Christopher Hitchens on the History of the 20th Century: U.K. and America (1995)

who said who said feminists can't be funny incidentally I don't know why the lights aren't on for the audience this is a town meeting after all the idea of that and I think lights should be on you as well as on us since you're part of it so I'll be Claudius and Hamlet lights no lights he didn't do it I'll be himself let there be life not could we have lights um no I think would be a hell of a good idea because then you're part of it cuz that's what this is about that's the ticket more that's it it should be lit more you we should see your faces as well as you're seeing ours fair is fair after all I was thinking about the nation itself hearing katha pollitt and hearing Marvin Miller as a butyl right for the nation and the style of writing the substance as well as the impulse and they've been review of Edmund Wilson this morning the New York Times man of letters indeed he was is another kind of man of letters knits Chris Hitchens you see a man who has his own style his own way and the world is his oyster in a sense writes about concentration camps or lumber camps when it comes to environment any subject at hand and here then Christopher Hitchens of the nation Heys and gentlemen brothers and sisters comrades and friends welcome to International Workers day we should not forget I didn't actually put mr. Turkle up to the Edmund Wilson suggestion at all all possibilities on the stage Charlie was on quite another topic but I'm glad he did make that comparison because um it releases me from the promise that I have made earlier which was that I would be both short and funny in the name of Edmund Wilson I now cast this a pledge aside I trust that you've both all of you got comfortable seats and ready to settle down no intention of being brief felt feeling rather lugubrious in fact as well James Boswell very long book brilliant biography of dr. Johnson probably the founding of modern biography Cheers Boswell as well as being a very good biographer and remembered for that portrait of old Sam that terrible old Tory a blowhard Johnson not the first out of that name was in addition to that a tremendous journalist and very curious man and observer he would go to things he would he would was show up he showed up at the bedside of the philosopher David Hume as a lot of people did because they were sure that Hume would abandon his flinty integrity as the death watch impended they were sure he would beg for a priest he would ask for forgiveness and he didn't and he kept on not doing it and Boswell kept on pressing him I assure you absolutely convinced you don't want to do this and Hume said I think in parish ibly um no I'm no more worried about what will happen after I'm dead and gone that I was concerned with what occurred before I was alive when I consider that I can I've always considered that and considerate still to be one of the great statements of stoicism ever made however however under the lash of comrades Navasky Interpol and others I have been forced to do porn as I was in 1949 a little bit of Back to the Future in my own behalf and yours comrades and the fact is this I've caused some inquiries to be made I've looked up some old stuff talked some surviving relatives and the the thing is the thing of it is on this day 50 years ago this precise day my parents were on their honeymoon okay you try it and see some of you are trying the Society of Latinas thought to me that this would be so and I'm going to share with you some of what I think emerges from this matching without which after all one would not be him my father commander I'm a Navy brat my father my late father commander era kitchens had had in a way a good war his cruiser HMS Jamaica put the last torpedo into the Shawn Horst the flagship then of the Nazi battle fleet in the in the narrow seas on the day after Christmas 1940 a better day's work than I can never claim to have done myself but but a tough and a tough day's work for the old man who had throughout the 1930s consistently supported the line of Baldwin Chamberlain Mussolini and Franco and have found himself you see because it's my belief that the ironies of history occur most pungently to those who don't believe in them and after doing in the shadows my father was put on the task of running convoys to Murmansk and Archangel at a time when the entire coastline of northern Europe all the way up over the hump of Norway in scand it was completely controlled by the Nazi machine there was no air cover for anyone who wanted a sailor ship all the way up and over to Murmansk and I'd like to picture my father as he didn't like to picture himself as finally after all the trouble he'd taken in the service of King and Empire acting as a gunrunner to Stalin these are the breaks for him May 1st 1945 was a kind of mixed blessing how sort of a day but it was a day of work and I think very much needed one for my mother representing the side of the family that had emigrated a little earlier from the that bit on the German Polish Ukrainian border which had been didn't know they knew that they weren't hearing anything from the relatives anymore it was exactly about fifty years ago that they worked out what had happened to all the members of the family they hadn't been hearing from and it was a very very bitter day and day of complete silence and not in fact a day I think on which she said anything at all these were a couple whose lives