Hari to Hitchens: ‘Come Home’ [Updated]
Hardly a day goes by when some or another lefty email blast clogging up my Inbox doesn’t denounce, revile, indict, or curse Christopher Hitchens.
I got tired of this ritual a long time ago. Not only because I count Christopher as a friend. But also because I admire his intelligence and talent — even while disagreeing with many of his conclusions.
Leaving the Left can be a bit like trying to quit the Mafia. You can’t get out without getting assassinated — literally or figuratively. The Left, infused with a “class-struggle-a-world-to-win“ ethic, tends to look upon its apostates not only as enemies, but as downright traitors.
The Hate Hitchens fad began to bud when he bucked the “progressive” capitulation to defend Bill Clinton””that sorry spectacle of liberals and socialists scurrying behind Big Bill and apologizing for behavior that they would have screamed to high heaven about if he had been a Republican. The anti-Hitchens scorn bloomed when Christopher fully supported the post 9-11 attack on the Taliban/AlQaeda. And it came to full flower when he quit his twenty-year stint as a columnist for The Nation.
Hitchens’ detractors variously argue he “sold out” (though he was making a quite handsome income long before he “defected”) or that he has become some sort of seedy drunk destined for an inglorious end.
But profiling him this week in the London Independent, leftist playwright and writer Johann Hari paints a wonderfully complex picture of Hitchens after conducting a wide-ranging interview. Hitchens stands firm against Kissinger, denounces the death penalty, supports Palestinian rights, but concludes — as a “single-issue voter”, he is endorsing George W. Bush. The war against Islamic Fascism trumps all other issues, Hitchens argues, and on that matter he prefers the incumbent.
I share Hitchens’ dark view of Islamic extremism. I strongly disagree with his view of Bush, as well as his unflinching support for the war Iraq. I most certainly don’t share his rather unique and sympathetic read of Paul Wolfowitz.
Writer Hari reaches similar conclusions to mine both in his Independent article as well in a separate piece on his personal blog.
In the end, Hari says he feels “simultaneously roused by Hitch’s argument and strangely disconcerted” and ultimately issues a plea for him to re-join the left saying: “Come home, Hitch — we need you.”
I doubt Hitch is about to heed that call. But all this got me wondering”¦ that the political litmus test that Leftists often apply to those around them reminds me of the racial purity tests favored by the old South African apartheid regime. There were all sort of official categories of “colored” or “black” depending on what percentage of impure blood one possessed.
But to be “white” — you had to be 100% white””the old One Drop Rule. So, sorry, Hitch. It seems that your opposition to capital punishment, to racism and to fascism is all outweighed by your other heretical views in the eyes of thousands of self-satisfied leftists. Whatever you have to say lacks relevance, why bother to even read you, as you have betrayed the cause? You’re but a drunken, celebrity-crazed traitor.
The truly disconcerting part of all this, to borrow a descriptor from Hari, is that lefties rarely apply this purity test to those who stand to their purported left (but who, in reality, are reactionary enemies of democracy).
Example: Hitchens is drummed out of the left because his interpretation of anti-fascism brings him to support certain U.S. government policies and even the President. But what consequences among leftists does, say, Ramsey Clark reap for joining, literally, in the defense of Milosevic and Saddam? Anybody call him a traitor to the left recently?
What about college-activist favorite Michael Parenti who actually boasts that Slobo was a socialist, and anti-imperialist no less? What price does Parenti pay on the left for peddling such rubbish?
Just who on the left refuses to work with International A.N.S.W.E.R. whose propaganda denounces Bush but praises Kim il Sung? Did anyone care that the Not In Our Name campaign, that got squishy anti-war liberals to line up behind it, was organized by the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party, by folks who have defended, I might point out, the public execution of drug users?
Oh perish the very thought! Dare to criticize any of those folks from within the left and it’s tantamount to McCarthyism. But trashing a great mind like Hitchens, publicly condemning him as a traitor, a delusional alcoholic or as a queer, as Alexander Cockburn did? Well, no, that’s just sport, comrade.
UPDATE: Given the high level of interest in this subject, I’m linking to another piece on Hitch written last year by Dennis Perrin — a sometimes commenter on this blog. His Obit For A Former Contrarian appeared in the Minneapolis City Pages.
There’s also this meditation on this same matter today by Norman Geras. While he also laments Hitchens’ divorce from the left, Geras argues that idenitifying someone today as being on the Right or the Left has lesser meaning than determining one’s adherence to a set of democratic principles. Hear, hear!
I’m also adding this link to Hitchens’ latest hard-edged piece published today on Slate.com.
September 27th, 2004 at 1:03 am
Mr. Sour Dour Marc Cooper himself does a great job in showing the double standard the Leftist have about anybody who disagrees with them. For now it’s Hitch (Christopher Hitchens), who is about as Leftist as they come in terms of being anti-fascist. But, because he supports Pres. Bush he is a “traitor” to the Left!
Long ago any pro-life anti-fascists were excommunicated. Now it’s any who support US military strikes against Islamofascists, or maybe it’s only strikes ordered by a Rep?
In fact, anti-Iraq war has become a new Leftist Truth, and no matter how much somebody supports other fascists, if they oppose operation Iraqi Freedom, they can be accepted as Leftist members in good faith.
September 27th, 2004 at 1:57 am
God I’ve waited a long time to read a piece like this. The reason I said last week that I would not have left the left if you were typical instead of contrarian is because I knew you had this post in you somewhere. Thanks.
Bush will probably be president next year, in part because of what you just wrote about.
September 27th, 2004 at 5:25 am
What MJT said!
Sadly, however, it’s just as bad on the extreme right. If you favor gay marriage (I do) or civil unions (likewise), if you are not rabidly pro-life (I am pro-life, but I am not about to kill anyone over it) you are anathema and as such, any thoughts you may have you DO NOT have the right to them or to utter them. (Although, I must believe that the disease is even worse on the left…. They are such fun to watch as they pseudo-logically attempt to immolate their own.)
Perhaps the need to keep our political leanings pure acts as a drug on the brain. The very human need to belong (Maslow said belongingness is one of of the five basic needs) sometimes manifests itself as a need to exclude. Hence, apartheid; hence political purity.
That said, Marc a great post. You really ought to consider Hitchens position as one you could adopt.
September 27th, 2004 at 6:39 am
But trashing a great mind like Hitchens, publicly condemning him as a traitor, a delusional alcoholic or as a queer, as Alexander Cockburn did? Well, no, that’s just sport, comrade.
–That seems rather harmless compared to declaring that those who opposed the bombing of Afghanistan supported Al Qaeda and thought of them as revolutionary, which was Hitch’s accusation at the time. Actually, it’s not the Hitchens types that are excluded, they have lots of opportunities to trash leftists in mainstream media as do people like Todd Gitlin or Alan Wolfe on the pages of the NY Times, Washington Post, etc. They’re hardly excluded in any serious manner. Very welcome on NPR’s Talk of the Nation or All Things Considered.
There’s also one other odd element of Hitchens playing victim. He initiated the departure from the Nation and they actually let him know he was welcome to come back!! Yet, from this, we end up with the myth of Hitch as an Apartheid victim of some sort. I guess The Nation should have handed over editorship to Hitch and then he wouldn’t have felt so victimized.
September 27th, 2004 at 6:43 am
I hope it’s no surprise that I’d second your comments on Hitchens. I’ve always admired his writing, and I like to think that the sense I drew of his own integrity wasn’t just a matter of his writing style. I did support the invasion of Afghanistan, uneasily, and Hitchens’ articles were about the only arguments I’d heard from a source I really respected.
As for the Left’s reaction to Hitchens, I wasn’t exactly surprised. I saw the same tribal reactions when friends complained about my voting for Nader in 2000. Utterly amazing to watch, people: friends who counted themselves as open, caring, progressive, gay-friendly Champions of Justice were suddenly spouting rumors about Nader’s personal life that _Forbes_ magazine would have blanched at. So I’m not impressed by claims about Hitchens’ personal life, or silly claims about “selling out.”
September 27th, 2004 at 6:43 am
I think the problem is worse on the Left. I present as anecdotal evidence the popular blogs on each side.
The most popular Conservative blog is Instapundit which is authored by someone who is pro-gay marriage, ambivalent on abortion, and very likely to criticize republicans.
The most popular Lefty blog is KOS which is a toe-the-line Lefty site.
I am firmly in the Bush camp, but find it quite easy to discuss moderation in social issues with other Republicans. I also can’t find any who compared Clinton to Hitler…
September 27th, 2004 at 7:08 am
Yawn! Yet another simplistic and naive argument about Hitchens, Bush, the Big Straw Man, and the War on Terror. The Big Straw Man is the Leftie in favor of accommodation with Islamic terrorists. And, yes, of course some are; as are many on the right. And of course Hitchens is correct to attack the Left for any accommodation with Islamic fascism. But what about the right: Buchannan, Norquist, for starters; Cheney–Halliburton’s dealings with Iran for instance? I’m just not sure of the issue here: Is it that Bush is better or Hitchens is right to take the Left to the woodshed? As one gay Leftie who (I believe) sees just how large the task is before us in fighting Islamic terror, Islamic fascism, and, if necessary, Islam unless it reforms (see Robert Spencer’s writings), I find Bush’s actions are entirely counterproductive. Afghanistan was correct, until our troops were pulled; Iraq a disaster for us. We don’t need just any War on Terror, we need the correct one. Sadly, Hitchens bought into Bush’s big lie about Iraq. In my view, Saudi Arabia should have been a sea of glass Sept 12 2001. SA, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, Sudan: these are our primary enemies. Saddam was merely repulsive and cruel.
September 27th, 2004 at 7:09 am
Well, I’ve been publicly critical of Hitch (and privately to him), and I don’t fit the handy stereotype above (check the LBO Talk archives for that). Yes, there are lefties who are religious about their politics and intolerant of those who buck them, but this is hardly the sole property of the left. And Marc, you’ve dismissed those who disagree with you in the same manner that you deplore above. Part of taking an active stand in a violent, chaotic world. Not always pretty or even consistent. To quote someone I wrote extensively about years ago, we’re humans, that is to say, assholes.
Hitch can believe whatever he wants. I could care less if he’s a neocon, recovering Trot (same thing?), born again capitalist, raging warmonger, whatever. But one thing Hitch is not is an innocent victim of the McCarthyite Left. He picked plenty of fights after 9/11, calling people out, slamming those he once considered close friends and comrades. Like those Marc lambastes, Hitch held himself up as the acme of New Political Virute, and those who fell short were reviled by him in print and in person as soft on fascism, etc. Hitch loves to fight — the nastier the better. Don’t shed tears for him. He eats this shit up with a wooden spoon.
