UK: Christopher Hitchens & William F. Buckley (5/5)

[economist737]

Peter Robinson - Stephen Colbert without the irony. The edit sucked too. How much better it would have been to have Buckley and Hitchens discussing the '60s unfettered and uninterrupted for an hour.

[disamjisa]

@economist737 So true. Not enough time for it to be meaningful, an idiot host interposing himself.. we can never get these two brilliant men back, and I wish they had have had a hands-off moderator with a 90 minute conversation.

[pullingart]

Buckley is right. The protest and movement culture was a necessary *exorcism* which we have mistaken for a *way*. Something contrary to the nature and spirit of the Constitution was forged into our makeup alongside with it. Such a condition cannot be corrected except by severe means. But we have, as I say, mistaken protest and movement culture (which is only the shepherding of sentiment and thought) for a way of life. People are more the same now than ever before, and more stupid.

[Braindrain3]

Hitchens should have just walked out and let the interviewer suck buckley's dick cause he's clearly in love.

[positiveprojtheory1]

Peter Robinson, i am aware that before the modern media zeitgeist, props may have been seen as illustrative and explanitory. However, you look like a fool holding an M16 as if it is the material manifestation of a war. I think perhaps your simplified political narration (and as wrong as they are) would have been a better intro then what began almost like a kids programme. Perhaps use the M16 on yourself next time ;)

[ColdCypher]

No wonder this moron with his props is nowhere to be found nowadays.

[i3u7n5]

As loathsome as I find WFB, he's hell and gone better than someone like Limbaugh in terms of being a popular figure of conservative values. WFB, as flawed as i find his views, is a educated, erudite and articulate whereas figures like Hannity and Limbaugh tend to rail jingoistic points of view to the masses of sycophants who've never bothered to employ any kind of pluralistic view of society and paint in huge broad strokes with white or black paint exclusively. "Ditto Rush!" says it all

[BuddhaBebop]

I am not typically vulgar on YouTube, since I do not want to sound like so many of the great fools in this website, but that moderator was a drop of a pin away from sucking at Buckley's dick.

[ogrish84]

Peter Robinson was a asshole to Hitchens in this interview. Fuck you Peter!

[unfortunatebeam]

Interesting the contrast Robinson gave at the end between the war at home and abroad in the 60s and teh peace at home and abroad at that time in the 90s.

Now which one are we more like now? I think we all know the question to that.

Here we go again.

[regelemihai]

He talks about betrayal of the Vietnamese?! How exactly did he view America's withdrawl after the treaty in Paris was signed after which almost 3 million south Vietnamese were murdered by the Viet-Kong? Was that a betrayal as well?

Unbelievable...

[mr2sixx]

The analogy Hitchens makes about the LeMay-Wallace ticket is brilliant! Hitchens caries the day...again.

[ArtVandalay666]

This is crap. The interviewer kisses Buckley's ass the entire time and begs the question with Hitchens to try to get him to take responsibility for Marxist state violence and Black Panther violence.

I'm not a huge Hitchens fan but this is like Fox News dressed up as intellectualism.

[PhillyDickinson]

Totally agree. Robinson does it a lot if you watch some other Hitch stuff.

[boobiecats]

It's ok; the interviewer is kissing Hitchens' ass these days. Look for recent uncommon knowledge / hitchens interviews.

[ArtVandalay666]

Probably because of Hitchens' about face from contrarian Marxist to apologist for state violence (coincidentally coinciding with him becoming a lot more rich and famous).

[F33bs]

Hitchens is rich and famous? What have you been smoking?

[ColdCypher]

@F33bs He is pretty famous and well off as far as being a journalist is concerned.

[Cocteau120]

You're a fucking moron.

[regelemihai]

Oh here we go again. Do you honestly want to tell me that only Fox News takes biased approaches towards their interviewees? Really?

This idiotic trend has to stop.

[werdorino]

@ArtVandalay666 you didn't catch him grilling Buckley on the civil rights movement, trying to get an apology out of him?

[ColdCypher]

@ArtVandalay666 I was about to say exactly that.

[truthslap]

@ArtVandalay666 completely agreed. the interview would've been a thousand-fold better without this interviewer present.

