Gramsci wrote:

Earwicker wrote:How odd - I thought I'd already posted in this thread.

Anyways I say Not Crap but his Neo Con support is not good. It seems ironic to me that he said this:

This isn't as strange as it seems, a lot of the Neo-Con crew are very much on (or were on) the left. The idea is using American power to spread liberal democracy, from there most State should then build a lovely, happy, secular and "social democratic" world.

Nice theory, a total disaster in practice.

big_dave wrote:
Hitchen's swing towards the neocon junta is as much to do with the dissolution of the traditional left and the ultimate decay of older conservative policies into xenophobia and fundamentalism. As much as Hitchen's a good journalist, his political alignment here is a clutch in a crisis: for his priorities, the neocons are the only game in town and he's not the kind of guy to stop beating his drum until a better organisation comes along.

NerblyBear wrote:

big_dave wrote:
Hitchen's swing towards the neocon junta is as much to do with the dissolution of the traditional left and the ultimate decay of older conservative policies into xenophobia and fundamentalism. As much as Hitchen's a good journalist, his political alignment here is a clutch in a crisis: for his priorities, the neocons are the only game in town and he's not the kind of guy to stop beating his drum until a better organisation comes along.

That's a completely unfounded accusation, in my opinion. Reading Hitchens, I get the distinct impression that he is the last journalist out there who would sell out his opinions and shill for a cause he doesn't believe in.

There are very, very few journalists of whom I would make the same claim, in fact. But a large part of what really appeals to me about Hitchens is that he comes across as an honest person.

Read his articles in Slate on Iraq and I think that you will see that, while his arguments may be rather poor at times, he does honestly believe every word of what he writes. And he has persuaded me to many of his opinions regarding the war, as well, even though I strongly disagree with him on the whole.

NerblyBear wrote:Read his articles in Slate on Iraq and I think that you will see that, while his arguments may be rather poor at times, he does honestly believe every word of what he writes. And he has persuaded me to many of his opinions regarding the war, as well, even though I strongly disagree with him on the whole.

clocker bob wrote:

NerblyBear wrote:Read his articles in Slate on Iraq and I think that you will see that, while his arguments may be rather poor at times, he does honestly believe every word of what he writes. And he has persuaded me to many of his opinions regarding the war, as well, even though I strongly disagree with him on the whole.

Bush believes every word he says about the war, too- it's a sign of stubbornness, arrogance, delusions and hubris, and it's the same with Hitchens. Does the list of opinions that Hitchens has 'persuaded you to' include either of these?

The US was right to invade.

The US is right not to leave.

If so, then how do you maintain a disagreement with him on the war, on the whole? Everything Hitchens writes on the war is some variation or subset of those two opinions. How in the world do you find yourself persuaded to share opinions with such a warmongering fascist like Hitchens?

clocker bob wrote: Does the list of opinions that Hitchens has 'persuaded you to' include either of these?

The US was right to invade.

The US is right not to leave.

NerblyBear wrote:I agree with neither of those opinions, but I think the most important thing that I have learned is that Saddam Hussein was a truly psychopathic dictator who deserved to be ousted.

nerbly bear wrote:I also have been persuaded by Hitchens to give less credence to the people who say that the Americans are the sole reason for the proliferation of sectarian violence.

nerbly bear wrote:Calling Hitchens a "warmongering fascist" is wildly inappropriate and flatly erroneous, Bob.

"All of this has been done in my name, and I feel like bearing witness." ( Slate April 03)- Crowed Mr Hitchens as American troops entered Baghdad. Yet now, as the death toll mounts and the chaos seems endless his proud bluster has turned, not to shame, but to blame. The question now for our hero seems to be who is responsible for the hell Iraq has become?

ezra klein wrote: In a 2003 interview, Hitchens said the events of September 11th filled him with "exhiliration."

His friend Ian Buruma, the writer, told me, "I don't quite see Christopher as a 'man of action,' but he's always looking for our defining moments--as it were, our Spanish Civil War, where you put yourself on the right side and stand up to the enemy." Hitchens foresaw "a war to the finish between everything I love and everything I hate." Here was a question on which history would judge him; and just as Orwell had (in his view) got it right on the great questions of the 20th century -- Communism, Fascism, and imperialism -- so Hitchens wanted a future student to see that he had been similarly clear-eyed (He once wrote, "I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences posthumously.)

Absorb that: This isn't about 9/11, or "Islamofascism," or repression in the Arab World. It's about Christopher Hitchens. It's about his need for an enemy great enough, dark enough, sinister enough, and threatening enough that he can match the exploits and courage of Orwell's unpopular, often courageous crusades.

It explains, too, why Hitchens and so many like him are quick to inflate the dangers posed by Islamic extremists, to make threats out of enemies and existential dangers out of garden variety terrorists. If they don't, if they allow al Qaeda to remain a degraded organization with limited operational capacity that should be mopped up through diligent law enforcement strategies, then where does that leave them in the eyes of history? Orwell battled against Communism, Hitchens is going to take a brave posture against 27 bearded nuts who want white men to leave their lands?

Of course not. So in his writings, "Islamofascism" subtly becomes communism circa-1962, an expansionist, attractive ideology bristling with nuclear weapons and demands that can neither be understood nor negotiated. It does that because nothing else is equal to the challenge of Christopher Hitchens:

"[My critics] want me to immolate myself, and I sincerely believe that, for some of them, when they see bad news from Iraq, the reaction is simply 'This will make Christopher Hitchens look bad!' I've been trying to avoid such solipsism, but I've come to believe there are such people.

Good job on dodging inflated self-regard. Hitchens literally believes this is about him. That what happens in Iraq reflects on him. That those who oppose it are quaking before Hitchens' moral clarity, and watching the IEDs for anything that will discredit this brave, occasional Slate columnist.

big_dave wrote:Nerblybear, seeing as your opinions on the subject of Hitch are informed and considered, I'd appreciate you taking the time to chew my ear over it instead of Clocker Shitting Bob!

big_dave wrote:When blacks, women or labourers wanted suffrage they had to commit themselves to voted for whites, men and aristocrats in the hope that representation would be incurred.

... Now the civilians are targets for terrorism, isn't it forced conscription like Nuclear war?