Here’s a recent interview on KPFK with Sonali Kolhatkar.
As so many follow "the opinion polls" in New Hampshire, keep this in mind: They don't measure opinion. The tracking question being continuously asked is some minor variant of "If the election were held today, for whom would you vote?" This false hypothetical of a question compels voters to pick the candidate who they think is the strategic choice to beat President Obama, not the one they most want to be president.
The question as framed doubles down on the restrictions our electoral system imposes on citizens rather than freeing them from them. That is, the primary voters could want a candidate but we might not know it since they are not asked who they actually want for president, only who they would vote for in the primary; but they are not voting with who the necessarily want, but who they think -- think -- will beat Obama. The process during the primaries is largely focused around the voters of one of the establishment party being guided by the media to back a candidate who ostensibly has the best chance of beating the candidate of the other establishment party. A recent Zogby poll found that nearly 50 percent of Republican New Hampshire primary voters would rather vote for someone who "shares some views but can beat Obama" as opposed to only 40 percent of those who would vote for someone who more more strongly "shares views [but] not strong vs. Obama." But who is to say who would be a stronger candidate? Mitt Romney is frequently described as the Republican who would be most formidable to Obama in a general election and Ron Paul is frequently dismissed as unelectable, but Paul is probably the Republican best positioned to reach out to independents and Democrats. Consider what a farcical exercise it was the last time we went through a primarily process with a sitting U.S. president on the other side of the two-party duopoly: In 2004, Democratic voters were told over and over by the media that candidates like Dennis Kucinich and Howard Dean were unelectable. This despite the fact that Kucinich consistently got the greatest applause in Democratic debates (when he wasn't excluded from them); but he got preciously few votes because he was deemed to be "unelectable" -- presumably because most every independent and Republican voter was a fire breathing pro-war corporatist. Endlessly played video of "The Dean Scream" effectively ended his candidacy. The media conventional wisdom was the John Kerry was somehow "electable" -- because he had "experience" -- never mind that part of that experience included voting for granting George W. Bush authorization to attack Iraq. So the Democratic Party ended up with a candidate who wound up saying it was "for the war before he was against it" and other inspiring statements. And the drive to have someone who is "electable" often trumps everything else. So actual ideas about war, the economy, jobs, society, families and whose policies people actually agree with all get sidelined. The endless horse race coverage not only eats up media time, it eats up viewers' brains -- turning citizens into pundits. James Zobgy at a news conference last week wondered if we were not actually seeing with the success of Ron Paul in Iowa the "birth of a third party" -- especially since Paul had such success with young people who would likely not back any other Republican candidate (with the exception of Gary Johnson, who has been totally marginalized) and that so many of these young people were jaded with Obama. The compulsion to vote for electability rather than actual belief in the ideas being expressed by a candidate in the primary season does not end as we enter the general election. Rather, it morphs into something perhaps even more insidious: lesser-evilism. Millions and millions vote in election after election for the Democratic candidate not because they affirmatively agree with them, but because they are driven by fear of the Republican. And millions more do the exact same thing in the opposite direction. They all cancel out each others votes. Many of these people would find they actually agree with third party and independent candidates from the Green, Socialist, Libertarian or Constitution Parties. But most of them don't even consider voting for them because they feel an over riding compulsion to stop the other major party at all cost, driven by a heard and brain-freezing fear. Add to the tragic farce that many of these people know each other, but effectively nullify their friends votes because they hate the candidate their friend is settling upon. And similarly, the polls during the general election extenuate the problem rather than alleviating it. It's even conceivable that there could be a third party or independent candidate in a general election who would have majority support and we may not even know it, since everyone focuses around the question "if the election were held today, which of the candidates would you vote for" and the public -- unaware that an anti-establishment candidate -- someone who is opposed to the wars and Wall Street bailouts and corporate influence that the establishments of both major political parties have embraced and occasionally deride each other for -- could have majority support. A simple suggestion for a test as to who people actually want: "The following candidates are all tied for the presidency. You have the deciding vote. Who would you cast that deciding vote for?" Such a question would get to who people actually want, like and perhaps even love, rather than grinding the public through a process of guessing and spinning and polling and pundifying as to who is in the best position to beat a candidate you presumably hate.The Triangulations of Christopher Hitchens: Lessons for Journalism and the Left
by Sam Husseini When the sleigh is heavy / And the timber wolves are getting bold
You look at your companions / And test the water of their friendship with your toe
They significantly edge / Closer to the gold
Each man has his price Bob / And yours was pretty low
-- Roger Waters, "Too Much Rope" from "Amused to Death"
You look at your companions / And test the water of their friendship with your toe
They significantly edge / Closer to the gold
Each man has his price Bob / And yours was pretty low
-- Roger Waters, "Too Much Rope" from "Amused to Death"
Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.
-- Bob Marley (attributed)
(I tweeted this the day Hitchens died, a day before his death was announced.)
