Christopher Hitchens on Noam Chomsky (1995)

[Applause] thank you very much Joe fantastically generous introduction could I first ask all those who know that they are volunteers to start moving and block all the exits please you know who you are there are stewards and marshals waiting for you ladies and gentlemen brothers and sisters comrades and Friends you probably thought you'd already paid to come here and I know that I haven't drawn the most popular straw in being the one who stands between you and gnome and the question-and-answer session but the fact is that we've covered action quarterly are quite old hands and have been in this business a long way and we're not about to let a captive audience get away that lightly we would like you to make a pledge if you can and will be passing buckets and baskets around for you to put money in or IOUs or checks or any kind of paper currency I don't know for example if I can just start the ball rolling here how many people here will put their hands up and admit that they pay for home delivery of the Washington Post that's quite a lot I do it too I reckon what $250 a year for that I don't see why the government doesn't distribute it free quite frankly 250 for to have a great well Ward's of consensus dumped on your doorstep now if you're paid 250 and not really notice it for that the newspaper that publishes Henry Kissinger as an op-ed contributor the newspaper of which I have stone once rather brilliantly said it's a great paper The Washington Post you never know on what page you'll find the front-page story that paper who will put up their hand and say they'll give 250 dollars they'll give the Washington Post equivalent there you go into the bucket it goes anymore yes excellent any more of those well you can keep them you can keep thinking about it the offer is not it was not going to expire with time while you're writing your check or your pledge or your I owe you or just tugging that your billfold I just like to say a few things about our guest of honor tonight and about and about caq I was rereading Norman Mailer's armies of the night recently preparation for an interview I was doing with him and I came across the wonderful passage where Mailer is arrested in the march on the Pentagon and is thrown into the wagon by the police who then throw in a member a uniformed member of the US Nazi Party in along with him just to show that the Park Police have a sense of humor and as this sort of scene clears a bit he mail realizes that this is him and the Nazi and one other a sort of thin rather distant respect to cool slightly Jewish looking sort of academic guy and he says that it's turns out to be Noam Chomsky and I went interviewed him later I said that must be an amazing encounter II said yes at the time I had no idea who Noam Chomsky was but now of course was was from the first days of the anti-war movement not just on the day of that great march on the Pentagon but on many other days important days too in their very front rank taking the side of the victim calling an aggression by it's right name calling people to the responsibility the realization that in such a case of aggression you'll morally obliged to stand with the victim and that contribution I think will be remembered he's often pessimistic about the historical record I nonetheless think his contribution on that will will always be remembered as as quite literally imperishable he was also there at the funeral of Fred Hampton was almost the only white face I think who was present at that funeral the victim being an assassinated dissident victim of a national political police force the Federal Bureau of Investigation he went all the way to Managua to offer his solidarity in practical and moral forms as a lecturer and as a and as a friend at the time of the hysterical war of aggression waged against against Nicaragua by the Reagan administration and he's also incredibly helpful open willing and friendly for the least person who wants to consult him for research and scholarly purposes I I recently felt I had to do something about the Charles Mary Richard Herrnstein phenomenon the Belko phenomena where it suddenly discovered that the fault is not in the society but in the genetic makeup of its lower orders and I thought well probably norm will have something to say about this after all he studied the nature-nurture question rather intently and I rang him up said what if you got he said well I've got much recent really but I suppose I did write the paper of our Richard hansteen constant is really the author of the late hands team rather than charles murray of the Belko a few years ago he sent me the most the most perfect and most prescient demolition of richard hansteen that it was possible to imagine this was a time when everybody in the country was reviewing that damn book and where the book was getting a really pretty extensive free ride and where none of these insights and none of these findings and none of these areas of contestation were alluded to at all by the supposedly scholarly reviewers but you only had to contact the man himself and to be shall I say without sounding fawning enlightened he now must been the victim he's not himself a victim of self-pity in any way wouldn't say this for himself but I can tell you as someone who's followed here that he's been the victim of a really unprecedented campaign of calumny and defamation and a parallel campaign to silenced and excluded marginalized his contributions his books go unreviewed in the major outlets his letters often in written in defense against appalling libels are often unpublished or published in a mutilated form I think he's born under born up under this with tremendous dignity and bearing and and address my chomskyan syllogism therefore if I can venture such a thing is that he has always been there for us and covert action quarterly will always be in is here for him and so give generously how's it going is there anyone who hasn't has a bag under their nose yet and they must be some people at the front I think all right let's see I want to increase the tempo of giving a little