Hitch mouths some pro-Palestinian rhetoric, but he hasn’t written anything on their behalf in some time, which is really outrageous when you consider his past body of work on this issue and the worsening conditions for the Palestinians under the Israeli boot. I asked him repeatedly why he wasn’t writing about this vital topic, and he told me that the Palestinian cause was lost, they’re doomed no matter what, and that the best they can do are bantustans. So that’s that. Wash your hands and leave the room. If he were ever to revisit the issue in book form, I’ll bet the title will be “Ignoring the Victims.”
That’s just one example of Hitch’s new world view. There are many others that show him fudging facts, constructing wild contradictations, citing false history and engaging in wishful imperial thinking. Hitch is not above criticism on these fronts — indeed, he deserves it. Let’s talk about that instead of patting our backs about how we’re not like those granola nazis who wave ANSWER signs at Islamofascist rallies in favor of videotaped beheadings.
September 27th, 2004 at 7:12 am
“Virute”
Virtue. Pardon my dyslexia.
September 27th, 2004 at 7:16 am
“contradictations”
Contradictions. I’ve been typin’ too fast . . .
September 27th, 2004 at 7:38 am
And Marc, you’ve dismissed those who disagree with you in the same manner that you deplore above.
–that’s quite correct, i’m reminded of Totten, who also sees himself as a victim of left exclusion, calling leftists with whom he disagrees on issues like the bombing of afghanistan or occupying Iraq as unpatriotic or anti-american ‘cheerleaders of GI deaths’. Somehow that kind of rhetoric is the kind of stuff of reason and civil debate. When The Nation pleads with Hitchens to stay on despite disagreements with his views on Iraq and Afghanistan, that somehow gets turned into an act comparable to ‘apartheid’. The double standard is astounding.
September 27th, 2004 at 7:49 am
If Bush is reëlected and continues to gut environmental regulations, appoints judges who are more beholden to Antonin Scalia’s agenda rather than the US Constitution and continues to consider the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture, the first time Hitchens complains, I hope someone reminds him that life is much more complex than a single issue.
September 27th, 2004 at 9:00 am
“I think the problem is worse on the Left. I present as anecdotal evidence the popular blogs on each side”
Of course, Blogs are more favored by the left (and the more intelligent conservatives), if we look at the rights more favored medium, talk radio, we see the ‘big tent’ of conservative inclusion as represented by Rush Limbaugh, a man who is widely known as a respector of those who have opposing views, particularly if they are “femi-nazis”.
September 27th, 2004 at 9:11 am
Randy… what you said.
September 27th, 2004 at 9:27 am
Maybe Hari feels “strangely disconcerted” because he is hearing truth rather than cant.
All the hot buttons of the left–abortion, gay marriage, the Patriot Act, Supreme Court appointments, military reform–can be fixed; being mass murdered while sitting in your cubicle or on your train is final.
I would agree with your anticipated comments that this is fear mongering except that these things have already happened, are reality, are happening all over the world. Tehran boasts it has missiles that can hit London, Paris and Berlin. Gosh, I hope we can cure the root causes of terrorism before they fire them off.
September 27th, 2004 at 9:34 am
Marc, I think Bush-hate on SC appointments is quite valid; I’m sure he’d be under pressure to appoint pro-life judges, and the country could have some nasty confirmation fights.
But: beholden to Antonin Scalia’s agenda rather than the US Constitution is REALLY funny; there ain’t no abortion, ain’t even no privacy written there; no reason that sodomy laws are a federal matter — but most liberals are glad to get rid of anti-gay laws (I am; but I oppose pro-gay laws).
The SC has the power to make the US Constitution say whatever they want it to say, with respect to specific cases, one by one. And while decisions are seldom fully overrulled, new cases can and do move the edges, and directions.
September 27th, 2004 at 10:19 am
Dennis the Menace is lying again.
“Hitch mouths some pro-Palestinian rhetoric, but he hasn’t written anything on their behalf in some time, ” etc.
He’s done a lot lately, like on Tim Russert’s show Saturday night he said Jewish zealot settlers are to blame for the current impasse. Very neocon… I doubt he’s ever said it was hopeless.
Dennis, on an Australian radio show last month, the host who’s an old friend of Hitchens asked him about that backstabbing piece you wrote. His response was classic Hitchens. It even made me wince.
September 27th, 2004 at 10:26 am
Dennis the Menace is lying again.
“Hitch mouths some pro-Palestinian rhetoric, but he hasn’t written anything on their behalf in some time, ” etc.
He’s done a lot lately, like on Tim Russert’s show Saturday night he said Jewish zealot settlers are to blame for the current impasse. Very neocon… I doubt he’s ever said it was hopeless.
Dennis, on an Australian radio show last month, the host who’s an old friend of Hitchens asked him about that backstabbing piece you wrote. His response was classic Hitchens. It even made me wince.
September 27th, 2004 at 10:32 am
Tom Grey:
Allow me to elaborate re: Scalia: more of the type of SCOTUS Justice that will think so poorly of the public and so grandly of himself that will not see a possible conflict in sharing a duckblind in the Louisiana bayous with the VPOTUS and later passing judgment on a case involving the aforementioned VPOTUS.
September 27th, 2004 at 10:37 am
Thanks for this. Cooper can probably relate to the sectarian wrath. He had to tolerate a tremendous amount of nonsense during the “Pacifica crisis†and the “liberation†of KPFK.
Hitchens is my hero and always will be. He is right to opposed Islamic Fascism vigorously. The Left has always been soft on totalitarianism. Neither can the Left tolerate anyone that does not accept the consensus.
It is absurd that the Left stands behind Amy Goodman, ANSWER, Ramsey Clark, Chomksy, no matter how contradictory to Left values they might be. It is probably due to the domination of 60′s era sectarianism on the left. The Left has absorbed the worst that the New Left had to offer. Many of the “second thoughts” esque New Lefties are continuously bullied and silenced by the more vocal sectarian forces.
Walzer wrote a valuable piece for Dissent just after 911 titles, “Can There Be A Decent Left?â€
. http://www.dissentmagazine.org/menutest/archives/2002/sp02/decent.shtml . It really does apply these days.
The strident sectarianism can best be witnessed by certain people who post on this blog. The left can learn a lot more from the contrarian voices than those that are unflinching members of the family.
The Nation has suffered due to the loss of Hitch. Naomi Klein’s column is not only boring but also irrelevant and lately bordering on insanity. Pollit and Williams have gotten real boring as well. Cockburn is just plain awful.
Cooper’s interview with Hitch on Radio Nation a while back is worth trying to find.
September 27th, 2004 at 10:45 am
“I doubt he’s ever said it was hopeless.”
He certainly said it to me. But believe what you want, Peter.
Hitch has said a few things in interviews about the Palestinians, but he has not written about them in any extensive way of late (unless there’s a piece on the way). If he has, I’d love to read it.
To you my piece may have been “backstabbing,” but I showed it to Hitch before it appeared, and told him about it while I was writing it. There’s plenty of affection in that piece, and positive statements as well. That I don’t genuflect before his every utterance may lead some to see darker motives at work, but I was pretty above board and honest in that piece, whether you like it or not.
September 27th, 2004 at 11:03 am
Neither can the Left tolerate anyone that does not accept the consensus.
–by which you mean consensus as in “anyone who agrees with Josh”.
–
It is absurd that the Left stands behind Amy Goodman, ANSWER, Ramsey Clark, Chomksy, no matter how contradictory to Left values they might be.
–if you ever visited a left discussion board like LBO-Talk or PEN-L, you’d know that what you say is simply false. There is plenty of discussion that is critical about all 4, though at least at points it is about things they actually have said or did as opposed to stuff imagined up in moments of sardonic anger.
-
Many of the “second thoughts” esque New Lefties are continuously bullied and silenced by the more vocal sectarian forces.
–when you say ‘bullied’, i think what you mean is they are challenged, at which point the cry of ‘victimization’ is bound to follow soon.
—
The strident sectarianism can best be witnessed by certain people who post on this blog. The left can learn a lot more from the contrarian voices than those that are unflinching members of the family.
–hold it, you can say that with a straight face after calling people who disagree with you ‘anti-american’ ‘america hating’, ‘lovers of fill in the blank’, etc.? I mean are you really a fair and balanced provider of discourse? You make claims about ‘new leftism’ of people like Frances Fox Piven that are utterly baseless. You claim I’m a pacifist because I disagree with you–even while arguing me *because* I support the right of armed resistance to the current US occupation of Iraq…
-
The Nation has suffered due to the loss of Hitch.
–He *voluntarily* left, was never pressured to leave and when he did leave, they publicly offered him his writing post back whenever he should choose to return! This is an example of ‘victimization’? Hardly.
–
September 27th, 2004 at 11:06 am
Dennis wrote:
That I don’t genuflect before his every utterance may lead some to see darker motives at work, but I was pretty above board and honest in that piece, whether you like it or not.
–indeed, namecalling and accusations of betrayal are cast at you from self-perceived victims of the Left’s “apartheid” for criticising Hitchens. The irony never ends?
September 27th, 2004 at 11:08 am
What an insight Marc, Neskutecne(unbelievable), you’ve figured out that some American leftists(just like everybody else in the world) are capable of hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness. In my country, the Czech Republic, SOME Communists continue to stupidly glorify the previous totalitarian regime as having been a perfect democracy. SOME leftists are guilty of this, does that give you licence to stereotype the whole left.
I would also like to comment on the statement that, “Leaving the left can be a bit like leaving the Mafia. You can’t get out without getting assassinated-literally or figuratively”. Maybe I’m the ignorant one, but isn’t this a bit of questionable hyperbole. Mr. Hitchens having to endure derogatory e-mails and articles is hardly the same thing as leaving the mafia. As you already know, after the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia Communists who left the party were not allowed to make a nice living, write books etc.
One last thing, people should lay off Mr. Hichens but we can denounce Michael Moore as a, “political buffoon”. It can be diificult to keep track of who’s in and who’s out.
Frydek-Mistek
September 27th, 2004 at 11:08 am
The “left” that you refer to seems like a fairly marginalized group. I guess the reason I don’t spend much time denouncing ANSWER or Michael Parenti is that their views don’t impact my life in any way; it is unlikely that any policymaker will ever be influenced by those fringies (and who knew Ramsey Clark was still alive?), and opposition to the Afghan War was a minority position, even on the Left, so it can hardly be said that Hitchens suffered with his former allies because of that position. And I thought Clinton-bashing was supposed to have been trendy on the Left; I don’t remember the Nation giving the Clenis much love before Ken Starr entered the picture.
The reason why Hitchens’ present-day sycophancy about the Bush Administration gets treated with such contempt has more to do with the brutal way he’s always treated people he’s disagreed with in the past (at least in print; I’ve never met the guy, so he might be a real mensch in person). If, like Hitchens, you’re prepared to always assume the worst about your ideological adversaries, and adopt a take-no-prisoners style in attacking them, some feelings are bound to be rubbed the wrong way.
