Hi, LBOsters, those who don't know me, I am a former long-time active contributor to this list who has had to take a break because of other commitments; those who do know me, friends and comrades, I miss your ideas and friendship. But I still have to stay in the wilderness for a bit.
However, I occasionally run across something I think might be especially worth our attention, and the link below is one such. (Those who don't find it so can ignore it and draw whatever conclusions they like about my judgment.)
It is a review by a member of the Platypus Group of a book about the recent, if post 9/11 counts as recent, development of a former comrade, Christopher Hitchens. I am very far from being any kind of fan of the "new" Hitchens, and confess that I have read as little of his post-pro-Iraq war writing as possible.
As some of you know, I don't mind reading, using, and agreeing with intelligent rightists -- I'm a big fan of Richard Posner, Friedrich Hayek, and other people on the right who are real thinkers and not mere ideologues. (I don't care for left wing ideologues either.) But Hitch's latest turn hasn't struck me, largely on the basis of a very superficial acquaintance, as in this class as opposed to opportunistic demagoguery.
Therefore I have no basis for saying anything about this review as an analysis of Hitchens' recent development. But I thought the context, framing, and political analysis of the baffling situation in which people who have identified themselves as leftists now find themselves has a good deal of interest and real merit. And, possibly Hitch at least exemplifies the conundrum we face, showing one way not to get out of it.
Unfortunately the authors and the Platypus group, which I've encountered now and then here in Chicago -- they brought Tariq Ali out a few years ago -- have no proposals for a solution or a way out of these trackless woods in which we find ourselves midway on life's journey. But neither do I, or I wouldn't keep it a secret.
http://platypus1917.org/2009/03/15/going-it-alone-christopher-hitchens-and-the-death-of-the-left/
I have manuscript that discusses similar and related themes (no reference to Hitch) that I wrote a few years ago and occasionally update and send out, but that consistently fails to find any takers because Old New Left journal editors find it too grimly apostatic, if that is a word. (Although I think it is actually rather optimistic.)
I have made versions available to LOBsters now and then, and here do so again: anyone wanting to to read this short (20 pp double spaced) accessible piece, please email me and I will email you a copy as an attachment.
Andie