Christopher Hitchens dead at 62

[cliffy1]

Yeah, as in "Thank Christ I get a week off!"

Love your avatar. Are you a fan of Gingrich?

I would think that Christ must be having a hissy fit over what has become of his holiday.

[Woodenhead]

Not a fan of any American politician. I just love newts.

[Jack2010]

I just read the last article that Christopher worte for Vanity Fair. He was a true intellectual. I am going to miss his rather unique view of the world and his cogent comments. Mostly, I agreed with his viewpoints and respect him for his beliefs. A great man !

[averagejoe]

Kinda figures.....

Hitchens became a Marxist and a Trotskyist in his teens, beliefs that further developed during his time at Oxford University. In the 1960s, Hitchens joined the left – specifically the International Socialists – drawn by his anger over the Vietnam War, nuclear weapons, racism and "oligarchy", including that of "the unaccountable corporation." He became a socialist "largely [as] the outcome of a study of history, taking sides ... in the battles over industrialism and war and empire."

But by 2001, Hitchens had disavowed socialism, declaring "capitalism is the only revolutionary system."[2] In the same year he told Rhys Southan of Reason magazine that he could no longer say "I am a socialist." Socialists, he claimed, had ceased to offer a positive alternative to the capitalist system. Capitalism had become the more revolutionary economic system, and he welcomed globalization as "innovative and internationalist." He suggested that he had returned to his early, pre-socialist libertarianism, having come to attach great value to the freedom of the individual from the state and moral authoritarians.[3] Although, by 2004, he described himself as "a recovering ex-Trotskyite,"[4] in a 2006 debate, he remarked, "I am no longer a socialist, but I still am a Marxist".[5]

Hitchens, as recently as 2009, again referred to himself as "a Marxist." Hitchens continued to affirm his respect for Marxist theory, including his 2009 article for The Atlantic entitled "The Revenge of Karl Marx". There he explains how Marx's economic analysis in Das Kapital has predicted many of the failures of the U. S. economy, including the late-2000s recession. In a June 2010 interview with The New York Times, he stated, "I still think like a Marxist in many ways. I think the materialist conception of history is valid. I consider myself a very conservative Marxist." He continued to regard both Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky as great men, and the Bolsheviks' October Revolution as a necessary event in the modernization of Russia.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christophe ... ical_views

Marxist, but no socialist

Hitchens stopped describing himself as a socialist in 2002, but insists that he remains a Marxist and a believer in the materialist conception of history. This distinction may not be as implausible as it appears. As the political fallout from the financial crisis demonstrated, while Marxism retains immense analytical appeal, it is of little prescriptive value

http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2010/ ... chens-life