September 27th, 2004 at 11:19 am
> I think Bush-hate on SC appointments is quite
> valid; I’m sure he’d be under pressure to
> appoint pro-life judges, and the country could
> have some nasty confirmation fights.
See, this highlights an problem with most on the left, which I think explains the vitriol many of them have for Hitchens: they’ll tether themselves to an issue they’ve simply lost on a democratic level, then try to forestall the will of the voters through nasty rhetoric or legalistic process. Specifically in this case, on abortion. You would think, by now, that the left would allow for a big tent policy on such a painful, complicated issue. But no, it has to be support for Roe v. Wade, or nothing at all. Even though only 30% of American women support it, while 51% want abortion rights scaled back drastically or entirely:
http://womenenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1479
“About one-third (30 percent) of the women surveyed said abortion should be “generally available.” That was down from 34 percent from a survey conducted in 2001. Another one-third (34 percent), up from 31 percent, said they would restrict abortion to cases of rape, incest or to save a woman’s life. And 17 percent of women surveyed said they would ban it completely–a rise from 14 percent in 2001.”
I adamantly support abortion rights as the law currently states them, and even want some kind of state subsidization of the procedure in the first trimester. But then I keep thinking, who am I to insist on that, when most women– you know, the people such laws directly affect– don’t agree with me? With those numbers, it is suicidal to make Roe v. Wade the litmus test for judicial nominees, but I am sure most Democrats will fall right into that trap, after Bush is elected. Losing them even more support among women, who are already starting to leave the Democrats in numbers significant enough to cost Kerry the election.
I think a similar attitude is what has made Hitchens such an object for much of the Left’s rage. It’s not about what *he* believes, it’s what *they* believe, and how determined they are not to commit to any kind of serious rethinking of premises– even when the majority is dead against them. Or, you know, when jumbo jets are sent cutting into buildings killing thousands of innocent people for no justifiable reason.
September 27th, 2004 at 11:37 am
See, this highlights an problem with most on the left, which I think explains the vitriol many of them have for Hitchens: they’ll tether themselves to an issue they’ve simply lost on a democratic level, then try to forestall the will of the voters through nasty rhetoric or legalistic process.
–you’re talking about Tom Grey as leftist?
—
I think a similar attitude is what has made Hitchens such an object for much of the Left’s rage.
–has there been really that much ‘rage’? on left discussion lists (i.e. pen-l, lbo-talk…), I don’t see much time spent raging about Hitchens. I mean, seriously, this rhetoric you use is hyperbolic in the extreme. Criticism is now taken to be ‘rage’.
Most Americans don’t know the details of Roe V Wade, but if you ask them if women should be arrested for having abortions, that’s not a very popular position anywhere in the US.
September 27th, 2004 at 12:08 pm
Heretics have long been viewed as the worse sinners – see the right’s criticism of Andrew Sullivan now for leaving the fold over gay marriage (Doesn’t he know there’s a War On Terror that trumps all other issues?)
Where Hitchens rubbed me wrong is with his article in the WSJ. “I debate with the opponents of the Iraq intervention almost every day. I always have the same questions for them, which never seem to get answered.” This is cheap rhetoric, easily answered by anyone opposing the war – going to war with Saddam was not inevitable.
As others above have stated, it’s a gross generality to believe that the left accepts Ramsey Clarke – anyone who supports both Milosovec & Saddam has no moral standing (everytime I read a quote from Clarke reinforces my view of him as a nutcase).
Believe what you’re seeing with outcasts from the right & left are the passions of the moment. Hopefully many of these rifts will be healed in another decade – by which point we’ll hopefully have left Iraq.
September 27th, 2004 at 12:24 pm
From the interview:
“So that interest in the neocons re-emerged after September 11th. They were saying – we can’t carry on with the approach to the Middle East we have had for the past fifty years. We cannot go on with this proxy rule racket, where we back tyranny in the region for the sake of stability. So we have to take the risk of uncorking it and hoping the more progressive side wins.” He has replaced a belief in Marxist revolution with a belief in spreading the American revolution. Thomas Jefferson has displaced Karl Marx.”
What is that about – Marx=Jefferson? Now that *is* a revolution…
September 27th, 2004 at 12:56 pm
Hey, Marc…
I used to really enjoy Hitchens’ writing, and I was greatly saddened to witness his turn towards “the dark side” (though, in fairness, he still comes out with the occasional piece that hits the nail on the head; his “tribute” to Reagan when RR finally kicked the bucket, for example, as well as his thoughts on Mel Gibson’s holy roller snuff film, the Jesus Chainsaw Massacre). But I gotta echo what some of the other posters here are saying: CH’s departure from the Nation seemed more like a publicity stunt to me than a statement of principle. Frankly, I found the manner he chose to leave the magazine to be a pretty graceless slap-in-the-face to the people who’d been supporting his work up till then. Also, the left hardly has a monopoly on nasty behavior, and Hitch, needless to say, can be pretty goddamned nasty himself.
September 27th, 2004 at 1:03 pm
It’s absurd of course, but I actually woke up last night about 3:00am with the notion to get on line today and see if I could find the new International Brigade with whom I could go off and find, and strangle, Osama et al. What better way to show Bush how he messed up with Iraq? We could call ourselves the New Swift Boat Brigade or some such thing. Kerry could endorse us, and outflank Bush from the right. And it can’t just be the young’ins. Middle-aged Leftist college professors with bifocals welcome.
September 27th, 2004 at 1:31 pm
Frankly, I found the manner he chose to leave the magazine to be a pretty graceless slap-in-the-face to the people who’d been supporting his work up till then.
–And then to play victim to boot!
I had an amusing exchange with Hitch on NPR’s Talk of the Nation once, right before the official invasion of Iraq began. The discussion was about his new Orwell book and I noted that it was ironic that he takes himself to be a conemporary of Orwell, since he had spent so much energy attacking the left for all kinds of imagined errors and spent zero time on critiquing the utter distortions of language and truth that were coming from Bush and the neocons on the “threat” coming from Iraq.
Suffice it to say, he didn’t like that comment and insisted that all governments exaggarate their cases for war anyway…so what was the big deal? Such is the state of Orwell’s contemporary. And, please, if he had really performed a job of Orwellian stature and used his pen to disassemble the fake ‘case’ Bush and Blair had constructed, the last place he would have been in the days preceding the war was on Neal Conan’s Talk of the Nation on NPR!! No left critics of war are allowed on that program, save the once a year interview with the protestors.
September 27th, 2004 at 2:16 pm
Frankly, many of us tend to hold Hitchens to a higher standard than, say, the anybody-not-with-me-deserves-to-die “patriot†morons at NewsMax, precisely because he IS so smart and talented—thus we can’t understand why he has suddenly retreated to closed-system logic on Bush and the Iraq war.
Yet, Marc, I also respectfully object to the rest of us being lumped in with the most shrill—and increasingly marginalized—elements of the left like ANSWER et al. This is the very worst of leftie old guard and, despite their uncanny ability to nail down permits to demonstrate in public places, they ain’t the future, nor do they, in any way, represent the majority among progressives.
The Deaniacs, the Kos and Atrios legions, the Move-On hoards…..they’re the future. (And, yes, they’re angry, combative, noisy, and many are not always the best listeners. So, what? They’re also creative, optimistic, and they work stunningly hard to try to move their country in, what they believe is, a more humane direction.) The likes of Michael Parenti (who’s mostly on campuses because he’s flogging his latest book) is a name that most of these new progressives wouldn’t recognize.
Moreover, as “Frankly†correctly said, “anyone who supports both Milosovec & Saddam has no moral standing…†with real progressives AKA liberals. None. Zero. Zip..
Hey, Cliff, will you accept middle-aged grrllls with bi-focals in your brigade too? If so, please forward the sign up sheet my direction. And let’s just keep this between us, okay? Don’t mention it to my kid. He tends to worry.
September 27th, 2004 at 2:39 pm
Absolutely Rosedog… both on the welcome and the keeping it quiet. It’s clear we can’t trust Bush to run a war (or even aim the army in the right direction), and I’m not sure Kerry will be more than marginally better at it, so why not an not a New International Brigade? A Coalition of the Willing to get Osama would have a lot more volunteers. I have a number of biker friends who are chomping at the bit.
I was just checking the State Department website for the latest news on visitng Afghanistan and Orbitz for flights to Kabul. Getting a flight out of Minneapolis is going to be tough, and the weapons on the plane could be a little tricky… I think we’ll have to charter…
September 27th, 2004 at 2:43 pm
Marc,
I just read PINOCHET AND ME–fantastic. You seem to have an enviable way of maneuvering a variety of lefty minefields (i.e. you can oppose the Bush administration and Islamic extremism; exactly what I’ve thought for some time), with which I strongly sympathize.
I used to get incredibly excited in high school and early college when my mom’s VANITY FAIR would show up in the mailbox and there’d be an article by Hitchens. He was (and still occasionally is) a thrill and a joy to read, and I, too, was flummoxed by his seemingly whole-hearted support for the Bush “crusade.” Sure, I don’t want to see the reappearance of Tamerlane either, but do you honestly TRUST these lying twerps? I think my interpretation of events lies somewhere in the middle. Yes, Hitchens was the recipient of a lot of nasty vitriol from his erstwhile colleagues (I really wish Eric Alterman, whom I generally admire, would could be a little more open-minded, though it does seem to be difficult these days), but he did take the initiative in leaving THE NATION and it seemed to be a decision he had been toying with for some time. So even as I more often than not disagree with him, I’ll continue to approach his stuff with interest and an open mind (his article on “The Passion” really was awesome).
Great work on the site! I can’t wait to read your other stuff!
September 27th, 2004 at 2:51 pm
Cliff,
I’m sure you could pick up a few weapons once in Kabul.
You could save the world, restore boomer credibility and reap huge reward money, to boot.
If you can wait till the end of semester, I’ll sign up too! (I was once nicknamed Ms. Tiny Tough but, sadly, have had no weapons training.)
September 27th, 2004 at 4:03 pm
In today’s SLATE Hitchens writes that “there are quite obviously people close to the leadership of today’s Democratic Party who do not at all hope that the battle goes well in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Needless to say, he doesn’t mention any Democrat by name.
I can only speak for myself, but I respond to bad news in Iraq and Afghanistan with indescribable sadness and not glee. Had we caught Osama in October 2001, I’d be leading the shower of ticker-tape for our troops and, yes, for Bush. I’ve known people killed by terrorism (Lockerbie) and want to see it rooted out. After 9/11, you would never have heard me begin a sentence with, “What the terrorists were TRYING to say was…” I simply don’t think Bush is the guy to be leading this fight. And I have a finite amount of sympathy for somebody like Hitchens, who voluntarily leaves his job and then claims he’s being silenced.
