UPDATE In response to the outraged, my position is simple. The Iraq War killed hundreds of thousands and maimed millions. Dead or wounded included over a million children. Those who planned the Iraq war, including those who used media positions to propagandise for it, have lost entitlement to the signs of society’s respect.
The world will undoubtedly be a duller place without Christopher Hitchens. Oh, and a better one too.
British journalism is full of people of the same generationwho have lurched from the Trotskyist far left to a crazed neo-con agenda with no intervening period of sanity. I suspect the available riches for zionist propagandists are a major factor. Hitchens, Aaronovitch, Phillips, Cohen. You can probably think of others. A strange and extremely unpleasant manifestation of intellectual prostitution.
Yeah Jon, it is possible to be virgin and have sex too, after all Virgin is only a concept huh! The shibags masquerading as neo-cons were ardent zionists, and have been on record to denote anti neo con is antisemitic too.
@Angry, sure, in theory. But can they thrive in the US political environment? I say it is nigh-on impossible. (Indeed, is it possible to clamber into bed with ardent zionists on every other topic, ignore what that support does to the Palestinian cause in practice, and still call oneself an anti-zionist?)
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Any examples of neo-con anti-zionists come to mind, other than the topical one?
Let’s remember the popinjay Hitchens gleefully celebrated genocide as part of la mission civilisatrice http://j.mp/unwTnI
Nice one, Stephen. Spot on comment at 12:51.
Any examples of neo-con anti-zionists come to mind, other than the topical one?
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No. But most neo-conservatives would consider Israel to be closer to the ideal of neo-conservative eschatology. (I’m channeling John Gray a little bit here) My understanding of who qualifies as a neo-con produces a shorter list than most around here. Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, John Bolton, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Norman Podhoretz etc… with some other important names on the “liberal” wing of neo-conservatism, particularly Francis Fukuyama.
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Neo-conservatism was usually based around a somewhat specious distinction between totalitarian ideologues and autocratic opportunists. The former would be Communist or Islamist regimes. The latter would be “tinpot dictatorships” such as Mubarak, Pinochet, the Shah etc…
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Neo-conservatives generally saw the latter as being closer to the endpoint of human history, as propounded by Fukuyama and maybe many other neo-cons. If they are to be taken at their word (and generally I do take Fukuyama at his word, if not necessarily all neo-cons) neocons believe all humans want to live in a liberal democratic society with liberal economic laws and with social liberties of almost all kinds. Now, if a neo-con looked at Israel and compared it to the rest of the Middle East (or, for that matter, the US or some of Europe) they might consider Israel being more in line with the neo-con ideal. I doubt that there would be many neo-cons who would think of Israel as being dictatorial or totalitarian. So, no. Most neo-cons are not “anti-Zionist” as such.
Good riddance to a nasty piece of work.
Those who object Craig’s characterisation and take issue with his language, should be reminded that extremist neocon propagandists of the hitchins ilk are, at the very least, accessories after the fact to mass murder and myriad crimes against humanity.
He was an atheist who attacked belief in God and slandered Mother Teresa, so good riddance.
PS. If God eventually grants him repentance and mercy in the invisible world, I don’t object.
Abe Rene: He was an atheist who attacked belief in God and slandered Mother Teresa, so good riddance.
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Some of his best work there! Attacking belief in God is an excellent thing to do and I don’t think that Mother Teresa deserves to be free from criticism. Neither does Hitchens. Anyway, just be happy instead of pouting.
Abe Rene: PS. If God eventually grants him repentance and mercy in the invisible world, I don’t object.
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You don’t object to God? Is that you giving God permission to grant repentance?
This week the World service/Radio 4 did a program about Islamic groups rising to power after the Arab spring. The Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood are not nice friendly groups sharing tea and leaving worshippers to their own devices. They are both steeped in the culture of personal spying that has become the norm in the UKUSIS created, now expired dictatorships. If you type a four letter word into Google in these countries, expect to get a very close inspection from both state and religious police.
