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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Heren, Heren<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Als zelfbenoemd Nieuw Zeeland deskundige (ik heb er een poosje
gewoond) moet mij van het hart dat aardbevingen een zeer regelmatig
verschijnsel zijn in Nieuw Zeeland, met als droevig dieptepunt de aardbeving
van 22 Februari jl. in Christchurch. De seismologische dienst van NZ is zeer
alert op bewegingen in de aardkorst en het is derhalve niet merkwaardig dat dit
gehos onmiddellijk geregistreerd wordt. Kleine correctie op onderstaand
bericht: ondanks het feit dat er een aantal vulkanen zijn op het Noorder eiland
waarvan er 1 (Mt.Ruapehu) redelijk actief is, wordt het merendeel van de
aardbevingen veroorzaakt door tectonische activiteit. Nieuw Zeeland ligt op de
zgn. Ring of Fire waar vulkaanuitbarstingen en aardbevingen een zeer frequent
verschijnsel zijn.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Google maar eens via “Christchurch Earthquake” en je
vindt alle informatie.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Ernst Debets/<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Zaanstad<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm'>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>Van:</span></b><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>
d66-bounces@tuxtown.net [mailto:d66-bounces@tuxtown.net] <b>Namens </b>Henk
Elegeert<br>
<b>Verzonden:</b> vrijdag 16 december 2011 19:28<br>
<b>Aan:</b> informele D66 discussielijst<br>
<b>Onderwerp:</b> Re: [D66] Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<h1 style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:13.5pt;
margin-left:0cm;line-height:25.5pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:
21.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1A1A1A;letter-spacing:-.75pt'>Foo
Fighters oorzaak aardbeving<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<div style='margin-bottom:18.0pt;overflow-x:hidden;overflow-y:hidden'
id=article-content>
<div style='margin-bottom:4.5pt'>
<p class=MsoNormal style='line-height:13.5pt;background:white'><span
style='font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#A0A0A0'>Update: donderdag
15 dec 2011, 11:53<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<p style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:12.0pt;
margin-left:0cm;line-height:13.5pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1A1A1A'>De Amerikaanse rockgroep
Foo Fighters heeft er tijdens een concert letterlijk voor gezorgd dat
Nieuw-Zeeland op haar grondvesten schudde. Toen de Fighters op het podium
stonden mat een nabijgelegen seismologisch bureau trillingen die gelijk waren
aan vulkanische onrust.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:12.0pt;
margin-left:0cm;line-height:13.5pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1A1A1A'>De oorzaak is de
uitzinnige gekte van 50.000 meespringende fans. Vooral op de hoogtepunten van
de nummers sloegen de meters van het instituut uit.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:12.0pt;
margin-left:0cm;line-height:13.5pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1A1A1A'>Het is echter niet voor het
eerst dat het seismologische bureau trillingen meet die veroorzaakt worden door
een evenement. Eerder namen ze al trillingen waar tijdens het WK Rugby.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:12.0pt;
margin-left:0cm;line-height:13.5pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1A1A1A'>"<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:12.0pt;
margin-left:0cm;background:white'><span class=apple-style-span><span
style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1A1A1A'>Wat
nou Trotski intelligent? Die krijgt werkelijk nog geen
sigaretenvloeitje in beweging, man. :) </span></span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:12.0pt;
margin-left:0cm;line-height:13.5pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1A1A1A'>Henk Elegeert (wiens
moeder ook stof verzameld, met de stofzuiger. Wellicht ook delen van de tot
stof vergane Trotski. :) )<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:12.0pt;
margin-left:0cm;line-height:13.5pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1A1A1A'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style='mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:12.0pt;
margin-left:0cm;line-height:13.5pt;background:white'><span
class=apple-style-span><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
color:black'>2011/12/16 Antid Oto </span></span><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
color:black'><<a href="mailto:protocosmos66@gmail.com">protocosmos66@gmail.com</a>></span><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1A1A1A'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0cm 0cm 0cm 6.0pt;
margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0cm'>
<p class=MsoNormal>(Zelf nooit veel belangstelling gehad voor deze renegaat en
pseudo-Trot. Zijn<br>
boekje over Thomas Paine ligt nog ergens stof te verzamelen.)<br>
<br>
Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011)<br>
by Alex Callinicos<br>
<br>
The news of the writer Christopher Hitchens’s death fills my mind with<br>
contradictory images and feelings.<br>
<br>
I remember the young Christopher. He was a couple of years ahead of me at the<br>
same Oxford college in the late 1960s. He was then the best known activist of<br>
the International Socialists (IS, now the Socialist Workers Party) at Oxford.<br>
<br>
Chain-smoking, elegant even in the donkey jacket that was standard issue on the<br>
revolutionary left, he was a brilliant orator. It was from him that I first<br>
learned, often with the force of revelation, many of the main ideas of the<br>
Marxist tradition.<br>
<br>
Even then it was clear that Christopher was hedging his bets. In his<br>
autobiography Hitch-22 he concedes he led a double life, “speaking with a<br>
bullhorn from an upturned milk crate outside a factory, and then later<br>
scrambling into a dinner jacket and addressing the Oxford Union debating
society<br>
under the rules of parliamentary order”.<br>
<br>
This tension became stronger after Christopher left Oxford and became a<br>
journalist in London. He became a central figure in a famous literary set,<br>
including Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie, and drifted towards Labourism.<br>
<br>
The Portuguese Revolution of 1975-6 brought the reformist Socialist Party into<br>
confrontation with self-organised workers and soldiers. It marked, Christopher<br>
writes, “the end of the line” for his relationship with the IS.<br>
<br>
The last time I saw Christopher was in the summer of 1980, when he was about to<br>
move to the US—permanently, as it proved. America was the making of his
career.<br>
Chatshow audiences loved watching pompous grandees being skewered and insulted<br>
by someone with a posh English accent.<br>
<br>
This isn’t to diminish the political role that Christopher played during
the<br>
1980s and 1990s. Being at the very centre of the empire seemed to provide the<br>
pressure that allowed him to flourish as a critic of US foreign policy and<br>
champion of the Palestinians. He also became a fine writer, capable of
producing<br>
superb essays.<br>
<br>
And then he flipped, responding to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington<br>
by rallying to what would soon become his adopted flag and supporting George W<br>
Bush in his wars against Iraq and Afghanistan.<br>
<br>
I still find this hard fully to explain. Christopher had developed earlier a<br>
weakness for “progressive” patriotism, supporting Margaret
Thatcher’s war<br>
against Argentina over the Falklands.<br>
<br>
He managed to convince himself during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s that the<br>
Bosnian Muslims were the contemporary equivalent of the Spanish Republicans of<br>
the 1930s.<br>
<br>
But whatever the explanation, nothing can excuse Christopher’s
reactionary<br>
rantings against Muslims. His attempt to provide intellectual cover for these<br>
with a superficial and ignorant polemic against religion in general was<br>
memorably demolished by Terry Eagleton.<br>
<br>
I remember first reading in an early article by Christopher this passage from
an<br>
essay by the philosopher Alastair MacIntyre, then a Marxist:<br>
<br>
“Two images have been with me throughout the writing of this essay
… The one is<br>
of JM Keynes, the other of Leon Trotsky … The one the intellectual
guardian of<br>
the established order, providing new policies and theories of manipulation to<br>
keep our society in what he took to be economic trim, and making a personal<br>
fortune in the process.<br>
<br>
“The other, outcast as a revolutionary from Russia both under the Tsar
and under<br>
Stalin, providing throughout his life a defence of human activity, of the
powers<br>
of conscious and rational human effort. I think of them at the end, Keynes with<br>
his peerage, Trotsky with an icepick in his skull. They are the twin lives<br>
between which intellectual choice in our society lies.”<br>
<br>
This passage stuck with Christopher, who quoted it a few years ago in an essay<br>
where he expressed his continuing admiration for Trotsky. But how would he
think<br>
his own end matched up compared to those of Keynes and Trotsky?<br>
<br>
He seems to have faced his death sentence from cancer bravely enough. But he<br>
died firmly in the embrace of the establishment, a literary celebrity lavished<br>
with praise by mainstream non-entities. This is a sorry end for someone who, at<br>
his best, could articulate much nobler aspirations.<br>
<br>
<a href="https://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=27053" target="_blank">https://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=27053</a><br>
_______________________________________________<br>
D66 mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:D66@tuxtown.net">D66@tuxtown.net</a><br>
<a href="http://www.tuxtown.net/mailman/listinfo/d66" target="_blank">http://www.tuxtown.net/mailman/listinfo/d66</a><o:p></o:p></p>
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