Image by Eric B. via Flickr
by Michael Parenti
Writer, Dandelion Salad
originally published Dec. 23, 2011
June 24, 2017
Here is a debate held at Wesleyan University in 2005 between Christopher Hitchens and me. Hitchens went to his grave as a supporter of the Bush/Cheney venture. He supported Bush in 2004. His turn to the right (from weak leftish/center) won him the attention of all the mass media, especially Fox and the like, and lecture invitations at fat fees. Others of us were less enthralled about his anti-Islam warrior politics.
jyannielli on Dec 21, 2011
A debate featuring Christopher Hitchens and Michael Parenti, held at Wesleyan University, April 18, 2005.
Michael Parenti is an award winning, internationally known author. His most recent books are The Face of Imperialism (a critique of the U.S. global empire; 2011) and Waiting for Yesterday: Pages from a Street Kid’s Life (an ethnic memoir about his early life in Italian Harlem; 2013); and Profit Pathology and Other Indecencies. For further information about his work, visit his website: www.michaelparenti.org.
From the archives:
London Bridge Attack – Hypocrisy, Double Standards and Double Dealing by Felicity Arbuthnot
Mosul’s “Liberation”: Another Fallujah, Dresden or Hiroshima? by Felicity Arbuthnot
The Losing Warfare State by Ralph Nader
Abby Martin and Chris Hedges: Donald Trump and Christianized Fascism
The Great American Perpetual Motion War Machine by Greg Maybury
Chris Hedges: We are Trapped Within this Death Spiral of Violence + Iraq War Tribunal
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My admittedly, limited grasp of the history of history, does seem to convey a single fact, that I find hard not to accept. That ’empires’ are either defeated by other ’empires,’ or simply disintegrate and collapse, but for a variety of generally accepted case-specific reasons, like drought, migration, disease, catastrophic events and so on.
In Britain, a few brave souls argue that we are still suffering the dire post-facto consequences of predatory imperial ambition and invasive abuses ~ more than two centuries’ worth ~ and I for one, actually believe we definitely are. There are manifold aspects to those consequences of course.
Cultural diversity is one rich benefit. While over-crowding & urban congestion is another. The consolidation of hereditary ‘wealth,’ through the idea of justified class privilege ~ masquerading as meritocracy (ie manifesting thro’ social influence & property ownership, profits from extractive technologies & rapacious covert dominance, thro’ the planned deployment of war-making resources) is yet another.
Apologist historicity and educational bias, is also a reflexively engineered pseudo-social advantage, maintaining the illusion of gracious superiority..
When all is said and done though, massive ecological harm, on an industrial-spectrum scale, is probably the most egregious consequence. So, ecocide is a critical term that needs to be front and centre, holding pride of place in the dissident lexicon of all true activists.
So much for the establishment’s blandishments, quasi-moral posturing & empty rhetoric.
Earnest and prolonged discussions with an Iraqi friend over fifteen years ago in N Spain, convinced me the overthrow of Saddam was an urgent and desirable outcome; a decade earlier I had been disgusted by Bush senior’s jingoism, but was sure that Saddam’s demise would improve things.
However, my confidence soon dwindled, when I realized that Jacques Chirac, who was severely mocked outside the Francophone universe, actually had the right idea; it was clear the US had not a clue about how to conduct a radical transition to a better Iraqi society. The formula was shoot first and govern later, by some miraculous type of instant default form of unsustainable consumerist ‘enforcement’ of wishful thinking.
The consequences of this catastrophic intervention are now indelibly embossed in living time; forever stained by the blood that is witness to the unspeakable suffering of millions of Muslims.
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