"Have you stopped vomiting yet, Christopher?" were the first words I ever said to Christopher Hitchens face-to-face, I'd bumped into him at some DC shindig, the type of thing I rarely went to and what he seemed at times to live off. It was just after the deaths of both "Princess Diana" and "Mother Teresa" and Hitchens seemed to be on Cloud 9. My comment stemmed from a recent quote of his on a chat show -- I think "Meet the Press" -- that the commemorations around Diana's death were such that he "couldn't stop vomiting".
The adulation that followed Hitchens to his grave would be enough to induce serious regurgitation from the better demons of Hitchens' past self, if that still exists somewhere, if it ever really did. As gushing flattery poured out from writer after writer who recounting with swagger their interactions with Hitchens -- I've been left to figuring how to account for mine. There have been a few serious pieces noting his stark contradictions, but they didn't seem to account for how he was trusted by many who should have known better, and I certainly count myself among the guilty on this count, though with reason.
Despite our personal meetings, some meals and drinks, and my reading him since I was young, I'll forever associate Hitchens with email, and I've recently retrieved some, but not all, of my past emails with him off dusty hard drives, see below. For example, shortly after 9/11, I wrote him in a note titled "your pathetic question" in response to his first pro-war piece in which I wrote: "The fascists like Bin-Laden could not get volunteers to stuff envelopes if Israel had withdrawn from Jerusalem like it was supposed to -- and the U.S. stopped the sanctions and the bombing on Iraq." I should say this was rather similar to what Hitchens had himself been saying for years: "If the U.S. had stood for mutual recognition on the Palestine question and had directed its energies to a settlement of that dispute, Saddam Hussein would have been punching air when it came to recruiting support outside his borders."
But Hitchens took the occasion of the 9/11 attacks to not only attack me -- as he had others, putting me in the splendid company of Zinn and Chomsky -- but to threaten me with the hand of "the authorities". He quoted my email to him from above in a column in The Nation and then wrote: "You've heard this 'thought' expressed in one way or another, dear reader, have you not? I don't think I took enough time in my last column to point out just what is so utterly rotten at the very core of it. So, just to clean up a corner or two: (1) If Husseini knows what was in the minds of the murderers, it is his solemn responsibility to inform us of the source of his information, and also to share it with the authorities. ..." He then sent me that column after 2 a.m. with a PS attached: "I am dead serious about my first point and will call you on
it again. If
you claim you knew what these people had in mind, I want you to show me that
you contacted the authorities with your information before you sent your
blithering little letter to me. Either that or you shut the fuck up - not that it matters any more what you say.
And you claim to know how enemies are made....You have no idea." And I'm sad to say that, to an extent, that did help to shut me up -- or at least end up with me playing a more behind-the-scenes role. And it was somewhat understandable. A few days earlier, I was on Bill O'Reilly and he had cut my mic. And Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman and other great figures were weighing in on what Hitchens was spouting, I probably couldn't add much to the arguments they marshaled. And I had seemingly bigger fish to fry -- getting desperately needed material out to media outlets through my day job. But another factor was that Hitchens had serious government connections and had dragged Sid Blumenthal, himself rather well-connected, through the legal mud. And, after all it was just after 9/11 and the government was rounding up Arabs and Muslim with little legal constraint -- and those violations seemed immensely more important than Hitchens threatening me.
Hitchens would later say he was against government wiretapping through the NSA with substantial fanfare. Apparently he preferred the more old-fashioned approach of people turning in their alleged friends to "the authorities". And for the benefit of cameras, Hitchens would make great show of coming out against torture by himself being water boarded.
Never mind that were I to have thrown caution to the wind and he to act on his threat -- how distant he was from causing that to be done to me when liberty was most vulnerable? The positions Hitches took were a high form of triangulation of the worst sort -- and that gave him a fake sort of relevancy at times. Even my friends at The Real News this week plugged a video of Hitchens getting water boarded [in their "best of the web" section]. And Democracy Now just after his death proudly touted the debates they featured with Hitchens.
In another email exchange, Hitchens mocks me for suggesting that the U.S. would attack Iraq just as Clinton was about to be impeached. I ask him for assurance that there will not be an attack within the next week, he dismisses that and -- within about 24 hours -- the U.S. launched the Operation Desert Fox bombing campaign. In another exchange, Hitchens writes to me: "vigilant as ever, but not as vigilant as you" -- a month later his book comes out with my ideas and without my name in it, an oversight he called "shaming" -- so he presumably has some.
I almost think by the end of his life, though we'd not spoken in years, there was no one rooting for him to beat the cancer more than I. And for very Hitchens-like reasons. "Purify your hatred" he'd write me, an art form I failed in acquiring. It rather reminds me of a Kathy Kelly piece years ago quoting an elderly Iraqi man about the devastating effects of the sanctions, killing hundreds of thousands of children in the first phase of the 20-year war that is ostensibly ending now, saying that he wished George H. W. Bush -- yes, the revered father, not the despised son -- would go to heaven ... so that he could see all the Iraqi children he'd killed.