had been wasted really wasted in the in the terrible waste of the opportunity at the end of the first world were wasted by those who had written the pact of Versailles who devastated Eastern and Central Europe again in the name of it who'd plunged the world into depression and into slump which wasted the youth of both my parents had encouraged or been complicit in the rise of fascism and brought them out of slump and depression only by means of a war economy and another war and wasted the rest of their youth and that was for the lucky ones and then replaced that regime and that that's succession of establishment triumphs with the post-war austerity people whose business therefore was very felt very evident and who had no target upon which they could direct it because after all they had always John as they believed loyally and decently what they were supposed to do and had kept the national patch of the social pact in her in an honourable way and had been betrayed for it that sort of moment of bitterness and futility is I suppose what would now be described in the New York Times as the beginning of the healing process is my opinion that the healing process in this case probably began in 1942 when the Red Army mash to encircle the verm act of the Kursk salient and Stalingrad box it in and destroy it and turn it back and break the spine of Hitler's Reich I think that's where the healing process began and I remember an old Austrian friend of mine now dared Elle's Tricia who was one of the broadcaster's at Stalingrad he defected he joined the other side he broadcast in German to the advancing troops and said don't believe your leader don't believe a word he says to you everything he's told he was a lie he's ruined your country he's destroyed German and Austrian culture he's destroyed even the the fabric of goethe and schiller and Marx and Beethoven and all the glories of your civilization don't believe him and now he's led you into a death trap and if you don't surrender or come over to our side none of you will escape I said and you've been dropping leaflets on us telling us to surrender in Stalingrad it's a brilliantly written leaflet probably the best I've ever read and it says we should tell you now these leaflets of yours turn into ash at 10,000 feet over Stalingrad give up now turn your guns on your officers go home don't believe them don't believe them but it wasn't to be will had to be fought to the very end and so as it ended and ended in that frigid and ghastly manner the three episodes which I'd like to draw your attention that are part of the history of May 1945 in May 1945 the British government released such Japanese soldiers as it had under its captivity in Saigon and in re-enlisted them out of the British flag in order to put down the Viet Minh government which had established a national government in Vietnam and under this Anglo Japanese Imperial condominium proclaimed that it would former holding provisional government until the French could come home and reclaim their rightful territory in Indochina that was done with the full commission of the beloved FDR and the soon to be even more beloved Harry Truman I think it's an episode that ought to be somewhat better known and better remembered than it is think of how much trouble we might have saved ladies and gentlemen brothers and sisters complaints and friends the Vietnamese have got their long-deserved and hard fought for independence in 1945 think of the shame also of all of those who've been involved particularly in the Democratic Party ever since in denying them that right and using American blood to shed Vietnamese but I think of the honor face of war shame of that second but slightly more encouraging that happened it happens to me when I get into a cab in Washington very often Washington's my hometown sometimes is that one of those old black drivers with a hat back on his head and often a bit of a cigar he doesn't care about the regulations but what he can and can't do in his cap sat well back in the seat he hears my voice and gauges the gear when he hears what I want to go he doesn't say anything for a bit but I know what's coming he says you from England I say well about matter of fact yes I am we didn't how you can possibly tell there's another long pause he said I was there once and I've had this conversation a lot of times very often this was the first time these guys had ever been abroad very often it's the first time and the last time they were went abroad and they remember man did it rain and we had to drink our beer before it got cold and boy the food but they said they remember no thing which is it was the first time they'd ever been in a society that wasn't segregated a white society wasn't segregated this is a time when German prisoners of war were given a better time than they were and they remember it in a way that touches me very very much I always say the end world was very nice of you to come over you didn't have to do that and appreciate it very much appreciated George Orwell noticed a mass observation survey at that point among British public house owners because it was feared that there were so many British men overseas and the American soldiers were so well paid and so much better dressed that there might be animosity towards them so they took surveys one of the old ladies who had a pub near an American air base was asked you had any trouble with the Americans no no ill of the Americans love the Yanks love them