Connivance
Reporter
I haven’t read “Hitch-22” – the memoir by Christopher Hitchens and I’m not sure if I’m going to read the book.
But it’s interesting to compare Ian Buruma’s review of “Hitch-22” in The New York Review of Books with a column by David Brooks on the same subject in today’s Times.
Buruma writes: ‘Hitchens was so smitten with George W. Bush’s Pentagon, despite its connivance at torture, that he appears to have believed everything he was told: “In all my discussions with Wolfowitz and his people at the Pentagon, I never heard anything alarmist on the WMD issue.” To be sure, Wolfowitz has since admitted that oil was a major reason for going to war, and the threat of WMDs was just a convenient “bureaucratic” excuse. But his Pentagon boss certainly was alarmist about the nuclear threat, as were the President and the Vice President. In claiming that there was no alarmism at the Pentagon, Hitchens is either disingenuous or a lousy reporter.’
(Please don’t rely on this excerpt, read the complete article, just click on the link.)
David Brooks wrote: ‘No one will agree with, or even comprehend, all of his aversions, but his affections are easy to admire, especially his strong and growing affection for America.
Most of all, his is a memoir that should be given to high school and college students of a literary bent. In the age of the Internet and the academy, it will open up different models for how to be a thoughtful person, how to engage in political life and what sort of things one should know in order to be truly educated.’
(Click on the link to read the complete article.)
I have a strong affection for America, but I know that often affection is just an insult in disguise.
Islamofascism?
Reading both articles and not knowing the man leaves me clueless, interesting to compare the two articles indeed. Maybe this sentence does explain some of it?:"Quite a few former leftists, in Europe as well as the US, have joined the neo- and not so neo-conservatives in the belief that we are engaged in a war of civilizations, that September 11, 2001, is comparable to 1939, that “Islamofascism” is the Nazi threat of our time, and that our shared hour of peril will sort out the heroes from the cowards, the resisters from the collaborators."
Entertainer
The best I can say about Hitchens is that he is very entertaining. He remains a great admirer of Trotsky. Interestingly, this seems to be acceptable to his American audience, possibly because he actually plays up the role of being an Englishman in America. And he certainly does play to his audience.I enjoyed this 1 1/2 hour interview (= show) at the NY Public Library:
http://fora.tv/2010/06/04/Christopher_Hitchens_Some_Confessions_and_Contradictions
Milan
You seem to be clueless all the time.Carlos
To be very entertaining is not a small feat.Arnon
Well, looking a small part of the video the guy seems a 'blaaskaak' to me. What's the english word for that?Milan
I resent it when people mix up two completely different phenomenons like fascism and fundamentalistic Islam (wahabism).It has become very easy to name someone a fascist -if you don't agree with him-while in the mean time not knowing what fascism is really about.
Prior to his assassination pictures of Rabin dressed as an SS-officer where spread in some parts of Israël's society. Let's stop calling each other names and describe each phenomenon in a scientific way. Enough radicalisation, time for nuance instead.
Well i think the lies are too big to be corrected by the democratic system of the US, if you think of Powell giving his presentation in de UN f.e. But i wouldnt recommend making a video on that like what they did with Rabin.
But i really didnt read the work of this guy, maybe i will agree with him most of the time. I read American Vertigo from Levy and i discovered it was more interesting then the first impression he makes on most people. Maybe this guy looks a bit like Levy....? do you know him/his work?
Not in my book.
Milan
Levy Strauss?"The lies seem to be big to be corrected by the democratic system of the US, if you think of Powell giving his presentation in de UN f.e."
Do you have an opinion on that at all? Or are you indeed wasted time.
Milan
I am not acquanted with the work or philosophy by mister Bernard Henry Lévy, nor Lévi-Strauss for that matter , excepted for what the wiki-pages have to tell me.We all ( right and left wingers) knew at that time that the weapons of mass destruction ( existing or not) were just an excuse to start the war in Iraq, still we decided to go ( Europe too).
Clearly the democratic system failed in both continents. Does this mean we should abolish the system?
Milan
On the other hand one could also argue that the western system worked. The oil industry happy, Saddam sent away and despite the civil war, a beginning of a new democratic system , everybody happy.Hitch
@Arnon: Blowhard is a good translation. Hitchens' entire career has been marked not so much by the opinions he holds, but by the uncommonly outspoken way he holds them. I don't know about you, or I do but in a limited way, Arnon, but I hold few strong opinions , and allow the rest to be affected by whatever comes along, as I suppose any intelligent person does.Hitchens, however, believes everything to the death, and in that he's no different from his brother Peter (qv) who is an editorialist for the Daily Express, and so almost as diametrically opposed to the old Trot as can be.
It will now start to become clear that they're both in the same business: opinionating. And since you can't do that successfully while being reasonable, we see where Christopher's convictions come from.
This might also be interesting to listen too:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio/2008/may/25/haypodcast02
Hitch22 sounds more interessting here, and so does this book of him on religion.
I believe the democratic system is lacking, more in the US then in europe, in respecting international law and in fundings and such. Obama did have a different aproach, collecting less money from
the lobby of big companies (didnt he reject that, or try too at least?), but the fact that you win the election if you have the most money for campaining is something terrible and should be stopped f.e.
alan
Buruma mentions the brother of Hitchens in his article:'With his brother, Peter, who is now a rather ferocious conservative journalist of some note in England, Hitchens went off to demonstrate against the war in Trafalgar Square, donning “the universal symbol of peace” in his lapel with “its broken cross or imploring-outstretched-arm logo.” Here, too, a pattern was set. I did not know Hitchens in those days, but ever since I met him in London in the 1980s, I’ve never seen him without a badge in his lapel for one cause or another.'
Milan
Don't believe the spin. Yes, Obama was very successful in getting small donations. But he received many millions from corporations (including more than $1 million from Goldman Sachs).David Axelrod (the discreet corporate image fixer) has been brilliant at creating a public perception of Obama that is quite far from the truth. Were you aware, for example, that Obama was the 33rd richest man in Illinois in 2007?
(http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/CIDsummary.php?CID=N00009638&year=2007)
As John Pilger points out: "President Obama does one thing, but brand Obama gets you to believe another." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXL998q7skI)
Thanks for the links.
In the first i see in the 'arangements' that he made money from royalties of books? Arnon did so too, that's not so bad i think;)
In the second link it's pretty radical left in my opinion....i think Obama is exceptional in finding a practical way to change things for the good, either left or right, o.c. being limited by other forces. It was interestign to see him just after the start, letting everybody sign an agreement of ethics. f.e.....
To get another (more philisophical) perspective of the US i found P.Sloterdijk and his book 'Kristalpaleis' very very interesting...but i can not find the english name of the book :-/ I think you would like to read that view about the so called postmodernism....