A parable for our age is to contrast Hitchens' rise with Scott Ritter's descent. In the mid 90s, Ritter was the establishment media's golden boy -- an articulate arms inspector who reamed Saddam Hussein for alleged non-compliance. After coming out against attacking Iraq and saying that Iraq was basically unarmed before the U.S. invasion -- no matter how nationalistic his reasoning -- Ritter became an official enemy, shoved to political marginalization for the crime of being correct. And quite possibly driven to near madness, or at least to exchanging sexual material with females he thought were under 16. And so he's in jail, to the gleeful if muffled delight of much of the establishment. Hitchens by contrast land lauds from so many for his alleged courage -- yet, or exactly because, he had none when it mattered. Or actually Hitchens was good at displaying "courage" against those who were in the outs with the establishment who had no power, which likely worse than none.
Some wise men warned me in one way or another, at least tacitly, about engaging Hitchens. While I sensed they were right, but I also felt they didn't understand the sheer loneliness of trying to do political work in DC. Contrary to Kipling's claim, what is hard is to keep your virtue while walking with kings, not with crowds. Political DC, especially in the 90s, was a vast wasteland -- with a few allies with little power and many establishment emissaries that seemed to have knives drawn. And that stark landscape encourages one to see mirages and causes one, normally wary, to seek to work with someone like Hitchens. It's especially true given Alex Cockburn having dubbed Hitchens as having a taste for giving a "Judas kiss", a subject he avoids in his otherwise insightful recent piece. I'd some to Hitchens work earlier through the tact recommendations of Chomsky and Edward Said. And so despite warnings -- given the trajectory -- it was easy to end up while trying to do political and journalistic work in DC "makin' out with Judas just to make your bail".
Sometime around 2005, Ahmed Chalabi was at an event somewhere in DC, perhaps AEI, and I went with my friend Matthew Bradley. There was a protest as I recall, and I was surprised to see Hitchens milling about outside. "Christopher, you don't have a ticket?" "Oh, I've got one alright" he responded. "Good, well, then all is well with the universe." Last time we spoke. Around the same time, I made the awful mistake of giving Democracy Now producer Mike Burke the contact info for Hitchens, which led to a series of self-absorbed "debates" between him and Tariq Ali and others. Hitchens was a pro-war creation of the "left" which was ostensibly anti-war. I felt this was disastrous since Hitchens functioned for the left and a "fun" pro-war debater -- it was more about Hitchens and the dynamics of the debate than the actual issues, and it in effect prevented an actual debate with actual pro-war people that was desperately needed.
I say actual because right after 9/11, it was Chomsky who would write that Hitchens could not possibly believe what he was writing. This seemed to really get under Hitchens' skin. And over the years, it proved a powerful insight. Hitchens himself in his final months would say that if he were to embrace religion in his final days that he'd hoped people wouldn't take it seriously, since it wouldn't really be "him". It seemed an incredible thing to say, to forestall one's own betrayal of one's alleged principles. But, as Chomsky discerned, Hitchens had in effect been down that road and could not actually believe things he was saying. One could contrast Hitchens with Bertrand Russell, who when talking about his own death, would talk of invented deathbed conversions -- that is, he was concerned that others would claim that he had embraced religion on his deathbed, but Russell never seemed to be concerned that he would change his beliefs when it seemed convenient to do so. In Hitchens' comments after 9/11, there was a sense of a calculation, that the anti-jihadi wave would ride him out through the rest of his career. But, with his backing the Iraq war, this seemed something of a miscalculation. Norman Solomon noted in 2007 that Hitchens was eager to change the subject from Iraq, to well, anything, so the atheism mantra assumed center stage. Having pro-war Hitchens and Tony Blair debate the existence of God was like two draconian priests debating the number of angles on the head of a needle. Or worse. An old line is that journalists "shoot the dead" -- and Hitchens would do that, making a show of atheism more than a century after Nietzsche proclaimed God dead. Hitchens seemed to often be most vicious as a debater when debating those outside the establishment -- especially including regular people -- exactly the wrong instinct, as journalism allegedly seeks to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable". Hitchens denied that he was a neo-con, but he did what so-called neo-cons do -- and what the left and progressives allow them to do: Use the limitations of progressive criticism -- the frequent lack of radicalism -- to argue for rightwing policies. As such, the mindset is to pretend to rigorously police everyone -- but themselves -- to such a degree that they end up violating first principles. Hitchens claims an affinity with the "Arab street" -- dedicating his final collection of essays to Mohamed Bouazizi, who a year ago set himself on fire, setting off the Arab uprisings. But his book contained something of a puff piece on the Tunisian dictatorship and when he was on the Arab street, Hitchens was more likely to get beat up, as he was in Lebanon, than greeted with sweets and flowers; he backed policies, like the Iraq war, which virtually every non-paid-off-Arab opposed. He was a "contrarian" and "skeptic" who embraced the basic precepts of Empire. He scrutinized his opponents eyes for specks while ignored the gleaming of cruise missiles in his own.