always pleased to see them what no trouble at all I mean no complaints very kind no not very nice boys always fast about drink very nice with the girls and all that well you absolutely sure you come great well I will say this but J want to be quoted sit like the Americans very much I'm not sure I care for some of the white ones they brought over with them all well was George Orwell as one of the future noticed this finding anyway in my father's hometown of Portsmouth er never tell there was there was a big riot the locals all turned out of the pubs when the when the military police came around to try and drag the black soldiers back from the bar to the to the segregated camp and said leave him alone there you know you're no better than they are and it was a great moment in in Portsmouth history and um it's a call me sentimental if you will but one of the guys was involved in all that was Medgar Evers who is when he went back to the United States thought I'm going to keep my uniform and keep my medals I'm going to stay in their face about this I don't see why I should go back to segregated sharecropping after all this stuff and didn't and paid the full price for it but we're in his debt and I like to recall this little moment anyway and another thing happened which is the Hitler's chief of intelligence Reinhard Galen a man who had run the entire Nazi intelligence system throughout occupied Europe for five years was hired by the CIA to run American intelligence from then on I don't know what you think but what I think is that when Reinhardt Galen was hired as head of American intelligence from straight out of Berlin and straight out of the occupation of Baelor Russia and Ukraine and Latvia I think something very bad entered the American system that no one's really ever been able to face up to or ask about since something really bad that we still haven't combed out or even confronted and Cather mentioned the great moment of benign Bitburger spoken spoken in the in what gore Vidal called the bright autumn of his senescence by by the president but many people wanted to say well they that was the Kimani mouthing off you never know not completely all they're not true at all at the next stop on Reagan's European tour after Bitburg was Madrid where he made a speech in which he said I know there's been a lot of controversy about the United States and Spain in their time indeed so Americans once came here to fight in the Civil War he said but the thing is that Reagan that they were on the wrong side in other words a conscious choice a conscious and deliberate remark showing that the sympathy for fascism not accidental not anecdotal not a slip of the tongue but something bread in the Bern and I think also worth recalling now there's three instances I gave and believe me I could go on and don't be sure that I won't I'm not the only are not the only three of Trinity or trio but I think there may be they may be I'm going to select them anyway if only out of consideration for you all as the critical crucial three because they they invite the question that is in fact inseparable from meetings like this and deliberations of this sort which is which side are you on anyway we have the civil and human rights side represented by what was expressed by the population of Britain despite its leadership in the in the resistance to Nazism and the way that they embrace people that Megara versus guests when they had really you know one meal a day I'd like to remember that the origins of the Vietnam War in other words the inheritance the deliberate inheritance by the United States of of British and French colonialism the desire by Roosevelt this ridiculous hero was praised up hill and down dale by sentimental democrats every time you open a paper or turn a page these days this old crook and criminal who wanted and devoted his life to the inheritance of degraded European imperialism by the United States and made it his objective and got it in Saigon in 1945 and simultaneously the inheritance of fascism the ghost in the machine taking on that that inherits inviting these unwanted guests no part of any New Deal into the homeland that's what you have to remember and choose between and choose among because the curtain was raised on all this a lawyer earlier than anyone thought or was told you know also in 1945 in fact this month a great friend of mine was released at the age of 13 from bergen-belsen concentration camp name is Israel shocked he's professor of chemistry of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem now a great man arguably a very great man I'm glad she has some sympathizers here founder of the Israeli League for human and civil rights though he wouldn't care by the way if nobody had heard about him or cared for founder of the Israeli League for human and civil rights are unbelievably courageous and and decent person I sometimes call him up and say how are things going in your neck of the woods Israel he says well I can tell you are some encouraging signs of polarization I like to make this one of my mottos I like to try and start every day like I don't about you every day I look at the New York Times and see are they still saying all the news that's fit to print on the front page are they still doing that so I okay I'm still pissed off with them every day I also think maybe there'll be some encouraging signs of polarization all the same because in the New York Times every day you find the word consensus is always