September 27th, 2004 at 6:55 pm
The problem here Marc is that Hitchens has gone far, far beyond New Republicesque liberal hawkishness, which is to say recognizing that a) radical Islamism is a threat to western civilization, potentially on the scale of Nazism b) that the root causes of radical Islamism are the political, economic, and cultural status quo in the Arab world and America’s enabling of that status quo and that c) liberal internationalism would continue to enable that status quo, and is therefore a dumb response (by generally smart people) to a very serious problem. No, Hitchens has attached himself not only to particular ideas (the democratization of the Arab world) but particular people, and indeed particularly corrupt and loathsome people (Americans and non-Americans alike – I think we know their names.) People whose recklessness, immorality, crackpottedness, and stupidity undermine the very cause they seek to advance. Hitchens is just the neoconservative version of the leftist who not simply apologizes for odious people on his side, but actively supports and lionizes them. It is nothing short of grotesque.
Never trust a Bolshevik, or an ex-Bolshevik.
September 27th, 2004 at 7:04 pm
I gotta agree with Andrew on this. That Slate article just launched Hitchens over the shark as far as I’m concerned.
This is contemptible:
“How can the Democrats possibly have gotten themselves into a position where they even suspect that a victory for the Zarqawi or Bin Laden forces would in some way be welcome to them?”
That’s a particularly mendacious bit of wishful thinking on Hitchens’ part. As in Andrew’s case, I can only speak for myself, but Hitchens comments have nothing to do with the reality I know. Everyone I know who supports Kerry is extremely upset by what is going on in Iraq. In my mind schadenfreude doesn’t involve the taking of lives or the suffering of people; American, Iraqi, British, Iranian, Afghani, etc.
From a personal standpoint, my Dad was a civilian employee of the US Army. My best friends growing up were the sons and daughters of soldiers and I have never taken any bit of pleasure in knowing any harm can come to them; quite the opposite in fact. During the Vietnam War, I worried about the fathers of friends of mine losing their lives. This, by the way, was when Hitchens was a fire-breathing Trotskyite. Reading that article I became so angry I’m literally shaking. Hitchens has essentially accused all of us of treason.
Shame on him and his McCarthyite smear.
September 27th, 2004 at 7:19 pm
I would add that honorable supporters of the war in Iraq and the stated neoconservative agenda of democratizating and liberalizing the greater middle east should be calling for the imprisonment or hanging of Dick Cheney (and all of his Haliburton cronies) for war profiteering (if this is like WWII, as the GOoPers tell us daily, then we should be punishing war profiteers accordingly), the imprisonment or hanging of Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft (and perhaps even George W Bush) for conspiring to commit torture (the federal statute allows for if not mandates the prosecution of senior commanders and officials – not just the enlistees who actually do the dirty deed), and if Bush hasn’t been imprisoned or executed for the crimes at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, he should be impeached for incompetence in prosecuting the war itself, and gross dereliction of duty. And in a slightly better world, the likes of Richard Perle and William Kristol would be sent to fight the next battle of Fallujah, or extradited to the West Bank.
Your position on the war in Iraq and the “war on terror” is an honorable one Marc. There is little that strikes me as honorable about Hitchens.
September 27th, 2004 at 8:15 pm
Scoop Democrat,
Thanks for the demonstration of why Hitchens will never “come back.” We all appreciate it.
Regards,
Ric Locke
September 27th, 2004 at 8:17 pm
Thanks for all the great comments so far.. they really are great. Im a bit buried in work and will do my best to respond here to many of the above comments. But great reading so far.. lots of smart people.
September 27th, 2004 at 8:38 pm
Mr. Locke,
As a Scoop Jackson Democrat who supported the arms buildup against the Soviet Empire and a vigorous stand against red tyranny during the cold war generally, I always thought Mr. Hitchens little more than a contemptible communist. The right can have him (and please take the likes of Ramsey Clark and Naomi Klein too – they’re your kind of people.) He’s every bit as shady, corrupt, clueless, and incomptent as the worst of the Bush GOP. That doesn’t mean I have any great reverance for the Democratic Party of today either. Their support for “liberal internationalism” in the war against Islamo fascism is every bit as strategically moronic and politically tone deaf as McGovernite isolationism at the height of the cold war. Again, I repeat that honorable supporters of the wilsonian cause in the Arab world would call for the vigorous prosecution (including the use of the death penalty) of the war profiteers and war criminals within the Bush administration, as well as condemn the objective support of most leading Democrats for Islamist tyranny. There is little honor left in America on either side of the aisle. Neither party deserves the vote of decent Americans.
September 27th, 2004 at 8:59 pm
Their support for “liberal internationalism” in the war against Islamo fascism is every bit as strategically moronic and politically tone deaf as McGovernite isolationism at the height of the cold war.
–McGovern was never an isolationist. He was a Roosevelt liberal who supported strongly institutions like the UN, greater aid assitance to the poor countries, and the like–i.e. the exact opposite of isoloationist.
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The right can have him (and please take the likes of Ramsey Clark and Naomi Klein too – they’re your kind of people.)
–Clark is an iconoclast civil liberties liberal at most, who is religiously committed to that concept and international law, i’ve never seen him as much more than that. not really a person who is committed to any deep left politics. Klein on the other hand is an activist and thinker and wins praise from sharp leftists like Doug Henwood and Waldon Bello.
Hitchens on the other hand was a brilliant and underappreciated writer as a leftist. Once he moved rightward, he received a lot more mainstream attention and praise as a writer. Then when he voluntarily quit the Nation, only to later play vicitim [or maybe it’s his prowar followers who are saying he’s a victim, i’m not sure if it is Hitch who sees himself as a victim of The Nation by voluntarily quitting and receiving an invitation to come back no questions asked). I can’t imagine why someone should receive criticism (what the prowar community calls “rage”) from leftists for such claims to victimhood.
September 27th, 2004 at 9:04 pm
I’m with Scoop. When most of today’s armchair warriors in Washington, the press, and the blogosphere were busy scuttling off to Canada, or getting cushy spots in the Air National Guard, or else still in diapers, I was busy slitting the throats of VC in the jungles of North Vietnam. I came home to find my party the Democrats had gone soft on communism but the alternative was the corruption, incompetence and total lack of any Christian compassion of the Republicans. The funny thing of course is that nothing, save the names, has changed.
September 27th, 2004 at 9:27 pm
To Randy Paul and Andrew: I’m glad you are decent people, but you need to know that schadenfreude on the left is real. I wish it were not so, for I’ve lost two friends over this. One declared about a year ago his hopes that the Iraq mission would fail badly, and the second remarked that he measured whether each day was a good one or not by checking to see if anyone died in Iraq that day. If yes, it was a good day. If no, then perhaps tomorrow would fare better. (He must grin himself to sleep these days.) Before I walked out of his home, he defended himself by saying that the greatest threat to the world was George W. Bush, and he must be defeated in November. Deadly catastrophes in Iraq were good news, then. Neither of these friends are of the far left. They voted for Gore, not Nader. They think of themselves as good, fairminded, tolerant, and virtuous liberals.
Hitchens hits that target as well as anyone. Thanks for the excellent original post, Marc.
September 27th, 2004 at 9:31 pm
“McGovern was never an isolationist. He was a Roosevelt liberal who supported strongly institutions like the UN, greater aid assitance to the poor countries, and the like–i.e. the exact opposite of isoloationist.”
I note that you studiously avoid mentioning the cold war. The perception among a wide swath of Americans was that McGovern was an isolationist with respect to the Soviet Empire, and would seek unilateral nuclear disarmament, rather than the needed escalation of the arms race. What he thought about foreign aid and even the UN was irrelevant.
“Clark is an iconoclast civil liberties liberal at most, who is religiously committed to that concept and international law.”
Is apologism for ethnic cleansing a shining example of his support for international law?
“Klein on the other hand is an activist and thinker and wins praise from sharp leftists like Doug Henwood and Waldon Bello.”
I admit it. I wasn’t quite fair. I sentenced Bush, and Ashcroft and Rumsfeld to hang. I sent Perle and Wolfowitz to go fight in Fallujah. Klein, on the other hand, should but sent to Fallujah as well, but to live under the control of her friends the Islamo fascists. Who knows. Maybe they’d take her into their harem.
“Hitchens on the other hand was a brilliant and underappreciated writer as a leftist.”
Fortunately, Bolsheviks are still “underappreciated” in America. Unfortunately, apologists for moronically incompetent war presidents, war profiteers, torturers, and spies for enemies (read: Iran) of this great country, are rather too much appreciated in today’s America.
September 27th, 2004 at 9:34 pm
Uh…. about Naomi Klein…. Yeah, she was a bit in the thrall of conspiracy fever at the close of her Guardian essay about the kidnapped Italian women, suggesting that the kidnappers were really English speaking guys in dark suits attempting to “discredit†the insurgency when, in reality, they were doing just dandy discrediting themselves. (Not that this administration doesn’t bring out the raving paranoid in the best of us.) But let’s chill with the ongoing character assassination, dudes.
As Marc previously noted, Klein has a long history of smart writing (whether you agree with it or not) and I suspect her uber view on Iraq is better represented by her recent article in the Sept. Harper’s Magazine. The article, titled “Baghdad Year Zero,” is provocative, quite worth reading. Here are a few clips (the website’s got the rest: http://www.harpers.org, go to “featuresâ€):
“…Al Sadr took Bremer’s economic casualties, dressed them in black, and gave them rusty Kalashnikovs. His militiamen protected the mosques and the state factories when the occupation authorities did not, but in some areas they also went further, zealously enforcing Islamic law by torching liquor stores and terrorizing women without the veil. Indeed, the astronomical rise of the brand of religious fundamentalism that al Sadr represents is another kind of blowback from Bremer’s shock therapy: if the reconstruction had provided jobs, security, and services to Iraqis, al Sadr would have been deprived of both his mission and many of his newfound followers…â€
AND
“….Bremer’s reforms unleashed forces that the neocons neither predicted nor could hope to control, from armed insurrections inside factories to tens of thousands of unemployed young men arming themselves. These forces have transformed Year Zero in Iraq into the mirror opposite of what the neocons envisioned: not a corporate utopia but a ghoulish dystopia, where going to a simple business meeting can get you lynched, burned alive, or beheaded…â€
September 27th, 2004 at 10:16 pm
“and spies for enemies (read: Iran)”
I take it you missed the news that a week & a half ago the charges against Chalibi were dropped due to a lack of evidence.
http://www.rogerlsimon.com/mt-archives/2004/09/chalabi_wasabi.php#comments
September 27th, 2004 at 10:19 pm
“I take it you missed the news that a week & a half ago the charges against Chalibi were dropped due to a lack of evidence.”
I think OJ might need your help finding the real killers.
