His stance on God and religion has gone a long way in distracting us from his more damaging work ...
Hitchens sold out with his decision to become a guest expert on FOX to push the the "evil Saddam" narrative ... but Hitchens was at his best in a 2001 interview on C-SPAN, "The Case Against Henry Kissinger" ... and in '87 he broke a story while writing for THE NATION that now stands as my very first shocking political revelation ... in the midst of the IRAN-CONTRA scandal, he identified Oliver North as THE key figure in a covert "GIDO" arrangement with the Contras ... G-I-D-O: "Guns in Drugs out" ... Sen. John Kerry's report later documented an entry in North's diary on July 12, 1985 in which Gen Richard Secord told him "14m to finance arms came from drugs" ... and if not a FOX commentator in the strict sense, he was a regular contributor ... I was not a fly on the wall during his backroom negotiations with FOX but his decision to push the story that Saddam actually posed a material threat to the U.S. was so contrary to his reason-based perspectives, that money had to be an incentive ... it was during this period that he also pushed a false story that tended to minimize the Abu Ghraid abuses, suggesting they were not related to interrogations ... I believe he was corrupted and in this regard, was a real pioneer and ground-breaker ... arguably the first far-left intellectual to sell his thoughts for consumption by TV viewers who preferred to be spoon-fed news and opinion rather than read books and newspapers ... I now tend to compare Hitchens to his modern-day counterpart, Chris Hedges ... Hitchens took the money to push a theory that was eventually discredited ... and by furthering the "evil Saddam" narrative, he essentially did the bidding of the DS by bolstering the case for endless war in the middle east ... and once the lockdowns were declared in 2020, Hedges broke his many implicit promises to be there for the working class and allowed himself to be coerced into selective silence ... he has still not publicly commented on the vax mandates, vax passports or the Canadian and U.S. trucker convoys ... all of which severely impacted or sought redress for the working class ... I have more on Hedges' duplicity, much more ... but I'll spare you.
You've studied this far more than I ever did, but I doubt very much that Hitchens becoming a hawk on Saddam/Iraq had anything to do with money. He was not, as far as I know, getting paid by Fox. He and his opinions were not for sale to Fox or anyone on the left. I disagreed 100 percent with Hitchens regarding Iraq. He seemed as happy as a rebellious teenager to be a maverick and to have pissed off his old leftwing pals at the Nation and elsewhere. (FYI, The paper I worked for, the Pgh Tribune Review, was conservative/libertarian and we, almost alone among newspapers/media in the USA, editorialized against going to Iraq. Hardly anyone noticed; the Trib was small and irrelevant.) Hitchens was wrong about the Iraq War, just as Hedges was a chicken-shit or stupid regarding covid war. I liked Hitchens for all the good things he did and said and believed; ditto on Hedges, whose substack essays on the evil nature of Israel's government and the thugs who run it are powerful and persuasive as hell. I excuse both men's 'mistakes,' big as they are, but Hitchens was 80 percent good. In this era, finding yourself 80 percent in agreement with any pundit or politician is about all you can ask for -- especially for a libertarian like me. As for Hedges, I'm with him 100 percent when he slams Israel and US interventionism for all the right reasons. But he's an idiot on climate, covid and left-wing economics.
I really liked your combative response Bill ... but the truth is you and I do not know if Hitchens was comped for his time on FOX and I just can't imagine him having altruistic motives for pushing the DS's narrative on war ... I but I do agree with you that his contribution to political discourse was positive ... as I said, I became politically aware in 1987 when he exposed Oliver North's role in drug-running ops ...
And here's one of Hedges' more revealing comments:
Did you know ...
On DEC 2, 2021 ...
The FDA was compelled by a court ruling to release Phizer's vax trial data that revealed 1,223 post-jab deaths and 34,762 adverse events in the first 10 weeks of its trial ... The FDA attempted to delay the full release of this data for 75 years!
and then, just 30 days later ...
On JAN 1, 2022 ...
Chris Hedges made this comment on the Krystal Kyle & Friends Podcast (Episode #54):
"I don't think we're going to stop the pandemic and mutations until everybody gets vaccinated" ... Chris Hedges DID NOT have to take sides on this issue ... He could have said it's a personal decision, but no ...
Most people would never tell another person to "walk the plank" if they knew better, but that's exactly what Hedges did here ... he knew the VAX was rushed to market after only one year (the average is 10 years), he knew about the explosive FDA FOIA release and he had to have seen the many videos of vax-injured people ... but he chose to push the "safe & effective" narrative anyway! ... and then about 2m after making that same comment during the interview above, Hedges openly admitted that he "does not trust Moderna or Phizer" ... clearly, this man did not give a hoot about the consequences ...
And here's where you and I disagree most: I do not believe these people should be forgiven for looking us all in the eye and lying to us ... Hedges has been afflicted with the same poison that drives the globalists ... I call it the "primacy virus" ... more people rely on the principles of primacy of profit, primacy of self in our everyday decisions ... Hedges has a spouse and a family and ideological soulmates, but anybody outside his immediate circle is fair game, including his followers .. he should be condemned for this!
His stance on God and religion has gone a long way in distracting us from his more damaging work ...
