Kudos to Hitchens

Dear Counterpunchers,

Though we hail from different sides of the spectrum (hello!), I was wondering if you could help me. I am trying to send a e-mail message to noted gadfly CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, and so far he has not replied.

I find this odd. Perhaps I have the wrong address (christopher.hitchens@yahoo.com). I want to thank the fellow for NOT writing anything during these past few weeks about the dreaded conflict in LEBANON. It’s too soon! Instead, he wrote a blistering attack on the actor MEL GIBSON, which the vile man certainly seemed to deserve. Kudos to Hitchens! Down with Gibson! Below is the text of my letter, so you can see what I’m getting at. In this day and age, not enough people thank other people for not doing things.

Do you have his e-mail address? I thank you in advance, For doing SOMETHING, (sending me Hitchens’s e-mail address) And remain, Your servant in most things,

CHIP MITCHELL

Dear Christopher Hitchens,

As a dedicated reader of yours and longtime correspondent of many other fabled luminaries, I wish to thank you for all your EXEMPLARY work. And specifically, sir, for your most recent post at the SLATE.com asking, “Is Mel Gibson an anti-Semite?” Reading that piece certainly left me with the very strong impression that the answer is “YES,” which, I believe, was the idea. Kudos. I also enjoyed your recent posts debunking the noxious VALERIE PLAME and whatever that was all about (nothing).

Sad to say, you have been lambasted by the ignorant and inconsolable masses for keeping silent about the recent hostilities in the country of LEBANON, which has been in turmoil for weeks now. “Hitchens is handcuffed,” or so goes the latest talking point being passed around among the do-nothing ignoramalati. But these days, the news media is all LEBANON LEBANON LEBANON. The blog-world is filled with LEBANON LEBANON LEBANON. Everywhere you go, people are asking you, “have you heard about LEBANON LEBANON LEBANON?”

It’s in the streets and on the sidewalks; it’s at restaurants and dinner tables; it’s in the air we breathe and the water we drink. For this very reason, sir, it is absolutely vital to remind people that it is a very big world and many other things are happening BESIDES Lebanon. You are committed to doing this. In the last three weeks you have pointed to two important events that have escaped our attention: Valerie Plame and Mel Gibson. Valerie Plame, you say, is not worth our attention, and you lay out a devastating case as to why this is so. Meanwhile, the vile GIBSON has been influencing millions with his confusing films for decades, and now he also seems to be just an utter bigot. Anyone paying attention would have known this years ago, you say. Thus, it is a call to a different kind of attention, one that avoids both the drumbeat of war and the investigation of the drumbeat of war, and focuses instead on something subtler, something deeper, something more drunkenly anti-semitic.

Lebanon is not unimportant. We only say: “let us together consider the rest of the world as well.” As I have recently explained to my associates, OBJECTIVITY is impossible in a time of crisis. Who started this? What to do about the noncivilian civillian combatants? What is infrastructure? The truth is, we dare not say, and therefore we must remain modestly circumscribed in the light of our own limited (powerful) insight. You are wise not to enter this fray, sir, as foolish opinions fly over the landscape like so many Katyusha rockets. They don’t know where they’re going to land. In the upcoming weeks, as the insipid pundits waste their energies tempting HISTORY with a lot of disposable, striangulated sanctimony (feel free to use that), let me suggest a number of other headlines worth pointing our attention to:

ADVERTISING IS EVERYWHERE

YOUR HOUSE: PREPARED FOR THE BIRD FLU?

LETHAL WEAPON 4 FIRES BLANKS

THE TROUBLE WITH ADULTERY

CINDY SHEEHAN IS IGNORANT

HIPPIES, GET OUT OF THE WAY

SUMMER BUDGET ESCAPES

Joseph Conrad once said, “We live exactly the same way as we dream -all alone.” But he didn’t know us (me and you) and what we’re capable of. We can live and dream together, so long as we also STICK together, and agree.

Sticking with you sir, I am,

Precision guided, and,

Your servant in most things,

CHIP MITCHELL

CHIP MITCHELL can be reached at chipmitchell44@gmail.com