A Tapestry of Lies

"[T]he majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed."

Harold Pinter, Nobel Lecture, Dec. 7, 2005

Even as Condoleeza Rice was offering European leaders tortured logic and outright lies, Harold Pinter, winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Literature, was delivering his acceptance speech in Stockholm. The speech is being characterized in Europe as "a searing attack" on the Bush administration's war and torture policies.

Michael Billington sets the stage for us in the Guardian:

There was something oddly Beckettian about Harold Pinter's Nobel lecture ... which even now is blazing its way across the world's media. It was Beckettian in that Pinter sat in a wheelchair, with a rug over his knees and framed by an image of his younger self, delivering his sombre message: memories of Hamm in Beckett's Endgame came to mind. But if Pinter's frailty was occasionally visible, there was nothing ailing about his passionate and astonishing speech, which mixed moral vigour with forensic detail. In fact, the speech was all the more powerful because it was delivered in a husky, throaty rasp.

You can read or see and hear the entire speech by clicking here.