Death of Christopher Hitchens

[oldborn]

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[The Hitch]

Congratulations, that's probably the stupidest thing I've ever seen you write.

Hitchens was a prominent member of the International Socialists, which he could not have been while holding his later warmongering views. You may be correct that he evolved into a snivelling propagandist for Imperialism at an earlier date than the more charitably inclined tend to assume. That's a matter of little interest to me. Hitchens was a talented writer, but he chose to use those talents toadying to the powerful. He is of little intrinsic interest beyond that.

You might be confusing the international socialists with some sort of pacifists. Hitchens even back then supported and aided armed resistance movements around the world, and many of his comrades from those days had far far more extreme views on violence. You may take care to note that Che Guevarra is usually the symbol of such movements.

The "war mongerer" term is used by people who can't express themselves trying to paint complicated issues black and white by pinning a vague insulting generalization on whoever disagrees with them.

Its like calling someone a fanboy. The aim isn't to engage in discussion, but to insult an opponent, which is why it isn't seen outside of the internet.

Hitchens only ever supported war when it was directed against totalitarianism, so unless you are some sort of pacifist who will reefer to any sort of violence as warmongering, you aren't making a good showing of yourself by using the term.

The reaction of your type today is the exact same reaction as some of your type 70 years ago, when Orwell dared to disagree with the popular conception of Stalin as a revolutionary hero.

Like then like now, any voice of opposition from inside is automatically treated as high treason, must be explained by personal gain, and must be met no holds barred aggression.

Reminds me of groups from the other side of the political spectrum actually.

 

[oldborn]

Hitchens only ever supported war when it was directed against totalitarianism, so unless you are some sort of pacifist who will reefer to any sort of violence as warmongering, you aren't making a good showing of yourself by using the term.

Ok Hitch, why he never support war against his comrades in CCCP or Vietnam? As I remember there was no fruits of liberty there, he was just communist.
Come on dude
As a Polish dude you must know his opinions about Walesa and John Paul II?

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

You might be confusing the international socialists with some sort of pacifists. Hitchens even back then supported and aided armed resistance movements around the world, and many of his comrades from those days had far far more extreme views on violence. You may take care to note that Che Guevarra is usually the symbol of such movements.

Are you serious?

The International Socialists were not pacifists, nor did I at any point confuse them with pacifists. They were, however, opponents of all attacks on Third World countries, no matter how noxious their regimes, by Western powers. This was not an optional point of view for a member of the International Socialists, let alone for a prominent member like Hitchens. It was central to their political outlook. They regarded all of the Western powers as imperialist (they also regarded the Soviet Union as an imperialist, but that's a slightly more complex issue). They always, on principle, wanted to see these powers defeated in any armed conflict. Always. No exceptions. This is quite distinct from opposing, for instance, national liberation movements.

That's Hitchens political background. I suggest that you take the time to find out what you are talking about before spouting nonsense about his unchanging political opinions.

The "war mongerer" term is used by people who can't express themselves trying to paint complicated issues black and white by pinning a vague insulting generalization on whoever disagrees with them.

The term warmonger is an entirely accurate appropriate description of a public figure who loudly and regularly advocates war. Hitchens made something of a habit of calling for Western invasions of various countries and defending them even as missiles rained down on wedding parties. He was a warmonger.

The aim isn't to engage in discussion, but to insult an opponent, which is why it isn't seen outside of the internet.

There's something darkly amusing about seeing someone defend Hitchens by complaining about the use of insulting and dismissive language in argument.

Hitchens only ever supported war when it was directed against totalitarianism, so unless you are some sort of pacifist who will reefer to any sort of violence as warmongering, you aren't making a good showing of yourself by using the term.

The term "totalitarianism" is used by people who can't express themselves trying to paint complicated issues black and white by pinning a vague insulting generalization on whatever regime they have decided to bomb next...

There is no surer indication that someone talking about geopolitics is a fool or a knave than the liberal application of that particular word to many and varied unpleasant regimes. It is only very slightly more sophisticated than saying "he only advocated bombing baddies.".

The reaction of your type today is the exact same reaction as some of your type 70 years ago, when Orwell dared to disagree with the popular conception of Stalin as a revolutionary hero.

