PH, thanks for the Hitch quotes, though I find the following quote a tad caustic it seems many posters here love groveling in Hitchings passing, with such gleeful gloating?

“Long may he rot.”

Not a positive comment as one considers the alternatives, sounding a bit pleased with ones self here.  Rigid mind set being displayed by one-ups man ship for simply being alive? (Not quite appearing intelligent, nor inarticulate, though leaning towards being uncultured, and emitting uneducated noises) Appears as jubilation in ones own comment while taking their daily dump on another persons passing away. Forging such glee in the demising of another, resembling a quality of discovering a penny for such a thoughtless pleasing experience.

goddevil made everything. this explains why life on earth is many-
valued—ranging from being verrri good [joyous, peaceful, prosperous,
etc] to extremely bad [floods, cancer, ‘our’ leaders/clergy/educators,
wars, wmd, earthquakes, diseases, etc].
however, we too are part of the goddevilish creation; thus can [or cld, if
we wld drown/send to another planet all priests and supremacists]
lessen or even prevent the bad things; such as diseases, floods,
droughts, poverty, famines, etc.
not ever, tho, if priests and supremacists abide with us and have it their
way!
yes, goddevil still may remain and for an eternity, but, who knows, the
IT, itself, may change one day. the hell with chrismas and happy new
year!! tnx

Some of Hitchens more memorable quotes:

“The four most overrated things in life are champagne, lobster, anal sex and picnics.” – the New Yorker, 2006

“[George W Bush] is lucky to be governor of Texas. He is unusually incurious, abnormally unintelligent, amazingly inarticulate, fantastically uncultured, extraordinarily uneducated, and apparently quite proud of all these things.” – Hardball with Chris Matthews, NBC, 2000

“‘Bombing Afghanistan back into the Stone Age’ was quite a favourite headline for some wobbly liberals. The slogan does all the work. But an instant’s thought shows that Afghanistan is being, if anything, bombed OUT of the Stone Age.” – Daily Mirror, November 2001

“The noble title of ‘dissident’ must be earned rather than claimed; it connotes sacrifice and risk rather than mere disagreement …”

“Do bear in mind that the cynics have a point, of a sort, when they speak of the ‘professional naysayer’.” “To be in opposition is not to be a nihilist. And there is no decent or charted way of making a living at it. It is something you are, and not something you do.” – Letters to a Young Contrarian, 2001

“[Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.” – Slate, October 2003

“The search for nirvana, like the search for utopia or the end of history or the classless society, is ultimately a futile and dangerous one. It involves, if it does not necessitate, the sleep of reason. There is no escape from anxiety and struggle.” – Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays, 2004

“Those who had alleged that a million civilians were dying from sanctions were willing, nay eager, to keep those same murderous sanctions if it meant preserving Saddam!” – The Weekly Standard, May 2005.

“The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals.” – God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, 2007

“My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilisation, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can’t prove it, but you can’t disprove it either.” – God Is Not Great

“The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.” – The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer, 2007

“I became a journalist partly so that I wouldn’t ever have to rely on the press for my information.” – Hitch-22, 2010

“What is your idea of earthly happiness? To be vindicated in my own lifetime.” – Hitch-22

“Cheap booze is a false economy.” – Hitch-22

“Where would you like to live? In a state of conflict or a conflicted state?” – Hitch-22

I see nothing special in his ‘memorable quotes’ if nothing more than hubris, snobbery and just plain cynical pessimism.

Long may he rot.

Not meaning to gloat ghoulishly, but what exactly was this maverick’s contribution to the store of intellectual treasures?
I’ve heard and read him many times and he always came off as a pretentious bombast offering little but cliches about the evils of religion and the dogmatic claims that belief in God’s existence is obviously unscientific (Einstein and Newton notwithstanding). Who can be impressed by this unless they either are ignorant of the cliches or actually believe they are deep truths?

I second the thanks for the Counterpunch link.  I was beginning to wonder whether the man Scheer was describing was the same Christopher Hitchens with whom I had developed a nodding and far less charitable (media, not personal) acquaintance over the years.

