The author of this article writes:
<<Many of us can agree passionately with all that - but it is a huge leap to actually supporting Bush. George Orwell - one of Hitchens' intellectual icons - managed to oppose fascism and Stalinism from the left without ever offering a word of support for Winston Churchill. Can't Hitch agitate for a fight against Islamofascism without backing this awful President?>>
He is right to posit the above. Though it occurs to me that there is a difference between our times and those of Orwell. Then there was hope and a viable Left capable of a positive program; now, there is cynicism and a Left which is, for the most part, capable of only negative slogans.
If you look out into the world, there are only two forces that appear to be strong: one is Empire, the other is Islamic fundamentalism. I choose not to support either of them, but I am not sure that there is another force right now that can oppose them effectively or break free of their gravity. So perhaps Hitchen's choice is understandable. His choices were between liberal democracy (or what's left of it), islamic fundamentalism, OR impotent and endless chatter among the Left. It seems to me that Hitchen's decision resulted from his frustration with the latter. I dont agree with his decision, but I do understand it.
-Thomas
===== The real world gives the subset of what is; the product space represents the uncertainty of the observer. The product space may therefore change if the observer changes; and two observers may legitimately use different product spaces within which to record the same subset of actual events in some actual thing. The "constraint" is thus a relation between observer and thing; the properties of any particular constraint will depend on both the real thing and on the observer. It follows that a substantial part of the theory of organization will be concerned with properties that are not intrinsice to the thing but are relational between observer and thing.
W. Ross Ashby
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