>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 09/10/03 3:02 PM >>> Norman Finkelstein wrote: >A rite of passage for apostates >peculiar to U.S. political culture is bashing Noam Chomsky.
Unfortunately for Hitchens, he wrote a spirited defense of Chomsky for Grand Street in the mid-1980s. Hitch's webmaster/towelboy Peter Kilander used to have a copy on his website but took it down when it became inconvenient. Doug <<<<<>>>>> >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 09/10/03 3:02 PM >>> Norman Finkelstein wrote: >A rite of passage for apostates >peculiar to U.S. political culture is bashing Noam Chomsky. Unfortunately for Hitchens, he wrote a spirited defense of Chomsky for Grand Street in the mid-1980s. Hitch's webmaster/towelboy Peter Kilander used to have a copy on his website but took it down when it became inconvenient. Doug <<<<>>>> good on finkelstein for 'deconstructing' hitchens although i'm not sure he's worth attention he's received, friend from manchester (england, not new hampshire) told me ch was america's (more precisely, chris mathews') 'house socialist', beguiling because of his 'british' accent, another friend suggested that ch was 'ooh, daddy i'm a marxist' type found among rebellious aristoctatic youth wishing to shock their parents... finkelstein follows sentence doug quoted above with: It's hard to pick up an article or book by ex-radicals--Gitlin's Letters to a Young Activist, Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism--that doesn't include a hysterical attack on him. Behind this venom there's also a transparent psychological factor at play. Chomsky mirrors their idealistic past as well as sordid present, an obstinate reminder that they once had principles but no longer do, that they sold out but he didn't. here's earlier incarnation of hitchens on chomsky (from generally positive review, interestingly, of latter's _culture of terrorism_): "Chomsky proceeds on the almost unthinkablely subversive assumption that the United States should be judged by the same standards that it preaches (often at gunpoint) to other nations - he is nearly the only person now writing who assumes a single standard of international morality not for rhetorical effect, but as a matter of habitual, practically instinctual conviction." as it appears i'm contradicting above comment re. paying too much attention to ch, i'll end with question, i recall that he edited collection (thought i had copy but can't find it) some years ago with edward said about palestinians, has he since bashed es... michael hoover