[pumkinpi2]

@ArtVandalay666 I am a fan of Hitchens, and yet I miss the bias you propose. The commentator was asking nothing more of Hitchens than the meaning of his own past statements. To Hitchens' credit, he explained himself well. Something I learned from watching both these men over the years, is that an intellectually honest man never minds having his views question.

[ArtVandalay666]

@pumkinpi2 My comment wasn't meant to imply that intellectuals shouldn't have their views questioned. I was simply pointing out the absurdity in suggesting that if a person supports an ideology that they should feel personally responsible for all the atrocities carried out in the name of that ideology. That has nothing to do with having one's views questioned or being asked to clarify past statements.

[ArtVandalay666]

@pumkinpi2 The only way in which it would have been "intellectually honest" is if the interviewer asked Buckley if he feels personally responsible for all the atrocities carried out in the name of capitalism and western imperialism, which of course would have been just as absurd as was the question posed to Hitchens.

[pumkinpi2]

@ArtVandalay666 "Capitalism and western Imperialism," I can see you have a firm grasp on intellectual honesty there, sport.

[ArtVandalay666]

@pumkinpi2 Haha...nice job completely evading the discussion and not addressing any of my arguments, sport. Clearly I need to simplify it for you so here goes: Buckley was a strong supporter of American military intervention, particularly in Vietnam (check out the Buckley/Chomsky 'Firing Line' debates if you don't believe me). Does that mean he should have felt personally responsible for every person the US killed in Vietnam?

[pumkinpi2]

@ArtVandalay666 Ah, so you had a point, I saw only a bromide. I watched those debates, and firing line in those days. No reminder is necessary. In that Buckley had a vote, and was a citizen, then he, like all of us in those days, as these, has the blood we have split on his hands.

Hitchens called it all a crime. It would have been nice if he had the time to add more. Likely that could have been disced up nicely, and served back to him. He is a bright fellow, & earnest, but not always right

[ArtVandalay666]

@pumkinpi2 I totally agree with you, and in doing so I must admit that it wasn't a perfect analogy on my part. You could make a much stronger argument that Buckley *should* have felt a personal responsibility for those killed in Vietnam, for the reasons you mentioned, a lot stronger argument, that is, than saying that a young Marxist activist (Hitchens) should feel personally responsible for the atrocities occurring half a world away from him that were justified by perversions of Marxism.

[ArtVandalay666]

@pumkinpi2 It's even more absurd when you observe the overnight presto-change-o from the young Marxist anti-state violence Hitchens to the vulgar apologetics for state violence Hitchens of the second Iraq war.

[CastleIvanhoe]

@ArtVandalay666 Exactly. The "Neo-Con" Hitchens' bargain basement sell out to the War Party in Washington is quite a humorous contrast to this.

I also agree that the interviewer here was unprofessional;nor did I have the impression WFB liked being called "Bill" by him. At least C H had the manners to say "Mr. Buckley"

[thejobloshow]

@ArtVandalay666 Would I change your opinion if I told you the host is openly apart of the Hoover Institution and thus it should be expected that the host would hold Hitchens to account?

Hitchens defended himself brilliant BTW and PBS looks good for actually having diverse opinions on the network.

This is 1000000000000 time better than FOX News.

[bjarczyk]

No, shame on them for not having a person of color at the table to have their say.

[Cocteau120]

Oooooooh, I didn't realize I was talking to Sagat from Street Fighter here. Yeah fuck you, mr. fake kickboxer. You're a little bitch.

[bjarczyk]

You're a little fascist.

What the fuck is your problem anyways? Are you sad that I don't think the same way as you do?

[MassiveJungle]

Cram it, nerd

[bjarczyk]

For example, the panthers believed in armed self-defense, not violence. Calling them a group of gangsters is just ridiculous and only something a group of snobby white men could argue.

I'm white and anti-racist/anti-white supremacist.

[Cocteau120]

You're a whiny, unmasculine little bitch who is not worthy to be called white.

[bjarczyk]

*shakes head* a bunch of privileged white men talking about black liberation.

[christmanpunch]

Shutup you racist brainwashed cunt.

[ultraviolet99]

Right on, shame on them for being white. It sickens me.

[CJWilly]

Jesus Christ the moderator is an ignorant scumbag!

