[Peace-discuss] I'm embarrassed...

[C. G. Estabrook]

Thanks for the kid word.  I agree both with your assessment of the
magazine and your interest in Hitchens.  He's not dumb and obviously
doesn't drink as much as he claims, or he could never produce the amount
of work he does.  Over the years, some of it has been quite good -- e.g.,
his evisceration of the Clintons (with the wonderful title, "No One Left
to Lie To") and of Kissinger.  But his apostasy, as you rightly term it,
which was under way before 9/11, made him embrace the neocons (almost
literally, in the case of Wolfowitz), who had dabbled in the Trotskyist
stream, as had he -- but Hitchens' reasons I think were finally
theological.  His rabid support for the "war on terror" comes from his
notion that the enemy is "Islamic theocracy" -- a slightly peculiar way of
putting it, but then for him 9/11 was "clerical aggression" -- indicating
his opinion that the source of al-Qaida's crimes is a belief in God.  He
has for year written for "humanist" (i.e., anti-religious) publications.
Even his critique of Israel, which you mention, is based (mistakenly I
think) on his view of Israel as a theocracy.  (I once started an article
on him with the title "Little Christopher and Big God" -- from Anthony
Burgess' wonderful autobiography, "Little Wilson and Big God.")

Never, ever, would you find from Hitchens anything like this recent
paragraph from his former friend Alex Cockburn, commenting on the post-
election divisions in the US:

"Even though the highest reading on any chart of intolerance is that
nourished towards Christians by secular liberals (after all, Christians
believe in forgiveness and the possibility of redemption) I suppose we'll
have to put up with much earnest journalism from sensitive liberal writers
driving into the Christian heartland to inspect and commune with the
natives. I read one patronizing prospectus from a Californian free-lancer
that sounded like an application by an anthropologist in 1925 for funding
to inspect an African tribe."

Cockburn of course has no time himself for the Abrahamic religions (or any
other, as far as I know) but he lacks the animus that propels Hitchens
against "the poisonous effect of the three monotheisms."  Hitchens says,
amazingly, "The war upon which we are engaged is a war for Enlightenment
values, in which all religious fundamentalists are actual or potential
traitors."  That last -- "actual or potential traitors" out-Bushes the
Bushites and shows what the war is really about for Hitch.

Regards, Carl

PS: I loved Hitchens' remark that he was vaccinated against Marxism by
having read "Darkness at Noon and Nineteen Eighty Four before being
exposed to any Marxist influence."  Those were the books -- the former
more than the latter -- that, on the contrary, convinced me in my late
youth that Marxism had to be looked into.


On Sat, 4 Dec 2004 esbensha at uiuc.edu wrote:

> Carl--
> 
> I too enjoyed your contribution and felt it was a noble effort,
> especially being outnumbered 3 to 2. I subsequently wasted too much of
> an insomniac night scrolling through past abominations in that rag,
> dominated by the predictable yet still execrable 'anti-war is
> anti-American/anti-Israel is anti-Semitic'. But I did come upon their
> interview with Christopher Hitchens, who some weird fascination keeps
> me paying attention to, and though the first part, while not
> uninteresting, mostly exhibited acrobatics to explain his (Hitchens')
> turn to pro-Iraq war/pro-Bush positions in terms of principle, I was
> fairly bowled over by his hard-hitting critique of the Israeli
> occupation and US policy on Israel- Palestine in the second part.
> Plus, presumably due to his credentials as apostate of the Left, and
> in contrast to you and Mr. Jenson, he was allowed to have the last
> word. The cites, for anyone who's interested (the material is about a
> year old).
> 
> http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11241
> http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11253
> 
> Rick Esbenshade Richard S. Esbenshade Visiting Lecturer University of
> Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 506 W. Michigan Ave. Urbana, IL 61801