Being stuck in Toronto is not without its advantages. Wednesday night, it meant being able to see Christopher Hitchens live and in person, shake his hand, and remind him of Winds' blogosphere campaign to symbolically buy him drinks (it ended up raising about $800, which we donated to the Kurdish PUK at Mr. Hitchens' request). I walked out with a copy of Thomas Jefferson: Author of America, signed "in memory of foregone cocktails." Without question, the best drinks I've never had.
I walked out with something else, too. Mr. Hitchens and David Frum weren't as sharp and focused as I've seen them, but let me tell you what I did learn.
My biggest takeaway came from his best moment, when he framed the central question thusly:
It's a question, he said, that goes beyond specific policies, or political affiliations. Or even one's belief in success or failure. America's policy had become radical in the best way, he contended, as it aligned itself with the human impulse for accountability and freedom over tyranny and fascism. That movement of hope was now afoot, in ways that can be seen throughout the Arab/Islamic world and beyond. And the question - not only for America, but for each of us - is whether we will choose to align ourselves with that in a serous and sustained way.
It is, when you think about it, a very clarifying question. I know where I stand. How about you?
Mostly, however, I learned from watching how Christopher Hitchens approached his topics: with quiet assurance, with wit, and with humanity.
Like I said, it wasn't one of his strongest performances - but all of those traits shone through anyway. When he spoke of the "realist" school of international relations, he didn't focus on political theory - he focused on stories from his time among the Kurds shortly after Desert Storm. Or a recent dinner at his house with Kurdish, Sunni and Shi'te guests who discussed politics and elections. These people had been real insurgents, people's warriors who had led resistance to Saddam's tyranny at great risk - NOT the torturers and lackeys of a fallen fascist regime, aligned with foreign fanatics to practice their trade anew as paramilitary death squads who target children. Calmly, but in a tone that left no doubts of his conviction, Hitchens spoke of the terrible human and moral toll of the "realist" policies that its proponents called (without an ounce of irony or reflection) "peace."
Of course, he finished that off by pointing out how many of the dictatorships the realists wish to do business with/ bribe/ be bribed by are unraveling anyway, as the forces of change now afoot pull their socieities apart. Or preparing to implode as fascism's inherent death wish impulses assert themselves. "Realism" wasn't only immoral, he noted - it was often profoundly unrealistic.
As a result, he did well with a crowd that had real disagreements with some aspects of his message.
I'm glad I got a chance to finally meet Mr. Hitchens in person, and sorry I couldn't get David Frum and Christopher Hitchens to both sign Hitchens' new Thomas Jefferson book. Their growing friendship is one of the delightfully unexpected consequences of modern-day events, as a Canadian and a Brit take up their own pens from different political orientations to defend the nation Jefferson helped to author.
To foregone drinks, then. To freedom, and hope! And to being on the right side of history.
Win, or lose.
Yes, your recounting of Hitchen's speech, as well as your reaction to it, touch my heart. That is just how I feel about it at the deepest level. Thank you.
Hear, hear.
At a time when the prospects for America carrying through to success in Iraq appear murky at best, this is a heartening post indeed...
And I had come to understand that CH was dead !
Perhaps you met a ghost of the man he once was and what he had to say about the American fiasco in Iraq was equally a grasp and a gasp at the mirage of what he wishes were happening there.
Unlike tom vikander here, Christopher Hitchens actually visits these places and has more than a few personal acquiantances there. I'd certainy trust what he has to say over anything tom has to say, should Hitch decide to comment.
As it happens, however, Hitchens talked about these events on more of a moral-humanist level... something equally foreign to tom, no doubt.
There is no such word as "thusly". "Thus" is already an adverb, you asshole!
Franko, I did it just to irritate you. So glad it worked!
Belonging to a nation that got rolled over with tanks twice in the last century - Czechoslovakia - without defending itself at all, I can only support and applaud current US efforts in Iraq and elsewhere.
To defend the good principles takes a terrible toll short-term, to give in means to live in hell for generations.
And, to be sure, there are lots of people who have acquaintances in and who visit Iraq who sport an entirely different opinion from that of CH's ghost.
I'm sure there will be much to say about the West's " moral-humanist level" occupation of Iraq in the comming months and it won't be pretty.
Iraq is a nation that got rolled over with tanks twice in the last decade without hardly defending itself at all. One can only be amazed at the current efforts of the patriot freedomfighters in Iraq to throw out the foreign occupiers.
"To defend the good principles takes a terrible toll short-term, to give in means to live in hell for generations".
How true!
One can only be amazed at the current efforts of the patriot freedomfighters in Iraq to throw out the foreign occupiers.
patriot freedomfighters?? You mean the Saudi suicide bombers and the Iranians?
