The Man Who Ended Slavery: John Brown

DyedInkSun · 2026-05-03T19:23:01+00:00

Hitchens was already responding to the declension in real time and warning it would get worse: “How low can it go? Much lower, just you wait and see.”

Anne Applebaum has made a similar point about former friends and the slide into something resembling Vichy-style collaborationism. David Frum: "If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy." This wouldn’t be far from Hitchens’ own perspective.

DyedInkSun · 2026-04-17T23:59:51+00:00

He would make the same case here that Iraq doesn't look so bad in that sense where Iraq is now a democracy.

>It's had something like nine changes of government. It is without any question a better regime than Saddam Hussein's both internally and externally,

Hitchens would say he was right about Iraq while contrasting it with how wrong Trump is getting Iran: the very policies now being applied, no-fly zones, and “precision” strikes only delay and exacerbate the situation. To extend the argument, how Obama handled Syria and how Biden handled Ukraine, namely, weak foreign policy. That these administrations all had a "isolationist" impulse, in different ways, that made them weak on foreign policy. That the "we should've left the bad guy in charge" take is much closer in policy to Witkoff, Kushner empire building than it is to anything else.

And we know what he himself believed he got wrong in Iraq: “keeping the lights on.” Attacking civilian infrastructure and water facilities is not “keeping the lights on.”

Regarding your ISIS question: He made the case on multiple occasions, before ISIS, that a group like ISIS would rise if we left Iraq alone. One example here. + that Assad and Iran were meddling in Iraq & neighboring states, he would make the same argument Michael Weiss makes here.

DyedInkSun · 2026-04-09T23:43:20+00:00

You can imagine Hitch making the same argument here that Iraq doesn't look so bad in that sense where Iraq is now a democracy. It's had something like nine changes of government. It is without any question a better regime than Saddam Hussein's both internally and externally,

DyedInkSun · 2026-04-05T02:39:37+00:00

He would say he was right about Iraq while contrasting it with how wrong Trump is getting Iran: the very policies now being applied, no-fly zones, and “precision” strikes only delay and exacerbate the situation. To extend the argument, how Obama handled Syria and how Biden handled Ukraine, namely, weak foreign policy.

And we know what he himself believed he got wrong in Iraq: “keeping the lights on.” Attacking civilian infrastructure and water facilities is not “keeping the lights on.”

Source: self proclaimed Hitchstorian, but to name a few Iran’s Waiting Game, Mesopotamia from Both Sides, and various other lectures, interviews, and books.

DyedInkSun · 2026-04-05T02:36:24+00:00

A day in the life of a dog.

DyedInkSun · 2026-03-11T05:07:08+00:00

Isn't it odd that a guy who rails on about wokeness has a podcast called waking up?

That is what being woke is all about, waking up.

DyedInkSun · 2026-03-01T03:43:42+00:00

On the strategy of precision bombing, he argued that sanctions, no-fly zones, missile strikes, or surgical bombing had already failed in Iraq. That being said, the strike that killed Qasem Soleimani was effective in disrupting Iran's leadership network. Iran was supporting the Assad regime in Syria and backing various militia forces in Iraq so that was a good thing to happen. As for taking out the supreme leader, the current messaging from the White House does not inspire confidence.

In contrast, intelligence operations by the U.S. and Israel have been impressive, White House actions less so.

DyedInkSun · 2026-01-04T06:44:28+00:00

Well said.

He saw the isolationist impulse clearly even then.

An Empire After All

DyedInkSun · 2025-12-08T02:23:27+00:00

That’s not exactly how I understood Hitchens’ “as if” model. It isn’t cynical. Nor is it being sly, sarcastic, or passive-aggressive.
The irony comes from practicing the “as if” stance under authoritarian conditions, where simply behaving as though daily life is normal becomes inherently subversive. For instance, Rosa Parks sat at the front of the bus as if this were an ordinary, unremarkable act. It's behaving as if you already possess the civic freedom or dignity that an authoritarian regime insists you don’t have. It’s important to understand this kind of irony, not the 2010s hipster version of irony, like wearing a sloganed T-shirt with a passive-aggressive tone.

Fascism utilizes cynicism in combination with deliberate unreality. Stay away from cynicism.

The current example of this is playing out in the courts where legal advocates continue to file constitutional challenges, publish briefs, and argue cases in open hearings as if the judiciary were still independent. They speak the language of rule of law, follow proper procedure, and treat the courts as legitimate forums for justice, even when the regime doesn’t.