September 27th, 2004 at 10:34 pm
Let me stick a toe in by saying that — unfortunately– I KNOW Todd (up 3-4 comments) from here is right. I know it because I know enough people on the left who have told me such things. Now, I dont think the left has any monopoly on such schadenfreude– I fear it’s a rather universal human impulse. But there are beaucoup “progressives” out there who argue that ipso facto any anti-US force is anti-imperialist and therefore “objectively” progressive. Many many a folk believe that the “major contradiction” in the world is between the US Empire and eeverybody elese and therefore ANYTHING that ties down The Empire is to be applauded. I also agree with Todd that the sort of thinking that argues that any bad (or bloody) day for Bush is a good day is indeed more prevalent among Liberal Democrats than it is among radical leftists. Odd but true (but no so odd as the libs tend to be more partisan indentified as Democrats).
And hey, Rosedoggie.. arent u letting Naomi Klein off too easy? Dont people who have the sort of insights you say she has have an special responsibility NOT to play footsie with masked religious fascists?
I also think, in passing, that her current piece in harpers is a bit over the top. The admin may be crazy but they’re not stupid. Opening up Iraq for free market economics seems like a puny goal for a $300 billion deficit likely to eventually crash the natl economy.
September 27th, 2004 at 11:16 pm
Marc: “I also agree with Todd that the sort of thinking that argues that any bad (or bloody) day for Bush is a good day is indeed more prevalent among Liberal Democrats than it is among radical leftists. Odd but true (but no so odd as the libs tend to be more partisan indentified as Democrats).”
I’m skeptical of this. Do you have any evidence that isn’t anecdotal?
I know Hitchens and Todd are right about this schadenfreude, though. I’ve heard the same thing myself from a couple of people.
Randy, you’re a good guy. I *know* you don’t think like that. Just remember that Hitchens isn’t talking about you. No need to take it personally.
September 27th, 2004 at 11:39 pm
MJT et al.. Funny you should ask for evidence, Michael. I just came across this doozy from Left Icon Arundahti Roy.. scope out thios quote from her in a new interview:
“Personally I’m not prepared to pick up arms now. But maybe I can afford not to, at whatever place I am in now. I think violence really marginalizes and brutalizes women. It depoliticizes things. It’s undemocratic in so many ways. But at the same time, when you look at the massive amount of violence that America is perpetrating in Iraq, I don’t know that I’m in a position to tell Iraqis that you must fight a pristine, feminist, democratic, secular, non-violent war. I can’t say. I just feel that that resistance in Iraq is our battle too and we have to support it. And we can’t be looking for pristine struggles in which to invest our purity.”
This rather staggering stuff and rather proves the point that Todd was making. The entire transcript is viewable at: http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20040915&fname=roy&sid=2
September 27th, 2004 at 11:41 pm
PS: Just re-read ur post MJY and u were asking for evidence of Libs rooting against America more than radicals. No, I can’t prove that, and in any case how could one quantify these things? But my personal anecdotal experience is rich in such detail.
September 28th, 2004 at 1:12 am
Marc, I agree that Klein tries much to hard to prove her thesis in the Harper’s article, when really it’s only one piece of the puzzle, not the whole puzzle as she wants to suggest. Yet, the article was also full of some fairly interesting material—such as her stories of the jockeying around privatization in relationship to Iraq’s interim constitution….and the specific drama of the soap plant, the breakdown in the expectations of the multinationals, and so on.
And, no, that doesn’t mean we should let her off the hook for her scarily loopy kidnapping piece. But I don’t feel that one need cancel out the other, that’s all.
September 28th, 2004 at 4:20 am
Rosedog wrote: Yet, the article was also full of some fairly interesting material—such as her stories of the jockeying around privatization in relationship to Iraq’s interim constitution….
–exactly. if she were not a serious thinker, activist, you wouldn’t see her showing up on interviews with people like Doug Henwood of Sasha Liley.
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Scoop wrote:
I note that you studiously avoid mentioning the cold war. The perception among a wide swath of Americans was that McGovern was an isolationist with respect to the Soviet Empire, and would seek unilateral nuclear disarmament, rather than the needed escalation of the arms race. What he thought about foreign aid and even the UN was irrelevant.
–Au contraire, isolationists hate foreign aid, they want as little of it as possible and they really despize the UN. The unilateral disarmament business? I’d be surprised if that was his stance, though good on him if it was. You mention profiteering, you leave out the role of profiteering in the Cold War and how much of the Soviet “threat” was greatly greatly exaggarated in the interest of what that well known leftist from Berkely named Dwight D. once called the “military industrial complex’. Seymour Melman used to write great stuff about this too along with EP Thompson.
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Marc’s critisisms of A. Roy would be of interest if it came from people who characaterized the armed resistance in Iraq accurately. If we don’t take for granted that the prowar’s false depiction of armed resistance in Iraq is entirely foreign driven or only about oddball terrorists engaging in hideous beheadings, kidnappings,…then Roy might not appear as so unreasonable.
I cite no less a reliable source than the US military itself on the utter dreamlike state that those who insist the resistance is ‘foreign driven’
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/latimests/20040928/ts_latimes/insurgentsaremostlyiraqisusmilitarysays&cid=2026&ncid=1473
September 28th, 2004 at 6:23 am
Michael,
It’s still a McCarthyite smear. I have no doubt that there are some nutcases on my side of the aisle, but I don’t believe that the right is exemplified by Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Pat Buchanan. If Hitchens doesn’t mean me, then he should cite specific examples. It’s a gross generalization, an attempt to paint with a broad brush and the result with that is a smear.
I grew up for several years in Alabama. I knew people who believed the Kennedy’s were all communists. Some of them even said to me that “Bobby Kennedy had n#$%^& blood!” They were all Republicans. I would never make the claim that this was representative of all Republicans. Perhaps Hitchens should stop behaving like a reactionary and afford me the same courtesy. His column that I cited was contemptible.
September 28th, 2004 at 8:52 am
Did Hitchens have even anecdotal evidence for his claim that Democrats are “rooting” for bad news in Iraq or Afghanistan? The Heinz-Kerry quote to begin the piece seems no more paranoid than, lets say, a columnist writing that Ronald Reagan brokered a secret deal with the Iranian government before the 1980 election to keep the hostages in custody, or a self-proclaimed contrarian accusing Bill Clinton of attacking Saddam and Al Qaeda in 1998 solely for the purpose of distracting the public from Monica Lewinsky’s grand jury testimony. Disgraceful.
September 28th, 2004 at 9:42 am
Todd is correct. Just read some postings on this blog. Look at the protests in NY and the delegates at the convention.
My experience is that the hatred for Bush has become all consuming and that it is impossible for liberals and radicals to see that light in regards to Islamo-Facism and the “resistance” in Iraq.
It is sad but it is a pattern of the left. Hitchens is also correct at pointing out that a socialist movement (or a “left” for that matter) really does not exist anymore. Journals like the New Left Review hold on to some rag tag Marxism and tout utter pieces of crap like EMPIRE. The trust fund eco Radicals want the rest of the word to live some sort of dreamy, agrarian life with no modern comforts without actually asking people in the 3rd world.
Some very relevant analysis does come from this quarter but largely the “left” is totally extinct and lost its moral bearings. It makes sense that the left is siding with the Islamo-Fascists because many on the left have embraced an anti-modernity, neo-isolationist vision for the world. How this is utopian is beyond me. But unless some of the more relevant (and sane) leftists emerge, than the left is destined to be voices in the wilderness following ANSWER, Klein, Roy, etc… into irrelevance.
Ironically the left is helping Bush get elected.
It is sad but it is a pattern of the left. Hitchens is also correct at pointing out that a socialist movement (or a “left” for that matter) really does not exist anymore. Journals like the New Left Review hold on to some rag tag Marxism and tout utter pieces of crap like EMPIRE. The trust fund eco Radicals want the rest of the word to live some sort of dreamy, agragrain life with no modern compforts without actually asking people in the 3rd world.
Some relevant analysis does come from this quarter but largely the “left” is totally extinct and list its moral bearings. It makes sense that the left is siding with the Islamo-Fascists because many on the left have embraced an anti-modernity, neo-isolationalist vision for the world. How this is utopian is beyone me.
September 28th, 2004 at 10:02 am
It’s a straightforward enough process.
1. Hitchens abandons the Left, becomes a supporter of a faction of the US Republican Party, and an electioneer for Bush.
2. Worried fans wonder why such a fine chap has abadoned the Left.
3. Worried fans conclude to their satisfaction that Hitchens is right to excoriate the Left.
4. Worried fans migrate with Hitchens and become Bushies too.
And on the Blogosphere one can observe the process before one’s very eyes! What fun!
Most (here, Harry’s Place, etc) seem to be somewhere between (2) and (3).
September 28th, 2004 at 10:16 am
“Most (here, Harry’s Place, etc) seem to be somewhere between (2) and (3).”
Retraction: Now I’ve read the comments, not here.
September 28th, 2004 at 10:40 am
Actually, Josh, the only thing I consistently see is stereotyping and gross generalizations by the right about the left. Hey, if it gives you a sense of satisfaction to do so, I certainly won’t discourage you.
Marc Cooper:
I appreciate your linking to Dennis Perrin’s piece. I found it to be very interesting and revealing.
Marc Mulholland:
I don’t really wonder about why Hitchens feels such a need to vilify the left, even to the point where he needs to smear people as he did in the Slate article. I understand that excessive smoking can lead to cerebral hypoxia
September 28th, 2004 at 12:44 pm
Randy,
I am far from right wing. The am the exact opposite. But the left has to be honest with itself about the state of things at the moment. Sadly it is in total disarray. The rational voices on the left are marginalized by the more vocal but very irrational reflexive Anti-American voices that will side with anyone that is opposing the USA. Even if they are counter to left values like the Iraqi opposition.
I have gone to almost every anti-war protest since 911 in LA. I have seen a pattern. The participants hate Bush so much that they are indeed rooting for the “resistance†because they do not want Bush to succeed or the perception of success. Even if it is at the cost of the Iraqi people!
I did not support the war. But the best thing for the Iraqi people is secular democracy. The Left is willing to support the “resistance” even if it will lead to an Islamic regime or civil war.
.
September 28th, 2004 at 12:54 pm
> Did Hitchens have even anecdotal evidence for
> his claim that Democrats are “rooting” for bad
> news in Iraq or Afghanistan?
Well, when you have Terry McAuliffe– you know, THE CHAIRMAN of the DNC– cheefully endorsing Michael Moore’s theory that Bush took us into Afghanistan to install a pipeline for Unocal, that is more than anecdotal evidence or an anamoly. Statements like that are not only wrong, they undermine the moral cause of our troops there, publicly conveying to them a vote of no confidence in their mission. That’s not only rooting for bad news– that’s actively *encouraging* it.
