#Edwin meese christorpher hitchens tv

I think an attack on CH that has real content has to delve into his old arguments and force the issue: what changed between here and here, and why?

#Edwin meese christorpher hitchens tv

He was on UK TV two weeks back laying into Kissinger and re-pronouncing his disgust at the Vietnam war and the murder of Allende. Unlike most 'apostates', Hitchens has NOT (yet) publicly or overtly disavowed the bulk of his earlier specific positions (that I've read anyway). Hitchens in the nation, 1985 (quoted from 'prepared for the worst') See what I mean? It lacks the sex appeal, somehow. As a lifelong socialist, I say don't lets bomb the shit out of them. To be able to bray that 'as a liberal, i say bomb the shit out of them' is to have achieved that eye-catching, versatile marketability that is so beloved of editors and talk-show hosts. 'In the charmed circle of neoliberal and neoconservtaive jouranalism, however, 'unpredictability' is the special emblem and certificate of self-congratulation. Naturally I hope that my arguments were original, but I would be depressed to think that anyone who knew me or my stuff could not easily have 'predicted' the line I would take. I have written in the past year about the MX missile, constructive engagementm, the confirmation of Edwin Meese and other grand guignol episodes. 'Speaking purely for myself, I would be alarmed if my knee failed to respond to certain stimuli. 'I have never been able, except in my lazier moments, to employ the word predictable as a term of abuse. i think there's plenty of stuff in there which comes back now and sticks to hitchens himself, and which could be worked much more effectively to make him squirm (or whatever the purpose is of finkelstein's piece)

You'd do better to reread some of the piece hitchens himself wrote about apostates back in the day: the one on conor cruise o'brien (which is semi-forgiving), the one on podhoretz (haha which is not), others too. I think there's a good piece to be written about what happened between hitchens and chomsky in particular hitchens and the left in generalīut this really isn't it - its generalisations about the dynamics of apostasy are just rubbish (even if they're true about hitchens, and i'm not convinced they are), and its assumption that only people on the correct bit of the left are principled or idealistic i think undermines it as any kind of analysis - it's a shout of 'you are you mean' anger: the anger's justified but at best this is polemic to make those inside the circle feel a bit better, it catches a few contradictions maybe, but it doesn't have any explanatory political insight