It's frequently said that Hitchens is a brilliant writer, but it's similar to how people say Bill O'Reilly or Newt Gingrich are articulate (Gingrich at a recent debate invoked Hitchens if-you-try-to-explain-Bin-Ladin's-following-you-are-a-terrorist-fellow-traveler "reasoning") -- if you are not constrained by meaningful self-examination, by constraints of ethics, like appropriating ideas, or evidence or logic, then you can come off "brilliant" in a style-over-substance sort of way. Even in his earlier days, it was perceptible where Hitchens was headed. For example, saying that Columbus Day should be celebrated "with gusto" around the 500th Anniversary of the "discovery" of the New World in 1992, Norman Finkelstein at the time explained that Hitchens was forever attempting to be unpredictable. Finkelstein contrasted this with Chomsky, who is quite predictable in terms of the positions he takes, but is read because he marshals evidence and facts that one learns from. In contrast, Hitchens must come off forever unpredictable, thus the triangulations that he shared with Bill Clinton -- and Barak Obama. Triangulation is more than centrism -- it includes a use of symbolism to disguise oneself and pretend to be something one is not in the mind of the naive viewer.
Sometime around 2005, Ahmed Chalabi was at an event somewhere in DC, perhaps AEI, and I went with my friend Matthew Bradley. There was a protest as I recall, and I was surprised to see Hitchens milling about outside. "Christopher, you don't have a ticket?" "Oh, I've got one alright" he responded. "Good, well, then all is well with the universe." Last time we spoke. Around the same time, I made the awful mistake of giving Democracy Now producer Mike Burke the contact info for Hitchens, which led to a series of self-absorbed "debates" between him and Tariq Ali and others. Hitchens was a pro-war creation of the "left" which was ostensibly anti-war. I felt this was disastrous since Hitchens functioned for the left and a "fun" pro-war debater -- it was more about Hitchens and the dynamics of the debate than the actual issues, and it in effect prevented an actual debate with actual pro-war people that was desperately needed.
It's frequently said that Hitchens is a brilliant writer, but it's similar to how people say Bill O'Reilly or Newt Gingrich are articulate (Gingrich at a recent debate invoked Hitchens if-you-try-to-explain-Bin-Ladin's-following-you-are-a-terrorist-fellow-traveler "reasoning") -- if you are not constrained by meaningful self-examination, by constraints of ethics, like appropriating ideas, or evidence or logic, then you can come off "brilliant" in a style-over-substance sort of way. Even in his earlier days, it was perceptible where Hitchens was headed. For example, saying that Columbus Day should be celebrated "with gusto" around the 500th Anniversary of the "discovery" of the New World in 1992, Norman Finkelstein at the time explained that Hitchens was forever attempting to be unpredictable. Finkelstein contrasted this with Chomsky, who is quite predictable in terms of the positions he takes, but is read because he marshals evidence and facts that one learns from. In contrast, Hitchens must come off forever unpredictable, thus the triangulations that he shared with Bill Clinton -- and Barak Obama. Triangulation is more than centrism -- it includes a use of symbolism to disguise oneself and pretend to be something one is not in the mind of the naive viewer.
Gore Vidal -- who had christened Hitchens his heir, withdrawing it after Hitchen's reaction following 9/11 -- once wrote eloquently about the import of place in writing. I write, actually, finish, this essay during this Christmas season, shortly after Hitchens' final death, as I've always rather enjoyed writing some on holidays. Hitchens wrote "The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton" he's said to get Clinton out of his system. And I feel rather the same way about Chirstopher. But whatever you put into your system, you absorb. And Hitchens absorbed, or intensified his triangulation tendencies from Clinton.
I find that I've absorbed some of Hitchens -- befittingly as a reaction to some of the worst of the left. Hitchens' crit of the left was to lead him to -- or used by him for -- the service of empire. My crit of the left leads me to greater radicalness. Hitchens clung to WMD delusions for years. Shrewder neo-cons used statement by Democratic Party officials to get the Bush administration off the hook for their lies about Iraqi WMDs. I argue that the lies of the entire establishment about Iraqi WMDs damn the entire establishment.
The silence after 9/11 -- by much of the academy, by so many "nonprofits" -- and the carping over tactical or marginal issues. I remember being at a meeting with a funder after 9/11 and was talking about the importance of getting critical voices out regarding war and peace and civil liberties. The only thing that clicked in their brain seemed to be the airline bailouts, which you gentle reader are forgiven if you don't recall. There's an entire edifice of "liberalism" that is intent of focusing on relatively minor, temporal issues. Give the devil his due, Hitchens at least usually focused on the issues that really mattered, wrong as he was about them.
And he also wanted -- admittedly, largely for reasons of ego -- to alter the world. After 9/11, much of the left took up the slogan "Not in My Name" -- which seemed to me to be a statement worthy of Pontius Pilate. Let the war happen, but please don't let the blood be on my hands. The focus is narrowly on ones own culpability, which becomes the worst sort of personal indictment. Martin Luther King defends the Major Drum Instinct -- that we should have an ego, want to be known, but for being a voice for good. I feel like my lack of self-defense against Hitchens attack violated Elizabeth Cady Stanton's edict that "self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice".
