Colleagues pay tribute to Alexander Cockburn

Colleagues of the journalist Alexander Cockburn have written tributes to the CounterPunch co-editor and The Nation columnist following his death last Friday in Berlin.

The Nation magazine asked friends and colleagues who worked with Cockburn during his prolific career to share their memories.

Among them were his CounterPunch co-editor Jeffrey St Clair who wrote of him on the site that “His body was deteriorating, but his prose remained as sharp, lucid and deadly as ever”.

Alex lived a huge life and he lived it his way. He hated compromise in politics and he didn’t 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 joyful and creative resistance. So, the struggle continues and we’re going to remain engaged. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

The brother of journalists Patrick and Andrew, Cockburn wrote a regular column for the Nation. In his last, published on 11 July, Cockburn lamented the "culture of rabid criminality" in the international banking system and predicted that even reform and tough enforcement wouldn’t save it from eventual collapse.