“The Fifty Year Wound”, Derek Leebaert

I love the ‘of course the record of the Soviet Union has been talked to death, lets look at the U.S. since the topic is so underexamined’ (my paraphrase). As if someone could not find thousands of anti-american rants exactly like Pinter’s from the last 5 decades and that they dwarf the examinations of the Soviet Union that Pinter claims are so overdone. “oh, they banned the death penalty. they had set up a humane form of government.” Go back to the defenders of Stalin, Mao, Castro,Pol Pot, Kim, and every other Communist totalitarian dungeon and you can find the same tired defenses of those governments coming out of the free west and then when the ugly facts come out the defenders use the ‘Well, if the U.S. had engaged these tyrants instead of confronting these “champions of the people” they wouldn’t have felt the need to take away all of the human rights of their population” rant.

The mistakes made by the U.S. during the cold war have been examined and some were atrocious. “The Forty year Wound” is a fine balanced look at the mistakes that were made by the U.S. that doesn’t ignore the fact that the Soviet Union was intent on World domination and they didn’t let the people they wanted to save decide their own fate and that once they were under their control they didn’t have the chance to change their minds. For Pinter to claim that he is shining a light on unexamined historical facts is laughable. I used to spout that Sandanista agit prop in my foaming at the mouth “Reagan is the stupidist and the most evil president in the History of the world and he is going to start WWIII and he is like Hitler,and he hates people of color, and he is an Imperliastic Fascist” days. I grew up. Pinter still thinks it is the 60’s and that the Revolution will still come about. What tripe.

“Political theatre presents an entirely different set of problems. Sermonising has to be avoided at all cost. Objectivity is essential. The characters must be allowed to breathe their own air. The author cannot confine and constrict them to satisfy his own taste or disposition or prejudice. He must be prepared to approach them from a variety of angles, from a full and uninhibited range of perspectives, take them by surprise, perhaps, occasionally, but nevertheless give them the freedom to go which way they will. This does not always work. And political satire, of course, adheres to none of these precepts, in fact does precisely the opposite, which is its proper function.”

After this lesson he launches into his sermonizing, un-objective anti-American screed. Hence, he’s signaling we read should read it as political satire.

He’s satirizing himself.

.

.

.

Or his mind is so addled he doesn’t realize it!

Dem in the White House ==> Quoth Dem brain herd: “There is no truth.”

Repub in the White House ==> Quoth the Dem brain herd: “There is truth.”

“In 1958 I wrote the following:

‘There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.’

I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?”

No distinction between what is real and what is unreal. Sounds like he either learned his craft in a Totalitarian setting, or he is deranged.

Two questions for Pinter:

1) If a statement can be true and false at the same time, does that mean that people like Irving and the President of Iran who say the Holocaust didn’t happen are each saying true things as well as false things?

2) What kind of justice system can one have in a Pinter like world?

I could have written the latter half of his speech when I was 20. I couldn’t do it anymore, and not because I lost the muse.