This didn't stop Channel Four News giving Hitchens the opportunity to attack Galloway from beyond the grave in a clip of an intemperate and completely inaccurate denunciation made at the debate between Galloway and Hitchens that took place in New York, I think. This was then followed by a eulogy to Hitchens from second-rate, but much admired in some circles, novelist Ian McEwan who was apparently a close friend.
Amidst the praise heaped upon Hitchens by McEwan was the claim that he remained consistently of the left but better than the rest of the left. For example, we were told, Hitchens swam against the (left) stream over the Falklands/Malvinas war because he, Hitchens, thought Galtieri was an anti-Semitic fascistic dictator. And the rest of the left thought Galtieri was a saint? McEwan's attack on the left was facile in the extreme and compounded with a gratuitous sneer at Tariq Ali. That is how Hitchens' death is being used by the eulogisers who seem to have open mike on just about every serious news programme in the UK.
For an obituary of Hitchens from someone who knew him in better times, see http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=27053
Sent from my iPad
On 16 Dec 2011, at 20:21, Gar Lipow <gar.lipow at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've always had the opinion (not an intellectual opinion, but a strong
> emotional conviction) that at the very least if you were going to piss
> on someones grave you should at least wait until the grass is green on
> it. That mostly the recently dead get a partial pass , if for no other
> reason, the feelings of their survivors. There are exceptions. I don't
> hold this opinion absolutely. But (again in my opinion, not backed by
> any reasoning) the exceptions should be really rare.
>
> On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 12:01 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Dec 16, 2011, at 2:54 PM, Dennis Claxton wrote:
>>
>>> At 11:38 AM 12/16/2011, // ravi wrote:
>>>
>>>> Surely it is not that you think the rest of the world should celebrate or tolerate Hitchens because he was sweet to you?
>>>
>>> He was a friend of some people here and they deserve our condolences.
>>
>> Aside from taking some personal offense at the hostility, it's also rather one-dimensional. The guy was complicated. He did many good things in his life, and many awful ones too. His death is a good occasion for reflecting on human complexity. His grave isn't one that should be pissed on.
>>
>> Doug
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