used as a plus word unity is always used as a plus word everything divisive very bad word bipartisan very good parties are not so good crashing ISM [ __ ] nonsense the building of a false consensus and the burying of history and the burying of dialectic every day before you'll rise in the name of the ideology of objectivity who here remembers hearing Ronald Reagan seeing him called a great communicator in print in a news story hands up anybody quite a few who remembers hearing him called liar in a news story well that roll Reagan is a great communicator as a value judgment that Ronald Reagan was a liar as an objective statement of fact that's why you read the one in the news story and not the other and that's the ideology of objectivity right there for you so you need the corrective and we may need it we may need it sooner than we think the stench in 1945 all across Europe including the town in which I was brought up Portsmouth where I could still see it when I was a small boy the bomb sites and the rubble in the wreckage but not all of it because the stench of 1945 all the way across here was the stench of disinfectant being sprayed on rubble you can't dig any more there's no there's no point there's only putrefaction and misery underneath you can't keep digging if you don't disinfect it now I would say that the stench of disinfectant sprayed on rubble the rubble is on top of human remains is the particular tang stench odor of fascism and we used to in our movement in our pages and so on say we'd give the title anti-fascist - the older comrades to those who'd suffered and been through it and so on we never thought I think many of us that how soon we might have to earn this great title of honor for ourselves there we were warned you remember the end of Herbert or Brett's play our tour away when the leader steps forward to the front of the stage after Hitler's body has turned to carrion after all it lasts and says well this is the thing that nearly had us mastered but do not think that that is all you men for though we rose up and we beat the bastard the [ __ ] that bore him is on heat again and I think the stench of rubble and carrion and disinfectant from Oklahoma is a kind of a warning and this time it's not digging out at the end it's digging out at the beginning of a battle with reaction with the Gayler knights and their descendants and with those who wanted to turn our our yours my Democratic Republic into an empire KKK is kinder Kershaw and Cuccia to these rebels as they call themselves these anti-establishment figures and nothing of the kind they say they're against the government their learned pioneers and frontiersman who are they where does gordon liddy come from but he isn't a pimp of the state an incubus from the national security system where is oliver north come from who dares say this man is a rebel or dissident he's an outgrowth of the government I know sir I promised you nothing less what's anti-government about these extruded forces of the state they will when the time comes if it does come we should take care to discuss it so buddy but if the time should come when push came to shove these are the people who would be the fry core these are the people who would take orders these are the people who would be the disciplined and docile forces of a government that would of course always regard them as deniable and we have been warned so I'll save much but not all of what I was going to say say let's be let's be prepared not to be hysterical about this let's be let's be artistic let's be ironic after all when Picasso was visited in his studio in occupied Paris by a Gestapo officer who was told to make nice with him and there was a canvas of a sketch of Guernica on the wall the Gestapo critic rocked on his heels in front of it and said that's very good did you do that because I said no you did we we don't have to be crude we don't have to be crude we don't have to be rough but we ought to be ready to earn the title of anti-fascist for ourselves and we ought not to be scared of the fighting words the alleged fighting words of others of the of the scum of the earth of the the fat [ __ ] like Rush Limbaugh and the pimps and pensioners of the state like oliver north and gordon liddy we should rather be getting ready with some fighting words and some fighting gestures of our own thank you

Channel: The Film Archives

Views: 504,980

Rating: 4.7997479 out of 5

Keywords: Christopher Hitchens (Author), 20th Century (Event), United States Of America (Country), History, United Kingdom (Country), Documentary, Culture, Civil, Civil War (Type Of Morally Disputed Activity), Museum, Project, Heritage, June, Civil War (Musical Album), Historical, October, August, April, November, March, January, December, September, February, May, 14th

Id: g6aKFKIDbQw

Length: 23min 32sec (1412 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 14 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/rattleandhum]

What an excellent orator. I fucking love this man. I find it sad that his latter years were more consumed by his anti-religion polemic (which, I should say, I agree with), only because he was such an excellent political communicator.

I love him talking politics.

[u/chefranden]

Hitchens gives the history of the infiltration of fascism into the west. The lecture is humorous and hard hitting.

[u/blue_strat]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Gehlen

[u/The_Uber_Boozer]

Champagne socialist.