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Along with the rest of the UK media, the BBC has lavished praise on the Israel-bashing US hating Harold Pinter. I suppose that expecting any criticism of the great Harold was naive but a little sense of perspective on the man would have helped. I recall his comments on 9/11…
“The 911 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…” Pinter described America as “a country run by a bunch of criminal lunatics” You can see why the BBC loved him.
“Exit Pinter” by Michael Weiss
http://www.newcriterion.com/blogs.cfm#Exit-Pinter-5378
AND:
“Harold Pinter does not deserve the post mortem white-washing he is about to receive” by Johann Hari.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/harold-pinter-does-not-de_b_153460.html
AND:
“Harold Pinter: An impassioned artist who lost direction on the political stage” by Oliver Kamm.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5398006.ece
How about his support for the delightful Slobodan Milosevic?
I was sitting watching this news and thinking, I bet BiasedBBC argue that there is some ulterior motive for the coverage. It could be because of this quote. Or it could be for the much more obvious and reasonable reasons. It could be that he was an English, Nobel Prize winning playwright.
Good example of bias here Vancy, you’ve got them banged to rights!
Nobel Prize-winning? What you mean like this man?
http://tinyurl.com/2bj8nz
Don’t make me laugh anon. A growing club of liars I see, courtesy of the guilt of the inventor of explosives
On the nail DV
I say “good riddance” to Pinter. May Al Beeb suffer the same fate in 2009.
Look on the bright side. The fucker is dead. Rejoice at that news.
Andrew South London – Nobel had no reason to suffer pangs of remorse. The Chinese invented explosives a couple of thousand years ago. And a good thing, too. Where would we be without things that go “bang”?
Slightly OT:
According to Radio One Newsbeat Israel has fired about 150 rockets into Gaza because a truce ended. Not telling the whole story, are they?
Remaining OT
“BBC’s reporter in the Gaza Strip, Rushdi Aboualouf”
Aka Rushdi Abou Alouf aka Rushdi Abualouf aka Rushdi abu Alouf, and the BBC is by no means his only gig. For example he works as a special correspondent for the LA Times where his byline can be found on a report from Christmas Day explaining helpfully that Palestinian “makeshift rockets are wildly inaccurate and rarely cause serious injuries.”
Carolyn Quinn on PM was using the same loaded language the BBC used during the Lebanon conflict a couple of years – Israel’s response is not “proportionate” to the “amateurish” missile attacks by Hamas etc. Can Jeremy Bowen and talk of “war crimes” be far away?
Now we’ve got a report about Obama inspiring hope and change in the UK (bucket!). And just for good measure, PM has the Palin turkey video on its blog today:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/pm/2008/12/diversions_2.shtml
missing word – “a couple of years ago”
Verity – AFAIK Nobel was the inventor of dynamite – The chinese developed much more primitive gunpowder. They both go bang, only dynamite more so.I wondered why an arms merchant should bequest peace prizes.
Wiki offers the following plausible explanation:
“The erroneous publication in 1888 of a premature obituary of Nobel by a French newspaper, condemning him for his invention of dynamite, is said to have brought about his decision to leave a better legacy after his death.
The obituary stated Le marchand de la mort est mort (“The merchant of death is dead”) and went on to say, “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.”
Perhaps you have a better story? I know only what I’m told. Anyway the merit of Pinter being a Nobel prize winner is the moot point.
I saw and read some of Pinters work and thought it typical lefty, 60’s, self indulgent shite.
As to Nobel, yes he did invent dynamite, but he did much more than that. Anyone who thinks he did this alone is an ignorant fucker, and funny how the French (spit) should call him the dealer of death not that long after they were in awe of Europes first true Hitler in Napoleon who did far more harm and caused far more proportionate death than even that evil fucker Hitler ever did.
Look up Nobel and stop being ignorant shits.
The Chinese invented explosives first. They should get credit. They have also done us the favour of declining to come up with a “peace prize” for lefties.
Mimicking Raymond Chandler’s “The Big Sleep”, someone should write a story about Pinter’s death and call it “The Big Pause”.
The BBC lost one of their favorite cultural leaders. Who will they go to next time the issue of replacing Britain’s nuclear arsenal comes up? Oh, and apparently he wrote plays to justify respect for his political ramblings.
Anyone see the Peter Sissons interview with some Palestinian politician(?) on News 24? He was ranting away saying that the Israelis were shelling Gaza Police bases and killing the ‘men who rescued your Alan Johnston’!!!!
I think we will start to see Hamas calling in their favours now with their BBC ‘brothers’ so expect lots of anti-Israeli and ‘disproportionate response’ crap from the BBC’s supposed ‘impartial’ journos over the next few days.
Verity: ahead on points
Houdini: True Naploeon was a bit of a megalo (“Nice country, I’ll take it”) but unfortunately we did beat him at Waterloo, giving birth to that dreadful Abba song. Today its the French who are over here in on booze cruises and snapping up everything in the Sales, due to the collapse of sterling. Can’t blame that on the French can you?.
Delighted to be rid of Pinter. To quote the ghastly Tony Banks who was also beloved of the BBC, Pinter was nothing more than a pigs bladder on a stick.
I see that the BBC failed to report the death of two Palestinian girls who were blown up in Gaza a couple of days ago.
How unlike the BBC.
No. Wait up. The were killed when some Hamas ‘rocketeers’ launched one of their missiles only to see it fall short.
There’s always a reason when the BBC fails to report something.
I agree with Pinter, that the US is run by a bunch of criminal lunatics. I disagree that retaliation is the primary reason for all forms of international terrorism.
IMO things such as brainwashing, manipulation, mind control, internationalist conspiracies at the highest levels, and BBC type propaganda, have far more to do with it.