Are you being serious here or is this irony?
No, he's being serious. Mr. Vikander is a fascist who cheers the deliberate murder of children and of crowds gathering outside mosques to pray. It is a credit to him that he is an honest fascist, who straightforwardly unfurls his true colors without apology.
The Left has many, many such people - most less admirable than Mr. Vikander, in that they are less honest.
Tom Vikander has chosen whom he stands with: the beheaders of hostages, the murderers of children, a combination of foreign theocrat fanatics whose goal is quite literally global slavery and the former einsatzgruppen and torturers of a fascist regime.
We can choose to stand with Tom, and the Left. Or we can choose to stand for something better. As I said above, I've made my choice. Tom has made his. and you...?
"As I said above, I've made my choice. Tom has made his. and you...?"
I've made mine. I'm with you.
Somehow, inexplicably, I can't bring myself to support those who target vegetable markets and day laborers for annihilation. I know it makes me weak but I can't get past it.
There is no such word as "thusly". "Thus" is already an adverb, you asshole!
Oh Franko, assuming you are not my fifth grade English teacher - which is a distinct possibility - where have you been all my life?
I take it you share the view of H.L. Mencken (in The American Language):
Since you spoke to Joe so nastily [Sic! Sic!] you probably also share Mencken's bad temper and inflamed liver. More on Mencken in my ignoramus essay I Deconstruct Maureen Dowd Thusly [Sic! Nyaah nyaah nyaah! Sic!]
We can choose to stand with Tom, and the Left. Or we can choose to stand for something better. As I said above, I've made my choice. Tom has made his. and you...?
moi? The reactionaries on the left and the right have a lot in common, they just choose to use different words to describe their hatred. Both have sympathy for Islamists and totalitarianism and both loathe liberal democracy. Liberal democracy is the only thing they fight. While I don't consider any Americans to be my enemy, I realize that these extremists aren't on my side.
I think the American government has always been way too soft on Islamist terrorism & fascism. They're still not tough enough, but compared the pro-fascist extremists and the clueless Dems, they're the best we've got.
I haven't heard so much "sic sic!" since I took my dog to obedience school.
Irregardless of whether "thusly" is a bon mot, it goes without saying that thusily would be worser. Nastily? That's a whole nother story. As opposed, one would imagine, to a half nother story, which is entirely a horse of a different color.
I hope I helped clear that up.
But Joe,
YOU are the one placing me with/on the "Left". Hardly myself doing that.
So I'm watching Rummy and General Pace and Richard Perle looking pretty unhappy being blitzed by Wolf Blitzer on CNN, Sunday morn.
My how that news organization suddenly is asking what more thinky people have been asking for years!
Stay tuned, for the Right's revisionist history of current events as their rug melts underneath them.
We're watching these anxious deniers of the real America retreating to the bunker of FOX news.
Meanwhile the murderous outfall of the Bush Regime's policies in Iraq are driven home each morning in America as the lead news story tells of the latest sad death tolls.
Those naieve Cabal members in Washington have manipulated into being some very far reaching mistakes, and cannot admit them.
There isn't a hope in Hades a Federation of three cultural/religious groups can work in Iraq. They are busy killing each other, each day taking time out to bomb off some Coaxial Troops.
Let's see how the American people put the boot to the Cabal and their Project.
On Vikander.
Only very simple-minded or very evil-minded people may believe that the US has not freed Iraq from a tyrant that had been destroying his own nation and many others around. These freedom fighters are either fanatical islamists or former Baathists, trying to destabilize what would be the end of their aspirations to power - a society developing more or less peacefully towards a democracy.
And only very simple-minded or very evil-minded people may call these thugs "freedom fighters".
Mr Vikander, can you describe what kind of freedom these fighers have in mind? Saddam's kind of freedom? Iranian/Taliban kind of freedom? You should better go and try out their kind of freedom for yourself, before you start speaking on their behalf!
On Vikander (cont.)
and his misquotation of mine "To defend the good principles takes a terrible toll short-term, to give in means to live in hell for generations."
You know nothing of living in hell, Vikander. You know nothing of living in a country where one simple loud comment like "Bush/Saddam/Stalin is an idiot" may end up your career, get you in jail, get you tortured, get you shot, get your children's future ruined because children of the enemies of the state deserve the worst ...
Do yourself a service, Vikander, go to North Korea, and try to live there for a year, the life of an ordinary citizen. That would truly earn you the right to speak of freedoms and fighers, and the rest.
Zarqawi may be dead--killed because Sunni arabs tipped off Iraq and US troops. People who cheer for the terrorists, such as V., need more medication.