Margaret Kimberley is about right in her
description of Christopher Hitchens. Along with
Martin Amis.Jeremy Paxman and a few more cronies
he was part of a solipsist neo-Bloomsbury Group
which, if anything, was even more pretentious
than the original one. As with Woolf, Forster and
Keynes a generation or so ago, he and a few more
looked down their intellectual noses at those
they conceived to be of lesser merit and
intimidated those who didn't exactly agree with
their own view (as it happened to be at any particular point in time).
K
At 19:55 21/12/2011, you wrote:
More contrarian perspectives on Hitchens... M
-----Original Message----- From:
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[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Sid
Shniad Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2011 11:29
AM Subject: Freedom Rider: Christopher Hitchens,
White Man | Black Agenda Report
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/freedom-rider-christopher-hitchens-white-man
[image: Black Agenda Report]
------------------------------ *12/21/2011*
Freedom Rider: Christopher Hitchens, White Man
*by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret
Kimberley* There was nothing witty, cute, or
endearing about the late Christopher Hitchens, a
racist to the core whose association with the
Left served only to discredit it. âBeneath
his mutteringngs against âIslamofascismâ
he was nothing morng more than an angry white
guy who wanted brown people to be conquered or
dead.â A man of many prejudices but no real
loyalties or principles, he flowed with the
money. âWhy toil away as a left winger known
only within ththat smaller group, when more
money and media attention awaited a cheer leader
for pax Americana and white supremacy?âÂ
â*In the end all his words amounted to to
nothing more than fighting for the rights of
white people to control everyone else in the
world.âÂ* The Brittish born writer
Christopher Hitchens died of cancer last week.
The outpouring of grief and praise for a man who
can only be called a propagandist for barbaric
ideologies may seem curious at first glance, but
there is an ugly and logical explanation for the
reaction. Mr. Hitchens was for many years known
as a leftist, a self-described Trotskyite. He
wrote a column in *The Nation* magazine during
that time, and was known for excoriating the
likes of Henry Kissinger for the carnage he
carried out in Vietnam and Southeast Asia that
killed millions of people.. In more recent years
Hitchens took a sharp turn in his writings and
public statements and in the process became far
more famous, and no doubt a lot richer. After
the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and
Washington, Hitchens came out of the closet and
presented himself to the world as a full blown
neo-con, an unconditional supporter of the Bush
administrationâs aggressions. So great was
hishis love for the Bushites that he took the
citizenship oath in a naturalization ceremony
presided over by Homeland Security chief Michael
Chertoff. Hitchens became a favorite of pundits,
and with a body of prolific work and glib
statements in the media, he was rarely out of
the spotlight. Yet in the end all his words
amounted to nothing more than fighting for the
rights of white people to control everyone else
in the world.* * â*Hitchens came out t of the
closet and presented himself to the world as a
full blown neo-con, an unconditional supporter
of the Bush administrationâs
aggressions.âÂ* Hitchensââsâ⬠descent
into support for western imperialism was, ass
George Galloway put it, a metamorphosis âfrom
butttterfly back into slug,â but it
wasnât as sudd sudden as it seemed. Like most
criminals, Hitchens showed his true side earlier
on. In 1992 he was invited to attend a protest
opposing the quincentenary celebration of
Columbusâ arrival in the western hemisphere.
Hitchens ma made it clear that he was not at all
put off by the genocide of Indians and
enslavement of Africans. As *he put
it<http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3737110.html>
[3]*, "1492 was a very good year and deserves to
be celebrated with great vim and gusto."
According to him, the coming of the European and
the barbarity which ensued is just the way
things happen, and in fact all for the
betterment of humankind. âBut those who view
the history of North Amemerica as a narrative of
genocide and slavery are, it seems to me,
hopelessly stuck on this reactionary position.
They can think of the Western expansion of the
United States only in terms of plague blankets,
bootleg booze and dead buffalo, never in terms
of the medicine chest, the wheel and the railway
. . . But it does happen to be the way that
history is made, and to complain about it is as
empty as complaint about climatic, geological or
tectonic shift.â In other words, it is part
of the natural ordder of the universe for the
world and its people to be under the rule of
whites, with people of color preferably under
their control whenever possible. The political
ascension of George W. Bush and the beginning of
the war on terror was all the opening that
Hitchens, a leftist poseur, needed. Why toil
away as a left winger known only within that
smaller group, when more money and media
attention awaited a cheer leader for pax
Americana and white supremacy? â*Once again
we see that the endless aggressision is not
really opposed by most Americans, and they prove
it by lionizing the likes of the late
Hitchens.âÂ** His fans may argue with the
assessment, calling his unqualified support of
the Iraq occupation a âmistake,e,â when
it was no such thing. Hitchens decided to maake
a living, a very good one, as a professional
white man. Beneath his mutterings against
âIslamofascismâââ¬Â he was nothing more
than an angry white guy who wanted brown people
to be conquered or dead. The liberals who
swooned over his British accent and his media
savvy may not want to admit it, but they also
admired his openly imperialist and indeed racist
point of view. He claimed to be sickened by
Saddam Husseinâs tyranny, but what at he
really wanted was for the Arabs to be
subservient, in no position to question or to
oppose the powerful white-run nations of the
west. As for tyranny, if people who looked like
him were carrying it out, it wasnât so ba bad
after all. The bizarre levels of admiration on
display for this man are symptomatic of a much
larger problem. Once again we see that the
endless aggression is not really opposed by most
Americans, and they prove it by lionizing the
likes of the late Hitchens. They too think that
powerful white people have the right to lay
waste to entire regions of the world and to the
human beings within them. In fact, they donât
think that non-white people le are really human
beings with the rights they assume for
themselves. Hitchens may have been in the
minority in publicly proclaiming the rightness
of mass murder but that doesnât mean he was
alone. Now that he has passed ad away, it is
clear that his ideas were loved by many people,
who also hearken back to a time when white was
openly declared right, and with ample doses of
âvim and gusustoâ too. *Margaret
Kimberley's Freedom Rider colummn appears weekly
in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She
maintains a frequently updated blog as well as
at
**http://freedomrider.blogspot.com.<http://freedomrider.blogspot.com/>
[4]* *Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and
can be reached via e-Mail at
Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.com*.
- Christopher Hitchens
racist<http://blackagendareport.com/category/media-media-justice-and-media-reform/christopher-hitchens-racist>
------------------------------ *Source URL:*
http://blackagendareport.com/content/freedom-rider-christopher-hitchens-white-man
*Links:* [1]
http://blackagendareport.com/category/media-media-justice-and-media-reform/christopher-hitchens-racist
[2]
http://blackagendareport.com/sites/www.blackagendareport.com/files/christopher_hitchens.jpg
[3] http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3737110.html
[4] http://freedomrider.blogspot.com/ [5]
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