Beyond that, what is fairly indisputable is that most hardcore Democrats simply do not care that much about fighting the war on terrorism:
http://www.hillnews.com/york/102203.aspx
“The survey — sponsored by Democracy Corps, the group founded by Greenberg, James Carville and Robert Shrum — focused on Democrats who take part in the nominating process in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. What Democracy Corps found was that Democrats, at least those who are most active in politics, simply don’t care about terrorism… In Iowa, 1 percent of those polled — 1 percent! — said they worried about fighting terrorism. It was dead last on the list [of their priorities]. Two percent said they worried about homeland security — next to last. In New Hampshire, 2 percent worried about fighting terrorism and 2 percent worried about homeland security. In South Carolina — somewhat surprising because of its military heritage — the results were the same.”
It is just not a priority to them. And in practice, this attitude is more or less functionally equivalent to rooting for bad news. If you don’t care all that much about terrorism, but care a *lot* more about other things (i.e., defeating Bush), the next inevitable slippery slope is hoping how the issue you don’t care much about helps you in acheiving the goal you’re way more interested in. That may not be the rooting for bad news, but it’s certainly too close for my taste to that.
September 28th, 2004 at 12:55 pm
Josh, are you saying that if Iraq becomes an Islamic regime, it will be due to the Left. This is an interesting piece of logic. It reminds me of the Republic rant in the early 1800s to the effect that the Federalist (who had steadfastly opposed the war) were somehow “responsible” for all the disasters of the War of 1812, in spite of the fact that the Republicans were completely running the show. Will history repeat itself in the current conflict?
September 28th, 2004 at 1:06 pm
Josh,
What I object to is the notion of the monolithic left that you keep referring to. My experience is completely different from yours and I do not accept the notion that the left is being completely dominated by the ANSWER and Indymedia crowd anymore than the right is being completely dominated by the religious right.
I object strenuously to Hitchens making the unsubstantiated slur that he made. It is intellectually lazy and not based on my experience. The world is NEVER that simple.
Many of us also believe that secular democracy is the best future for Iraq, too. We even believed it when Rumsfeld was sucking up to Saddam in the 1980′s. What we object to is the deception, the shifting reasons and the all too frequent attempts to insinuate that anything other than blindly following the president’s path is “objectively pro-Saddam” (as Glenn Reynolds once wrote) or the despicable, unsupported comments that Hitchens is making in his article.
September 28th, 2004 at 1:07 pm
Look at the protests in NY and the delegates at the convention.
–Really? I thought the protests were pretty well conducted. Huge turnout at the main protest. Few arrests, outside of lots of unnecessary ones and a few minor instances of vandalism or minor violations. Even CNN is more ahead of Josh on the peaceful nature of the protests and the middle-working class composition of its participants.
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Journals like the New Left Review hold on to some rag tag Marxism and tout utter pieces of crap like EMPIRE.
–Wow, you obviously don’t read The New Left Review. In fact it’s actually invited a whole number of non-Marxist and even neo-liberals to participate in their journal. I’m not sure that’s for the better, but it sure does contrast with your strange interpretation of changes it’s undergone.
—
The trust fund eco Radicals want the rest of the word to live some sort of dreamy, agrarian life with no modern comforts without actually asking people in the 3rd world.
–Really? Is that what you believe Waldon Bello wants? WHenever I’ve heard him interviewed by Doug Henwood on numerous occasions, I haven’t heard him say that.
–
Some very relevant analysis does come from this quarter but largely the “left” is totally extinct and lost its moral bearings.
–Now, you contradict the above completely.
–
It makes sense that the left is siding with the Islamo-Fascists because many on the left have embraced an anti-modernity, neo-isolationist vision for the world.
–Examples from Bello or Klein? Even one where they are ‘anti-modernity’? ‘isolationist’? or are you just making it up as you go along?
September 28th, 2004 at 1:08 pm
Did Hitchens have even anecdotal evidence for his claim that Democrats are “rooting” for bad news in Iraq or Afghanistan?
–No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t even have that in the case of the left either, but he makes the stuff up and mainstream news organs eat it up…
September 28th, 2004 at 1:14 pm
And in practice, this attitude is more or less functionally equivalent to rooting for bad news.
Really? That’s a huge, unsupported leap. Maybe they’re more worried about jobs. There could be any number of other issues that preoccupy Democrats in these three states. Maybe because there are no major metropolitan areas in the states you mentioned, they don’t have the same fear of terrorism that people in larger cities do. In any event that hardly backs up what Hitchens claims.
Three small states in a poll taken nearly a year ago hardly makes the case that Democrats are rooting for bad news.
September 28th, 2004 at 1:14 pm
The participants hate Bush so much that they are indeed rooting for the “resistance†because they do not want Bush to succeed or the perception of success. Even if it is at the cost of the Iraqi people!
–nonsense. Even CNN doesn’t agree with your assessment of the protests. You just go looking for a few loonies and when you find them, you say, “AHA!!! There, you see, THEY”RE ALL DECLARING THEIR LOVE OF AMERICAN DEATHS”. Actually, what Josh overlooks, and witness the growing numbers of veterans and parents of soldiers at the protests, is that many people get involved in the protests precisely because they see it as the only effective way to get the troops home sooner. How odd that ALL that Josh sees is people rooting for more deaths of soldiers.
Ask the average protestor at a rally [most of whom are first timers and plainly as middle class a group as you can find] what they would rather see, lots of dead soldiers in Iraq or the troops coming home now. The latter in 9.9/10 cases. The occasional loon who says the former? There is Josh’s sample.
September 28th, 2004 at 3:09 pm
Let’s take the Lileks test, and point it at posters here. Who on this discussion board will assent to the following statement:
“I consider the Bush Administration incompetent, misguided, and wrong on almost every issue, and fervently hope for its removal in the next election. However, I hope even more for the *immediate* capture or confirmed killing of bin Laden, Zawahiri, and Zarqawi– even though that surely means Bush will win by a landslide.”
Who here wants to put their name on that statement? I will. Any other takers?
September 28th, 2004 at 3:09 pm
The one thing this thread has not adequately illuminated is that disappointment and even disgust with Hitchens is not solely the province of McCarthyite leftists and liberal internationalists, but with liberal hawks like myself, who are genuinely committed to the democratization and liberalization of the Arab and wider Muslim world, and deeply enraged with the incompetent war leadership of the Bush administration and their enablers. Why is Hitchens willing to accept the lack of adequate boots on the ground, the pathetic lack of understanding of the structure of Iraqi culture and society (experts on Japanese and German politics, economics, culture, and history were sent to preside over the post-WWII reconstruction – not 25yo think tank hacks), the war profiteering (Cheney would have been forced to resign by FDR, and subsequently prosecuted), the use of torture and sexual humiliation at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, the arrogant and moronic unwillingness of the administration to build a genuine multilateral coalition to pursue Arab democratization and therefore spread the cost in lives and dollars around, the moronic unwillingness to raise taxes to pay for the war (and return to the progressive taxation of the WWII era), the moronic unwillingness to invest in or even talk about a Manhattan Project in energy independence (so we can begin to pressure Saudi Arabia and other oil rich gulf states into reform), and the moronic unwillingness of the Bush administration to hack for Sharon (when a peace deal between Israel and Palestine would allow us to put pressure on Egypt for reform)?
September 28th, 2004 at 3:23 pm
I would add that while I do support the democratization of Iraq and the greater middle east, why are folks expending so much breath debating what anti-Iraq-war liberal internationalists may or may not be feeling? It really doesn’t matter. Everyone has inhumane and politically incorrect *feelings* at various points in their life, but politics in the end is about discourse and rhetoric and values (what people say about what they believe) and action on the other hand – what people do to uphold or not uphold their avowed principles and beliefs. It is perfectly appropriate to judge people on the basis of consistencies and inconsistencies between what they say they believe and what they actually do to uphold or not uphold those beliefs, but it is silly to judge people on the basis of their feelings.
September 28th, 2004 at 3:38 pm
Following up on that last comment: liberal internationalists should be judged on the efficacy of their approach to the threat of radical Islamism against the west, not on whether or not they feel a certain inner joy at America’s troubles in Iraq. This kind of thing is Orwellian. Of course, this does not mean that I (or a majority of Americans, as far I can tell) are convinced that liberal internationalism is an effective strategy in the war on terror, and liberal internationalists would do well to stop living in denial about this fact, and consider either becoming liberal hawks or isolationists.
September 28th, 2004 at 3:41 pm
However, I hope even more for the *immediate* capture or confirmed killing of bin Laden, Zawahiri, and Zarqawi– even though that surely means Bush will win by a landslide.”
–I’ll hope for that (and I’ll hope for world peace under Bush’s reign) if there is even a remote chance that that will mean the US troops will come home from an unnecessary and pointless war in Iraq. Or is that not part of your deal?
BTW, since the US military says the majority of attacks in Iraq are not by anyone who is associated with the phantom “Zarcowee”, are you sure killing this phantom will really matter in the end?
September 28th, 2004 at 3:47 pm
“….It is just not a priority to them. And in practice, this attitude is more or less functionally equivalent to rooting for bad news..â€
WHAT?????!!!!!! You’re kidding, right? RIGHT???!!!!
Aside from the absurd and slanderous illogic of WJA’s statement, the Dem’s polled were NOT asked if they cared about fighting terrorism, they were given a list of a dozen issues, and asked to choose the single issue out of those listed that concerned them the most.
(In a subsequent question they were asked to choose the TWO issues that concerned them the most.) The majority of respondents evidently cared THE MOST about something other than fighting terrorism—like say, education or jobs or healthcare. And, to make matters worse, it seems a few of these America-hating, bin Laden-excusing, terror-supporting Democrats even put “moral values†as one of their top two concerns. THE HORROR!!!!
This in no way suggests that they are not concerned about the necessity of fighting terrorism. It merely determines that the concerns top most in their minds, on a day to day basis, are a bit closer to home.
Next time you want to throw nasty little mudballs, please check your facts.
September 28th, 2004 at 3:57 pm
Maybe we have already caught Zarkawee?
Or if we haven’t, will we make a big deal when we catch him, only to find out later that it wasn’t such a big deal after all?
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FI29Df05.html
Or, maybe, as Dan Ellsberg puts it in today’s NYT, what is really needed is for more people in the administration to leak more documents like the NIE to get clear on the real state of the so-called “war on terror”?
http://nytimes.com/2004/09/28/opinion/28ellsberg.html
September 28th, 2004 at 4:41 pm
Bush-hate is blinding the Left to any serious discussion of alternatives. Get troops home, now/ soon. (and let the Iranians, then terrorists, get and use nukes).
Oh, no … those Islamofascists wouldn’t do anything that bad!
Right. Like the 1971 Kerry Leftist anti-Vietnam war Peace Now folk: it’s a civil war in Vietnam; only some 2000 or 3000 would be killed if we left. Those arguing to stay and fight said it would be a bloodbath.
Kerry’s Leftist arguments won; the US left Vietnam; and there was a bloodbath. The choice was Peace AND genocide, or stay and fight evil.
