Alexander Cockburn, 1941-2012 - Farewell, Alex, My Friend
Source: Coutnerpunch
by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
Our friend and comrade Alexander Cockburn died last night in Germany, after a fierce two-year long battle against cancer. His daughter Daisy was at his bedside.
Alex kept his illness a tightly guarded secret. Only a handful of us knew how terribly sick he truly was. He didnt want the disease to define him. He didnt want his friends and readers to shower him with sympathy. He didnt want to blog his own death as Christopher Hitchens had done. Alex wanted to keep living his life right to the end. He wanted to live on his terms. And he wanted to continue writing through it all, just as his brilliant father, the novelist and journalist Claud Cockburn had done. And so he did. His body was deteriorating, but his prose remained as sharp, lucid and deadly as ever.
In one of Alexs last emails to me, he patted himself on the back (and deservedly so) for having only missed one column through his incredibly debilitating and painful last few months. Amid the chemo and blood transfusions and painkillers, Alex turned out not only columns for CounterPunch and The Nation and First Post, but he also wrote a small book called Guillotine and finished his memoirs, A Colossal Wreck, both of which CounterPunch plans to publish over the course of the next year.
Alex lived a huge life and he lived it his way. He hated compromise in politics and he didnt tolerate it in his own life. Alex was my pal, my mentor, my comrade. We joked, gossiped, argued and worked together nearly every day for the last twenty years. He leaves a huge void in our lives. But he taught at least two generations how to think, how to look at the world, how to live a life of resistance. So, the struggle continues and were going to remain engaged. He wouldnt have it any other way.
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Read more: http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/21/farewell-alex-my-friend/
Note to mods, I know Counterpunch isn't "mainstream" but Cockburn & St Clair were important voices during the last decade.
Cross gently Alex, and thank you so much for bringing truth to light.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)...through his work.
Peace to his family and friends.
salvorhardin
(9,995 posts)Another complicated man I didn't always agree with, but no doubt one of the brightest journalists and commentators of his generation. I especially miss his Beat The Devil column in The Nation.
bluedigger
(17,140 posts)Mimosa
(9,131 posts)I'd read Alex's columns much of my life. The Wikipedia page doesn't do him justice, but it is a good 'reminder'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Cockburn
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)but then the Democratic Primary started, and it was all about how bad all of the Democrats were.
Of course, he didn't do much of the writing at Counterpunch. He did write a series call the JAMPOT files (Just Another Middle-aged Portker On the Take) personally attacking his former friend Christopher Hitchens. Which I thought was kinda low class.
Eric Alterman called him anti-semitic and Somerby notes how Cockburn wrote a column in The Nation in October 2000 dishonestly trashing Gore http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/58
bluedigger
(17,140 posts)jimlup
(8,002 posts)RIP Alex
byeya
(2,842 posts)very insightful as well as being a darn good writer. He wasn't afraid to swim against the tide.
I'll certainly miss him.
Best wishes to his family and friends.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)I could never quite understand why such a brilliant and iconoclastic writer was ever banned by people who think of themselves as progressives, even if he didn't like Israel, establishment politicians and their wars, and Christopher Hitchens, much.
Rest in Peace, Alex, but continue to give them Hell.
MADem
(135,425 posts)Counterpunch was always a mixed bag here--some good stuff, some total shit.
I imagine that will continue. I don't recall it being outright "banned," but it wasn't in the same league as some of the more established and reliable outlets.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)was
A) Not robotically calling for all progressives to vote for all Democratic candidates on the ballot.
B) Not being Zionist(and no, you don't have to be an anti-Zionist to reject the "anti-Zonism=antisemitism" slur.
That's pretty much the summary of the beefs everybody here had with Counterpunch.
Iggy
(1,418 posts)very sorry to hear this.
we need voices like his-- particularly now. this stinks
Beacool
(30,289 posts)My condolences to his family. An important voice of the left is now gone.
May he rest in peace.
heaven05
(18,124 posts)my kind of guy. may the blessing of eternal peace be his.
JitterbugPerfume
(18,183 posts)because you were an amazing and beautiful soul.
orwell
(7,888 posts)...and I'm sure that he would take that as a compliment.
Sorry to hear of his passing. He lived life well.
Overseas
(12,121 posts)I will miss his brilliant, thought-provoking articles.
flamingdem
(39,840 posts)UpInArms
(51,717 posts)You will be missed.
