--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> >This is of course pathetic and contemptible; Hitch
> is
> >now devouring his own rotting body parts to live.
> It
> >is very sad. But the rest of the piece here cited
> is
> >both hateful and stupid. I believe that in very
> short
> >order, really no more than a year, Hitch has
> >recapitulated and intensified David Horowitz's
> slower
> >self-immolation.
>
> As Hitch himself wrote in his November 7, 1987,
> Nation column on the
> Horowitz-Collier Second Thoughts conference:
>
> >David Horowitz and Peter Collier, former editors of
> Ramparts, have
> >come all the way from pink Pampers through Black
> Panthers to
> >one-dimensional Reaganism. With a bit of effort,
> they could succeed
> >in their current modest ambition, which is to
> become quite nasty.
> >They make a good fit with the diagnosis offered by
> Isaac Deutscher
> >in his 1950 review of The God That Failed. Speaking
> of a certain
> >kind of former Communist, Deutscher wrote:
> >
> ><block>
> >He is haunted by a vague sense that he has betrayed
> either his
> >former ideals or the ideals of bourgeois society;
> like Koestler, he
> >may even have an ambivalent notion that he has
> betrayed both. He
> >then tries to suppress his sense of guilt and
> uncertainty, or to
> >camouflage it by a show of *extraordinary certitude
> and frantic
> >aggressiveness*. He insists that the world should
> recognise his
> >uneasy conscience as the clearest conscience of
> all. [Emphasis
> >added.]
> ></block>
>
> [...]
>
> >But the absurdity of the HC-R faction doesn't
> necessarily define it
> >as innocuous. There will be further spasms of
> lunacy down the road,
> >and fresh occasions for the paranoid style to
> express itself. As
> >Deutscher put it so aptly in speaking of the
> penitent:
> >
> ><block>
> >His former illusion at least implied a positive
> ideal His
> >disillusionment is utterly negative. His role is
> therefore
> >intellectually and politically barren. He advances
> bravely in the
> >front rank of every witch-hunt. His blind hatred of
> his former ideal
> >is leaven to contemporary conservatism.
> ></block>
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