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February 24, 2006
"Solidarity with Denmark, death to fascism."
Ian Schwartz has a 2 mintue and 27 second video available of Christopher Hitchens' speech at the Danish Embassy in DC today, where Hitchens organized a pro-Denmark rally. [Hat-tip: Instapundit]. I've put together a little transcript of Hitchens' remarks:
"Brothers and sisters, I [inaudible] . . . a speech.I imagine that Hitchens and I might disagree on many points. He's more or less a socialist after all. But he's pretty much won my admiration for all time with his spirited defense of the war in Iraq. The piece he wrote in the Weekly Standard back in September alone is absolutely outstanding [see A War to Be Proud Of], and when I see things like Fukuyama backpedaling, I look back on that piece and feel comforted.[Laughter]
It misses the point . . . [inaudible] [laughter]
[Crowd: "Speech! Speech!"]
Brothers and sisters, I just thought I would thank everyone for coming and say how touching it is that people will take a minute from a working day to do something that our government won't do for us, which is quite simply to say that we know who our friends and our allies are, and they should know that we know it. And that we take a stand of democracy against dictatorship. And when the embassies of democracies are burned in the capital cities of dictatorships, we think the State Department should denounce that, and not denounce the cartoons.
[Cheers of support and applause]
And that we're fed up with the invertebrate nature of our State Department.
[Laughter, cheers, applause]
If we had more time, brothers and sisters, I think that we should have gone from here to the embassy of Iraq, to express our support for another country that is facing a campaign of lies and hatred and violence. And we would -- if we did that we would say that we knew blasphemy when we saw it, we knew sacrilege when we saw it: it is sacrilegious to blow up beautiful houses of worship in Samarra. That would be worth filling the streets of the world to protest about.
[Cheers and applause]
We are not for profanity nor for disrespect, though we are, and without any conditions, or any ifs or any buts, for free expression in all times and in all places
[applause]
and our solidarity . . . [inaudible]
[applause]
So, we said we would, I told the Danish embassy that we would disperse at one o'clock. I hope and believe we've made our point, I hope and believe that today's tv will have some more agreeable features, such as your own, to show, instead of the faces of violence and hatred, and fascism, and I think I can just close by saying, solidarity with Denmark, death to fascism.
[Applause as Hitchens steps away]
Today only increases my favor for Hitchens. Three cheers for Denmark!
Posted by Chester at February 24, 2006 9:52 PM
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» In The Line Of Fire from All Things Beautiful
Michelle Malkin as usual doesn't miss a beat: "Today, the NYTimes editorial board pretends to show solidarity....Excuse me? Remind me what day...I really love her, she always tells it like it is, no punches spared there.
[Read More]
Tracked on February 25, 2006 1:53 PM
Comments
Thanks for the transcript. Hitchens is a hero.
Posted by: Rick Richman at February 25, 2006 12:00 AM
"He's more or less a socialist after all."
So is Tony Blair.
The difference is that Hichens writes brilliant English. He can state his opinions with real punch.
Posted by: Don Cox at February 25, 2006 11:08 AM
Whatever else mr. Hitchens may be,I will forever cherish his courage in backing the Iraq War. God must love people of principle. Thank you Sir.
Posted by: Rene Branch at February 25, 2006 2:20 PM
I have had the opportunity to tell Christoher Hitchens in person that I admire his courage. He is bravely making a stand against Islamofascists and their allies on the far left. Both groups have a reputation of being very nasty when confronted to say the least. We must support nations and individuals who courageously speak out against fascism. I am not a big one for attending demonstrations but I look forward to a New York rally in support of Denmark.
Posted by: Rob at February 26, 2006 3:49 PM
Hitchens has a covert agenda we would all do well to remember when weighing his actions and words. Well beyond his interest in any political position is an abiding, seething hatred of any and all religions.
This obsession taints his judgment to a degree seldom observed in an otherwise rational, secular
commentator.
One would need to search the roster of rabid fundamentalists to locate an equal to Hitchen's capacity for wrath.
Posted by: Bob Magill at February 27, 2006 7:20 AM
bob, this is something else that I'm aware of about Hitchens. He seems none too friendly to religions. I'd like to read a bit more of his work to discover why . . .
Posted by: Chester at February 27, 2006 11:13 PM
Chester:
What follows is by Tom Piatak, American Conservative, 10/10/05
Indeed, nothing shows Hitchens’s continuing fidelity to the Bolshevik ideal more than his hatred for religion. He told the Guardian on May 31, 2005, “I can’t stand anyone who believes in God, who invokes the divinity ... I mean, that to me is a horrible, repulsive thing.” But Hitchens is by no means equal in his contempt for religions. He has written favorably of Judaism and described Islam as having been a “civilizing and creative force in many societies.” Hitchens has no such kind words for Christianity, especially as manifested in the Roman Catholic Church. This is hardly surprising: the Roman Catholic Church was Bolshevism’s most consistent and successful adversary, beginning with the 1920 defense of Warsaw from Trotsky’s Red Army, when the future Pius XI, in Norman Davies’s words, “stood on the ramparts of Radzymin and cursed the advancing hordes of Antichrist in person” and the Polish Army—dismissed by Trotsky as being “steeped in priests’ lies”—prevented the Red Army from watering its horses anywhere near Hendon.
A straightforward description of all Hitchens’s anti-Catholic outbursts would fill every page in this magazine—he recently argued, in essence, that Judge Roberts should not be confirmed to the Supreme Court because he is Catholic—but his most disgusting, and revealing, anti-Catholic spasm was his reaction to the death of John Paul II, a man he dismissed as “an elderly and querulous celibate, who came too late and who stayed too long
Posted by: Robert Magill at March 1, 2006 7:39 AM