This is simply ignorant. Orwell was in the 1930s a member of the Independent Labour Party, which was larger than the Communist Party and more popular than it. His admirable stand against Stalinism was certainly controversial but it was not a wildly unpopular position on the left, right up until Russian entry into the Second World War when it became difficult to criticise Stalin across the British political spectrum. The notion that the tiny and marginal CPGB and its fellow travellers were the dominant force on the British left and that any opposition to their views was somehow marginal, nearly unique, brave, or consisted of voices in the wilderness is a convenient mythology regularly seized upon by those who want to claim Orwell's mantle, to confer legitimacy on whatever snake oil they are peddling. Orwell was brave, but he proved it by standing up to the Stalinists in Spain as a POUM militia man, not by daring to criticise Stalin in the British press.

However, Orwell is irrelevant to the discussion. Hitchens was a turncoat, not someone raising "a voice of opposition" from inside the left.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Ok Hitch, why he never support war against his comrades in CCCP or Vietnam? As I remember there was no fruits of liberty there, he was just communist.
Come on dude

To be fair to Hitchens, he never regarded the Stalinist regimes as "comrades". The socialist political organisation he was a member of had a rather, well, unconventional, theory that the Stalinist states were really a form of capitalism. Their motto was "Neither Washington nor Moscow but International Socialism".

At that point, he opposed Western intervention in the Soviet Bloc not because he had any sympathy for those regimes but because he opposed Western military intervention anywhere on principle.

 

[oldborn]

Jesus Hitch as I understand comrade Zinoviev you are in big **** now. Take it easy Zin-Zin.
Sorry guys It is time to rest
Be nice cos aunt Susan watching it

 

[The Hitch]

Snip

I was wrong to write that his views were always the same, and yes in his youth he was a member of some very radical socialist parties but my comment was in response to this idea you offered that Hitchens changed in 2001.

His principles and beliefs remained the same through the 80's and 90's while he was a darling of the left, writing for the nation, dining with Gore Vidal and taking the far left chair on US political shows.
This is not just the case with his fp view, but his positions on all issues from social welfare to defense of Marx to support of socialist parties in europe to his stance on religion.

_

Totalitarianism refers to regimes which attempt to exercise total control over the lives of their citizens, usually extremely brutally.

Though I see that the idea that supporters of these types of war are motivated solely by a desire to bomb people, fits very conveniently into a world view for you guys.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Be nice cos aunt Susan watching it

Not Susan, me. I'm frankly annoyed by it. Next negative post will result in the thread being closed. I may consider handing out an infraction or suspension if it's warranted.

Final warning.

 

[Granville57]

Before this thread implodes...

FORA tv has assembled a collection of high-quality clips as a tribute.

Christopher Hitchens in his own words

 

[blutto]

*** edited by mod ***

 

[Moondance]

Before this thread implodes...

FORA tv has assembled a collection of high-quality clips as a tribute.

Christopher Hitchens in his own words

Many, many thanks for this link. Some wonderful clips.

 

[The Hitch]

Many, many thanks for this link. Some wonderful clips.

If you are interested in the mans videos, this is what I remember considering one of his best performances.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=726ouK-ytSw

It was at a library with the audience being made up of a few highly intelligent and well read proffessors of history and literature, rather than the usual audience of whoever bought a ticket, so it was more a discussion with the audience than just a speech. I felt it was therefore of higher quality than usual, when the audience would be a lot bigger and consisted of people like me.

A range of issues, much of it historical, are covered.

 

[redtreviso]

His principles and beliefs remained the same through the 80's and 90's while he was a darling of the left, writing for the nation, dining with Gore Vidal and taking the far left chair on US political shows.

A faux position in the absence of any such (far or near)person actually in the US.

 

[mr. tibbs]

Geeking out to Hitchens/D'Souza on a Saturday night:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V85OykSDT8

Considering Alpe's tone, I don't think I want to scroll through this thread's preceding pages. Apologies if it's already been posted. ;(

 

[Spare Tyre]

Mark Colvin, an (Australian) ABC journalist, wrote a brief piece in honour of Christopher Hitchens after learning of his death. Colvin described the occasion on which he introduced his son to Hitchens, describing him as a fan. Hitchens responded by saying, ""No, no. Don't be a fan. Never be a fan." Colvin added "It's good advice, and could as easily have been spoken by George Orwell, whom Hitchens admired and wrote about so often. Being a fan means being uncritical, losing the capacity to see clearly, losing the ability to be a contrarian."

@Hitch, I'm curious: I have seen you defend and promote Christopher Hitchens' positions on many issues, but I have never seen you articulate your points of difference with him. Are there any?