LBJ himself said that the billions spent in Vietnam and the domestic division it caused destroyed his Great Society. The thought tortured him until the end of his days.

It's not some crazy 'Trotskyite [hand motions] world-view'.

[qwertykp30]

i think the moderator is frustrated that Buckley is being quite rational and not as radically conservative as he'd like. if you notice he's always looking in Buckley's direction hoping he'll interject when Hitchens is making an argument. as much as i disagree with Buckley, generally, i really enjoyed him in this conversation.

[JadeTomZ]

this moderator is absurd.

of course the vietnam war was wrong.

and this robinson guy doesnt understand that.

thats why he asks the question as to why it wont go away.

he i s pathetic.

[christmanpunch]

Yeah fighting the violent spread of communism was wrong. Good point moron. I'm you'd hold the same views about the Korean if it didn't go smoothly. You history revisionists are scum. People that are opposed to the Vietnam war (or any warrior) overly focus on the instances of negatives while overlooking the overall purpose of the war. It would be as if we condemned WWII because nukes, carpet bombing, and flame throwers were used on Japanese and German civilians. It's called perspective.

[ludachris475]

Portmanteau words involving proper names are sometimes used to produce epithets such as "Scalito" (referring to Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia) or "Billary" (referring to former United States president Bill

Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton). Here, the purpose for blending is not so much to combine the meanings of the source words but "to suggest a resemblance of one named person to the other" and the effect is often derogatory, as linguist Benjamin Zimmer notes.[6]

[PeelTower]

Governments of every hue rally their people with calls for freedom and liberty and against demonic enemies. This becomes a self fullfilling prophesy very often and each mass, mobilised by respective governments are at each others throats whilst behind the scenes, money men on both sides do deals to carve up the resources of the disputed territories.

[PeelTower]

War is a criminal enterprise perpetrated on the poor by the rich. The Billionaires of China, for example, care nothing for communism. As the protectionists of America care nothing for free trade. Follow the cash and you won't go far wrong.

[ahbevegede]

two of my faves, thanks for uploading

[mozart20dlubos]

Wow, Buckley was against the civil rights movement. No surprise, he's a republican.

[shilohwillcome]

what, you just repeat this on every video??

[gilgtc]

well put, i was thinking exactly the same thing.

[mammers11]

Hitchens handled them

[warmjets]

I am simply amazed at how homosexual Peter Robinson seems in this video.

[Entropy56]

Remember that Democrats got the US into the Vietnam War. A Republican got them out.

[LeoHareMusic]

Eisenhower was a Democrat?

[Entropy56]

They sent the first troops.

[alienmoonbase]

"much more as a crime" "disaster" WTF?

How can Hitchens support a ware totalitarian Iraq when he said that totalitarian vietnam was a "crime"?

I'll answer my own question............He's older now.

[2eelShmeal]

dudes left of left

[alienmoonbase]

Though this wasn't a debate its weird for me to see Hitchens completely schooled by Buckley.

Buckley summed up US involvement historically in a coherent manner and Hitchens couldn't hang. All he had was a derivative of the sixties, saying its a "crime". weak hitchens 2.0. I guess we call get schooled now and then.

[tokotokotoko3]

Holy shit, if that wasn't a crime what could possibly be?

Things like that amaze me - you go in a country, attack the population openly, burn their fields, let them starve, throw napalm on their children, mine the whole country so that there will be casulties for the next centuries... and then somehow call it a just act. Thats just insanity.

But Buckley is right: It did send a signal. "You dont follow our will, then we bomb you back into stoneage".

[shilohwillcome]

Well, Crimes are determined the intention, so if the intention was to make a better world, it may be excluded as a crime.

[tokotokotoko3]

Since when are crimes determined by intention? You must be joking, right? Guess what the muslim terrorists think they do? They want to get a better world. With your formula all kinds of mass murder are just fine and dandy, as long as the people who do it think they do the right thing.

[shilohwillcome]

Ok, you have given a decent counterexample. But intention is always a factor, this why we have degrees of murder, or none at all. As a simple example, imagine a person trying to save a person from getting hit by a car, but by doing so actually trips pushes the person in front of the car. This would not be considered a crime if the person can demonstrate the intention was to save the person. So I mean if one really thought communism was evil, it could be argued, trying trying to stop it is good.