I was recently in a controversy, being suspended from the National Press Club after asking the Saudi "Prince Turki" a tough question. And I immediately felt Hitchens' attack on me all over again -- and was determined to defend myself as I'd failed to do before. So much so that when I appeared on RT I was almost channeling Hitchens -- his certain doggedness, to not just "fight the good fight" -- to not just "try, because we have to try" -- but to actually win. Hitchens wanted to win, and was willing to accept 30 pieces of silver to do it. Those of us who want to win for good have to be able to both develop ourselves and sacrifice ourselves. And so I found myself echoing Hitchens, a month before his death and ten years after he told me my words no longer mattered, I was saying that real journalism is to hold accountable those who deceive because their words no longer matter. But the deceptions do matter and should be studiously analyzed, for they are the lasting legacy of those who deceive for war, no matter how circular their route or reasoning. And it does make sense to purify ones hatred, not of persons as Hitchens seemed to intend, but of the stench of lies from whatever quarter.
==================
I was most closely associated with Hitchens in the late 90s as I'd predicted events in Iraq quite well, including the Desert Fox bombing campaign, which Hitchens had mocked me for initially, the emails between us are below as best as I've been able to recover them, with some mentions of some other, relatively innocent, people excised. For technical reasons I don't understand, I've sometimes been able to retrieve more of his end of the conversation than mine:
To: Sam Husseini
From: <CHitch8003@aol.com>
Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 19:58:25 EST
Subject: Re: Health & Iraq Our difference may be narrow but deep. The two-party establishment ostensibly divides between those who want to rule Iraq through a crippled proxy - the same one that Nizar Hamdoon served so well in DC in the Bush years - and those who want an occasion for "standing tall". I say ostensibly because these two factions often take on each other's guises.
The same confusion is apparent in your own approach. I have had [voice] messages from you in the last few weeks warning of an imminent war that I would have bet my own money would not happen, and then discoursing on "reverse wag the dog" when it didn't. Do we think that Clinton and Albright are drooling to bomb Baghdad, or don't we? And if they don't, then why don't they. This carousel should be spun by any of our
own contributions. The sanctions are the fault of the Ba'athists alone, as far as I can see. And there would be, and is, immense establishment support for lifting them if any trust at all could be reposed in a quasi-fascist regime. However, phrasing the question in that way does help to see why it remains undecided.
Clinton should be impeached for abuse of power, and won't be, because the Right will never charge it. ... I'm off in my sailor suit to lecture to the floating Nation, and will be blessedly out of touch until the 12th or so. Your health care piece was extremely good, and I hope I'll find it on my fax again.
fraternally
CHDate: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 12:20:48
To: hitchens
From: sam@accuracy.org
Subject: hard-ons and soft spots
Cc: jimChristopher,...Note how liberals like congressman Nadler have recently said that Gulf of Tonkin was impeachable - Sudan does not come to mind for them. A concerted effort may still be able to raise the subject of impeaching Clinton for the right reasons. I do get a tad excited around a bombing of Iraq, but I think my analysis was right: They want to bomb, not to debate. They didn't bomb because Annan got to yes before they got to fire. Having been deprived of the pleasure of shooting missiles, they did not want to discuss the subject. Next time, they need to bomb with out any warning (like Sudan) or after quickly blocking any international peace effort and before the domestic opposition produces another Ohio State. Of course, this analysis risks that without a bombing, Clinton seems pacifistic, which plays into his false liberal image that both he and the right have an interest in maintaining. (I don't think it is prudent to portray people who fire missiles as wimps - Clinton has repeatedly bombed Iraq.) Therefore, look at the sanctions.
One hundred million dollars in CIA money for Chalibi will be used by the butchers in Baghdad to paint any opposition coming from any principled, patriotic individuals as U.S. cronies - if they needed that. Clinton cut in on Bush and Saddam's dance of death. They get their enemy and power over the region, he keeps power over Iraq. The powers collude...[and the people get screwed, a saying of mine that Hitchens was familiar with.] Vidal had a soft spot for JFK since he also had a hard-on for him. I don't know what his excuse is about Clinton.Hope the high seas did not lead to any vomiting fits. [We had a running joke about vomiting that originated when he said on Meet the Press that the reaction to Diana's death was causing him to have vomiting fits. I think he got the line from a Woody Allen movie, it was about Jesus Christ.] Can you assure me that there will not be a bombing this week?Best Regards,
SamDate: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 02:40:25 EST
To: <sam@accuracy.org>
Subject: Re: hard-ons and soft spotsA simple test. Has any liberal worth the name ever said that the abuse of power element in impeachment - the one most diluted by the GOP - be strengthened or even discussed? Voila tout. Clinton is being impeached for Clintonism, albeit in microcosm, and that's better than one could have hoped.
In re Mesopotamia, I'd doubt a bombing this week but I'd return you to my question about which guise it would take - ruling through a chastened Saddam or "standing tall", or a reversible coat consisting of both. This is not just a question to be posed to the other side.