 

[Maxiton]

I have to say, despite my enjoyment of his work, I think he showed his human side in the wake of 9/11. That is to say - not to sell the human short - his weakness: he took one look at this event and its complete abrogation of any pretense of "rule of law", and saw a world-historic sea change; the implications were stark, the starkest possible, and I think it scared the s-t out of him. This accounts for his sudden about face, in my view.

Hitchens begins his 2004 review of Isaac Deutscher's Trotsky biography with a quote from Alasdair MacIntyre:

"Two images have been with me throughout the writing of this essay. Between them they seem to show the alternative paths for the intellectual. The one is of J. M. Keynes, the other of Leon Trotsky. Both were obviously men of attractive personality and great natural gifts. The one the intellectual guardian of the established order, providing new policies and theories of manipulation to keep our society in what he took to be economic trim, and making a personal fortune in the process. The other, outcast as a revolutionary from Russia both under the Tsar and under Stalin, providing throughout his life a defense of human activity, of the powers of conscious and rational human effort. I think of them at the end, Keynes with his peerage, Trotsky with an icepick in his skull. They are the twin lives between which intellectual choice in our society lies."

Clearly Hitchens means this to inform both his review and his own recent actions. If you use this epigraph as a prism for viewing his positions post 9/11, they start to make some kind of sense. All of which layers some cheap irony onto his premature death.

 

[The Hitch]

@Hitch, I'm curious: I have seen you defend and promote Christopher Hitchens' positions on many issues, but I have never seen you articulate your points of difference with him. Are there any?

Mostly on Communism during the Soviet Era.

His admiration of many former communist leaders such as Lenin, Luxemberg, Che Guevarra. Especially Lenin, I see Lenin as just as bad as Stalin yet Hitchens admired him.

He also praised Gorbachov, Walesa, and his friend Vaclav Havel because hes a writer and the fall of the Berlin wall for the fall of Communism, and how great they were, which I have critiscsed on here before. For us, for my Father who fought for Solidarity and was thrown into state prisons, this is the western mtv method of explaining a complex situation by praising a few people as heroes. The people who died in Hungary, in Prague, in the Polish crackdowns, and for Solidarity brought down communism. Walesa was a moron, and besides sold out, Gobrachev tried to keep things going, and the BErlin wall came after we freed ourselves.

I think I also recall him praising the Polish Communist party of the 30's and said some great things about Michnik -

Hithcens also claimed that the Soviet Union was going to fall anyway, that movements to bring it down only sped it up at best, which was largely due to his refusal to accept that reagan, whome he despised, had anything to do with the fall. I think Reagan did help speed up the fall, as crazy as some of what he did may have been.

as for modern policy, I obviously agreed on FP and Religion, and also on simple stuff like equality, social walfare
I have no opinions on economics, and I don't know what his stance on other issues was, nor in many cases my own.

Oh and Obama, I do not like Obama. It was therefore depressing to see Hitchens, for about a year, behave like much of the media, and treat him fawningly. More depressing because he had critisced Obama before, including rightfully calling him an egomaniac.

 

[The Hitch]

@Hitch, I'm curious: I have seen you defend and promote Christopher Hitchens' positions on many issues, but I have never seen you articulate your points of difference with him. Are there any?

Mostly on Communism during the Soviet Era.

His admiration of many former communist leaders such as Lenin, Luxemberg, Che Guevarra. Especially Lenin, I see Lenin as just as bad as Stalin yet Hitchens admired him.

He also praised Gorbachov, Walesa, and his friend Vaclav Havel because hes a writer and the fall of the Berlin wall for the fall of Communism, and how great they were, which I have critiscsed on here before. For us, for my Father who fought for Solidarity and was thrown into state prisons, this is the western mtv method of explaining a complex situation by praising a few people as heroes. The people who died in Hungary, in Prague, in the Polish crackdowns, and for Solidarity brought down communism. Walesa was a moron, and besides sold out, Gobrachev tried to keep things going, and the BErlin wall came after we freed ourselves.

I think I also recall him praising the Polish Communist party of the 30's and said some great things about Michnik -

Hithcens also claimed that the Soviet Union was going to fall anyway, that movements to bring it down only sped it up at best, which was largely due to his refusal to accept that reagan, whome he despised, had anything to do with the fall. I think Reagan did help speed up the fall, as crazy as some of what he did may have been.

as for modern policy, I obviously agreed on FP and Religion, and also on simple stuff like equality, social walfare
I have no opinions on economics, and I don't know what his stance on other issues was, nor in many cases my own.