Beringia
(4,483 posts)I once sent him an email because he had put down internet forums and I said they were a growing tool. And he emailed me back a reply.
D23MIURG23
(3,049 posts)What a disgusting thing to say.
Since when is it dishonorable to be open about the fact that you are terminally ill anyway? In any case, Its not as though someone like Hitchens would have been able to hide his illness anyway, given that people actually knew who he was. That would be much easier for sombody like Cockburn.
Bleh.
As for counterpunch, the last time I read that zine was in 2004, and I had to stop because all the pro-Nader crap was making me want to gouge my eyes out. Who the hell thought voting for Nader was a good idea in 2004? Yes, the dark lord is in power, and he and his imbecile sock puppet are throwing darts at a world map and invading the countries they hit, but let me cast a symbolic protest vote for a self-deluded narcissist? Really?
I don't mean to track up a eulogy thread with bile, but if St. Clair is going to use his friend's eulogy to throw stones and promote counterpunch then I don't have very much reason to hold back.
Leopolds Ghost
(12,875 posts)The men were two peas in a pod, in some ways. I don't get it.
Just ended up on opposite sides of the spectrum.
D23MIURG23
(3,049 posts)I disliked Hitchens willingness to side with the Neocons on a number of issues toward the end of his life, and his apparent Islamophobia. On the other hand I'm an athiest, and I have been greatly inspired by many of the things that he either wrote or said in debates. I find it difficult not to respond when I feel that he is being attacked.
On the other hand, I disliked St. Clair's obit for Cockburn more than I actually disliked Cockburn. He had his own merits.
SemperEadem
(8,053 posts)I met him once.. very nice gentleman. Sorry to hear, but I hope he is now at peace.
Peace Patriot
(24,010 posts)PassingFair
(22,436 posts)His voice will be missed.
bobthedrummer
(26,083 posts)hlthe2b
(105,833 posts)lordsummerisle
(4,652 posts)RIP
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)He was one of the first to question the "200 Kuwaiti babies being taken out of incubators to die" story in the lead-up to the Gulf War.
Along with other bullshit propaganda stories that the MSM publish uncritically.
I heard him speak in Portland at a conference of Central America activists. It was clear that his iconoclasm sprang from a deep concern for the victims of U.S. policies--you know, the people our mainstream media either ignores or treats as "enemies"--and from sorrow and anger at what this country has done to the rest of the world.
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)He was low-key, compassionate. Listened well to questions. Challenged orthodoxy. I'll miss his fiercely intelligent writing.
CRH
(1,553 posts)why I didn't agree with you, and then sometimes I realized I did. Your articles were not for the lazy or conventional thinking, they so often challenged deeply entrenched prejudice, or the dogma egotism instills. Thank You.
alp227
(32,449 posts)Wilde's filmography included The O.C. and House on TV as well as movies like The Next Three Days.
And I hope to read some of Alexander Cockburn's articles in depth soon, I think he's been writing lately on Counterpunch, no? (His last name actually is pronounced like the last name of some crazy right wing senator in Oklahoma.)
muriel_volestrangler
(102,331 posts)and also of her sister Stephanie, the BBC's economics editor. He was also brother of Patrick Cockburn, an award-winning journalist on the Middle East. It's an accomplished family in journalism.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,011 posts)A needed voice, silent too soon.
wickerwoman
(5,662 posts)I found this out yesterday. Saw her episode of the Colbert Report, looked her up on wikipedia and noticed this. I haven't really read Counterpunch for the last ten years or so (it's a bit anti-semitic and pretty far behind the curve on gay and womens' rights) but I'm sad to see Cockburn go. Counterpunch was one of the things that kept me going after 9/11 until I found DU.
RIP.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)If it was antisemitic, Uri Avnery wouldn't write for it.
klook
(12,797 posts)his syndicated column, was where I first encountered Cockburn, in the 1980s. Brilliant and acerbic writer who taught me a lot about politics and history.
earcandle
(3,622 posts)JI7
(90,233 posts)why act like what he did was so bad. Hitchens was a writer, he wrote about personal experiences also. he continued to do what he did even as he knew he was going to die soon. he didn't stop living and doing what he did.
joshcryer
(62,371 posts)Glad he was wrong about Libya.