[lbo-talk] Limits of Criticism, was Mitchel's interview with two Platypus organizers

[James Heartfield]

Well, I don't know about 'vapid bullshit', but this is plainly a triumph of rhetoric over reason: 'Hitchens recognized that Ba'athist Iraq's steady disintegration and the emergence into plain view of Islamist fascism ...' http://platypus1917.org/2009/03/15/going-it-alone-christopher-hitchens-and-the-death-of-the-left/ 

The word 'fascism' in this sentence is nothing more than an attempt to anneal the case for military intervention in Iraq to that of the 'people's war against fascism', or as we might say, a category error. What next 'Jewish fascism'? 'Liberal fascism'? 'Feminazis'?  The case against Islamism is the case against Islamism. The case against fascism is the case against fascism. No need to mix them up; not unless you are trying to force the issue.

There are many things to be said in Hitchens' favour, but this is not one of them.