An interview with Christopher Hitchens ("Moral and political collapse" of the Left in the US)

Washington Prism.org ^ | June 16, 2005

[don-o]

bfl

[lentulusgracchus]

I never knew that......Gore Vidal's daddy was the bagman?

Interesting.

Guess all that money must have affected his testicles.

But at least we know now where that mysterious shoebox full of $100 bills came from, that suddenly became a cause notorious in the divorce of Sen. Herman Talmadge of Georgia (who'd been on the Watergate Committee as a representative of paragonship, along with Sen. Montoya of New Mexico, widely believed to be the most corrupt member of the Senate at the time -- that was before Sen Hugh Scott, the minority leader, got caught taking money from Gulf Oil two years after Watergate).

My own theory had been that "Humman" got the shoebox from the late Sen. Richard Russell of Georgia, who in turn probably received it from Lyndon Johnson when he was elevated to the Senate. It was Lyndon's "walking-around money" that he doled out to favored senators, part of his political vig, and before that came from the elder Vidal.

At least that carries us one set of hands further back in the food chain. Like the man said, "follow the money."

Someone needs to write a book, How the Corrupt U.S. Senate Worked Under the Corrupt Lyndon Johnson.

[IamConservative]

The left was and still is blinded by their hate for Bush IMO. I have said many times, if Bush declared a war on hemorrhoids, every Democrat would want one.

[mugs99]

I dont like nor hate Bush. I voted for him twice. But I dont know who's worse; Bush haters or Bushbots??

LOL...
I voted for him twice too, and Bushbots get my goat more than Bush haters ever could. I find it amazing how the Bushbots will support any violation of the Constitution as long as it comes from the Bush administration.

I think Hitchens hits the nail on the head when he says: "Many of the neocons have Marxist backgrounds and believe in ideas and principles and have worked with both parties in power".
...

[Smile-n-Win]

Fascinating that Hitchens sees him as a fascist.

One man's communist is another man's fascist. :-P

But frankly, I don't think there was much of an essential difference between commies and fascists. The ideology of both groups was based on collectivism, and the motivation of both was power-lust.

[justshutupandtakeit]

It was definitely NOT the God of Abraham the Nazis worshipped. The upper echelons of the Party and the SS were deep into the Occult which was where their Secret Doctrine came from. They hated Christianity and its God of Love and would have wiped it out if victorious.

No the Jesuits would not have accepted the ideology at all it was strictly in an organizational sense that the SS modelled itself on the Order. And the elite nature of it.

[processing please hold]

bump for later read.

[George W. Bush]

"The Democrat party truly is what some people crudely say: a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Israeli lobby. It is one thing it has never deviated on: that and abortion. The only two things the Democrats have never flip flopped about."

A remarkably straightforward statement.

One of the most interesting things about the last few years has been to see the real hatred so many on the Left have toward Israel and Jews in general. In essence, I think this means that the Dim party will be more resistant to the most radical Left elements. And this means that foreign policy radicals are less likely to influence Dim candidates in upcoming elections. Despite Dean's failed bid, the Left's power to dictate foreign policy positions to the Dims will increasingly fade. There will be no replay here of how, during the Vietnam era, the views of the Left on foreign policy became the voice of the Dim party for decades to come.

[processing please hold]

The left was and still is blinded by their hate for Bush IMO. I have said many times, if Bush declared a war on hemorrhoids, every Democrat would want one.

May I pilfer your post? I would love to use that line when fighting with leftists.

[IamConservative]

May I pilfer your post? I would love to use that line when fighting with leftists.

You may pilfer with reckless abandon. If in the course of use, you would discover why a hemorrhiod is not called an astroid I would appreciate an update. :)

[processing please hold]

I will, and thanks. I stumbled into a vipers nest of leftist in a tiny town in Texas. The glee they express when our soldiers are killed in Iraq makes me want to vomit. There is one particular person who post their deaths at every opportunity.

All they scream 'Bush lied, people died'.

I find myself fighting on 4-5 threads at a time. They hate me with a passion. A few conservatives are there, but the left outweighs the right. I have such a great time there.

[elbucko]

This battle is one that will not end in the lifetimes of our grandkids.

I agree.

but the left is not going to 'collapse' ever. It will have to be killed, it will have to be fought and slaughtered every day and every hour of our lives.

