And Talking of Hitchens
This just in from Bill Blum, author of the invaluable "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower":
"I hadn't planned on publicizing the following exchange of emails I had with Christopher Hitchens, but inasmuch as he reneged on his promise and continues to write the same dribble, I am submitting it to the world's judgment. -
October 20, 2002 "Dear Mr. Hitchens, I've followed your support for the American Empire's newest bombing hysteria, but I have failed to hear from you any kind of response to the most important question: Do you support, once again, the dropping of large quantities of highly lethal explosives upon the heads of countless innocent men, women and children, destroying their homes, their schools, their hospitals, their lives, their futures? If you can't deal with this question, but instead continue to content yourself with snapping at the heels of the left with irrelevant, esoteric, and (hopefully) droll side issues, then I would say that you are guilty of serious character failure and are engaging in nothing less than intellectual masturbation. Sincerely, Bill Blum."
October 21, 2002 "If you consider that a properly phrased question, or would publish it as such under your own name, then I am willing to reply to it. But I will, for now and for your sake, consider it confidential. Do you feel like having another try? CH."
October 21, 2002 "If you can get it published and reply to it, that would suit me fine. Bill Blum."
"That", Blum writes, "was the last I heard from Hitchens. My analysis is this: He was unable to respond in substance to the question I challenged him with and so he thought that he'd try intimidation instead, on the premise, apparently, that I would be embarrassed to see my email publicized. Why would he have thought I'd be embarrassed? Because I used the word "masturbation"? If not that, I can't imagine."
And Talking of Blum and Hitchens
This also just in from Adam Engel, a New York-based CounterPuncher, who had asked us whether we thought Wellstone had been assassinated. We told him No, we didn't think so, and he answered thus:
"I didn't think so, but A) I just finished reading Bill Blum's "Killing Hope," which, along with your and JSC's "White Out" would make even the late great William Burroughs quake in his boots (and is chock full of plane-crash assassinations), and B) though I'm a "stop-light" Green (If I can't vote Red, I'll vote Green, but NEVER Yellow), I did argue fervently to fellow de facto Greens that Wellstone was no Al Gore.
"By the way, I followed your brief exchange with Sam Smith regarding Hitchens. Why are so many writers/scholars/editors that I respect and admire, including, among others, Chomsky, Herman, Solomon, Pilger, Albert, Ehrenreich, Fisk, Sam Smith, Cockburn, St Clair, and so many others wasting valuable time, talking and writing about Christopher Hitchens? Even when he was a 'good-guy' I never saw him as anything but Hunter Thompson in a White Hat--an arrogant, foppish, chain-smoking, self-promoting boozer. At least Thompson never pretended to be anything other than a self-serving asshole. The world's on fire, yet so much print/screen space has been wasted merely because this wanna-be Norman Mailer opted for a bigger paycheck and better health insurance or whatever the Corporate Media gave him. He's a piece of snot that doesn't even deserve the dignity of a decent Kleenex burial, but should be flicked furtively to the rug or wiped under the couch when no one's looking...yet, he's treated like news. Je ne comprend pas."
** Alexander Cockburn is the author The Golden Age is In Us (Verso, 1995) and 5 Days That Shook the World: Seattle and Beyond (Verso, 2000) with Jeffrey St. Clair. Cockburn and St. Clair are the editors of CounterPunch, the nation's best political newsletter, where this article first appeared.
This article can be viewed on the web at: http://ww.dissidentvoice.org/Articles/Cockburn_Blowback.htm
___ -- Marta Russell Los Angeles, CA http://www.disweb.org