The fact the BBC was trying to portray them as some kind of equivalent to suburban Methodists in the UK is cause for concern.
The fact is that the anger at UK foreign policy has reached such dangerous levels that countries like ours cannot even build a nuclear power station without fear of making a target for terrorism and blowing us up like Hiroshima. Alternatively they will force us to become a police state as is happening now in the US. Or alternatively they have to give the Muslims concessions and a portion of self-rule in the form of the inclusion of such religious groups into Middle-Eastern mainstream politics and societies.
They have changed the tyres and filled up the anti-freeze, ready for another 40 years of dictatorship under economic collaborators. they very strongly underestimate the rage of the Muslim world if they think that casting a few bones to the lions will keep them happy for long.
Only China has the political cleanness to colonise Africa. and the violence wrought on the Muslim world has castrated us for a considerable period of time. Then, like the Tories, they will make a come-back with an utterly sham coalition with the Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood partners they are now empowering.
Be warned, these groups are the Nick Cleggs who will revitalise the neo-cons in a few years time. talk about intellectual prostitution. The prostitution of the Muslim intellectuals is far greater than the journalists of this country. Their starting point is phone hacking and spying on personal lives. Where will they be in a few years time? I will tell you. A great deal nastier than the Mubaraks and Gaddafis into whose shoes they have climbed.
For those interested in intellectual honesty they will see that Hitchens was more than capable of attacking the views and practice of those who were his allies on other matters – look up what he says about Karzai, torture at Abu Ghraib, the Tea Party, Kissinger etc. etc. Perhaps one should ask where is the intellectual honesty of those on the other side of the USIsraellMIC divide who we here so often from here – where are the criticisms of the Syrian and Iranian regimes, the human rights abuses of Hamas etc.etc. Allowing the ends to justify the means and seeing the world in purely black and white terms has never been an intellectually honest position – Hitchens and his hero Orwell understood this and for this reason they should never be forgotten.
Contrarianism
The World At One had a nice juxtaposition on this.
First they had a piece on Bradley Manning. His contrarianism is likely to end up with him having to spend a lifetime in jail. And there have already been accusations of torture in that imprisonment.
Christopher Hitchens’ contrarianism led him into the dinner parties, the beds and the pockets of the Washington ultra-elite.
I know who history is going to chose as the true spirit.
Abe Rene –
“PS. If God eventually grants him repentance and mercy in the invisible world, I don’t object.”
God WILL be relieved to know that you will not object…!!!
It must be so fulfilling to have such a close connection with your ‘creator’…..
Sorry, but it is very difficult to take such sense of certainty and unquestioning belief in GOD, seriously….
“What sort of an animal writes, on the morning of his death, that the world will be a better place without him?
Are you mentally ill?”
It’s obvious to anyone reading this blog that Mr. Murray is mentally ill and drenched in self-pity.
To Moneycircus:
Change In one’s ‘perspectives’ as you put it is not an indication of enlightenment as you seem to imply –
Hitchens consistently and vocally supported and propagandised illegal invasions – even after the horrendous cost in human lives and systematic destruction of the socio-economic fabric of the invaded nations became apparent and beyond serious dispute.
He embraced some f the most notorious neocon psychopaths including bush, wolfy . etc. and championed their cause.
One could equally argue that Mr. Himmler, the chicken farmer pushed his restrictive envelope and rose above his station and restrictions…..
I’m quite amused by Angrysoba’s description of what neocons want:
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“neocons believe all humans want to live in a liberal democratic society with liberal economic laws and with social liberties of almost all kinds.”
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How come the US has moved further and further from that ideal, under neocon rule? They’ve moved the country towards totalitarianism. Now they’re even planning internment without trial.