Again, I agree. The insidious left is as much a threat to the health of this free nation as AIDS is to the human body. So far, there is no cure or vaccine for either AIDS or Leftism.

[Liberty Valance]

Hitchens bump
:o)

[elbucko]

There was once a time, before Marxism, when leftists were, at least, honest.

Nostalgically, yes. That was before they became the agents of a foreign government, the Soviet Union, and infiltrated the Democratic party from the New York City political machine after WWI. FDR brought the NYC communists into the federal government and there they found a permanent place in the Democratic Party and Washington DC. However, since the fall of the USSR, the Left can come out of the closet. The electorate would have never trusted Bill Clinton with the country had there still been a Soviet Union in 1992.

For instance, California used to be "progressive" Republican in the 1950's to the 1990's. Now it is radical Democrat left and getting to be "oppressive" with the imposition of their "freedoms". The Left have now completed what the railroads did in the 19th. Century. The Left has spanned the Continent.

[elbucko]

One of the most interesting things about the last few years has been to see the real hatred so many on the Left have toward Israel and Jews in general.

May I be so bold to venture a guess as to why?

I think that the formation of Israel, in 1948 and its survival, was the first big nail in the USSR's coffin. The Russian Revolution was, essentially, a Jewish revolution. Russia became a place where the Eastern European Jews could be safe and in charge. The Devil that they made the deal with for this security was Marxism. With the reformation of historic Israel, the Jews now had another home, their original home, not an ersatz home like the USSR. It was only a matter of time and a president like Reagan that would start the exodus of Jews to leave Russia and return home to Israel. The secular Democrats have turned on Israel because Israel, besides being an ersatz theocracy, is significantly responsible for the demise of the International Lefts, "Most Favored Nation", the USSR.

[SE Mom]

Thanks for posting this...

ping for later read.

[cbkaty]

They [Islamist radicals or, as Hitchens calls them, Islamo-fascists] gave us no peace and we shouldn’t give them any.

We can't live on the same planet as them and I'm glad because I don’t want to. I don’t want to breathe the same air as these psychopaths and murders and rapists and torturers and child abusers. Its them or me.

I'm very happy about this because I know it will be them. It’s a duty and a responsibility to defeat them. But it's also a pleasure.

I don’t regard it as a grim task at all.

I agree...and I wish I had said that.....

[PhilDragoo]

I have his No One Left to Lie To so I know he periodically pushes back the black blot of dogma.

He's still one hundred eighty degrees wrong on Vietnam as two million Cambodians will attest to from the other side.

And his fondness for "Palestinians" ignores their teaching their children to "kill the Zionist wherever you find him"--not endearing to me.

Yet he's bold here and now where it's life or death, and that takes courage. David Horowitz (Radical Son) made a similar break with lemming leftists.

Fine that Hitchens opposes Islamofascists, but dangerous that he consorts with Edward Said. Daniel Pipes depicts Said:

Noted scholar and author Edward Said, whose works include "Covering Islam" and "Orientalism," wrote that Pipes is one of a group of anti-Muslim pundits who seek to "make sure that the '[Islamic] threat' is kept before our eyes, the better to excoriate Islam for terror, despotism and violence, while assuring themselves profitable consultancies, frequent TV appearances and book contracts." (The Nation, 8/12/1996)

The same Edward Said who told a Kuwaiti newspaper some years ago that "the Israeli and U.S. Governments are our enemies" (Al-Qabas, Oct. 7, 1989); he is someone whose judgment we are to respect? And he, the guru of Middle Eastern studies, the president of the Modern Language Association, the celebrity intellectual of Columbia University, and the darling of post-modernists, accuses me of having fashionable politics?

So I don't agree with Hitchens that the U.S. was eevil in Vietnam--in my view we fought evil; nor do I agree with him that we must cater to the "Palestinians" more than to, say, the Manson family.

I do agree with him that Michael Moore and Ernst Röhm will be reunited in a bathhouse in hell.

I do agree with Hitchens' final paragraph which is full of stirring rhetoric (with which I posit Hitchens' collaborator Said will have nothing to do).

Now, on to Tehran and turn Khamenei into a Ceacescu for the New Millenium.

[GeronL]

Thanks. I am going to upgrade my FR homepage with a little 'column' I wrote today on the topic.