Christopher Hitchens

  On 12/17/2011 at 12:14 AM, iep said:

  On 12/16/2011 at 9:33 PM, joshuatxuk said:

To lighten up this thread....

 

http://www.theonion....how-losi,26890/

 

ah uh, i don't know what to say. ye, it's the onion and all, but. gulp.

I thought i was one of their more clever headlines, instead of being purely "too soon" shock humor it was something of a hat tip to Hitchens.

  On 12/17/2011 at 12:45 AM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

Id like to remember him for his talks on religion that I believe he did a service with, rather than the horrible things (sexism, warhawk).

 

much like I celebrate Malcolm X for his structural critiques of capitalist society and not for his involvement in the Nation of Islam.

  On 12/17/2011 at 1:37 AM, disparaissant said:

  On 12/17/2011 at 1:19 AM, nene multiple assgasms said:

so in a word, iraq.

yeah but you have to repeat that word for ten years as things get progressively worse and refuse to stop repeating it in the face of incontrovertible proof that the entire reason you started saying it in the first place was utterly and completely wrong

for someone who claims to be skeptical and who questions conventional wisdom, he parrots and repeats an awful lot of it.

  On 12/17/2011 at 6:45 PM, joshuatxuk said:

  On 12/17/2011 at 12:45 AM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

Id like to remember him for his talks on religion that I believe he did a service with, rather than the horrible things (sexism, warhawk).

 

much like I celebrate Malcolm X for his structural critiques of capitalist society and not for his involvement in the Nation of Islam.

this is a far comparison, if Malcom X said really ignorant things on television regularly under the guise of being really intellectual i'd probably dislike him too. Those people lived in a different era where they were not able to be scrutinized like Hitchens is/was. Sorry to say that after 9/11 the 24 hour news channel was here to stay, and most of his press appearances were to reinforce very unsavory positions. So for those who say 'don't judge him by one era of his positions' well that particular era has given him more attention at least in my world than any other position he has.

To me it reminds me of David Mamet, his works previous to him becoming a war on terror obsessed propagandist are excellent films and plays. After his 'waking up' he produced one of the most god awful hilarious shows 'The Unit'

well this is how Hitchens will be remembered to me, stooping to extremely low levels like this referring to the Dixie Chicks as 'sluts' and 'fat slags' because they criticized the president. I mean does someone who does that expect to have anybody take them seriously anymore?

also Hitchens himself would encourage this type of debate we are having now, clearly he got off on negative attention.

and of course mr Glenn Greenwald tears his corpse a new butthole http://www.salon.com/2011/12/17/christohper_hitchens_and_the_protocol_for_public_figure_deaths/singleton/

here are some of my favorite Hitchens selections

'In Defense of Endless War' (The title seems satirical but i assure you it is not)

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2011/09/in_defense_of_endless_war.html

'Hitchens on the Dixie Chicks'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoUeMIYawBQ

how Hitchens in life taught us that criticizing the dead is not off limits

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eat-the-press/2007/05/16/christopher-hitchens-on-j_e_48586.html

  Quote

“That’s precisely true. The blood on his hands — and on the hands of those who played an even greater, more direct role, in all of this totally unjustified killing of innocents — is supposed to be ignored because he was an accomplished member in good standing of our media and political class. It’s a way the political and media class protects and celebrates itself: our elite members are to be heralded and their victims forgotten. One is, of course, free to believe that. But what should not be tolerated are prohibitions on these types of discussions when highly misleading elegies are being publicly implanted, all in order to consecrate someone’s reputation for noble greatness even when their acts are squarely at odds with that effort.”

Glenn Greenwald

sounds like something Hitchens would say

sounds like something hitchens would have said back when he still had any sense, yes.