I long ago gave up counting bedfellows. Perle did very well for the Bosnians at Dayton. (The American Left didn't even stop at doing nothing for Bosnia: it came up with excuses for Serbo-Orthodox fascism.) Good luck to Chalaby with whichever allies he finds. AIPAC used to be pro-Baathist when the Iraqi moderates were all the rage.
CH[Within about 24 hours after this, the U.S. launched the Desert Fox bombing campaign, shortly before Clinton's scheduled impeachment vote, which was delayed as a result of the bombing.]
From: Husseini
To: HitchensRe: Questions to Lewinsky --Walters: "What is your greatest regret?"Lewinsky: "When I think that maybe he bombed the Sudan and Iraq and killed innocent people to get out of this. I -- I don't know if that's what happen, but if he did that -- I just can't stand to think about it." The new Diana? Does monarchy have a leg up on punditocracy?
At 01:12 AM 12/18/1998 EST, you wrote:In your dreams. But a nice try. How did it go with Truscott? I did Holtzman on MSNBC and she took the Nixon line on troops in the "field". Very satisfying. Good work. Purify your hatred. Refine it. Nourish the flame.
To: HitchensRe: Questions to Lewinsky --Walters: "What is your greatest regret?"Lewinsky: "When I think that maybe he bombed the Sudan and Iraq and killed innocent people to get out of this. I -- I don't know if that's what happen, but if he did that -- I just can't stand to think about it." The new Diana? Does monarchy have a leg up on punditocracy?
At 01:12 AM 12/18/1998 EST, you wrote:In your dreams. But a nice try. How did it go with Truscott? I did Holtzman on MSNBC and she took the Nixon line on troops in the "field". Very satisfying. Good work. Purify your hatred. Refine it. Nourish the flame.
fraternally
CH
From: Hitchens
To: Husseini
At 02:12 AM 12/19/1998 EST, you wrote: You're getting there. The liberals have beshitted themselves forever, and I mean that they have done so EVEN AS LIBERALS. Voice in the Wilderness relies too much on bloated kids for my taste. To whom did they give their donation? Have you ever read Dalton Trumbo? If this seems like a trick question, then it may be time for our actual drink rather than our virtual chat. Quand meme, you will be able to live with yourself when this week is done, which will make you part of a fragrant and honorable minority.
fraternally
CH
To: <CHitch8003@aol. com>
From: <sam@accuracy.org
Subject: Re: My Lewinsky Fantasy
Date: Sat Dec 19 10:00:11 1998 -0500 Let us. The kids are not bloated, they're they're emaciated. ... Regards,
Sam
At 12:19 AM 12/21/1998 EST, you wrote:
...The Vidal stuff I'm saving for my upcoming Clinton book, so by all means go into print in your own right if you can find anyone at the brain-dead Nation to get the point. I'm doing Iraq for them this week, and in such a way as to make them cringe if they still can. Loved what I heard about your exchange with that pasty idiot EJ Dionne. I shudder to think that we were once friends. Sorry I didn't get your phone message until too late: I'm a martyr to family values this week with all my children come to stay but I also think we should be out talking to other people and not consoling one another. Nonetheless, a solidarity cocktail is indicated in the near future, and also a Trumbo chat that I actually think would help the cause. you made the roll of honor in a week where, and when, those kinds of roll actually get kept.
fraternally
CHReceived: ; Mon Dec 21 00:32:25 1998 -0500
To: <CHitch8003@aol. com>
From: <sam@accuracy.org>
Subject: Re: More Mink
Date: Mon Dec 21 00:32:25 1998 -0500A book on Clinton? Now we must talk much. Please do examine my timeline if you have not already: http://www.accuracy.org/iraq Beyond the obvious waging, if I caught it right, they were saying that they were not hitting too many of the targets initially, then when the impeachment came anyway, they decided they've hit enough for now. In a way, the impeachment vote may have saved untold numbers of Iraqis. (though it caused the bombing, too). Did the Soviets ever recall their ambassador, or have we hit a new low?Am I paranoid to think that we may have a nuclear war because of blow job? I like Yelsin when they hate him and vice versa. ... [Hitchens would adopt this line of mine on Yelsin in his book on Clinton, though it made little sense for him to do so, since Hitchens was for the war on Yugoslavia, for example.]
CH
From: Hitchens
To: Husseini
At 02:12 AM 12/19/1998 EST, you wrote: You're getting there. The liberals have beshitted themselves forever, and I mean that they have done so EVEN AS LIBERALS. Voice in the Wilderness relies too much on bloated kids for my taste. To whom did they give their donation? Have you ever read Dalton Trumbo? If this seems like a trick question, then it may be time for our actual drink rather than our virtual chat. Quand meme, you will be able to live with yourself when this week is done, which will make you part of a fragrant and honorable minority.
