American Zeitgeist

It’s a third-rate documentary, which I went to see at the NYC Ethical Culture Society screening last week. I’ll let blogger Dean Esmay describe it:

Once upon a time, in faraway land called Afghanistan, the pious young prince bin Laden joined with the oily American hegemonic empire to fight Atheist-Red-Devil-Communism. Young prince bin Laden won the battle and saved us from communism! After this victory, he and his band of mujahideen became outlaws, had some bold adventures and battled their new archenemy, evil hegemonic America, now led by dark Lord George Bush. The decadent Americans, drunk on IPOs and rock music, were blind to the inevitable results of their sins. The 9/11 attacks were the wages of those sins. America demanded revenge and now the battle rages on, from the pixie dust Afghani pipeline to the dusty souks of occupied Iraq. This war will never stop until America admits the error of its oily-imperialist-colonialist ways. America must now repent - we must buy the hearts and minds of oppressed Arabs, Muslims and pious non-decadent folk around the world. Only then shall the world know peace.

I have to say: I don’t know how Christopher Hitchens does it. He is a trouper. He showed up (stone cold sober, for those who are interested) to debate Eric Margolis, who was infuriating.

I fled the auditorium during Margolis’s second rant, when he said that the Iraq war was about protecting Israel and about getting Iraq’s oil.