Stephen. I’m in a bad mood so watch out. This country is run by people with balls but no brains. Balls to commit state resources to an alliance of terror with religious fanatics I call Zionist Zombies against their enemies, the keepers of the religion of Tawheed. Oneness of God, which the Jews used to custodians of previously. This country like Blair believes that all of its wrongdoing will be washed away by the sacrificial blood of Jesus.
NO BRAINS NO BRAINS NO BRAINS NO BRAINS NO BRAINS.
The Islamic world however has brains but no balls. We have allowed ourselves to be squeezed into making deals which will produce the same colonised powerlessness time and time around.
The Muslims know from the Qur’an that the only way to throw off this oppression is to change themselves, quit lying quit spying quit politicking with our enemies. But nobody has the balls to tell the existing leadership that loves the old ways to get stuffed. NO BALLS NO BALLS NO BALLS NO BALLS.
Love reading your devil’s advocate drivel. I know I’ve quoted it before but it seems relevant now. MacFleckno:
‘The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
Strike through and make a …’
So with Stephen.John Dryden about his rival commentator Thomas Shadwell. Bye.
I guess the point I stopped reading Hitchens was when he went all transatlantic. Some misguided soul gave me a free-offer subscription to the Spectator, and he was in it. I had the impression he was trying (too hard) to be a print Glenn Beck. Still, he was entitled to his own opinion – and to state it. I doubt he’s gone to Jesus…as an atheist, he’d hardly want to, would he?
“neocons believe all humans want to live in a liberal democratic society with liberal economic laws and with social liberties of almost all kinds.”
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Don’t laugh. They do. Just remember that “liberal” for a neocon means “laissez-faire” and that “social liberties” means “legalised theft”. It’s a dialect thing.
“What sort of an animal writes, on the morning of his death, that the world will be a better place without him?”
Christopher Hitchens did just that when Jerry Falwell died. (And Hitchens was quite right to do so, IMO.)
So, if you are saying that anyone who speaks ill of the recently departed contempt then you are saying that Christopher Hitchens, who has just died, deserves contempt, which in turn means that *you* deserve contempt by your own logic.
Well done!
Herbie: I’m quite amused by Angrysoba’s description of what neocons want
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Komodo: Don’t laugh. They do. Just remember that “liberal” for a neocon means “laissez-faire” and that “social liberties” means “legalised theft”. It’s a dialect thing.
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If you read what I wrote correctly you would have noticed this part, “If they are to be taken at their word…” before the bit that both of you are howling over.
“howling”
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Komodos never howl, they hiss, hiissssssssss
Komodos never howl, they hiss, hiissssssssss
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Ssssssssssssooooooo desssssssu ka?
Komodo
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I know about how Merkins use the term “liberal”. They use it to mean both socialism and laissez faire, which confuses them much more than it does us.
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I was thinking more about the totalitarianism end of things. That’s the way the US is going under their rule. The rule of law and individual liberties have been steadily eroded under their diktat.
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How do they reconcile that with Angry and your statement of their beliefs?
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I’m with Chris Hedges in that their direction is towards neo-feudalism and further that history itself is pointing that way. In this regard Fukiyama is an idiot of course, but what do the thinking ones say about this when their stated beliefs seem to be much more libertarian?
Anno
“All objects lose by too familiar a view”
Leo
The difference is that Hitchens took on Falwell while he was alive.
Stephen:
“Craig – why didn’t you have the intellectual honesty to attack Christopher Hitchens while he was alive and able to defend himself but only now do so when he is dead and unable to respond to your accusation of “intellectual prostitution”???”
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If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck… Intellectual prostitution is what Craig called it, and intellectual prostitution it was.
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Apart from which: if Craig reserved his accusations for the dead, he’d still be working at the Foreign Office.
@Franz: “if Craig reserved his accusations for the dead, he’d still be working at the Foreign Office.”
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Well said.
“I mourn the loss of someone who stood up for intellectual argument in the public sphere.”
He is an intellectual millionth of who you should mourn -the unheard, unarmed millions of murdered and maimed, whom he abandoned to sophistry and lies.