Christopher Hitchens: "...more of everything"

http://socraticmama.com/ [Inspiration & Support for Secular Families]

http://www.channel4.com/news/hitchens-dies-age-62
Friday 16th December 2011 report by Jonathan Rugman

"At about half past midday, a decent slug of Mr Walker's amber restorative, cut with Perrier water... At luncheon, perhaps half a bottle of red wine: not always more but never less. Then back to the desk, and ready to repeat the treatment at the evening meal... Nightcaps depend on how well the day went."

I once made the faux pas of calling him "Chris". "Topher," he responded acidly. It was a mistake never to be repeated. He was kind and waspish in equal measure, reserving his hatred for what he called thugs and bullies, and whatever he believed, he would argue for passionately, often into the small hours of the morning.

Fast forward to May 2005, and I happened to be sitting in a Senate committee room in Washington one morning when Christopher rolled in. It was about 11 in the morning and one of Washington's best known advocates for George Bush's foreign policy was clearly the worse for wear. He had come to watch George Galloway MP respond to allegations that he had personally profited from his friendship with Saddam Hussein. A verbal fist fight between the Britons abroad was clearly in the offing, but not one that Christopher in his current state was likely to win.

"You're a bloated, drink-sodden former Trotskyist lunatic," Mr Galloway informed him. "Your hands are shaking. You badly need another drink." My cameraman was rolling on the entire exchange. The Americans around us couldn't believe it, Washington's usually staid southern civility had been well and truly punctured and I for one felt proud to be British.

Hitchens sloped off pretty quickly afterwards, but the two met again later that year to debate the rights and wrongs of the Iraq war before a public audience in New York.

This time, Christopher was sober. The crux of his argument was that the Iraq war had rid the world of an evil dictator, and that it was nonsense to suggest that western intervention had created the al-Qaeda monster. It is a bit rich, he said, to suggest that "these killers and sadists and nihilists wouldn't be this way if we weren't so mean to them"

Category:

Education

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• Galloway
• Christopher Hitchens
• God is Not Great
• Religion Poisons Everything
• author
• journalist
• books
• essays
• columnist
• The Atlantic
• Vanity Fair
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• World Affairs
• The Nation
• Free Inquiry
• George Orwell
• Thomas Paine
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• Bill Clinton
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• Atheism
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• Hitch-22
• oesophageal cancer
• Bush

[311Natops]

Thanks for posting this and your other Hitchen vids. The sorrow I feel for the death of Hitchens- feels like I lost someone in my immediate family. We all knew it was coming soon, but it still hurts like hell.

[SuperCruz88]

I can tolerate the jesus bashing and telling me women aren't funny, but how dare he tell me how to make a proper cup of tea!

[iamthe1337est]

02:44 lulz at Hitch typing.

[Faerlon123]

@Birdieupon That depends on what you mean by come from. Do you mean philosophically? If so, it definately doesn't come from a creator, cuz it kinda cheapens the idea of morality. If we have to be told what right and wrong is by some dude in the sky, then what does that make us? Mere pawns in a game. However, if morality is something that is in us, because of the evolutionary need for it, then it needs to be cherished and nurtured, so it can grow. Then it is truly beautiful.

[Birdieupon]

@Faerlon123

" fighting un-freedom, was the moral obligation of everyone"

Why? Where does this moral obligation come from?

[Faerlon123]

Good interview, but Hitchens was not all over the place in politics. He was as Ian perfectly describes, one of the few, if not the only, anti-totalitarian leftist, since perhaps George Orwell. Hitchens knew perfectly that fighting un-freedom, was the moral obligation of everyone, and lived ramming it in. God is not great, is where it had to end, because all dictatorship, and fascism, ends with the divine. Hitchens was a good human being, and fought for everyone that was not free. Cheers Hitch!