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Poetry and Politics – Voices From the Past Printer friendly page Print This
By Siv O'Neall. Axis of Logic.
Axis of Logic
Sunday, Oct 17, 2010

The Psychopaths are trembling


Playwright and poet Harold Pinter, in his Nobel prize acceptance speech on 7 December 2005, at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm, made an unforgettable speech, fiercely condemning the Bush/Blair attack on Iraq and, in general, U.S. arrogance and lawlessness, saying “The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law”.[1]


In his speech, Pinter quotes a poem by Pablo Neruda, the Chilean leftist poet who was the Chilean consul in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War. Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez once called him "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language."

“…from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes,
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull's eye of your hearts.”

                                                ‘I'm Explaining a Few Things’[2]

                                                        – by Pablo Neruda (1936)


The occasion for reminding the world of Pinter’s words (and of Pablo Neruda) at that time has never been more relevant.


The U.S., acting as the right arm of the Corporate Empire, has never been more blatantly contemptuous of international law and human decency. Moral concepts just do not exist any more. The Empire is senselessly destroying one country after the other, devoid of any feeling of the value of human lives. For what? To achieve global dominance, a pipe dream which is going to turn into ashes one day very soon when it becomes clear that no such thing is or has ever been possible. Adolf Hitler had his megalomania. The U.S. Empire has its equally frightening faith in its own invincibility. But the columns and walls are tottering.


One day soon the whole house of cards is going to collapse and we will see the dregs of cruelty and megalomania in the harsh light of day, without the embellishment of Newspeak. ‘Pax Americana’ will finally show up as the eternal war that it was always meant to be. ‘American superiority’ will finally be seen for what it is, a slogan designed to fool the people into a state of semi-conscious opium limbo. ‘Ignorance is Strength’, the slogan from George Orwell’s 1984, fits perfectly into the secret plans for corrupting the U.S. citizens, and then the entire world, into a mode of thinking where no questions are asked and no violence is considered excessive. As long as it is perpetrated on second-class humans, that is: everybody but U.S. citizens. ‘Homeland security’ is the catch phrase. All heads bow in devout unison when the term is uttered. The gospel says that the homeland must be spared from terrorists, Muslims and any darker-skinned and certainly more or less criminal individuals.


The Psychopaths who are trembling in their chateaux, in their gated communities far away from the lowly plebs and, in the greatest contempt for the needs of the common people, are still perfectly unaware of the tremendous earth quake that will be occurring the day the people have had enough. The psychopaths are scared. Of course they sense the danger of driving the knife into the bodies so deeply that the victim is barely breathing. If they do not sense it, they will be even more surprised the day the lid comes off the boiling pot of anger, frustration and suffering. Shock waves are sent out from the layers inside the earth. The gates and the reinforced walls are going to be swept away by the tsunami that is on its way.


The psychopaths are incredulous, but under the veneer they are scared to death. They are busy accumulating all there is to be accumulated, no matter what. They are the strong ones, they are power itself. How can they be the targets for the rebels that will soon be tearing everything down? They are in their fortified towers with caves full of silver and gold. Sure, nothing can reach and disturb their complacent existence far away from ‘the dregs of society’.


But noone sums up the situation of U.S. Corporate power, that takes as a given its own invincibility and its right to invade, plunder and kill, better than Harold Pinter himself in his Nobel prize acceptance speech. Destroying harmless nations while making its own citizens and the world believe that they are fighting for freedom and democracy, civil rights, justice and equality is simply the rule of this ruthless game. In their carefully constructed self love and unquestioned superiority, U.S. citizens sink into a blissful ersatz nirvana.


It is so convenient not to see through the brittle façade the Corporate Empire is putting up. It could be swept away with a sobering act of resistance. But the rebels have not emerged from their caves. Yet. The day will soon
come. The revenge by the masses will be a powerful tornado that will sweep away all the lies and do away with the slave/master relationship we are now being crushed under. Yes, there will be a new dawn.

Quote from Harold Pinter’s speech:



“The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven.

“Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn't know it.

“It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. 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.'

“It's a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words 'the American people' provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don't need to think. Just lie back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties but it's very comfortable. This does not apply of course to the 40 million people living below the poverty line and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons, which extends across the US.

