Christopher Hitchens: Frasi in inglese (pagina 10)

Christopher Hitchens era giornalista, saggista e critico letterario britannico. Frasi in inglese.
Christopher Hitchens: 359   frasi 13   Mi piace

“It was an axiom of "containment" that no part of the known world could be considered neutral. "Neutralism" was among the Cold Warriors' gravest curse words, applied with caustic hostility to India and even France. Those who were not with were against, subjected to intense economic and ideological — and sometimes military — pressure to fall into line.”

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Christopher Hitchens

"How Neo-Conservatives Perish" (1990).
1990s, For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports (1993)

“It‘s [Fahrenheit 9/11] the work of a moral cretin and a political idiot. And it's up to the Democratic National Committee to say, do they want to continue being photographed with this man as we go into a very important election, not just in the United States, I might add, but first Democratic elections to be held in Iraq and in Afghanistan? In a few months, we will know the outcome of all these. In all three cases, Michael Moore says that the enemy is George Bush and Saddam Hussein and Mr. Zarqawi and Mr. Bin Laden are no problem. Indeed, they are—what a wonderful way to celebrate the Fourth of July weekend, by the way. Indeed, they are the Minutemen. They‘re the staunch American revolutionaries. Does he tell this to the widows that he goes and exploits?”

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Christopher Hitchens

"Scarborough Country on MNSBC" http://web.archive.org/web/20070911061520/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5344115/, (2004-06-30): On Michael Moore
2000s, 2004

“Three words for those who want to put the Christ back in Christmas: Jingle Bell Rock.”

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Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-24
Christopher Hitchens on The True Spirit of Christmas
The Wall Street Jorunal
0099-9660
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204791104577110880355067656.html
2010s, 2011

“Inanity is pretending that Afghanistan will go away if we leave.”

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Christopher Hitchens

Morning Meeting on MSNBC http://rawstory.com/rawreplay/?p=4373 (2009-12-04): On the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan
2000s, 2009

“Taking the points in order, it's fairly easy to demonstrate that Saddam Hussein is a bad guy's bad guy. He's not just bad in himself but the cause of badness in others. While he survives not only are the Iraqi and Kurdish peoples compelled to live in misery and fear (the sheerly moral case for regime-change is unimpeachable on its own), but their neighbors are compelled to live in fear as well.

However—and here is the clinching and obvious point—Saddam Hussein is not going to survive. His regime is on the verge of implosion. It has long passed the point of diminishing returns. Like the Ceausescu edifice in Romania, it is a pyramid balanced on its apex (its powerbase a minority of the Sunni minority), and when it falls, all the consequences of a post-Saddam Iraq will be with us anyway. To suggest that these consequences—Sunni-Shi'a rivalry, conflict over the boundaries of Kurdistan, possible meddling from Turkey or Iran, vertiginous fluctuations in oil prices and production, social chaos—are attributable only to intervention is to be completely blind to the impending reality. The choices are two and only two—to experience these consequences with an American or international presence or to watch them unfold as if they were none of our business.”

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Christopher Hitchens

2002-11-07
Machiavelli in Mesopotamia
Slate
1091-2339
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2002/11/machiavelli_in_mesopotamia.html: On the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2000s, 2002

“To describe this film [Fahrenheit 9/11] as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.”

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Christopher Hitchens

2004-06-21
Unfairenheit 9/11
Slate
1091-2339
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2004/06/unfairenheit_911.html: On Michael Moore.
2000s, 2004

“Terrorism is the tactic of demanding the impossible, and demanding it at gunpoint.”

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Christopher Hitchens

2002-11-18
http://slate.msn.com/?id=2074129
Terrorism: Notes toward a definition
Slate
1091-2339
2000s, 2002

“…in fact, the war against Iraq is continuing. And it's continuing now by the means which the administration described as contemptible and useless, when they were put forth as an alternative to an actual all-out aerial bombardment. Namely, economic sanctions, which do have the effect of slowly starving and crippling the population of Iraq, while leaving the military caste of Saddam Hussein and his criminal Baath Party in charge. I was asked the other day … why do you think the administration decided to spare Saddam Hussein … and I said I think because they thought they might need him again…”

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Christopher Hitchens

1992
NPR
Talk of the Nation with John Hockenberry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcXsync4bD8
1990s

“Only a complete moral idiot can believe for an instant that we are fighting against the wretched of the earth. We are fighting, as I said before, against the scum of the earth”

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Christopher Hitchens

"A View from the Patriotic Left" http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=F01E41CB-A584-4597-B9BE-86BBD9B3F7A1, Boston Globe (2002-09-09)]: On the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan
2000s, 2002

“My challenge is really to say, 'Can you name me a moral action or a statement that has been made by a believer that couldn't have been made by a non-believer?”