Tough choices. The Eisenhower-Kennedy-Johnson war mess that Nixon got in 68 (because the racist Wallace sucked away racist Southern Dems, most of whom are now Reps) WAS a quagmire. But there was too little reasonable talk about how to fight a good proxy war (perhaps requiring paying OUR bad guys to try to murder THEIR bad guys). Vietnamization (that O’Neill supported in the Cavett debate against Kerry) wasn’t working.
But the Leftist have not accepted that their alternative of peac now meant they supported genocide — because that’s not what they “wanted”. Each choice has good and bad points; Bush and Kerry, each has good and bad points.
The Bush-hate blindness makes it almost impossible for many liberals to publicly support Bush on Iraq, or almost any other issue.
Bush was right to attack Iraq. Those who think he was wrong have not put forth any consistent alternative way of dealing with the root cause of “missing democracy” in the Arab ME.
The choice was Bush invades, or Bush allows Saddam to continue ruling (just as the UN is allowing Sudan to commit genocide, today, even as I type.) Support war, or support Saddam. (But I don’t like either! Can’t be half-pregnant. Sorry.)
Once one is convinced that the attack was wrong, it’s hard to now support the troops towards victory; because if there IS a successful democracy built in Iraq, in a very significant way this will prove that the Iraq attack was good — and therefore opposition to the attack was, at least intellecutally, bad.
Leftists rooting for, and actively encouraging, democratic failure in Iraq are doing so to avoid facing proof that they were “wrong” to oppose the war.
Um, nobody who reads my tomgrey.motime.blog will accuse this libertarian paternalist Christian supporter of being on the left — but I think the point was that the increasing popular opposition to abortion (the Roe effect?) is being ignored by the Leftists, who are happy to use the SC to impose their idea of fetus killing as good, rather than adoption.
Finally, there is no case of an Arab Islamic society becoming a democracy through invasion in a way “better” than what Bush is now doing in Iraq. Claims of Bush incompetence are without much evidence; but seem based on comparison with an unspoke Unreal Perfection. I personally think more troops, and more firmness earlier, and especially more support to local Iraqi leaders earlier, would have been better — but I can’t show where my ideas worked better than what Bush is doing.
It might well be the case that some X thousand of Iraqis must be killed by terrorists before the Iraqis decide that Iraqis must stop the terrorists and Iraqis must create a good Iraqi state.
September 28th, 2004 at 4:57 pm
Get troops home, now/ soon. (and let the Iranians, then terrorists, get and use nukes).
–now we’re in Iraq to prevent Iranians from getting nukes? wow, add that to rationale 234.
–
But the Leftist have not accepted that their alternative of peac now meant they supported genocide — because that’s not what they “wanted”.
–not really, it’s more like the left was right that pointless wars like Vietnam create the conditions for little things like genocide.
–
The Bush-hate
–I’m convinced when people use that word they mean “anyone who disagrees with a Bush policy I support”
–
Bush was right to attack Iraq. Those who think he was wrong have not put forth any consistent alternative way of dealing with the root cause of “missing democracy” in the Arab ME.
–Sure they have. In fact, they’ve put forward a good number of intelligent proposals, all of which go ignored.
The choice was Bush invades, or Bush allows Saddam to continue ruling (just as the UN is allowing Sudan to commit genocide, today, even as I type.
–hold it, I thought the war was to stop terrorism? now it’s because of human rights? gosh, if i were a soldier, i’d be on my way to Canada in a minute with people taking so unseriously their own rationales for war.
—
) Support war, or support Saddam. (But I don’t like either! Can’t be half-pregnant. Sorry.)
–really? so the majority of Iraq was pro-Saddam I guess.
-
Once one is convinced that the attack was wrong, it’s hard to now support the troops towards victory;
–victory. you mean turning Iraq into a parking lot?
–
because if there IS a successful democracy built in Iraq, in a very significant way this will prove that the Iraq attack was good — and therefore opposition to the attack was, at least intellecutally, bad.
–No, actually it was both consistent and good.
Leftists rooting for, and actively encouraging, democratic failure in Iraq are doing so to avoid facing proof that they were “wrong” to oppose the war.
—Oh goodness no, it’s now transparent that we were right. and we have many many people who agree with us who are not ‘left’ to boot.
-
Um, nobody who reads my tomgrey.motime.blog will accuse this libertarian paternalist Christian supporter of being on the left — but I think the point was that the increasing popular opposition to abortion (the Roe effect?) is being ignored by the Leftists, who are happy to use the SC to impose their idea of fetus killing as good, rather than adoption.
–nope, the pro-choice movement really isn’t that interested in promoting abortion one way or another. nor can you develop any real evidence to support your claim.
—-
Finally, there is no case of an Arab Islamic society becoming a democracy through invasion in a way “better” than what Bush is now doing in Iraq.
–really? So why didn’t we invade Indonesia to bring democracy there? Malaysia?
-
It might well be the case that some X thousand of Iraqis must be killed by terrorists before the Iraqis decide that Iraqis must stop the terrorists and Iraqis must create a good Iraqi state
–ah yes, now it’s the Iraqis fault that the current US occupation is a mess…
September 28th, 2004 at 5:02 pm
Steve,
Some honest advice. Stop debating people by yanking out individual sentences. Try addressing larger points and writing complete paragraphs. Try writing mini-essays.
For one thing, it’s more pleasant to read comments in the latter format than the former. You will also probably be taken more seriously and come across less like an ankle-biter.
September 28th, 2004 at 5:09 pm
Hitchens? A learned, cultivated, original (though in a repetitive way), seductive David Horowitz.
September 28th, 2004 at 5:44 pm
– Here Here Mr. Totten!
September 28th, 2004 at 5:54 pm
Check out Paul Berman on SLATE about Che worship.
http://www.slate.com/id/2107100/
I am sure a certain Gramsci fan will write a reply to this praising Che for his “resistance.” Either that our write some reply about how I was misquoting him. Either way it will be long and will have a lot of
–this
September 28th, 2004 at 7:49 pm
Some honest advice. Stop debating people by yanking out individual sentences. Try addressing larger points and writing complete paragraphs. Try writing mini-essays.
–I think it’s fair to say that that post is the exception, not the rule of how I’ve made comments in this thread. I concede there is something to writing in longer format, then again when I do that I end up with people not addressing themselves seroiusly to the arguments and just mischaracterizing either the arguments or the motivations. Then again, it is also frequently, just for the sake of honesty in debate, to correct false claims made by people in the course of discussions like this one. Perhaps the two can be integrated in better. I do try not to just take out of context [a la the method now perfected by the Bush team with the "Kerry said this" and then said "this", with all quotes cut off to obscure real meaning, motive, etc.]. I find I’m much more serious about that than Mr. Legere, say, in his responses to anything I’ve written.
Re: the ankle biter comment, I’m not convinced that everyone regards me in that way at all. I’ve seen too many positive comments about my posts in the past week in response to the repeated calls for my banning, many of them from people whom I’ve had real disagreements with in the comments section. It is indeed refreshing to hear from people like Bonnie or Rosedog , among others, who can disagree with me without having to resort to labelling me an “america hater”, “religious follower of [fill in the blank leftist] icon”, “pacifist”, etc.
-
September 29th, 2004 at 12:04 pm
Just read your article – if that’s what they call something written for a blog. I still find myself baffled by someone “denounces the death penalty”, and yet supports attacking a nation, and killing innocent people in the process, for what was based on assumption. Then again, I’m one of those “stupid Nader supporters”, as we are referred to nowadays.
September 29th, 2004 at 12:09 pm
Hey Thomas.. I know oodles of people who denounce the death penalty and who also support armed insurgencies that..well..kill people.
September 29th, 2004 at 4:19 pm
Hey Thomas.. I know oodles of people who denounce the death penalty and who also support armed insurgencies that..well..kill people.
–Count me as one.
September 29th, 2004 at 11:49 pm
Count me as one too!
September 30th, 2004 at 9:35 pm
“All the hot buttons of the left–abortion, gay marriage, the Patriot Act, Supreme Court appointments, military reform”
Wow, no wonder you feel a certain disconnect with the “left”, Marc: what you describe is hardly the progressive left I FULLY identify with as a working class voter. Sure they’re important individual issues, but why is it so damn hard to acknowledge the difference that unites all of us progressives: CLASS, CLASS, CLASS. Come on now, is it really that hard? Cripes, these nutty diatribes against this spectre of a “crazy left” never cease to baffle me, Marc. In the meantime I proudly count myself among the progressive millions (yup, “progressive” these days still means “working class”) who clamor for just wages, affordable healthcare, revamped campaign finance laws, fair trade laws, and an overall reduction of the widening gap between the rich and poor. And the “hot button” issues? Dressing with the meat.
October 1st, 2004 at 8:49 am
I think in the end Rich it comes down to the lack of any serious structural analysis of power and lots of wishful thinking on the part of the people who apparently sincerely believe that the left is responsible for Saddam, the disaster of the current occupation of Iraq, the crackdown on unions in the US for over 2 decades, the picking apart of the poverty programs, etc. I never cease to be amazed by it too. Leftists without any serious structural analysis of how capitalism actually works!
October 3rd, 2004 at 11:58 am
Cooper is a redbaiter. He twists truths, as do many above readers who believe him. Cockburn used the kiss metaphor in regards to betrayal. Many do feel betrayed by Hitchens, especially Palestinians. There is a qual. difference between working on antiwar issues with sectarian loons, and working with the NED, as we know Cooper does.
October 3rd, 2004 at 12:05 pm
And more specifically, one would have to be a fool not to see Cooper’s opportunism, with or without the NED grants. Cooper/Corn and the rat axis that still works at The Nation lambaste Klein, whose reporting is respected all over the world, like those Dissent writers during Nam who lambasted Sy Hersh.
Corn lambasted Cockburn and the left for wanting to work with the antiwar right. Now he is in love with Buchanan, who is far more reactionary than Michael Parenti. Parenti, by the way, does not defend Slobodon Milosevic, but only points out that the means of trying him and going after him were double standards. Most people on the left agree that there were eminently defensible positions on both sides of the Balkan issue. Most clear is that from the Hague, there is plenty of exculpitory evidence in terms of Milosevic.
And he is a piker compared with Bush. Do I defend him? No. But he has objectively killed less people than the Abu Ghraib crew, defended by Hitchens. I still like Hitchens’ writing. And Parenti. And Jonah Goldberg, the finest neocon scribe. But only Parenti does any work to actually build a left. Cooper is a good writer, and apparently is a heckuva organizer. He should stick to labor issues.
October 3rd, 2004 at 6:36 pm
I agree with your arguments about the excoriation of Christopher Hitchens by the left for his observations on the subject of Islamic Fascism. I don’t think it does anyone any good to characterize this worldwide movement in any other way. (Hence, let’s not become so intellectually constipated by political correctness that we wimp out on the terminology. It’s quite all right to call a spade a spade, especially when lives are at stake.) However, what I don’t get about Hitchens’ recent conversion is his support for George Duhbyuh Bush (and his thieving, lying, gangster, moron cronies) for another four-year term in the White House.
