Hitch is not wrong in his general description of David Cameron at circa 42mins but does anyone have a source to back up his claim of Cameron's statement on the morning of September 11th 2001?
Agreed, I've read a fair few of Christopher's books over the years and enjoyed them all, but I'd have to say my favourite was/is "Hitch 22", a truly great read read. The world lost a true free thinker and is poorer for it.
Science should just have found a way to clone Christopher Hitchens, what a loos for humanity’s enlightenment is not having this beautiful chap around, love and miss him dearly.
Oh Wheatcroft you didn't have a chance against Hichents, the smile on Christopher's face just before Geoffey's failed attempt at having a convincing last word says it all.Or how visibly shaken he is when Hitchens puts him in his place at 1:14:36
geoffrey wheatcroft has such love for the british empire. in one sentence he says the british burned down the whitehouse, instead of saying the canadians, and in the next he talks about canada becoming friendly with the americans in the first world war
Hitchens was an author, journalist, an essayist par excellence and a prolific public speaker. This great man was a constant breach against the fortifications of stultified ignorance that re-erect themselves with every new generation in various forms: Religion, totalitarianism, hypocrisy, celebrity culture, etc. Fortunately for us, a plethora of videos available on youtube feature him prominently. For his writing, I recommend, "Arguably, essays by..." and "God is not Great" to begin with. Enjoy!
Thank you Zachary, have them all in my library.📚 Hitchens arguably the very best speaker of the 20th and early 21st century. Love this man’s ideas and opinions, and though I personally do not agree with a couple of his opinions, the world is indeed a poorer place without this man.
To any Americans watching this: often here they make the basic mistake of saying 'England', when he is referring to things which involve the WHOLE of the UK, all of Britain...not just England. This is a bad habit, something that many do, even in a debate specifically about Britain, in this case. When something involves all of the UK, saying just 'England' is both inaccurate and, and to Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish, bloody annoying!
At 27:10 Hitchens refers to William Roger Lewis' edition of their complete correspondances (Churchill & Roosevelt). I don't think this is correct. I think he is in fact refering to the 3 volume set edited by Warren F. Kimball - "Churchill and Roosevelt, the Complete Correspondence", Princeton University Press, 1984. I can find nothing of this sort by the former author. Having said that however much interesting background to UK / US relations during WW2 is to be found in "Imperialism at Bay: The United States and the Decolonization of the British Empire, 1941-1945" indeed by W.R.L. Both books dispell the idea of UK docility and 'poodledom' to the US at least in that era.
Hearing Hitchens teach history makes me sad. Will the history of my generation be recorded accurately? Political correctness doesn't care about truth, only in revisionism.
1:08 -Hitchens uses the word Fustian (!?) - did he mean Fussy or Faustian ?, no , so i googled it , and yet again , it was exactly the right word to use. I've now added it to my lexicon along with epicene and apotropaic also thanks to him.
Hitchens mentions Iraq invasion of Iran twice and first time in the context of Saddam chosing the confrontation with the West.. Well the West was largely on Saddam's side in that war and the name "Iran-Iraq war" rather than Iraq-Iran war is an indicator. The Carter adminstration even encouraged Saddam to invade. And the friendly treatment Saddam received from the West during the 80's emboldened him so he miscalculated Western support and invaded Kuwait. I say this and I agree with Hitchens on Blair not poodle, and I've supported Iraq war and still do, although I don't share Hitchens belief that the US/UK motive was moral (i.e. toppling a tyrant), rather than self interest. Also I believe ( I could explain but too long) that a lot of what went wrong after toppling Saddam was to do with what Weatcroft quoted from the British ambassador in US, and that is "the US listens to Ireland, Israel, and Saudi Arabia"..
Ah, if only we had somehow a way of downloading Hitchen's personality onto a computer chip (via the suggested method of Ray Kurtzweil [SP]), then we could ask it questions about modern day events and recieve more brilliant and inimitable Hitchensian replies! Sigh... or perhaps this is merely an expression of a vain postmortem yearning for the return of a great standard bearer of scepticism and integrity. :' (
Too bad Mr Blair didn’t do the same with Zimbabwe 🇿🇼 when he refused to the funds that was already set aside for the farmers due to that many people died of unforeseen violence just because he could get away with it he did just that tony Blair is not saint
I loved the well-fed middle participant who opened his greetings with ‘comrades’. The whole program was seriously compromised proportionally IMO. What is this ‘Hudson’ org? Who cares.