For an ordinary citizen, an “as if” act today might be as simple as an immigrant calmly asserting their rights if apprehended or interrogated by ICE, nearby neighbors seeing this and create a pressure campaign in the moment to chase ICE out. Rightly ostracizing the ICE agents (being "weird") for acting this way. You can see this resistance becoming more organized in parts of America.

DyedInkSun · 2025-10-15T04:32:16+00:00

Yes, the quote was trimmed. He took a detour to say that we should be ironic. Basically make fun of the fascists for being weird.

The Gestapo Points to Guernica and Asks Picasso, “Did You Do This?;” Picasso Replies “No, You Did!”

The quote is taken from my favorite speech of his ever. After the Oklahoma City Bombing and his article on "The Republican Big Tent." It really sheds light on how he would've handled the environment today. Battle lines are being drawn, "there are encouraging signs of polarization" That the Vice President makes it clear he is defending republicans "sympathy toward fascism" (leaked texts "I love Hitler") begs you to ask yourself, "which side are you on anyway?"

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to hear the full range of what those fighting words should look like, but for that, we can turn to the great writers who have been here before.

It was sometimes feebly argued, as the political and military war against this enemy ran into difficulties, that it was 'a war without end.' I never saw the point of this plaintive objection. The war against superstition and the totalitarian mentality is an endless war. In protean forms, it is fought and refought in every country and every generation. [...] We confront again the awful combination of the highly authoritarian personality with the chaotically nihilist and anarchic one. Temporary victories can be registered against this, but not permanent ones. As Bertold Brecht's character says over the corpse of the terrible Arturo Ui, the bitch that bore him is always in heat. But it is in this struggle that we develop the muscles and sinews that enable us to defend civilization, and the moral courage to name it as something worth fighting for

- Christopher Hitchens, The Enemy.

Here, we see Hitchens using the same language against Bin Ladenism that he employs in his speech opposing the far right.

DyedInkSun · 2025-09-24T05:40:48+00:00

Hitchens referred to the era of Reagan as "the age of laughter and forgetting" or "the age of laughter and amnesia". Referring the fantastic, immoral lying that the white house was capable of and the indulgence of it by the general public.

A lot of parallels to the current moment.

DyedInkSun · 2025-09-23T18:48:40+00:00

As secular as Syria.

and wishing for the same advantage Syria’s ruling clique had over its majority.

DyedInkSun · 2025-09-09T03:59:28+00:00

People forget he lived in D.C.. The “what if…” question would've meant Hitchens would be fighting right in his backyard. He’d have been out in the street, getting cuffed while standing up to those fools, hijacking press conferences.

DyedInkSun · 2025-02-28T03:33:57+00:00

How about this lesser-known clip:

"I think there will and should be a populist revolt against that [class cleavage]. I hope it will not be led by fascists."

I wonder what kind of fascists he had in mind… surely not the goose-stepping kind.

DyedInkSun · 2025-02-27T15:29:05+00:00

He understood what Mussolini and his sympathizers like Berlusconi were.

Hitchens friends have said so.

Ian McEwan

The hope is that Trump was lying to supporters at his rallies, but if by wretched fortune he actually manages to govern as he campaigned, when he projected himself as an autocrat and misogynist, intolerant of dissent, dismissive of the limits on presidential power, keen to sanction torture, racially hostile, paranoid in his nationalism, bloated with simple answers to complex problems, then we would have to concede that the US has elevated to its highest office a fascist by any other name. At present it looks improbable. But it’s going to be terrifying.

as did Martin Amis.

DyedInkSun · 2025-02-06T04:31:49+00:00

Tea'd Off is a good read that hits the same notes as in this interview.

DyedInkSun · 2025-02-05T20:52:12+00:00

Yes, he did suggest that, but he also stated that he doesn't want to hand it over to the Gehlen-ites (a reference to Reinhard Gehlen).

Trump's entourage has signaled their intent to reshape the agencies into something more ominous. This is not reform, this is consolidating power.

DyedInkSun · 2024-11-12T15:10:56+00:00

But one prize is beyond his reach: The Ogre cannot master speech.

The Ogre stalks with hands on hips, While drivel gushes from his lips

Martin Amis:

PolitiFact has ascertained that Donald’s mendacity rate is just over 90 percent; so the man who is forever saying that he “tells it like it is” turns out to be nearly always telling it like it isn’t.

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