The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> a moment of cringe....

a moment of cringe....
Posted by pancho (Moderator) - Saturday, April 2 2016, 16:37:19 (UTC)
from *** - *** Commercial - Windows NT - Mozilla
Website:
Website title:

Towards the end of his debate with Galloway, Hitchens warns the audience..."I hope you know you're being televised, your mothers are watching..."

I've watched the debate more then 20 times and I still feel my face flush with embarrassment for him. It's not only a childish thing to say, to influence any audience....but one at a fine University like Baruch College? really? Your mommies are WATCHING?

What did he hope that comment would result in? Would anyone at that debate actually pause to worry? Would the "warning" change anyone's mind or feelings...or just make them sneaky and dishonest and afraid to own up to their ideas...clearly he said it because he wanted the audience to stop cheering Galloway...but would they? Would that comment get them to hold their tongues or stop applauding Galloway?

Incidentally that must be one of the few times in his life Hitchens has been mauled like that by an audience (not to mention opponent)..and such a well-educated and informed one at that. No wonder he was sweating worse than Nixon ever did.

Or does this show a more sinister side to Hitchens? In his religion debates he quite rightly rails against the idea of a dictator in the sky "watching your every move and even your thoughts". Yet here he is trying to make an all-seeing dictator out of their MOTHERS!

In a democracy with Free Speech and all that, where he encourages us to break free of God the Dictator, does he really mean we should watch our speech because mothers might hear? And how does he know that it wasn't mothers and THEIR ideas which influenced and taught their children to cheer someone like Galloway who is only telling the simple truth.

Why would Hitchens, of all people, try to use fear and spying TV/Mom to stifle free and open discussion?

More than anything else, more puzzling than any other question... is why would an otherwise so sublimely inteligent person choose to crap all over himself, in public, towards the end of his life? Why?

Mothers indeed! And what a feeble, shameful, recourse to "tyranny" in the end.



---------------------


The full topic:



***



Powered by RedKernel V.S. Forum 1.2.b9