russell McMahon
> This is the PICLIST, not some damned chat room.
2. He's, as James noted, gone.
1. Can't quite see the difference in the general sense.
I'm not a frequenter of chat rooms but, if I understand the concept properly
(always suspect :-) ), - this IS essentially a chat room * that has a
number of permanent reasonably well defined core threads and one rather
ubiquitous ill defined core thread.
RM
* Everyone is always logged on here - the messages come to you instead of
you going to them.
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2003\02\05@103844
by
James Newton, webhost
2003\02\05@175848
by
Dave Dilatush
|
Russell McMahon wrote...
>...this IS essentially a chat room * that has a number of
>permanent reasonably well defined core threads and one rather
>ubiquitous ill defined core thread.
This "one rather ubiquitous ill defined core thread", as you call
it, happens to be **VERY** well defined in the PICLIST FAQ:
"[OT]: This label is for posts that are
completely off the topic of PICs. The
only thing we don't (ever) want to see
are religious, hate, or political messages."
The above injunction is there for two very good reasons:
1. This is the PICLIST. We're here to talk about PICs and
related matters, primarily in the field of electronics. Some of
us are here to help others. Some are here to be helped. Some of
us are here to compare notes and discuss various techniques for
designing things using PICs. When you post religious, hate or
political messages to a mailing list which is not devoted to such
material, the resulting arguments can be EXTREMELY disruptive and
divisive. They poison the atmosphere of the group. We don't
need that.
2. Having a large amount of wildly off-topic material flying
about on a mailing list degrades the signal-to-noise ratio.
Simply put, it means that when people abuse the list by arguing
politics on it, I (and, I suspect, most other subscribers) have
to waste a lot of my time wading through a lot of irrelevant
trash to get to the stuff I'm really interested in: PICs.
There are thousands of places on the Internet- in mailing lists,
Usenet groups, chat rooms, and weblogs- where political
discussion is on-topic. As the PICLIST FAQ indicates clearly and
emphatically, this is **NOT** one of them.
DD
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