The ultimate ironic “sentence” for Hitchens’ radical anti-theism would be for him to get to heaven and have to listen to all those syrupy harps for eternity…LOL

Thanks for the link to the Cockburn piece. Quite nice—with a Chomsky quote that nails Hitchens once and for all.

Alexander Cockburn sums it all up well in this commemoration:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/16/farewell-to-c-h/

The person who cannot believe, and yet keeps trying is in some way more appealing than the person who succumbs to anger and gives up. Almost nobody can laugh it all off.

Whenever someone dies of cancer the news hits hard.  The following is a farewell to Mr Hitchens from NewsBusters, a conservative webpage, and are my sentiments as well:

The death of Christopher Hitchens hits like the 2008 death of Tim Russert. Both were men you really wanted to hear from during a looming presidential election.

...Hitchens could be infuriating and even wrong, but there was nothing dishonest or insincere about the man…

Besides his battle with cancer, during his final years, Hitchens became most famous for his atheism; going so far as to take the act on the road with a series of highly publicized and very engaging debates. There was something different about Hitchens’ atheism, though. His lack of belief wasn’t a pose, but at the same time I always felt that his being so open and public and willing to engage on the subject said something more. It wasn’t so much that Hitchens was trying to prove believers wrong as much as he wanted believers to prove him wrong.

‘Seek and you will find.”

In his own incomparable way, Hitchens did seek. And if he was wrong about the existence of God (and I believe and hope he was), I’m guessing that counted for something and that we haven’t heard the last from him.

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/john-nolte/2011/12/16/warm-memory-chris-hitchens-flips-mahers-audience-none-you-smarter-george#ixzz1gk9uWNR4

Hitchens was a giant.  One did not have to agree with his politics
to appreciate his philosophy.  In a hundred years those invertebrates
who have taken obligatory obituary pot shots at his corpse will not be
much remembered for anything of any significance, but he will be.

agree with most of the comments above.  I for one am disappointed that I will remember him looking as in the graphic at the top of the article, with that ridiculous stubble.

Hitchens was amusingly brilliant for many years, but I
would never have him as any kind of comrade when the going
gets tough. He liked the money and that was the chief
reason he switched sides and came out sounding like the
utterly ridiculous Tony Blair, yet I sorrow at the thought
that he is irreplaceable, which can said of very few of
us.

Hitchens had the greatest verbal gifts of any in his generation and was certainly the most articulate, witty and feared debater against those on the right with whom he disagreed, someone you always looked forward to hearing in anticipation that, just maybe, tonight Hitchens would actually live up to his billing and fulfill his potential, knocking a few right-wing liars and reactionaries down for the count, for keeps. 

But that never happened, and he never did.  Instead Hitchens was consistently disappointing when the chips were down, when his chainsaw wit was needed to cut through the lies and pretension of the reactionary right.  Instead Hitchens would warm up a bit, then always back down, sparing the right the devastating humiliations that he had readily at hand, which they so richly deserved, and which everyone was waiting to hear.

Instead Hitchens squandered a major talent and slouched into the kind of reactionary cant that the right found more than pleasing. For Cheyney, Bush and the neocons, as well as for the wacko far right, Hitchens was a dream come true - an ideological Quisling, a true Benedict Arnold of the left, someone they could point to as clear evidence that, ultimately, all the really smart people would see the error of their progressive ways.

So Hitchens was, and is, an enormous disappointment, descending into pro-Bush bigotry against Islam and revealing himself to be as blind as Colin Powell or Al Franken, refusing to see the obvious, that Bush-Cheyney’s trillion-dollar war in Iraq was built on lies, racism and greed. 

Held up to the standard he himself invoked, George Orwell, Hitchens crumbles quickly, resembling instead the kind of fawning, sycophant of imperial power that the British ruling class would have been glad to reward him for being way back in his Oxford days. 

The bottom line was, and is, you couldn’t trust him - his judgment was bad and as a political commentator he was worse than useless.  Hubris, yes, misled him, and maybe a touch of envy for the kind of imperial power that started to beckon when he began saying the ‘right’ things to the ‘right’ people. 

