Hitchens on genocide

Gordon Fitch gcf at panix.com
Wed Dec 5 19:42:10 PST 2001



> >Besides, he might be more valuable to the Left in opposition
> >than in alliance, especially if he's deteriorating as some
> >of you say.

Peter K.:
> What is "Left" to you? What is non-left?

The Left is the party of freedom, equality and peace, as opposed to the Right, which is party of war, militarism, and slavery -- or as they would put it, virtue, order, authority, status, and private property; the State, in short.


> Take Baltasar Garzon for example. He's
> the Spanish judge who initiated the
> successful prosecution of General
> Pinochet, and has also secured the detention
> in Mexico of the Argentine torturer Ricardo
> Miguel Cavallo, who is now held in prison
> awaiting extradition, I believe. Or he have
> have been extradited already.
>
> Garzon also recently arrested 8 alleged
> members of Al Queda, but said he won't
> extradite them to the U.S. because of
> the military tribunals and the death penalty.
>
> Is he *Left* enough for you, or is he in
> opposition because he's supporting
> America's "war on terror."
>
> No doubt Edward Herman has never
> said a nice word about Garzon,
> a person who is so "weak willed"
> that he succumbs to the hegemonic
> ideas of Empire.

I suppose Baltasar Garzon is a liberal, and until otherwise informed I will assume he is doing the best he can within his understanding of the world. I didn't pay much attention to the Pinochet circus, which I regarded as a waste of time, although I suppose some people enjoyed it. Sometimes liberals are your friends, sometimes they're your enemies, politically speaking, in accordance with the contradictory, paradoxical nature of the liberal synthesis. Cute and clever as it is, liberalism still has to be subverted.

About Hitchens and Kissinger, a good many right-wingers hate Kissinger, such as my good ol' gun-nut POW/MIA militia buddies. And anti-Semites must hate him, too, I suppose, although I don't know any. Kissinger is an honored member of the totalitarian center. _I_ don't hate Kissinger, yet I suppose a war-crimes trial might be salutary; although it should be delayed until the current celebration of war, death and destruction has been succeeded by the inevitable hangover, which may take some time. But it will come.

-- Gordon



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