When Bush was awarded the presidency back in 2000, I viewed him as your basic village idiot. I figured – quite naively, as things have turned out – that he would bump along for four years without doing a whole lot of damage. I assumed that the American electorate would ultimately see him as the dim bulb that he obviously is, boot him out of office, and the country could once again get back on a relatively stable track. Back in those halcyon days of 2000, I never would have dreamed that Bush and the (so-called) “neocons” that puppet him could have done so much damage in any and every policy area one might care to mention. For me it isn’t hyperbole to suggest that the Bush chain saw has been wielded quite viciously across the policy spectrum. Whether we’re talking about domestic policy, environmental policy, tax and economic policy, the disasters he’s created internationally, or virtually any other area, there is no shortage of hair-raising facts with which to support very strong arguments against another four years. (Or another 10 minutes, for that matter.) I don’t need to go into details here; you know this crap way better than I ever will.
So back to “Hitch”.
Given that Mr. Hitchens is wound this tightly about the Islamic extremist movement – as well he should be – why does he not see that the reckless and arrogant policies of the Bush administration have seriously exacerbated this problem, that a continuation of more-of-the-same can only serve to further deteriorate an already extremely volatile situation? Of course we need to confront the evil of Islamic extremism (and other evils in the world – North Korea comes immediately to mind), but the current approach – like John Wayne on crack, like air tankers laden with gasoline opening their tanks over raging forest fires – just ain’t cuttin’ it, and it ain’t never gonna cut it. Why a man as brilliant and thoughtful as is Christopher Hitchens cannot understand this most basic fact is quite beyond my capacity to assimilate. I sometimes find myself wondering: “Am I missing something here?â€
And as long as we’re chatting so enjoyably about religious fanaticism, what about Duhbyuh’s close personal friends in the ultra-reactionary, fundamentalist Christian movement? Those friends would include our illustrious Attorney General, who, it is said, has unique and frequent access to the president because of their shared religious convictions (delusions). Personally, I don’t make a whole helluva lot of distinction between fundamentalist Christians and the Islamic fascists at which Hitchens has chosen of late to focus his rapier intellect. Perhaps I’m misguided, but the electrochemical circuits firing inside my own skull tend to suggest that the overall mind-set of all religious fanatics is essentially the same. The garb may be different (I doubt Bin-Laden sports a Rolex, and I doubt that Pat Robertson keeps goats in his living room (more like the bedroom for him, but that’s another story)) and the evangelicals aren’t flying airplanes into buildings – at least not yet – but the basic tendency to think and act in the name of “faith†is fundamentally the same. Can it really be seriously/rationally argued that this movement does not mean to slice the American democracy to ribbons in whatever ways will work most expeditiously for them, that they won’t use any and all means at their disposal – television, radio, print, the web, and, of course, the courts – to achieve their objectives? And remember: the entire evangelical miasma is being propelled nicely along with the help of a specious tax-exempt status conveniently built into the tax code, just for them. (Don’t get me started on that one…)
Which brings me to another small point:
Another four years of Duhbyuh, and his buddies is very likely to yield at least two appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court, and probably a gazillion more additions to lower federal and state courts. In my estimation, that’s nothing less than a terrifying prospect. It is not inconceivable that such a fundamental shift in the overall character of the legal system could effectively drive a stake through the heart of the democracy – or at the very least, create a legal atmosphere so onerous and oppressive that it could take years if not generations to unwind. How Hitchens cannot see this, and why he wouldn’t be leveling a withering fire on such a prospect is also quite baffling to me. Again, am I missing something here?
Suffice to say that, although Hitchens is clearly correct about many of the things he is saying these days – especially as regards the cancer of Islamic Fascism – on this issue of electing (for the first time) George Duhbyuh Bush (and the regime of crackpots that he brings along with him), Mr. Hitchens is (not to put too fine a point on it) just a few bubbles off the plumb…
October 3rd, 2004 at 9:45 pm
Dwain: thanks for such a thought-out post. We look forward to many more of them for you. Welcome to the blog!
October 3rd, 2004 at 11:52 pm
Perhaps Marc doesn’t care to respond to points mentioned in above posts by me (one labelled quizzically from Steve…)
NED grants, pal?
October 4th, 2004 at 3:16 pm
What’s missing from this dicussion is a question of the naive trust H seems to think Bush is worthy of. Having seen Bush1 lie to war the first time (incubators, troops on SA border), no thinking person can take discussion of democracy or freedom in Iraq at face value. Hitch’s idealism is truly naive- where’s the discussion of the economic causes of this war (see Euro, oil, China, Mark Danner) and political pimping (see 2002 elections)? As a matter of fact, does anyone actually know why went to Iraq? What sort of anti-fascist leftist could so glibly overlook these things in favor of a few papers from Perle and Wolfowitz? I don’t believe that he’s that stupid.
Hitch is trying to debate the merits of the reasons, whereas the left, correctly, doesn’t accept them.
October 4th, 2004 at 4:52 pm
I always find the American obsession with North Korea kinda odd. They have, what, a handful of nukes if that [I'd bet most of the rhetoric is hype a la Sodom Insane having tons of nukes and being on the verge of an attack on NYC] and South Korea is constantly trying to work out business agreements with them. So, they’re evil incarnate and South Korea finds them a feasible negotiating counterpart?
Rational people like Bruce Cumings don’t believe this poppycock…why should I?
Phil, in a nutshell, for Hitch facts don’t matter. He said as much to me on NPR’s Talk of the Nation when he was a guest on that program. After all, as he said, ‘all nations lie during wars’…So there ya have it…the only faults to attack are those of the anti-war crowd.
October 5th, 2004 at 5:51 am
I enjoyed your spirited defense of Hitchens. But I think you miss one crucial factor in the alienation of many of us from his increasingly uncertain aura of brilliance: The fact that as the Bush Administration’s Iraq adventure has gone ever more woefully off the rails, Hitchens has gotten only more vituperative in his assault on those who have opposed the whole sordid quagmire from the beginning–when clear, considered logic might have dictated that he actually step back and concede that the road from means to ends is a winding one that often exceeds the power of human reason to anticipate.
As a Bosnia/Kosovo “hawk” from the get-go who also shares Hitchens’ clarity of purpose against Islamofascism and its antecedents, I have to report that reading Hitchens on Slate has become as gruesomely fascinating as watching a train wreck in slow motion. I could easily forgive Hitchens’ overenthusiasm
for the dreams and schemes of Paul Wolfowitz; I cannot forgive his florid, out-of-control rage at us critics of the war, which seems almost to extend to the notion that we useful idiots of evil are to blame for all that has gone wrong.
December 20th, 2004 at 5:08 am
Cooper on Hitchens reminds one of the best Marx, Groucho: “Hey you big bully, stop picking on that little bully.” Except, of course, here big bully Hitchens keeps little bully Cooper in his hip pocket.
Cooper does get one thing right, it was during the era of his ugly lies about about Clinton that one first saw clearly Hitchens mincing buffoonery. Cooper, who defends Hitchens betraying his friend to a right wing rent a cop like Ken Starr (on a memorably laughable premise) has a lot of nerve calling anyone else McCarthyite. Yet from a writer as corpulent as Cooper, who has repeatedly derided Michael Moore on the basis of his weight problem, nerve is no short order.
Or , given the liberal memory, perhaps not. No one, I suppose, will remind us here that Hitchens spilt from the Nation branding the rest of magizine “willing liars” for Bill Clinton. When publicly asked, at an event Cooper MCed, just who these liars where and which lies they stated; Hitch as ususal was able to bully his way of the hook without answering.
On the eve of the doomed Iraqi invasion, Hitchens told a right wing magazine that Hillary Clinton and Al Gore, who had publicly disagreed with Bush Policy, should only contract degenerative deceases. Now he damns the left for wishing for bad news from Iraq. One remembers the mean spirited abuse Cooper piled on David Brock for daring to split with the Ann Coulter gang, whom Cooper can disagree with in such good fellowship. After all, Hitch stood with Ann in common cause at Anti-Clinton rallies, just as he gave the White House a pep talk on the eve of said invasion.
Oh, isn’t it charming how gentlemen can disagree? Cooper even finds Hitchens on Wolfowitz “rather unique.” Good thing Hitch isn’t a Democrat supporting a military action, or he would end up on a Cooper “hall of shame” list, as all Dems who supported Clinton’s assault on Milosovitch were on Cooper’s KPFK radio show. Hitch is still against the death penalty! How wonderful, I will forget that he’s spent the last four years supporting it’s most virulent practitioner in the faith based West. Don’t forget, liberals, your contradictions are damned hypocrisies, great thinkers like Cooper and Hitchens are “complex.”
Two bullies and two clowns, who owe their careers to the left’s bottomless ability to A) absorb abuse, and B) forget, endlessly forget.
September 27th, 2004 at 1:45 am
In Defense of Heretics
I’ve spent a lot of words in this space smacking “the left” upside its own head for embracing or at least tolerating ranting neo-Stalinist goons while trashing liberal hawks as heretics, traitors, and (gasp) conservatives. It’s one reason among many…
September 27th, 2004 at 10:06 am
Cooper on Hitchens and the Left
Marc Cooper, a thoughtful antiwar leftist, has some comments about Johann Hari’s interview of Christopher Hitchens. Like Johann (and like me) Cooper greatly admires Hitchens…
September 27th, 2004 at 10:07 am
Cooper on Hitchens and the Left
Marc Cooper, a thoughtful antiwar leftist, has some comments about Johann Hari’s interview of Christopher Hitchens. Like Johann (and like me) Cooper greatly admires Hitchens…
September 28th, 2004 at 9:59 am
Perfect pick
I was reading an interesting post and comments about Christopher Hitchens. There was some discussion of whether Hitchens was sufficiently…
September 28th, 2004 at 7:36 pm
Polarization
The blogosphere is rife with interesting posts about our fractured and politicized electorate. This unhealthy trend started decades ago in the late Sixties with the disillusionment over Vietnam and Watergate. Since then we have been suffering from esca…
September 30th, 2004 at 5:23 pm
I Defer to Pierce
In this discussion of Christopher Hitchens on Marc Cooper’s blog, I was directed to this execrable column by Hitchens. I’ve fumed and stewed for a couple of days, but I think that the best response to these baseless comments of
October 2nd, 2004 at 9:17 am
http://gmapalumni.org/chapomatic/index.php?p=368
WhoKnew pointed me to an interview with Christopher Hitchens by Johann Hari, and commentary about it.
(The interview itself is now in pay-per-view purgatory and I’m not going through the mess of trying to figure out how to pay for it. I guess I’ll …
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