No one should sentimentalize Hitchens - underneath all the fabulous words his mind was weak, unable to parse the realities beyond his own emotional reactions, which themselves were often inappropriate.  For Hitchens, God was an easy target - one that could never strike back, let alone offer a reward - but when it came time to address the crimes and genocidal rage of the Cheyney-Bush imperialist court, Hitchens bowed down, and, on bended knee, offered them his blessings and his benediction.

For that, he can never be forgiven.

i do not approve of ad hominem praise or blame.
hitchens has not noticed the desirable truth or principle that no land has the right to attack another land under any known
circumstance.
so, what ought we [all of us on this planet] do if a govt gases own people, jails/tortures, oppresses, etc., people in order to
continue governing and which saddam/iraqi govt did all that and in order to keep that evil empire together?
[imo, iraq had been and still is an evil empire; put together by other evil empires; which granted kurds of iraq independence in
‘19, only to revoke it in ‘22]
 
one does not need any intelligence [but oodles of humanity] to figure out what has to be done when a govt behaves like
saddam’s:
1)issue a warrant for saddam’s arrest or demand he appear before world justice [and of course never ever before american
justice]
2) if he’d have refused to appear before the court, u put price of billions or even trillions on his head [that wld have even been,
btw, cheaper and much less bloody than the aggression]
3) send specialists in manhunting to go after him. this last resource wldn’t have been needed since only 10 mln iraqis wanted
him dead and with that kind of money offered i bet saddam wld have begged europe to take him.
of course, it goes w. o. saying that by just warning any head of state not to emulate war criminals might have sufficed.
but, then, if not sufficing, what is one gonna lose by it?

but we shld all know, war against iraq had for a long time been the only option; so, sanity had to be chucked away or no war!
tnx, bozhidar balkas, vancouver

Maybe now with his cunning rhetoric he can convince God he doesn’t exist.

Words can barely express my joy at the death of this cheeleader for genocide.

http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com/2011/12/16/fait-diver-the-easy-way-out/

Many times here on Truth Dig have I seen the same hubris rise from the depths to attack Hitchens with gleeful myopic slobbering’s of dogs chasing a bitch in heat!

‘Any ignoramus can attack their betters and most ignoramuses do.’ Well said Arouete, obvious to some and missed by most!

I too have learned from Hitchens; as I stated; in respectful disagreement, but most importantly for me I weaned myself as a dolting fence sitting agnostic to an enlightened ranting card carrying atheist thanks to Hitichens and others here on TD!

I suppose Hitichens would find as I, the parching insults amusing and indication of job well done!

I stand with Robert in recognizing Hitch. Although he was very wrong regarding
the war and our own imperial crimes never forget that he is the Man who penned
the Trial of Henry Kissinger. For that alone he should be remembered and
honored. Over the last decade there was little from him that I could agree with but
once again he showed his true colors in having himself water-boarded and then
calling torture for what it was. Who else can say that from the either the pro-war
camp or otherwise

Hitchens was undeniably a superb stylist and remarkably clever man. The problem was that—using his quick wit—he could often win arguments even when his opponent had the better argument. Hitchens would have profited much from studying Montaigne, who knew that intellectual humility is inseparable from wisdom. Hitchens had a brilliant mind, but he was not wise. Hence, he functioned more as an entertainer than someone who made significant contributions to the marketplace of ideas.
Philip Hansten

By MK77 Obviously the Vatican didn’t agree with you for the Pope called Hitch to act as the ‘Devil’s Advocate” and his testimony prevented full sainthood. Only a total ignoramus who never read the work he presumes to pontificate on could fail to distinguish the difference between fact and opinion. No one has ever refuted even one single fact Hitch revealed about “Mommie Dearest.”

Any ignoramus can attack their betters and most ignoramuses do.

A beautifully written testimony to Hitchens by Robert Scheer, who obviously
knew Chris-TOPHER (thank you very much) very well.

