[lbo-talk] My Letter To CH

[Carrol Cox]

I've been going along with Dennis C's point about letting his friends mourn
his loss, and I have not been reading any of the posts. But if this mourning
means we (any 'we') are supposed to have much respect for his writings at
_any_ period in his life, that goes beyond missing a friend. He was always a
lightweight; most of his Nation columns were a bore and some were offensive.
I have personal friends whose opinions I abhor (see my post on Carl
Davidson). But are we expected to somehow admire Hitchens as a _public_
figure, before or after his 'change.' I never did, mostly agreeing with
Cockburn's responses.

One doesn't have to stretch to find human complexity to consider, so that's
an irrelevant consideration.

Carrol

-----Original Message-----
From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
On Behalf Of Eric Beck
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2011 3:37 PM
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] My Letter To CH

On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 3:20 PM, Dennis Claxton <ddclaxton at earthlink.net>
wrote:


> It was worse than that.  He became a shill for the wrong side.  He was
> complicated, but recognizing that shouldn't extend to giving him a pass
for
> taking that side.
>
> "On 11th September 2001, a small group of terrorists crashed the planes
they
> had hijacked into the twin towers of New York. Among the casualties,
> although unreported that week, was a middle-aged Nation columnist called
> Christopher Hitchens. He was never seen again. The vile replica currently
on
> offer is a double."

I just don't see this. Never thought he was that great pre-2000, and
his transformation never seemed all that transformative to me. It's
like Arianna Huffington: I'm told politically she's radically
different than she used to be, but I see some changed opinions but
only microscopic actual difference.

Can't believe I'm saying this, but Lenin's Tomb's obit was pretty
right on: he was shallow as a critic, decidedly un-droll as a wit, not
particularly erudite as a stylist, and his aetheism was thinly
disguised racism and imperialism.

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