fraternally
CH
To: <CHitch8003@aol. com>
From: <sam@accuracy.org
Subject: Re: My Lewinsky Fantasy
Date: Sat Dec 19 10:00:11 1998 -0500 Let us. The kids are not bloated, they're they're emaciated. ... Regards,
Sam
At 12:19 AM 12/21/1998 EST, you wrote:
...The Vidal stuff I'm saving for my upcoming Clinton book, so by all means go into print in your own right if you can find anyone at the brain-dead Nation to get the point. I'm doing Iraq for them this week, and in such a way as to make them cringe if they still can. Loved what I heard about your exchange with that pasty idiot EJ Dionne. I shudder to think that we were once friends. Sorry I didn't get your phone message until too late: I'm a martyr to family values this week with all my children come to stay but I also think we should be out talking to other people and not consoling one another. Nonetheless, a solidarity cocktail is indicated in the near future, and also a Trumbo chat that I actually think would help the cause. you made the roll of honor in a week where, and when, those kinds of roll actually get kept.
fraternally
CHReceived: ; Mon Dec 21 00:32:25 1998 -0500
To: <CHitch8003@aol. com>
From: <sam@accuracy.org>
Subject: Re: More Mink
Date: Mon Dec 21 00:32:25 1998 -0500A book on Clinton? Now we must talk much. Please do examine my timeline if you have not already: http://www.accuracy.org/iraq Beyond the obvious waging, if I caught it right, they were saying that they were not hitting too many of the targets initially, then when the impeachment came anyway, they decided they've hit enough for now. In a way, the impeachment vote may have saved untold numbers of Iraqis. (though it caused the bombing, too). Did the Soviets ever recall their ambassador, or have we hit a new low?Am I paranoid to think that we may have a nuclear war because of blow job? I like Yelsin when they hate him and vice versa. ... [Hitchens would adopt this line of mine on Yelsin in his book on Clinton, though it made little sense for him to do so, since Hitchens was for the war on Yugoslavia, for example.]
Best,
-Sam
Christopher,The Clinton Scam is serving corporate power while appearing to be bucking it. As Jim Naureckas pointed out, the establishment repainted both Mondale and Dukakis as flaming liberals once they lost so they could continue pushing the Democrats more and more to the right. Now, they are trying to repaint Clinton in his last years as a liberal after he has actually ruled as a Republican. There must be some Republican who hates Clinton more than he likes bombing Arabs. Boyle can provide the legal case to impeach Clinton for the Sudan.Below is a piece that our "local rag" [Hitchen's term for the Washington Post] the Post told me on Tuesday would be running shortly, no word since. (They assured me that they would show me the edited version prior to publication; I'm waiting for that before giving them any minor changes I'd like -- feel free to make suggestions/crits if you like.) Best Regards,
SamSam,
Could you send me again your admirable piece on health care, which I seem to have misplaced?
fraternally
Christopher
From: <CHitch8003@aol.com>
To: Husseini
Received: Sat, 13 Mar 1999 23:18:47 -0600
Subject: Re: bad ABC story on indonesia Dear Sam,
I'm glad that Goldstein got in touch ... but let's see what he writes. His line, if you can believe it, was that now Clinton is out of danger we can say what we think!
I'll be in the Bay Area until the end of March. My salaams to Comrade Ibish. Is it a mere failure of communication that has drawn no response to my reply to the ADC invitation? I mean nothing by the suggestion - the original invitation was sent by sea-mail to New York.
vigilant as ever, but not as vigilant as you,
CH
vigilant as ever, but not as vigilant as you,
CH
Christopher, I was delighted to see my work and disconcerted not to see my name in your book. To what do I owe this distinction? "One mind" indeed.
-Sam
Date: Tue Apr 20, 1999
Subject: Re: Naming Names
Subject: Re: Naming Names
A suspiciously good point, and on reflection rather a shaming one. (I had already shuddered at the realisation of omitting Adolph Reed, but he only helped me indirectly.) Can I plead haste for the moment, and promise an amendment in what I hope will be future editions?
Of course, you weren't pro-impeachment.....just kidding
fraternally
CH
fraternally
CH
Subject: Re: Naming Names
May you have many future editions. Will drop you some additional suggestions in time. -Sam
From: <CHitch8003@aol.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 19:09:45 EDT
Subject: Re: constructive criticism?
To: <sam@accuracy.org > I have never believed the
figures - which epidemiologist knows how to
attribute deaths to sanctions and how to separate child deaths so cunningly?
Nor has it been made plain to me how a regime which over-spends so obscenely
is not the one responsible for shortages. But one
thing is clear: this would
all end when the regime ended and it is to that objective - not to moaning
about anti-Arab bias - that all political efforts should be directed.
fraternally
CH
[I sent him an email and it must have been titled "your pathetic question" -- it was almost certainly in response to his piece in The Nation "Against Rationalization" in which he wrote "Does anyone suppose that an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza would have forestalled the slaughter in Manhattan?" I must have mentioned the fact that Democracy Now was off the air in DC and New York at this critical time (I was chair of the DC Pacifica station, WPFW, at the time and had asked for Hitchens help in preventing the hijacking of the network by a self-selecting board, which he had declined to do.)
[I sent him an email and it must have been titled "your pathetic question" -- it was almost certainly in response to his piece in The Nation "Against Rationalization" in which he wrote "Does anyone suppose that an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza would have forestalled the slaughter in Manhattan?" I must have mentioned the fact that Democracy Now was off the air in DC and New York at this critical time (I was chair of the DC Pacifica station, WPFW, at the time and had asked for Hitchens help in preventing the hijacking of the network by a self-selecting board, which he had declined to do.)