I first discovered Hitchens in The Nation. 20 or 30 years ago, I think, or so it
seems.  I was bowled over by his intellect and fearlessness and recall heated
exchanges in the Letters section of The Nation between him and Alex Cockburn,
who must also be feeling the loss of Hitchens very deeply. Reading those
exchanges was my idea of a good time. (Sadly, The Nation. is not the magazine
it used to be, not least for Hitchens’ departure.)

Somewhere here I’ve a book of essays concerning Palestine, edited by Hitchens
and Said.

I well recall Hitchens’ argument for the invasion of Iraq. He put it out there on
C-Span at one point and I happened to catch it. It was mightily persuasive,
almost convinced me that the invasion was the right thing to do. Not quite, but
almost. As Scheer notes, Hitchens’ concern for the Kurds and his revulsion over
the crimes of Hussein drove his passionate, yet rational as ever, argument.
There was and remains a desperately deep moral question that might never be
fully answered. Hitchens chose what he believed the right moral stance. Like
Scheer, I never doubted Hitchens’ conviction, whatever else I might have said.

On another occasion on C-Span he spoke of how the term, “intellectual,” used
to be one of derision. He said it with relish, his nose a little stuck up like
Buckley used to do. Hitchens was very sure of himself, as well he might have
been given such a penetrating mind and given that he was almost always right.
Few, if any, could debate him and come out unscathed if not utterly beaten up.

I thought it took great courage to break with the left in general on the matter of
Iraq. He was sometimes cruel about it, but often enough on target, reminding
me a little of Lenin chastising a too often infantile left. With that much I could
readily agree.

I can only cite Scheer, who puts it far better than I ever could:

“That was his driving force, a seeker of truth to the end, and a deservedly
legendary witness against the hypocrisy of the ever-sanctimonious
establishment. What zeal this man had to eviscerate the conceits of the
powerful, whether their authority derived from wealth, the state or a claim to
the ear of the divine.”

We’re going to miss Hitchens more than we know.

R.I.P. Christopher.

I doubt if I have ever seen more bigoted an ignorant venomous commentary at Truthdig.

A great voice is silenced. Within just two hours of the announcement of Christopher Hitchens’ passing the New York Times linked to over 1,000 obits and related articles published around the world. His enemies and detractors may now cease trembling in fear of his mighty pen. No doubt the greatest living writer and destined to be amongst the immortals of journalism and political commentary. I was just re-reading Letters to A Young Contraction for the 3rd time when I saw his last published article “Trial of the Will.” The foreboding imbedded photo was all I needed to know the end was near. “The Quotable Hitchens” is my always-with-me book. Perfect for brief commutes or out and about and I want something quick and rich to read. Wham! Bam! Pow! Take that. No writer packed a punch to the solar plexus like Hitch. Once reading him no one can be the same.

Hitchens was the most fearless writers of the century and perhaps more influential than Voltaire in his time. A true voice in the wilderness that should be required reading for every American who waves our flag — indeed, required reading for every human being who claims to be Enlightened.  No education can be complete without reading the hyper-educated Hitchens. 

Too soon. Too soon. I will be forever thankful for the immense body of work he has left as his legacy to literature and contribution to humanity and th dignity of free thought untainted by the propaganda that has become indistinguishable from the doggerel of hacks that passes for journalism today.  Hitch is always a joy to read and read again. Few writers have contributed so much to pulling the wool from over my eyes. When I need to steel myself again cant of vulgar, sanctimonious, hypocrisy, Hitchens, like Voltaire, will always be my sword and shield.

Saying that Christopher Hitchens supported the Iraqi War out his humane concern for the Kurds is pure bullshit.
That war completely destroyed Iraq and its infra-structure and its social fabric and inflected suffering, death, disease and dislocation on millions of Iraquis. His support for that war is inexcusable and a man with his intellect and connections knew the real reason for that war which was oil. So, he was completely dishonest phony person and nothing but hanger-on to power.
They say he was not afraid of anyone! Why he should be afraid? He had the protection and the blessings of the power-that-be!

He didn’t impress me while alive.

