NP Left responses "disgraceful" says Hitchens

[Henry Mu]

Hitchens is a politician, a panderer to a perceived demographic.
Hitchens knows that the READING public has a newfound taste for blood
sports that the general population has always enjoyed. After the
revolution, Hitchens will be tried as a turncoat collaborator, his hair
will be shaven off and he will be paraded through the streets. Until
then, I wish him well in the mosh pit. 


Sure, once I was young and impulsive. I wore every conceivable pin.
Even went to Socialist meetings; learned all the old union hymns.
Ah, but I've grown older and wiser, and that why I'm turning you in.
So love me, love me, love me... I'm a liberal. [Phil Ochs]

Henry Mu

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
Behalf Of jbor
Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2001 7:40 AM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: NP Left responses "disgraceful" says Hitchens

on 14/10/01 8:39 PM, Phil Wise at philwise at paradise.net.nz wrote:

> Sigh. That may be an accurate characterisation of Hitchens's view, but
it
> doesn't make him right (and once again, the example of Hitchens is
asserted
> and not demonstrated).  One point to make is that in any movement that
has a
> high proportion of idealistic young people among its members, so that
it
> will be reasonably easy to find silly statements from some people.
But my
> point in responding in the first place was that Mr Mc's piece was full
of
> anti-this bluster, spitefulness, and clearly no dialogue with
alternative
> views, since his audience apparently "knows" that the "left" is
bankrupt
> without having to be told in what way, exactly.

The "Left consensus" that the article is talking about is against
globalisation and against the military campaign in Afghanistan. These
are
the "alternative views" that the article addresses, as clearly stated in
the
opening paragraph. The linked interview demonstrates the shift in
Hitchens'
position.

> The "left bloc" has never responded to anything, as far as I can tell,
with
> "if you don't agree, then you're a fascist" rhetoric.

Sometimes it's phrased: "if you're not with us you're agin' us". But
it's to
the same purport.

> Maybe some individual
> voices that don't know what they are talking about.

Indeed.

> However, attacks from
> the "right" (and I don't mean you here, I refer to pundits who are
> publishing, and I'll take your word that you're not among any
"conservative
> readership") have had a significant minority accusing the "left" and
those
> who don't agree of hatred of America or some such, a similar
rhetorical
> dishonesty.  It is bullshit, to be frank.

The point I draw from the article, and agree with, is that the Left has
offered no solutions, no practical alternatives, only antagonism and
diatribe.

> But if you said that they hated
> many of America's actions overseas, and that they don't trust the same
> corporations that put their money in after the Government's bulldozed
> striking Tanzanarian miners into a pit to suddenly become the savour
of the
> workers and the poor, or after a CIA sponsored massacre of hundreds of
> thousands of Indonesian leftists, then you'd largely be right.
There's a
> huge and multifaceted difference between hating that sort of shit and
hating
> "America".  To conflate the two is a cheap shot in this climate.

Isn't this exactly what bin Laden is doing? But while none of this is
being
argued, it does strike me that all that the Left seem capable of, as far
you're characterising them here at least, is hate.

Saturday, October 13, 2001

OPINION  

The Left's thinkers abandon ship after it collides with reason

By Padraic P. McGuinness

In the wake of the terrorist atrocities in the United States, the
crumbling
of the Left consensus continues. Thus while the usual suspects,
especially
in the media, heaped blame upon the victim and claimed that fanaticism
and
poverty in the Third World were the fault of the US and of
globalisation,
there were sufficient voices from independent thinkers who consider
themselves of the Left to show that the centre of the Left consensus
cannot
hold - things are falling apart.

[...]

[T]he crumbling of the Left consensus in intellectual terms ... has been
exemplified by the denunciation by Christopher Hitchens, a leading
leftist
journalist, of the disgraceful responses to terrorism in Left circles.

[...]

[H]e is prepared to argue his views and does not show the kind of
massive
ignorance, dogmatism and disrespect for either evidence or rational
argument
which categorises most of the modern Left.

[...]

Full opinion at:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/0110/13/opinion/opinion6.html

Interview with Christopher Hitchens in _Reason_ at:

http://reason.com/0111/fe.rs.free.html

best