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Christopher Hitchens

The Rise of Atheism, ABC News, 30 September 2007, 1 September 2015 http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3671172,
Alternate version: Name me an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer.
2007-11-01
Excerpt from The Portable Atheist
USA Today
0161-7389
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/excerpts/2007-11-01-portable-atheist_N.htm
Hitchens posed this challenge many times in debate or during lectures, variously phrased, claiming no one had ever been able to pass it, although everyone could easily answer the corollary question: "Could you name a wicked action or a vile statement made by someone, attributable only to their religious faith?"
Christopher Hitchens Moral Challenge to the god fearing religious folks, YouTube, 20 June 2009, 1 September 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqFwree7Kak,
2000s, 2007

“The metaphor of the watch was very much used by the deists. And of course, watches run down, and break down, and it was believed by many of them that if an intelligence had begun the universe, begun the process, he'd took no further interest in it - didn't intervene in human affairs, didn't mind who won the war, didn't mind which country was the leading one, watched with relative—well, or didn't watch—with indifference, plague, famine, war and so forth. That's a very hard position to oppose, by the way. It's impossible, actually, to disprove - one can only the evidence for it isn't quite strong enough to be persuasive. To be a theist, to be a member of a monotheistic religion, that believes that truth has been revealed, that god has intervened in human affairs, that he has a plan for us - each of as individually and as a species, and that it shows - is a very much more difficult undertaking. I'm gonna show why I think it's more or less impossible.”

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Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens vs. William Dembski, 18/11/2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctuloBOYolE&t=9m23s
2010s, 2010

“Some people say that without God, people would give themselves permission to do anything. [Yet] only with God, only with the view that God’s on your side, can people give themselves permission to do things that otherwise would be called satanic.”

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Christopher Hitchens

Freedom From Religion Foundation, 21/10/2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6WByhz44EA&t=4m25s
2000s, 2007

“…those who say I am being punished are saying that god can't think of anything more vengeful than cancer for a heavy smoker.”

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Christopher Hitchens

Origine: 2010s, 2011, Mortality (2012), p. 88.

“As a terrified, half-aware imbecile, I might even scream for a priest at the close of business, though I hereby state while I am still lucid that the entity thus humiliating itself would not in fact be "me." (Bear this in mind, in case of any later rumors or fabrications.)”

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Christopher Hitchens

II.
2010s, 2011, Mortality (2012)

“The disquieting thing about newscaster-babble or editorial-speak is its ready availability as a serf idiom, a vernacular of deference. "Mr. Secretary, are we any nearer to bringing about a dialogue in this process?"”

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Christopher Hitchens

"Politically Correct" (1991).
1990s, For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports (1993)

“There is a limit to the success of conservative populism and the exploitation of "little guy" or "silent majority" rhetoric, and it is very often reached because of the emaciated, corrupted personalities of the demagogues themselves.”

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Christopher Hitchens

"Nixon: Maestro of Resentment" (1990).
1990s, For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports (1993)

“It is rather a pity, considered from the standpoint of the professional politician or opinion-taker, that nobody knows exactly what "credibility" is, or how one acquires it. "Credibility" doesn't stand for anything morally straightforward, like meaning what you say or saying what you mean. Nor does it signify anything remotely quantifiable — any correlation between evidence presented and case made. Suggestively, perhaps, it entered the language as a consensus euphemism during the Vietnam War, when "concerned" members of the Eastern Establishment spoke of a "credibility gap" rather than give awful utterance to the thought that the Johnson administration was systematically lying. To restore its "credibility," that administration was urged — not to stop lying, but to improve its public presentation. At some stage in the lesson learned from that injunction, the era of postmodern politics began. It doesn't seem ridiculous now to have "approval ratings" that fluctuate from week to week, because these are based upon the all-important "perception" factor, which has in turn quite lost its own relationship to the word "perceptive."”

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Christopher Hitchens

"Credibility Politics: Sado-Monetarist Economics" (1989).
1990s, For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports (1993)

“I’m quite convinced in my own mind that those who were arguing that [the need to intervene in Iraq] was a more immediate one than some believed - were I’m sure convinced that they were right on fact, I don’t think they were making it up. So as to lying, I don’t think it has been established that any lies were told.”

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Christopher Hitchens

Scotland Live (2005-10-31): On the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2000s, 2005

“Did we not aid the grisly Taliban to achieve and hold power? Yes indeed 'we' did. Well, does that not double or triple our responsibility to remove them from power?”

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Christopher Hitchens

Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays (Nation Books, 2004): On the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan
2000s, 2004

“There is a reason for the affected profession of "anarchist sympathies" among Tories and grandees, and of "libertarian principles" by Hobbesian yahoos of the right. Among the former, one sees the upholding of the view that a gentleman's business and property are his own, and none of the government's. Among the latter, a distaste for democracy, for taxation, and for the need to consult others about the planet.”

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Christopher Hitchens

"Shouting Anarchy" (1989).
1990s, For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports (1993)