does anyone else here subscribe to _the nation_?

[minxnim]

lately i haven't been able to get myself to read it because it depresses the fucking hell out of me that this 'war' thing is even remotely possible. also, christopher hitchens leaving in such a childish snit after 20 years of editorials in there rubbed me the wrong fucking way.

 

[minxnim]

oh yea, for anyone interested in the non-hard copy

 

[xfer]

I let my subscription expire two years back. I'd cancel it now with Chris Hitchens gone, though...he was the best thing in that magazine, even when we disagreed, and his criticism of its editorial policy was spot-fucking-on.

 

[minxnim]

his last essay was really creepy and weird. like, i've always totally admired him but suddenly he has damn seemingly lost his mind and turned into a fanatic or something.

 

[xfer]

I dunno, Hitchens' identity is pretty much built around his non-fanaticism and hatred of fanaticism. I can't even think of another political writer who practises what they preach to the degree that he excoriates fanatics of all sorts, whether they be left-wing, right-wing, religious, non-religious, American, anti-American, whatever. Maybe he's fanatically moderate .

The best thing about Hitchens has always been that his mind is so keen that he's right so very often. Such as this. I wish the whole back-and-forth were still up.

 

[minxnim]

but did you read his exit article? it's sort of weird. i mean, his last 3 or 4 have been a little strange but this one was like "NO FAIR! I AM RIGHT! I HATE YOU! AGREE WITH ME!' i used to read his articles and nod my head like 'hey dude's got a point!' but now i'm like, woah killer.

 

[xfer]

Hmmm...well, I do wish Hitchens had stayed...I think his exit article wasn't as crazy as you do. For example:

Given a green light by Washington on two occasions--once for the assault on Iran and once for the annexation of Kuwait--he went crazy both times and, knowing that it meant disaster for Iraq and for its neighbors, tried to steal much more than he had been offered.

Awesome. He doesn't shy away from pointing a finger at American culpability, yet neither does he give Saddam a pass like so many others have.

Then his next paragraph is weird...he seems to insinuate that because Saddam rejoiced at 9/11 he should be pounded...huh what?

but then with his killer NEXT paragraph, you realise he's just showing how Saddam is pretty much evil through and through, and it's no longer viable for America to use its military power against states that directly threaten America; now America's power has to be used against states that threaten society, their own citizens, Europe, whatever. which is awesome, totally the opposite of what Bush is bleating hypocritically.

and from that point down it rules. I actually quoted from the part he basically calls Bush an evil fool downward in my livejournal when this article came out.

Hitchens is always arrogant as fuck, and is always "I'M RIGHT!"... it's aggravating, but I think it would piss me off a lot more if he, well, wasn't right. as it is, i can only be like "i can't argue with that."

 

[minxnim]

the reason i think he's being so insane is because he just totally believes that there is all this evidence that iraq had something to do with 9/11, but when asked about it in an interview on npr he was like 'we can't talk about details! it's secured!' like, hello, there ARE no details. he just like, lost his shit.

 

[minxnim]

hitchins also like, totally failed to respond when the interviewer was like 'well, who would we replace saddam with? after all, we put him there'. he made this HMPH noise.

 

[FuSoYa]

Chomsky's already train-wrecked syllogisms seem to entail the weird and sinister assumption that bin Laden is a ventriloquist for thwarted voices of international justice.

 

[FuSoYa]

I think it's cool the way he casually closes with saying that his exit article is his last one, as if 20 years of writing for that magazine was no big deal. He gives, like only half a sentence to the notion.

 

[xfer]

NICE fusoya! that is awesome writing.

yeah, i think the 9-11/iraq connxion is pretty flimsy, but hitchens seems to realise that (to a degree, at least)....which is why he (rightly) said there was maybe only a seventy percent chance the Czech intelligence was right.

hitchens probably failed to respond because, as a professional curmudgeon, he knows that the leader of the iraqi opposition isn't the most democratic and capable of leaders, either. i don't think many Americans (hitchens, myself included) know enough about Iraqi local politics to name a replacement--the Iraqis are going to have to have their say in the matter.

 

[FuSoYa]

In 1952, Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel.

 

[minxnim]

his whole entire idea that it is even possibly 70% accurate goes on the word of someone he hardly knows and will not name, ENTIRELY.
also, it just feels to me (from his recent interviews) that he's forgetting that like, 10 bejillion other ruthless leaders are more dangerous than saddam and he just sort of is fixated.

 

[Stultus]

In 1938, Enrico Fermi was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for splitting the atom.

 

[robina]

i am going to have to agree with preppy on this one. 100%.

also, i no longer subscribe to the nation. i do get the nyrb and harper's and national geographic and that's about all i can afford.

 

[xfer]

The only leaders I can think of worse than Saddam are DPRK's Il-Sung, Syria's Assad, the Saudi royal family in general, and a handful of African proto-genociders...but even Mugabe's not quite as bad as Saddam, yet. China's pretty fucked up, but I think they are slow-burn evil...and I'm unsure if the recent elections in Columbia did anything good, but a government that uses right-wing paramilitary death squads can't be unbad (and yeah, I realise the FARC guys are equally evil).