From: CHitch8003@aol. com
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 21:56:43 EDT
Subject: Re: your pathetic question....
To: sam@accuracy.orgDear Sam,
Bad luck for you. I'm going to quote you. How you will feel when you see your words on a page, I cannot imagine.
You are of course quite free to make any use you choose of any old e-mails of mine. I'm still quite willing to come to the aid of Amy, as I told you and as I told her. But neither she nor anyone else has been able to propose any course of action. That you make that a cause of petty resentment at a time like this is evidence of your generally shrivelled attitude.
Since you apparently know what was in the minds of the murderers, I hope you are communicating your information, and its sources, to the proper authorities. Don't feel you have to waste any more time on me.
Christopher
At 02:12 AM 9/24/01
At 02:12 AM 9/24/01
Just so that you got it from me first.
CH
PS I am dead serious about my first point and will call you on
it again. If
you claim you knew what these people had in mind, I want you to show me that
you contacted the authorities with your information before you sent your
blithering little letter to me. Either that or you shut the fuck up - not that it matters any more what you say.
And you claim to know how enemies are made....You have no idea.
[Hitchens must have attached a copy of his column attacking me.]
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 10:45:56 -0500
To: CHitch8003 @aol.com
From: Sam Husseini < sam@accuracy.org>
Subject: Re: your pathetic question....Christopher --
-Sam
[This letter was basically written by a colleague, Lord knows what I'd wanted to write.]
"Jesus Christ" -- Woody Guthrie
"Stand Up For Judas" -- Roy Bailey and Leon Rosselson
(I have an interpretation of "Give Unto Caesar" that has lead me to my own song, which I'll share at some point.)
Of course, then, there's "Damned For All Time / Blood Money" -- with Judas, so frightened by on-coming tanks:
Holidays can be awkward for a lot of reasons. One is that many spend time with people they seem to fundamentally disagree with politically. Progressives have Republican voting relatives who are at family gatherings, conservatives see people who vote for the Democratic Party and holiday events. One approach commonly followed is to simply avoid talking about politics and other issues you might disagree about. I don't think that approach helps lead to a better place. Speaking gingerly of such issues is little better. Here's a another approach: Form an alliance on the issues you do agree on. Much of the grassroots who vote for both the Democratic Party and who vote for the Republican Party actually agree on alot of things. For example, the Wall Street bailouts. That's something both the Occupy movement and the grassroots of the Tea Party movement have in common. And there's more: More authentic conservatives, like those who are excited about Ron Paul, are for cutting the military budget -- they want a Republic, not and Empire. They are against all the clamping down on civil liberties that both the establishment of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are for. They are against corporate trade deals the hurt workers in the US and lead to slave-like conditions for workers in third world countries. And on all these issues, they agree with many of the most authentic progressives. The media keep trying to pen people in -- taking about the latest machinations between the Obama administration and the Republican establishment in Congress. And if that's what dictates the topics of discussion, it produces far more heat than light. But if you focus on the issues where the grassroots are in significant agreement -- sometimes for different reasons of course -- then substantial progress can be made.The progress might not just result in good talks -- it could result in a revolution. If you had principled progressives and conscientious conservatives join together -- pairing up -- to vote for an independent or third party candidacy that would siphon votes off in twos, that would erode the two establishment parties and give rise to an anti-establishment new candidacy. So let the real talks begin, let's not worry about the talks of the establishment figures, let the grassroots talk and lovingly recognize what truth they can in people they are told they have nothing in common with. Sam Husseini is founder of VotePact.org.
Harry Belafonte said back in 2004 on Democracy Now: "Somebody, in trying to get a better price for good, is going to have to say that we just can’t keep running after the fast food market. Somebody is going to have to make a sacrifice. Somebody is going to have to put their body in front of the machine. Somebody is going to have to die. It’s the way things are. It’s the way things have been."
Those words stuck with me.
There's an irony. People die everyday, sometimes out of self-sacrifice. But we don't know about it.
When Mohamed Bouaziz incinerated himself a year ago today, he set off a flame felt far and wide.
But often, people self-sacrifice and no one seems to notice. Like in November 2006 Malachi Ritscher immolated himself in Chicago against the Iraq war. And virtually no one seemed to notice.
Perhaps people are getting killed all the time and we just need to see it.
Ariel Zevon building great tree. Photo by Bill Moyer. Rumor is it blew away as beautiful things sometimes do.
"Plastic tress" used to be awful, now they're beautiful. I especially liked how the plastic bags were stranded together like a woman's hair -- and the little things put into the plastic bottles. Before it arose, with the strands on the ground, it rather looked like a compass rose. Perhaps this tree was the ultimate point of the oil and plastics industries of the last 100 years, so that artists could do something poets thought only God could.
The first couple of notes are similar actually. Then go in thematically opposite directions...
I actually like playing my #GreatSongDebates over each other.