Hitchens letter to Seattle peaceniks

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Thu Jan 16 08:43:54 PST 2003


Justin:
> Dear God, how low he has come so fast. Btw, he's the
> _I.F. Stone_ Fellow at Berkeley. What would Izzie say?
> Ant bets on whethet he'd say "Bomb Iraq!"?

Why does that surprise you? I always regarded journalists as kind of prostitutes - tuning any tricks for paying clients. It is not a personalisty issue but a systemic issue - the class which controls the means of material production also rules the production of ideas, as the Old Man said.

Having said that, however, I am often profoundly disappointed by the low quality of the left discourse - its sanctimoniousness, uncritical repeating the received wisdoms and slogans, reactive rather than proactive approach to public policy, mentalist rather than materialist explanations, sectarianism. It is not that I think that left is heading in a wrong direction, but that while it may be heading in the right direction, it does so in a rather poor and boring style. Of course that is not enough to join the pro-establishment camp (which is exponentially more nauseating) - but it certainly is a wet blanket.

Wojtek



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