[lbo-talk] Hitchens is dead

[Lenin's Tomb]

On 16/12/2011 12:12, James Heartfield wrote:
> Really? He was a member of the SWP then, I think, which was opposed to the war. In fact if you read over his memoirs he seems to have carried on speaking at SWP meetings for some time after he moved to America, on his visits home, and there is an indication in the memoirs that he back-dates his breach with them.

I'm afraid you've been misinformed.  I think you'd find the breach with 
the IS took place over the issue of the Portugese revolution, or at 
least that was the specific catalyst.  That's how he seems to remember 
it in an old LRB article, and it's how Alex Callinicos remembers it.  By 
the time he had moved to the United States, Callinicos' judgment is that 
he was a 'left social democrat'.  The fact that he continued to speak at 
SWP meetings is not relevant.  Hitchens was appearing at SWP meetings 
and speaking at Bookmarks right up until he capsized post-9/11.