[tokotokotoko3]

Your analogy doesn't quite fit - the person accidentally pushed another one in front of the car. The napalm bombing in Vietnam was not an accident.

Might fit better if you push one guy in front of a car to save another. Still holds the question if the intention to stop Communism is worth millions of dead civilians. And still doesnt explain why the "good intentions" of the Russians for example wont count.

[shilohwillcome]

My analogy was made to show that intention is a factor in determining a crime, so it fits fine and justifies my point.

[tokotokotoko3]

It just doesn't apply to the topic we're talking about.

[shilohwillcome]

lol, actually it does, it shows you have a limited criteria of a crime. I know it's hard to except, but it is ok to be incorrect.

[tokotokotoko3]

Your example was about someone _accidently_ killing one person.

Here were talking about a country starting a war and carpetbombing populated areas. If you fail to see the difference, then I'm sorry.

[shilohwillcome]

Again, I see your point, but you seem to fail to seem to see mine. Which was, again, to show intention is a factor in determining an action a crime, thank you.

[alienmoonbase]

Hitchens 2.0 licks balls compared to hitchens 3.5 today.

If the Palestinians followed MLK's model they would have a country by now.

If blacks followed the Palestinian model they would be second class citizens in 2008.

[crufflerdoug]

You can tell this guy has no idea how to use that rifle.

[frontalobe]

progress has to build for blacks based on the good will of the white community , this guy is a freak

[LLLLLLLLP3]

So black racism is justified? Unless we can agree that racism is racism regardless of color or situation we have gotten nowhere.

[eirefrance]

Are you responding to something in this video? Where does either (I assume you could only mean Hitchens) justify black racism?

[overmind25]

Kennedy bombs South Vietnam

US cancels elections because 80% would vote for Ho Chi Minh

Johnson lies about the Gulf of Tonkin and uses it as an excuse to make war on Vietnam

US kills its puppet President Deim in South Vietnam US kills millions of IndoChinese directly and indirectly through bombings, gasses, and CIA coups of neighboring nations like Cambodia.

[WallyBurton]

I hope this buckley guy is dead

[shilohwillcome]

I don't think you have a clue of what your talking about. Buckley was one of the most respected men by democrats.

[HarveyBirdmanTk421]

Good debate but we could have done without the stupid show and tell at the beginning an end by the mediator. In a debate you dont need props

[Bastardozer]

you whisked the words straight outta my mouth, my good birdman

[Entropy56]

But I did enjoy the several references to masturbation. I got rather excited.

[XKG80]

And the Republicans out-voted the Dems in both chambres of Congress on the the Civil Rights Acts of both 1964 and 1968.

And Nixon introduced Affirmative Action and the Minority Business Employment Bureau.

But alas...

[Entropy56]

So why are most blacks in America Democrats?

Wayne Perryman knows.  Biggest political hoax.

[XKG80]

It's a shame.

[Bastardozer]

because president johnson introduced the legislation, preceded by great strides from harry truman that caused folks like strom thurmond to leave the democratic party. and by the 1980s these republicans essentially became and took over the "solid south" from the dems. things change.

[Entropy56]

Yes, thanks for agreeing with me. And the old time liberals like Joe Lieberman are still leaving.

[Bastardozer]

agree that the gop likes to keep rural white folk uneducated and racist for short-lived electoral gain, yes.

african americans wisely jumped ship for that reason, amongst other things. but affirmative action should be based on income not pigmentation (as i digress here slightly).

joe lieberman is the most oppurtunist, war-mongering politician in washington. can you blame the people who suspect he's a zionist? i actually prefer george w. bush to holy joe and would vote accordingly.

[Entropy56]

Are we talking about that same Democratic party that supported the Ku Klux Klan? Oh yes, you know who they are. So you want to talk about history?

[david552]

Not really given that pretty much the only thing the same is the name and the ideology, members and supporters are now all completely different.

[Entropy56]

Davey, look up Wayne Perryman on the web and find some truth.

