Hitchens responds to critics

Stephen E Philion philion at hawaii.edu
Tue Sep 25 07:22:50 PDT 2001


On Tue, 25 Sep 2001, Nathan Newman wrote:


> Ah yes, "garbage" and "cracked"- stirring analysis. Don't agree with every
> word of Hitch but the basic point is sound -- to the extent that any action
> issued from the Taliban-based world of oppression, the discussions of US
> crimes "causing" the mass murder of Sept 11 is ridiculous. Hitch clearly
> notes the tragedy of blowback from the US's own crimes in supportin the
> Taliban in the first place, but to give any moral status or even link of
> mass murder as connected to legitimate struggles against injustice is an
> obscenity.

Well, yeah, but Hitchens is relying on a pretty dirty tactic, namely equating those who oppose the appointed president's new 'war on terrorism' with sympathy for the attack. The article in the Guardian by Monibot (sic?) today cites a moment where Monibot stood up to a crowd of a few hundred anti-war folk and started off his remarks with the assertion that 'the attack was an international crime against humanithy." One person shouted out "it was self defense" and the crowd spontaneously rose up and shouted him down. So much for Hitchens' premise. Then when we take into account the letters from grieving relatives or friends who are opposed to our appointed president's 'war on terrorism'...Hitchens' premise becomes even weaker...


>
> The Germans suffered serious injustice following World War I; so should be
> just "explain" the Holocaust as a misguided overreaction to justified
> grievances?

Gosh no. But we sure can objectively analyze what conditions prior to Hitler's rise made it more likely that one :His party would come to power and 2) His party would remain in power for as long as it did. We damned sure *can* ask those questions, I don't care how offended Hitchens would be by that question.

Steve


>
> Nathan
> nathan at newman.org
> http://www.nathannewman.org
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <ppillai at sprint.ca>
> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2001 4:04 AM
> Subject: Re: Hitchens responds to critics
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> > -Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 20:24:36 -0700 (PDT)
> > From: dave dorkin <ddorkin1 at yahoo.com>
> > Subject: Re: Hitchens responds to critics
> >
> > A truly breathtaking piece of garbage. The swipes at
> > Chomsky remind one more of Horowitz than anything else.
> >
>
> Shite! -- what a rant
> He finally cracked. I cant say its completely surpising though. I suppose
> the signs were there for a
> couple of years now, but its still kind of a shock to see him breakdown like
> this in public.
> The comparison with his buddy Horowitz is apt.
>
> -Pradeep
>
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