“The United States no longer bothers about low intensity conflict. It no longer sees any point in being reticent or even devious. It puts its cards on the table without fear or favour. It quite simply doesn't give a damn about the United Nations, international law or critical dissent, which it regards as impotent and irrelevant. It also has its own bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain.”

Harold Pinter died in December 2008, but his spirit is still with us. Pablo Neruda died about two weeks after the Chilean president Salvador Allende had, on September 11, 1973, been so brutally overthrown and probably killed[3] by the U.S. and CIA-supported forces of the dictator-to-be, the general Augusto Pinochet, and his fascist thugs.


The following poem, written during the Spanish Civil War, could just as well serve as an illustration of the countries plundered and laid in ruins from U.S.

brutal invasions.



Excerpt from ‘I'm Explaining a Few Things’[4] – by Pablo Neruda (1936)

And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings --
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,
bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to kill children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children's blood.

Jackals that the jackals would despise,
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate!

Face to face with you I have seen the blood
of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives!



From ‘Explico algunas cosas’ por Pablo Neruda (1936)

Y una mañana todo estaba ardiendo
y una mañana las hogueras
salían de la tierra
devorando seres,
y desde entonces fuego,
pólvora desde entonces,
y desde entonces sangre.
Bandidos con aviones y con moros,
bandidos con sortijas y duquesas,
bandidos con frailes negros bendiciendo
venían por el cielo a matar niños,
y por las calles la sangre de los niños
corría simplemente, como sangre de niños.

Chacales que el chacal rechazaría,
piedras que el cardo seco mordería escupiendo,
víboras que las víboras odiaran!

Frente a vosotros he visto la sangre
de España levantarse
para ahogaros en una sola ola
de orgullo y de cuchillos!

Chile, Pablo Neruda’s home country, has never truly recovered from the U.S. led coup against the democratically elected Salvador Allende who was trying, as a true humanitarian and socialist, to restore human rights, dignity and property to the desperately poor indigenous people of this nation, so cruelly plundered and exploited by European colonials ever since the days of Columbus.


All over Latin America, the bells of freedom for the oppressed people are ringing louder and louder. As the psychopaths in the castles of the global Empire are trembling, indigenous people are standing up straight, lifting from their backs the burden of their centuries-old submission. In this fight for freedom and human dignity they are supported by their own movements for justice and equality. In Venezuela, in Bolivia, in Ecuador, and all over Latin America, we are seeing the emergence of signs of liberation from the Global Empire. Voices of freedom are ringing loud and clear and the Empire is trembling.

The times are gone when the U.S. could steal whatever they would, until very recently, have claimed as their birthright. The brutal giant is toppling and very soon we will see the light of day emerging from the ruins of the plundered countries the Empire has been trampling to shreds, with corpses piling up in the hundreds of thousands and personal dignity and right to life being scoffed at. The universe will be reborn as a place where people have the power to decide for themselves the fate of their nation. The world will be a place where all people will have the right to a life in dignity – with freedom from constant fear.

_________________


Notes:

[1] Nobel Laureate Pinter Assails Bush, Blair

The speech was prerecorded due to Pinter’s poor health. “Pinter, who has been treated for cancer in recent years, was supposed to have delivered the traditional Nobel lecture in person, but was forced to cancel his trip to Sweden because of poor health.” (idem)

Pinter died on 24 December, 2008  - ‘Harold Pinter: Nobel Prize-winning playwright and poet who dominated British theatre for four decades’

[3] It has never been ascertained whether Salvador Allende actually committed suicide as his presidential palace was being bombed by Pinochet’s CIA-supported forces or whether he was killed by those thugs.

[4] Idem note [2]



 Read her Biography and more articles
by Siv O'Neall on Axis of Logic.

Siv O'Neall is an Axis of Logic columnist, based in France. Her insightful essays are republished and read worldwide. She can be reached at siv@axisoflogic.com


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This material is available for republication as long as reprints include verbatim copy of the article in its entirety, respecting its integrity. Reprints must cite the author and Axis of Logic as the original source including a "live link" to the article. Thank you!


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