I also disagree with Pinter and the BBC in that they refuse to understand that the same people that run US foreign policy are essentially or exactly the same people that run UK foreign policy. They are incidentally also exactly the same or essentially the same people that ultimately run BBC policy.
We have currently 3 levels of internationalist GOVERNMENT that out rank our democratically selected one.
If what the late departed Pinter and the unfortunately still with us BBC get their mind controlled way. All we will have left is several levels of unelected internationalist government, which will be therefore unaccountable to anyone other then the chaps at the very top of the world control pyramid.
Which is why the people at the top have conspired for many years to successfully bring into total disrepute all truly or otherwise democratic institutions. This not only very clearly within the US and UK, but also the whole of Europe, and the rest of the entire WORLD also. Including most notably Canada Australia Zimbabwe New Zealand and South Africa.
Democracy is not only not working and being conspired not to work ever more so EVERYWHERE it still exists. Democracy is most publicly being seen to not be working as well. The former of course always has been the case. The later is a modern thing, except where the method was last tried, in 1930’s Germany.
To me this signals the END of DEMOCRACY as we thought we knew it.
Instead of the usual tin hat, straw man stuff. It would be nice for a change if someone actually engaged in the issues at stake.
Because it is one thing for something to be happening all over the entire world at the same time.
It is another for it to be happening because this is inevitable and not being in anyway conspired to happen by a very rich very small elite group of extremely powerful private individuals acting largely behind the throne.
HOWEVER
It is quite another with very large historically well documented murderously genocidal spiritually and materially NAZI KNOBS ON, if indeed it is.
I strongly contend that it self apparently is, and give evidence to support such an assertion. However it seems that others who claim to be INTELLIGENT simple talk about tin hats and act like a modern day brain dead schoolchild.
Which is a shame but never the less understandable under our current circumstances. Perhaps now we can understand why the German public spent most of the 1930’s in a state of wishful thinking, or more accurately, complete psychological denial, if not utter fear?
“ Never Such Pinpoint Bombing In The History Of Warfare,
As The BBC Inadvertently Makes Clear
Here is an account by the BBC, from “the BBC’s Rushdi Aboualouf,” their man in Gaza (well, Tim Franks is the primary anti-Israel propagandist in Gaza, but Rushdi Abaoulouf is apparently a member of the local supporting staff), an account meant to be entirely unsympathetic, of course, to Israel and of course meant to win our sympathy for the “Palestinians” who have done nothing to deserve any of this:”
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/18654
I haven’t had time to see if anyone else has posted the above from Hugh Fitzgerald re: DB’s post on “the BBC’s Rushdi Aboualouf.”
DB | 27.12.08 – 4:27 pm
Which title for Harold Pinters grave stone?
“To hate America is to hate mankind”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/3626135/To-hate-America-is-to-hate-mankind.html
“Anti-Americanism Is Racist Envy”
http://www.forbes.com/global/2003/0721/017.html
“Thank you, my foolish friends in the West”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article717720.ece
.
5Live news yesterday evening described the killing of 2 Israeli girls by a Hamas rocket as “….died when a rocket fell short.”
That was it. Fell short.
Fell short of what? Its intended target? If so, which target?
Maybe the rocket overshot.
The inflection in the newsreader’s voice made the killing sound like some sort of mishap.
There was no attempt to establish exactly what it was the rockets were being fired at.
Very good point Mick McD. No chance of an answer to a great question though.
Here’s a concerned BBC bimbo talking to a Gazan nurse:
“So although Israel says they were attacking military targets, these target were in residential areas?” – thereby displaying her ignorance of the tactics of Palestinian terrorists and her bias in one sentence:
Witness describes Gaza attacks
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7801291.stm
The IDF really did flatten some buildings there. Good job.
Funny thing is, at the end of the video there are shots of two youths with bandages on their heads. The one bandage is completely unstained – this is clear because as the sequence progresses the youth is filmed from all angles. So I wonder why with all the real death and destruction the Palestinians felt the need to resort to Pallywood. Habit?
I watched a Sky News video link or two on the Internet. They were even worse than the BBC, uncritically relaying what is almost certainly Pallywood – children being carried without any sign of injury, not even faked.
So Harold Ranter is dead – good riddance!
Pinter is dead: oh well, how sad, never mind.
Pinter wrote some brilliant plays which were a joy to watch – he also wrote some crap political plays.
Why the f*** does anyone think that the half arsed leftist political views of people in the arts are worth listening to any more than anyone else’s??? When Frank Bruno dies is half his obit going to be taken up with his “brave” and “radical” political stance of supporting the Tories because he didn’t fancy paying ridiculous taxes on his hard won purses???
Mick McDonald | 27.12.08 – 8:34 pm
5Live news yesterday evening described the killing of 2 Israeli girls by a Hamas rocket as “….died when a rocket fell short.”
That was it. Fell short.
Fell short of what?
I think the point was that they were Arab girls living within the Gaza strip, not Israelis. The rocket ‘fell short’ in that it failed to reach Israel.
Really, Pinter’s black and white view of politics raises questions about his intelligence as a writer.
Writers are supposed to be able to see the other person’s point of view (its essential to characterisation, surely), yet Pinter’s narrow-mindedness explains to me why his plays feel more mechanical than organic.
Dennis Potter, like Pinter, leaned to the left, but Potter had the intelligence and wit to understand the complexities of politics and once remarked that like most people, he was a mix of liberal and conservative.
So Harold Pinter has departed the stage.
An insufferable lefty, so full of rage.
In later years he went clinically nuts,
absolutely, totally, no ifs ands or buts.
The luvvies loved him as they always do.
Though his work was more like adolescent poo.
And now thanks to forced metrication,
It’s Harold Literer, for our edification.