Hitchens sold out with his decision to become a guest expert on FOX to push the the "evil Saddam" narrative ... but Hitchens was at his best in a 2001 interview on C-SPAN, "The Case Against Henry Kissinger" ... and in '87 he broke a story while writing for THE NATION that now stands as my very first shocking political revelation ... in the midst of the IRAN-CONTRA scandal, he identified Oliver North as THE key figure in a covert "GIDO" arrangement with the Contras ... G-I-D-O: "Guns in Drugs out" ... Sen. John Kerry's report later documented an entry in North's diary on July 12, 1985 in which Gen Richard Secord told him "14m to finance arms came from drugs" ... and if not a FOX commentator in the strict sense, he was a regular contributor ... I was not a fly on the wall during his backroom negotiations with FOX but his decision to push the story that Saddam actually posed a material threat to the U.S. was so contrary to his reason-based perspectives, that money had to be an incentive ... it was during this period that he also pushed a false story that tended to minimize the Abu Ghraid abuses, suggesting they were not related to interrogations ... I believe he was corrupted and in this regard, was a real pioneer and ground-breaker ... arguably the first far-left intellectual to sell his thoughts for consumption by TV viewers who preferred to be spoon-fed news and opinion rather than read books and newspapers ... I now tend to compare Hitchens to his modern-day counterpart, Chris Hedges ... Hitchens took the money to push a theory that was eventually discredited ... and by furthering the "evil Saddam" narrative, he essentially did the bidding of the DS by bolstering the case for endless war in the middle east ... and once the lockdowns were declared in 2020, Hedges broke his many implicit promises to be there for the working class and allowed himself to be coerced into selective silence ... he has still not publicly commented on the vax mandates, vax passports or the Canadian and U.S. trucker convoys ... all of which severely impacted or sought redress for the working class ... I have more on Hedges' duplicity, much more ... but I'll spare you.
You've studied this far more than I ever did, but I doubt very much that Hitchens becoming a hawk on Saddam/Iraq had anything to do with money. He was not, as far as I know, getting paid by Fox. He and his opinions were not for sale to Fox or anyone on the left. I disagreed 100 percent with Hitchens regarding Iraq. He seemed as happy as a rebellious teenager to be a maverick and to have pissed off his old leftwing pals at the Nation and elsewhere. (FYI, The paper I worked for, the Pgh Tribune Review, was conservative/libertarian and we, almost alone among newspapers/media in the USA, editorialized against going to Iraq. Hardly anyone noticed; the Trib was small and irrelevant.) Hitchens was wrong about the Iraq War, just as Hedges was a chicken-shit or stupid regarding covid war. I liked Hitchens for all the good things he did and said and believed; ditto on Hedges, whose substack essays on the evil nature of Israel's government and the thugs who run it are powerful and persuasive as hell. I excuse both men's 'mistakes,' big as they are, but Hitchens was 80 percent good. In this era, finding yourself 80 percent in agreement with any pundit or politician is about all you can ask for -- especially for a libertarian like me. As for Hedges, I'm with him 100 percent when he slams Israel and US interventionism for all the right reasons. But he's an idiot on climate, covid and left-wing economics.
Here's some thoughts about Hitchens and why he lives on, kind of.
https://thespectator.com/book-and-art/afterlife-christopher-hitchens-atheism/
I really liked your combative response Bill ... but the truth is you and I do not know if Hitchens was comped for his time on FOX and I just can't imagine him having altruistic motives for pushing the DS's narrative on war ... I but I do agree with you that his contribution to political discourse was positive ... as I said, I became politically aware in 1987 when he exposed Oliver North's role in drug-running ops ...
And here's one of Hedges' more revealing comments:
Did you know ...
On DEC 2, 2021 ...
The FDA was compelled by a court ruling to release Phizer's vax trial data that revealed 1,223 post-jab deaths and 34,762 adverse events in the first 10 weeks of its trial ... The FDA attempted to delay the full release of this data for 75 years!
and then, just 30 days later ...
On JAN 1, 2022 ...
Chris Hedges made this comment on the Krystal Kyle & Friends Podcast (Episode #54):
Go to the 1:08:47 mark:
https://krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/p/episode-54-audio-chris-hedges#details
"I don't think we're going to stop the pandemic and mutations until everybody gets vaccinated" ... Chris Hedges DID NOT have to take sides on this issue ... He could have said it's a personal decision, but no ...
Most people would never tell another person to "walk the plank" if they knew better, but that's exactly what Hedges did here ... he knew the VAX was rushed to market after only one year (the average is 10 years), he knew about the explosive FDA FOIA release and he had to have seen the many videos of vax-injured people ... but he chose to push the "safe & effective" narrative anyway! ... and then about 2m after making that same comment during the interview above, Hedges openly admitted that he "does not trust Moderna or Phizer" ... clearly, this man did not give a hoot about the consequences ...
And here's where you and I disagree most: I do not believe these people should be forgiven for looking us all in the eye and lying to us ... Hedges has been afflicted with the same poison that drives the globalists ... I call it the "primacy virus" ... more people rely on the principles of primacy of profit, primacy of self in our everyday decisions ... Hedges has a spouse and a family and ideological soulmates, but anybody outside his immediate circle is fair game, including his followers .. he should be condemned for this!
Wish you well Bill.
Thanks. Good luck to you, too.