Oh and Obama, I do not like Obama. It was therefore depressing to see Hitchens, for about a year, behave like much of the media, and treat him fawningly. More depressing because he had critisced Obama before, including rightfully calling him an egomaniac.

I have to say, despite my enjoyment of his work, I think he showed his human side in the wake of 9/11. .

For Hitchens and his circle, Valentines day 1989 was their 9/11

 

[the delgados]

Hitchens lost the plot on September 11, 2001.

His ruthless attacks on anyone who dared question the slaughter in Iraq along with his refusal to admit mistakes made his work unreadable.

He had a lot of great characteristics and I admired him in many ways, but the whole Islamofascist obsession was a little over the top.

 

[aphronesis]

Mostly on Communism during the Soviet Era.

His admiration of many former communist leaders such as Lenin, Luxemberg, Che Guevarra. Especially Lenin, I see Lenin as just as bad as Stalin yet Hitchens admired him.

He also praised Gorbachov, Walesa, and his friend Vaclav Havel because hes a writer and the fall of the Berlin wall for the fall of Communism, and how great they were, which I have critiscsed on here before. For us, for my Father who fought for Solidarity and was thrown into state prisons, this is the western mtv method of explaining a complex situation by praising a few people as heroes. The people who died in Hungary, in Prague, in the Polish crackdowns, and for Solidarity brought down communism. Walesa was a moron, and besides sold out, Gobrachev tried to keep things going, and the BErlin wall came after we freed ourselves.

I think I also recall him praising the Polish Communist party of the 30's and said some great things about Michnik -


Oh and Obama, I do not like Obama. It was therefore depressing to see Hitchens, for about a year, behave like much of the media, and treat him fawningly. More depressing because he had critisced Obama before, including rightfully calling him an egomaniac.

For Hitchens and his circle, Valentines day 1989 was their 9/11

I'm curious then... and I ask this with respect for the thought, care and sheer longevity of your posting history and positions, if you don't find in general that Hitchens was part of--and subscribed to--a "great man" culture, and by extension political policy (which could be extrapolated to imperialism), which seems at odds with what you describe in terms of Poland in the eighties and the achievement of people (and which I know to have been the case based on others' accounts of life on that side during those times). There seems a split between what he argued and what he "represented." But I've been intermittent in following him over the years.

 

[Reformed]

Not Susan, me. I'm frankly annoyed by it. Next negative post will result in the thread being closed. I may consider handing out an infraction or suspension if it's warranted.

Final warning.

I am a little confused. The OP ask what peoples views were of the man and they are giving them. Shouldn't you edit the original question if you don't want people answering? Just wondering why no negative views are allowed.

 

[The Hitch]

I'm curious then... and I ask this with respect for the thought, care and sheer longevity of your posting history and positions, if you don't find in general that Hitchen's was part of--and subscribed to--a "great man" culture, and by extension political policy (which could be extrapolated to imperialism), which seems at odds with what you describe in terms of Poland in the eighties and the achievement of people (and which I know to have been the case based on others' accounts of life on that side during those times). There seems a split between what he argued and what he "represented." But I've been intermittent in following him over the years.

I'm sorry I don't fully understand what you are asking. By "great man" culture, do you refer to the view that individuals make history, rather than the people?

 

[The Hitch]

I am a little confused. The OP ask what peoples views were of the man and they are giving them. Shouldn't you edit the original question if you don't want people answering? Just wondering why no negative views are allowed.

If you read the thread you will see that negative views are allowed, they make up about 40% of the thread, and that the mod comment was in response to a bunch of people trying to hijack the thread, and oldborns constant trolling.

 

[aphronesis]

I'm sorry I don't fully understand what you are asking. By "great man" culture, do you refer to the view that individuals make history, rather than the people?

Exactly. It seems to be sliding around in this discussion. And others' of Hitchens' place in things. And not even individuals vs. people, but all sort of combinations between and with means.

 

[Reformed]

If you read the thread you will see that negative views are allowed, they make up about 40% of the thread, and that the mod comment was in response to a bunch of people trying to hijack the thread, and oldborns constant trolling.

The man said next negative post and the thread will be closed. Am I not reading that right?