Alexander Cockburn RIP

[Dave Monroe]

On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 12:24 PM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:

>> http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/21/farewell-alex-my-friend/
>>
> The site times out,  apparently flooded with condolers.

Weekend Edition July 21-23, 2012
Alexander Cockburn, 1941-2012
Farewell, Alex, My Friend
by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

Our friend and comrade Alexander Cockburn died last night in Germany,
after a fierce two-year long battle against cancer. His daughter Daisy
was at his bedside.

Alex kept his illness a tightly guarded secret. Only a handful of us
knew how terribly sick he truly was. He didn’t want the disease to
define him. He didn’t want his friends and readers to shower him with
sympathy. He didn’t want to blog his own death as Christopher Hitchens
had done. Alex wanted to keep living his life right to the end. He
wanted to live on his terms. And he wanted to continue writing through
it all, just as his brilliant father, the novelist and journalist
Claud Cockburn had done. And so he did. His body was deteriorating,
but his prose remained as sharp, lucid and deadly as ever.

In one of Alex’s last emails to me, he patted himself on the back (and
deservedly so) for having only missed one column through his
incredibly debilitating and painful last few months. Amid the chemo
and blood transfusions and painkillers, Alex turned out not only
columns for CounterPunch and The Nation and First Post, but he also
wrote a small book called Guillotine and finished his memoirs, A
Colossal Wreck, both of which CounterPunch plans to publish over the
course of the next year.

Alex lived a huge life and he lived it his way. He hated compromise in
politics and he didn’t tolerate it in his own life. Alex was my pal,
my mentor, my comrade. We joked, gossiped, argued and worked together
nearly every day for the last twenty years. He leaves a huge void in
our lives. But he taught at least two generations how to think, how to
look at the world, how to live a life of joyful and creative
resistance. So, the struggle continues and we’re going to remain
engaged. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

In the coming days and weeks, CounterPunch will publish many tributes
to Alex from his friends and colleagues. But for this day, let us
remember him through a few images taken by our friend Tao Ruspoli.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/21/farewell-alex-my-friend/

images:

http://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/alexjasper9694.jpg
http://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/alexwriting.jpg
http://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/DSC03726.jpg