I have only the utmost contempt for ‘liberals’ like Hitchens who supported US and
British imperialism and neo-colonialism with their chortle about it supposedly
being a lesser evil than the supposed manufactured villains that are being
removed from power by the Pentagon and its European allies.  Hitchens himself
died in an elite cancer treatment center reserved for treating many of the worst
international criminals and other richie richies.  I know that because I have
worked at MD Anderson Medical Center in Houston myself, where mainly imported
Philippine nurses have to wait on these scumbags in most subservient manner.  It
was a fitting departure place for this disgusting servant of the US imperialist
Pentagon propaganda machine.  I wonder if he was contemplating the nature of
the depleted uranium dumped by the Pentagon on Iraqi kids’ playgrounds upon
his departure from our destroyed planet?

America has a remarkably low standard for what constitutes a “legend”.

If support for an illegal and immoral war in Iraq that murdered millions of Iraqi women and children and displaced 3.5 milllion others leaving their country decimated and the 99% in abject poverty and without homes, or adequate food or medicine etc. qualifies one for status as a “legend” we are in very deep doo doo in America.

He was in the final analyis a flawed human being who supported an immoral and illegal war in Iraq. A war for OIL that has destroyed not only Iraq but America too with its fictitious “war on terror” designed to convert the American democracy into a corporate [fascist] one ruled by the wealthy elite kept in power by a privatized military police state that oppresses the populace.

That is some “legacy” to leave to the world.

And so the overglorifying and postmortem boot-licking begins. Hitchens was a superb writer, but by the end of his life he had turned into an irrational ranter supporting imperialist wars abroad obsessing himself with paranoid delusions about Muslims. People like the guy because he pissed on religion all the time, but it’s not as if he made any groundbreaking arguments on that subject or revealed anything we didn’t already know.

did hitchens ever posited or postulated why and how masses BECAME
DELUDED?.
from what he said, one [a child, especially] may conclude that the masses
want to stay deluded and lead by the nose or that thy ARE THAT WAY
AND THAT’S IT! is this the syndrome of blaming the victim?
every columnist, poster shld be ashamed for saying or implying that the
masses are deluded, stupid, uncaring, etc.
the desirable truth negates such utterances. tnx, bozhidar balkas,
vancouver

“Hitch was to the end singing that worker’s anthem on behalf of the deluded and abused masses with whom, for all of his personnel success, he most profoundly identified.”

I feel as if I knew Hitch in fond disagreement and even edgy agreement, I so appreciate the experience of his caustic enlightenment and am saddened by his demise. Mostly I will really miss his skilled artful ability of shoving a bowling ball up the arse of the deluded!

His spittle flaying critics show just how effective and great; his seemingly to them antagonistic; expression of reality really was! Will miss you Hitch…. a toast!

He was overcelebrated and overpraised, a self-seeking publicity hound through and through.

He slandered and slimed people who didn’t deserve it (e.g., Mother Teresa), and he cheerled for war and destruction in faraway lands.

These things can’t be forgotten as people mourn his premature death.

Mr. Scheer should be able to unflinchingly eulogize his friend .. on his own forum/domain .. without fear of incurring hurtful comments or recriminations or rebuttal.

Adios!

Mr. Scheer’s enthusiasm for Hitchens is not universal considering the one hundred and eighty degree turn he did ten years ago in embracing America’s wars in the middle east.  A very flexible guy, to say the least.

For the survivors…

Paisley Park by Prince

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHF20V8h-QQ

“Hitch was the opposite of the opportunist pundits
who competed with him for public space. “

That’s complete crock. No sooner did he move State
side and become the biggest switch hitter the left
had ever seen and no sooner had he “discovered” his
Jewish heritage then he became the behind-the-seen
apologist for the war on terror.

He swanked around the glitterati like a gifted writer
version of David Brooks.

I for one am happy to see him go. He got what he
deserved for the pain he so arrogantly encouraged.

Django Reinhardt - Tears

This is my favorite version. Please disregard all the Django graphics (except for the illustration in which he is playing a guitar with boobies) and focus on the music.

I imagine Hitch would have wanted it that way.

Sad we had to lose him at such a young age. Didn’t agree with his support of the war in Iraq but he was always reasoned and stimulated thought. He wasn’t afraid of anyone.