if what I've just said doesn't move he austere you how much would you give to see Barbara Bush in the dark okay were any member of the Bush family I'm offering you Barbara I had to review her ghastly book the other day you can always do something you know however small i had to review this down book for a stupid tabloid reading through and she said that Phillip Agee had given away the name of an American agent in Athens who later been assassinated and was morally responsible for this man's murder and the introduction says that George Bush read every word of the book to protect her from having made any mistakes or committed any errors of fact so I thought hah ranked Phil in Hamburg I said I think you oughta sue her and he is suing now and they've already admitted that they're wrong this is good you want anyone want the buckets back alright another pledge he's going to be suing him several million dollars the publishers already admitted as the author that their guilt in the matter by changing this and excising the libel from the paperback and our old friend Phil Austin's actually to be vindicated in the American Court and she might have to come there and take part in it I'd say what's that worth to you I'd say it was worth a few by few bucks one of those things that cheers you up give generously in other words when when Phil first started writing about this kind of thing it amazes me looking at his book now the scandal it caused we had no idea he thought it was bad Phil edgy helped us to find out how bad but we and he had not the least idea how bad it really was it's since his revelations that we've discovered about frat that we've had Jennifer harbors revelations of the collusion direct collusion between the CIA and the death squads in Guatemala that we've had brilliantly reported also in covert action quarterly the account of the CIA's part in the arrest of Nelson Mandela the original arrest that led to his his first trial and imprisonment and the arrest of his wife Winnie we've had the gladiator of elations about the plans for military crews in every Western European country in the event of crisis we've had the Ames Fiasco where it seems the taxpayers were paying to the United States just inform itself thus I suppose cutting out the middleman and now the revelations that the crystal ball and stargazing faction is considered to be worth seventeen million of anybody's money I've always thought one often wonder why the Washington Post hasn't ecology caught him in a horoscope every day now I think I know it was code they were talking to each other through the Washington Post astrology columnist anyway think of think about that and see much how much money you can part with caq has always had the goods on the the foul collusion between the national security state in this country and a network of dictators and psychopathic killers who are ready to rent themselves out to them I have very often have been lucky enough to be able to recommend visiting journalists from overseas to go to the caq library to go through the archive to write stories in the Foreign Press that the sort that you never see here it's a it's a service they're very proud and glad to provide and I'm incredibly proud and glad to be able to recommend great satisfaction comes of it so what's it what's it worth to you is my question as I hope we can have one more go-around perhaps I can pluck one more heart string right for one more pocket open one more billfold did you see in The Washington Post yesterday that dr. Michael Mandelbaum great foreign policy pundit of the Brookings Institution has issued his final critique of the Clinton administration's foreign policy this is one that not even know my think would have believed in his in his critique of our um our vulnerability to our own good intentions but dr. Malabar really does say the problem with the Clinton administration is its foreign policies it's so compassionate it is the foreign policy says this doctor Brookings Institution of Mother Teresa now if you take my view of Mother Teresa which is that she's a valet to prove our that she's a servant of right-wing thugs in power and right-wing businessmen on the make and someone who likes to fool the poor I suppose you could say that this was the foreign policy of Mother Teresa well I think that was the implication about either her or President Clinton but it is I think still and perhaps no would agree that the benchmark remark about about how we are really much too kind much too sweet much to I'll twist taken much too forgiving I will close with a story that I have known will forgive me telling about him as we all catch me do we had to go to the dentist not long ago now the dentist said to him it's okay your teeth in good shape but you're grinding them rather a lot aren't you no I'm said no no I unaware of grinding them at all well said the dentist I've heard that before actually what's happening this is common to us you're grinding them in your sleep no I'm thought maybe I am his wife and great partner wondered the wonderful Carol Chomsky agreed to sort of have a round-the-clock norm watch justice or see Wilson he wasn't grinding them in his sleep so they had a more intensive watch they found he was grinding them for a 15 20 minute period every day in the morning while he was going through the New York Times now I would just in closing there for a recall for you the great closing words from the late master of the movement Joe Hill don't grind be like no organized thang [Applause]

Channel: Manufacturing Intellect

Views: 960,376

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Id: 0Dficd8Z8I8

Length: 11min 58sec (718 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 03 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

I know he also praises Chomsky's writings on East Timor(?) in a brief segment. Out there somewhere >_>

[u/SocialistNeoCon]

Oh, this was Hitch when he was still morally and politically confused. Pleasing to watch nonetheless, even if only to hear the man speak.

[u/TheSunaTheBetta]

And this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUO1na4faAc