A Distasteful Encounter with William F Buckley Jr: Can there by any justification in calling a man a pro crypto-Nazi before ten million people on television? ibid. Gore Vidal, essay Esquire magazine
One of the longest lawsuits between two American public intellectuals that has ever been. ibid. Hitchens
If I had a pill which would reduce my age by twenty-five years I wouldn’t take it. Because I’m tired of life. ibid. Buckley, television interview
Nixon is exhausted, haggard, trailing in the polls, but then there is a ray of hope – the first ever television presidential debate. Race for the White House s1e1: John F Kennedy & Richard Nixon, CNN 2016
The continuation of the [Vietnam] policy is to some extent based on the fact of public apathy or public acceptance. William F Buckley: Firing Line, New York 1969, guest Noam Chomsky
The existence of Vietnam as an entity – as a social and culture entity – I think that’s what’s at stake. ibid.
The war is simply an obscenity, a depraved act by weak and miserable men. ibid. Buckley quotes Chomsky, viz. American Power and the New Mandarins, 1969
There were perhaps 160,000 Vietnamese – if we accept Bernard Fall’s figures again – killed by the Saigon government and the Americans prior to 1965. ibid. Chomsky
At the bottom this erodes the importance of the vote for people in this country … It prevents people using the ballot box … to change taxes and laws … We are being invited to give up those rights. Panorama, Tony Benn vs Roy Jenkins ***** with David Dimbleby, Benn, BBC 1975
Will destroy all that is most valuable in Britain. ibid.
Absolute sovereignty is nonsense. ibid. Jenkins
I think it’s about democracy. ibid. Benn
Pool our sovereignty. ibid. Jenkins
It would create jobs for our people – that was his [Heath] phrase. ibid. Benn
Common Market membership has been a disaster. ibid.
We’ve really got to have confidence in this country’s capacity to survive. ibid.
An economic and monetary union is a long way off … I think as a long-term objective, yes, it could be highly desirable. ibid. Jenkins
It’s almost hard to imagine anything more undemocratic than the view that political officials should not debate American wars in public, but only express concerns ‘privately with the administration’. Glenn Greenwald
The complete failure of the presidential debate, the insufficiency of the two men running for president, and the current state of American politics. Everything Wrong With the First Presidential Debate, Youtube 14.48, Second Thought 2020
Debate is a terrible format … The ideas themselves have little or no weight … It’s simply a modern form of duelling … Looking more like a nursing home fight over a game of Scrabble. ibid.
Both candidates told outright lies during the debate. ibid.
I think this is the first time we have publicly debated against each other which is for me a sad occasion. Christopher Hitchens v Tariq Ali, debate Georgetown University 2002, Ali
Did what happened on September 11th constitute an Act of War or was it an Act of Terror? … The response in my opinion should have been a measured response. ibid.
Osama bin Laden dead or alive – that was the cowboy rhetoric which emanated from the White House. ibid.
There have been other acts of terrorism even on the United States itself, like when the Twin Towers were first hit in the ’90s. ibid.
If you accept that their main objective was not the overthrow of the Taliban … but the capture of Al Qaeda then it has to be said that the war’s failed. ibid.
With a war you can at least pretend there are immediate results. ibid.
The War on Terror you will notice does not apply and cannot apply to state terror as long as the states in question are friendly with the United States. ibid.
A leadership which believes it has the right to do what it wants without consulting anyone. ibid.
This has now become a war to remap the world in the interests of the United States’ empire. ibid.
The concrete effects of this war are to promote terror. ibid.
The essential common element in the past remarks and the present remarks that he’s made is the concept of moral equivalence. ibid. Hitchens
This synthetic pseudo-pretended anti-imperialism. ibid.
There is, there has been for some time now, a civil war within Islamic society, within the Islamic world. ibid.
It’s because of the spirit of theocratic and tribal absolutism which is abroad among us again and has rich and powerful backers. ibid.
Imperial and fascistic forces … Upholding certain values against such forces. ibid.
I never thought I would live to see the Left sink that fucking low. ibid.
It [US] does contain the seeds of this actualisation and so do we. ibid.
Just to clear away some of the intellectual clutter. ibid.
It’s not to justify it [foreign support for terrorism], it’s to understand it and explain it so it bloody stops. ibid. Ali
Christopher has this simplistic view that in every way you have to take sides. I don’t believe that. ibid.
The first jihad of the 20th century was organised by Brzezinski. ibid.
If you don’t encourage an organic overthrow of these dictatorships … you actually create a bigger mess than you intend to sort out, which is exactly what will happen in Afghanistan. ibid.
When did we ever call on foreign powers to intervene to stop this. We didn’t do it because we used to in those days rely on the strength of the people to do it. ibid.
And as for this fascist argument, do give it a break, Christopher. ibid.