Died yesterday.I've followed him on you tube.I didn't always agree with his views controversial but interesting.
Last edited by: VxFan on Fri 16 Dec 11 at 16:48
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Yes he was always interesting. Anti Viet Nam campaigner war but supported George Bush in the invasion of Iraq.
A quote from the BBC site:
one former friend called him "a lying, opportunistic, cynical contrarian", another "a drink-sodden ex-Trotskyist popinjay".
Would have done well as a forum member ;-)
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Nobody is perfect .Norwich .The Americano's have left Iraq looks like a perfect place now,the war must have been worthwhile.
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>> Iraq looks like a perfect place now,the war must have been worthwhile.
If you aren't joking, Dutchie, then to which Iraq are you referring? Naturally one hopes for the best, but Iraq isn't out of the woods yet one can't help feeling...
Christopher Hitchens was a clever man and an excellent, sometimes very funny polemical writer. He found a ready, adoring market in the US where he became a famous, highly-paid polemicist. Perhaps the youthful Trotskyism he shared with one or two of the Bush gang tempted him into too close an association with them.
Although it outrages ideologues of every stripe, political sympathies that go both ways don't offend me in the least. I have them myself. But I didn't like Hitchens very much. He had a bullying side that can often be discerned in his writing. But he had guts too (it's worth having a look at the film of him being waterboarded to see what it was like), so I won't be dancing on his grave. RIP.
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>>The Americano's have left Iraq looks like a perfect place now,the war must have been worthwhile<<
Financially speaking, it was worthwhile, to Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz etc., etc., etc..
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Out of Iraq?, be able concentrate on the next in the list of regime changes now, whose turn is it?
I suppose the next out of favour ruler, who was flavour of the month before we turned the hymn sheet (do keep up at the back), will get some treatment last seen in the middle ages just before an unpleasant death.
Doncha just love this brave new world led by gangsters and lauded by their adoring sheep like people, it must be true the media says so.
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>>whose turn is it?<<
Iran of course.
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I used to hang around with Trots when I was a teenager. Most of them were megalomaniacs who seemed to think that black people and working class whites were like children who needed to be civilised by them. A hundred years earlier they'd have gone out to the colonies to civilize the natives, with none left they had to content themselves with slumming it in an inner city area for a year or two.
Most of these people went on to get well paid public sector jobs through nepotism - Sorry, they were infiltrating the State to build a revolutionary socialist network.
There are far too many Christopher Hitchins around and one less won't be missed.
Last edited by: Chris S on Fri 16 Dec 11 at 15:08
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Much as I would more likely than not agree with Peter rather than Christopher, he was nonetheless of strong convictions and character - watching the two brothers debate with eachother always made entertaining viewing.
The world is always a poorer place without such people, whether you take their point of view or not.
RIP.
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One of the very few people that you didn't have like or to agree with all the time to respect.
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>> One of the very few people that you didn't have like or to agree with
>> all the time to respect.
Just as well really, he was neither likeable or agreeable.
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I don't care about the likeable bit,often very nice people to your face can be very dislikeable behind your back.
I don't think he was a hyprocite either his opinions made me think and I do think we need more people like him who are not afraid to question.
RIP.
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Its the what they question and why thats important. Hypocrite? the word could have been written specially for him.
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>> Hypocrite? the word could have been written specially for him.
No doubt you have your reasons Zeddo, but that seems a bit severe to me. After all a bit of soft hypocrisy oils the wheels of social commerce and we British as a nation are renowned for the real thing.
But Hitchens never minded putting the boot into soft targets who can't answer back (God, Mother Teresa, perhaps not Bill Clinton though).
The thing I couldn't help finding unsympathetic was the naked competitiveness and ambition. What we used to call at school being 'a bit keen'. But these qualities are widely admired and it does take all sorts to make a world. Pugnacity, courage, energy and intellectual ability did bring enviable success in his case.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Fri 16 Dec 11 at 23:58
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A better one, and much more authoritative, from longish acquaintance, from Alexander Cockburn on the Counterpunch site.
Cockburn and Hitchens were colleagues on The Nation in the eighties and nineties. They were both in the same game as English intelleectual polemicists working the US vein. But Cockburn hasn't succumbed to the temptation to become a darling of the right, like Hitchens and his French friend Bernard-Henri Lévy.
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Christhopher Hitchins. - CGNorwich
