Atlas loving it
I have much to tell, but I gotta get out of town. I will report back later. Needless to say, it was an embarrassment, an intellectual battle with one side missing -- a vaudevillan in its place, a poor one at that. And the Brown Shirts were out in full, spewing their hate. The left wing moonbats in attendance were so unstable and disturbed that when Mr. Hitchens made his opening request for a moment of silence to remember the 160 Iraqis who'd been brutally murdered in Baghdad earlier that day, one man immediately shouted "No!" as comrades began jeering and booing the journalist. America, meet your "antiwar" activists.
Midway through the asylum's weekday outing, Galloway started calling Ariel Sharon a butcher and a war criminal. I booed, of course, and was met with a chorus of invective, namely "zionist," which, unbeknownst to me, was considered the ugliest of insults (codeword for Jews). Of course, I proudly shouted back repeatedly that yes, I am a zionist, yes, I am a zionist, etc. I nearly got my ass hauled outta there...................Hey, look, Galloway was calling Ariel Sharon a butcher and war criminal (you'll see it all on the Hitchens-Galloway “debate” Saturday night on CSPAN Book TV).
All the NYC Liberal Hawks, Bruce, Judith, Mary, “alcibiades,” Irwin..............a subdivision of LGF
Judith has her impressions of the debate at Keshertalk. That's her with wildman Irwin. Yo Bruce, you sure can
dance. Mara, Rona .......so happy to finally meet you.
The wildest part of the really big shuuuuuuu was the moonbats on line.
The meme on the left is that Bush was behind 9/11. Yeah, that bad.
QUICK UPDATE:
The only thing I might add to all the detailed well thought-out posts on the debate was Hitchens's very vocal support and advocacy for the Kurds, to which I went wild. He spoke of it numerous times. Yes, he sees the gross injustice of their oppression, and strongly believes, as I do, that we must back them, we must save these great people and ally.
The subject of the debate was supposed to be about whether the March 2003 war against Iraq was "necessary and just". Despite that, it was mostly about establishing Leftist cred. Much of Galloway's time was spent accusing Hitchens of being an apostate, and much of Hitchens time was spent wondering why Galloway and his supporters refused to condemn the nihilists and jihadists who target working-class civilians.
Galloway got the most cheers from the non-rightwing infiltrator crowd when he condemned President Bush or mentioned his "victory" in Washington. They cheered when he demanded that we "rid the world" of George Bush and Anthony Blair. He also got cheers when he called the U.S. and Britain the biggest rougue states in the world today, that no tinpot dictatorship in the Middle East could cause more damage than an invading imperialist superpower. People were cheering for the idea that genocidal, oppressive tinpot dictatorships could never be as bad as our democracy.We rightwing infiltrators were scattered througout the crowd. Judith, Irwin sat on the first floor on the left side. Mara sat near the press, including the BBC. I sat with Rona, Bruce W. and Pamela, a very enthusiastic Hitch supporter. Judging from the stern looks the people in front of us threw our way, they were mild-mannered Galloway supporters. The guys behind us, greying, rumpled academic types, were definitely Galloway dittoheads. Some were downright rabid. When Hitchens requested a moment of silence for the Iraqis who were sadistically murdered by the insurgency, they were among those shouting "NO! NO!" When Hitch praised the US for making life better for the Afghan people, they shouted "Who Cares?" When Galloway said that the 9/11 hijackers emerged out of a swamp created by us, their cheers didn't turn to boos.
One of them hurled the worst epithet he could think of at Pamela - he called her a zionist..........................
Read it all.............
Fascist ideals don't appeal to the poor or the oppressed, but they do appeal to the members of the wealthy and middle class who feel that they should (or must) have more power than they already do. Wealth and prosperity don't discourage fascism - as we've seen in the Middle East, wealth causes fascism to thrive.
Abracadabrah's hysterical observation:
My two favorites Hitchenisms from the night. He referred to the A.Q. Khan nuclear network as "a kind of Walmart for WMDs." And his reference to young Assad as the slobbering daupin, son of his slobbering father.
Book TV - C-Span 2
Saturday, September 17 at 9:00 pm
Sunday, September 18 at 12:00 pm
Monday, September 19 at 5:30 am
Rocco Dippo at FrontPageMag reports on Galloway in Boston.
UPDATE: September 7.o1 pm
Ron adds the following:
Did anybody else notice that GG's cadence was reminiscent of Hitler's manner of speaking?
And that the frenzy that he whipped the moonbats into ("Ariel Sharon is a butcher") sounded like that on those newsreel films of the Austrian monorch (he only had one) speaking from a Vienna palace balcony to the newly minted brownshirts?
In another time and place I would have felt very uneasy. Thank G-d for America. And the NRA.
to which I replied:
UPDATE: September 18
Ah, the elegant universe of the blogosphere. Tigerhawk runs his take on the Hitchens Gag-a-way and catches me heckling in the crowd!
The blogger in the crowd
Among the apparently many bloggers at Wednesday night's "Grapple in the Apple" (the debate between Christopher Hitchens and George Galloway in New York) was Pamela "aka Atlas" who writes the blog Atlas Shrugs.
As most of you know, I was also there, but up in the right side of the balcony surrounded by theforces of Darknessevident supporters of George Galloway. From up there, you could hear the faint sounds of boos through the applause when Galloway denounced Israel, but I couldn't see where the boos were coming from. It was therefore only upon reviewing the TiVoed broadcast of the event did I identify the source:
Not only does she blog, ladies and gentlemen, but she heckles! Given the fool in the row behind obnoxiously clapping over her head, I'm only surprised Pamela didn't turn around and whack him one.
Me too, tiger, me too.....................
UPDATE: September 20th Hat tip Irwin, from Slate
[by Hitchens]
Galloway update: Thanks to all who wrote to take my side after the debate last Wednesday. I wasn't actually on very good form and was feeling a bit hot and, after awhile, a bit sick. For example, when told I was a butterfly who had metamorphosed back into a slug, I ought to have been able to summon lepidoptera correctness and reply that butterflies pupate from sturdy, furry caterpillars. But others did notice this for me--and a man who can' tell a slug from a caterpillar is liable to miss the difference between an Iraqi dictatorship and an Iraqi democracy.
I don't know how Galloway felt, but he failed to show up two nights later when we were billed to appear on Canadian television, and he has since had Jane Fonda cancel her two promised appearances with him in Madison and Chicago this week. She claims to be recovering from hip surgery, and I hope she feels better soon, but I know she didn't have hip surgery between the time the debate was transmitted and the time she bailed.
