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Synchronicity

Yesterday, in a post about Seattle’s neighborhood movement, I referenced Christopher Hitchens’s term “Reactionary Utopianists.”

Well, lo and behold, an e-mail came in this morning talking about this.

Comments (10)

1

"Religion Poisons Everything."

Amen.

Posted by Mr. Poe | April 26, 2007 10:40 AM
2

Yeah, I'll give that one a good solid "amen" myself.

I'm saving this to send to the next person who sends me an inspiration "God/Jesus loves you no matter how much you suck" emails intended to "inspire" me.

Posted by monkey | April 26, 2007 10:58 AM
3

Holy crap, I've just been RE-reminded of why I can't stand reading Christopher Hitchens. I feel like I just took his load after reading that.

Posted by sniggles | April 26, 2007 11:02 AM
4

As long as there isn't a chapter about how this all somehow justifies the Iraq war, I'm down. Added to my Library hold list . . .

Posted by Levislade | April 26, 2007 11:10 AM
5

His Iraq war shit, especially his fantasies that anything like a majority of Middle Eastern people dig the West, are reason enough to hate the guy. Now he goes out of his way to offend the people he allied himself with in the Iraq war debate. I think he likes to be alone.
But I love me some anti-religion, bold and well-reasoned. A shame he comes off even more pretentious than Charles Mudede. Why is Bertrand Russell easier to read than Hitchens on this subject? He writes plainly. The way a smart guy should.

Posted by christopher (not hitchens) | April 26, 2007 11:20 AM
6

Synchronicity with Hitchens? Ick...I'd feel dirty if I were you!

Preservation of physical space in the status quo is not an absolute virtue in a vacuum.

Nor is density an absolute virtue in a vacccum.

The 'hoodies understand that density is a given...that's WHY they participated in Neighborhood Planning 10 years ago...Neighborhood Planning was an exercise that came out of the Growth Management Act, to engage people in planning for density and mitigating it's impacts when necessary.

The "density at all costs" movement are the folks who are insisting that density, on it's own, will solve all growth and livability problems.

Josh, YOU are the one with the weird orthodoxy about this issue. Why can't people oppose upzones, variances, and the like as a way to extract mitigation from developers? You do not act like the protest kid I know you to be on this issue and I'll NEVER understand why!

Your position that the 'hoodies are "reactionary," is just like saying "that you belief that workers can't strike to get better working conditions cuz the costs of good working conditions means employers can't afford to run their companies." It's like saying "boycotts shouldn't be used to regulate environmental impacts of business cuz boycotts are anti-capitalist."

You are accepting the big lie.

The 'hoodies are cool with upzones and other mechanisms to facilitate density when coupled (like promised in GMA and Neighborhood Plans) with mitigation from developers and the City to address issues like open space, parking, traffic, public safety (the promise in GMA and CompPlan for concurrency)

On this note...please join us at City Hall, in Council Chambers tomorrow: http://www.seattlegoodjobs.org/events.htm

Labor's bringing together those "old guard issues" and organizing us around housing affordability, open space, transit, wages/benefits, etc...you know, those "reactionary" values.

Posted by LH | April 26, 2007 11:35 AM
7

LH@6, that would be work, and Josh and Erica aren't up to it. For example, they might discover that neighborhood activists, during the debate on the Broadway rezone, approached the City Council's land use committee and asked for consideration of a transfer-of-development rights program for Capitol Hill to make increased density more flexible, an idea that Erica recently presented as new to her, courtesy of Liz Dunn. Steinbrueck wasn't interested. Reporting this sort of thing would spoil the simplistic picture drawn by Feit and Barnett.

Posted by sam | April 26, 2007 12:00 PM
8

The New Yorker did a piece on Christopher Hitchens several months ago. Chris was socializing with a couple of women. One of them made an innocent comment that set him off on a bizarre tyrade, in which he screamed about how much smarter he was than her, told her to fuck off when she tried to calm him down.

What an ass.

Posted by Sean | April 26, 2007 1:03 PM
9

Hitchens may be an ass, but that link is pretty much the soberest word on The Word I've come across in a long while.

Posted by Grant Cogswell | April 26, 2007 1:40 PM
10

Grant Cogswell! I say unto thee, Word Up. I worked on that movie you wrote. Proppa.
-

Posted by christopher | April 26, 2007 2:16 PM

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