[david552]

It's the Democratic party "that is responsible for slavery, Jim Crow, the Dred Scott decision, Fugitive Slave Laws, the Ku Klux Klan, White Supremacy, landmark decisions to maintain segregation and for opposing every piece of legislation that was designed to establish equality" - Wayne Perryman

I do know that.

My point is the Democratic party now is no longer ideologically racist and has in the last 40 years (1/2 of it anyway) been involved in campaigning against racism and ending racist laws.

[david552]

I'm not one of their partisans, but I don't think its realistic to hold the Dems accountable for what was done by other people, most of whom are dead, who did things they do not support. It may be the same legal entity but that is about the only thing the same.

[Entropy56]

Well, as long as blacks keep asking for Reparations and claiming this nation is a racist nation then we will hold the Democrats accountable for what they did. That's why history is important to know. And *they* can pay out the damn Reparations from their own pocket and not tax the rest of us to death.

[Entropy56]

You see, you can't have it both ways by saying that the past doesn't matter then enact policies that penalize the rest of the Americans for something they didn't do. Democrats are spending other people's money to make themselves feel good and erase their guilt.

[david552]

The people who are Democrats now can not really be held responsible for what the democrats did 50 plus years ago. I suppose to be pure the could change the party name or found a replacement but that is gesture politics.

[Entropy56]

Okay I get your point, but my point is that they still are bringing up the debate about fixing past injustices and want to tax everyone for it. Until they stop with the class warfare and tax proposals then we can stop talking about who is to blame and who should pay. They are the ones who are keeping the memory of racism alive in America.

[shilohwillcome]

I think that's right. As long as you treat people as victims they will continue to see them selves as such.

[david552]

I don't think you have to suspect Joe Lieberman of being a zionist - its clear from his record that he supports the existence of a Jewish state.

Also *the* most warmongering politican in Washington? I couldn't say for definite because I don't watch that much US news but I'm sure you could find another pol who supported all the same military actions he did and maybe more.

I think the act of "suspecting" some-one of being a zionist reflects worse on the thinker than the thought of.

[masudrules]

Hitchens criticizing interventionism; I would have liked to see that nowadays

[richter75]

He does, but not in Iraq, Afghanistan nor kosovo ofcourse. Darfur and Sudan however..

[masudrules]

he criticizes interventionism precisely where it could do the most good; what a strange person

[djfesa]

many thanks.

I find it of general interest that the two areas of discussion were ones that conservatives have, in more recent times, more or less had to accept as being wrong about at the time.

[diffidatio]

How were the Black Panthers violent? They carried guns to protect themselves from the police. They weren't gangs. They didn't attack people or commit crimes. They ran soup kitchens and preschool programs. Jesus, what kind of history is this?

[Scrapheap71]

The CRIPS ran soup kitchens too.... what's your point??

[diffidatio]

The point is that they were not violent and that this discussion completely misconstrues what the Black Panthers represented and how they acted. That seems like a pretty important point to me... and to history

[Scrapheap71]

Stalking police officers with guns and getting into shootouts with cops is "non-violence"??

Is the sky blue in the world you live in??

[diffidatio]

scrapheap71, if by "getting into shootouts" you mean "fighting back in self-defense when the police and the state illegally try to destroy your organization and kill your members," then I agree 100%. If you mean that they promoted violence, provoked violence, acted aggressively, etc., then I suggest you hit the history books. I would guess that you're a white male, probably middle-aged, and have no sense of the history of racial discrimination and violence by the state or police. I'm close, no?

[Scrapheap71]

It's quite ironic that you would use a racist stereotype against me, to denounce racism against blacks...

fucktard

[overmind25]

But did the Black Panthers commit agressive violence? The soup kitchens wasn't the point he was making.

[kloten]

indeed. And the awful consequences Hitchens attributes to the Black Panthers, "gangsterism" included, can be summed up in one word: "Cointelpro". Awful consequences for the Panthers themselves.

[PhillyDickinson]

Excellent discussion, thanks for uploading.

[robtul12]

This was simply tremendous. Thank you many times over.

[sirrobpeel]

I wish this show was still on PBS.

[DammitSteve]

He's still doing it online at National Review and The Hoover Institute. Kissinger, Tom Wolfe, Hitchens, etc are recent guests.

Thanks for the upload. I've wanted the video to this discussion for a while!