Chris Hedges NY times Reporter speech on war

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The text of the speech:

audio (you may have to right click and save target as): http://www.rrstar.com/audio/RC_audio.mp3

http://www.rrstar.com/localnews/your_co ... eech.shtml

Text of the Rockford College graduation speech by Chris Hedges

I want to speak to you today about war and empire.

Killing, or at least the worst of it, is over in Iraq. Although blood will continue to spill -- theirs and ours -- be prepared for this. For we are embarking on an occupation that, if history is any guide, will be as damaging to our souls as it will be to our prestige, power, and security. But this will come later as our empire expands and in all this we become pariahs, tyrants to others weaker than ourselves. Isolation always impairs judgment and we are very isolated now.

We have forfeited the good will, the empathy the world felt for us after 9-11. We have folded in on ourselves, we have severely weakened the delicate international coalitions and alliances that are vital in maintaining and promoting peace and we are part now of a dubious troika in the war against terror with Vladimir Putin and Ariel Sharon, two leaders who do not shrink in Palestine or Chechnya from carrying out acts of gratuitous and senseless acts of violence. We have become the company we keep.

The censure and perhaps the rage of much of the world, certainly one-fifth of the world's population which is Muslim, most of whom I'll remind you are not Arab, is upon us. Look today at the 14 people killed last night in several explosions in Casablanca. And this rage in a world where almost 50 percent of the planet struggles on less than two dollars a day will see us targeted. Terrorism will become a way of life, and when we are attacked we will, like our allies Putin and Sharon, lash out with greater fury. The circle of violence is a death spiral; no one escapes. We are spinning at a speed that we may not be able to hold. As we revel in our military prowess -- the sophistication of our military hardware and technology, for this is what most of the press coverage consisted of in Iraq -- we lose sight of the fact that just because we have the capacity to wage war it does not give us the right to wage war. This capacity has doomed empires in the past.

"Modern western civilization may perish," the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr warned, "because it falsely worshiped technology as a final good."

The real injustices, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, the brutal and corrupt dictatorships we fund in the Middle East, will mean that we will not rid the extremists who hate us with bombs. Indeed we will swell their ranks. Once you master people by force you depend on force for control. In your isolation you begin to make mistakes.

Fear engenders cruelty; cruelty, fear, insanity, and then paralysis. In the center of Dante's circle the damned remained motionless. We have blundered into a nation we know little about and are caught between bitter rivalries and competing ethnic groups and leaders we do not understand. We are trying to transplant a modern system of politics invented in Europe characterized, among other things, by the division of earth into independent secular states based on national citizenship in a land where the belief in a secular civil government is an alien creed. Iraq was a cesspool for the British when they occupied it in 1917; it will be a cesspool for us as well. The curfews, the armed clashes with angry crowds that leave scores of Iraqi dead, the military governor, the Christian Evangelical groups who are being allowed to follow on the heels of our occupying troops to try and teach Muslims about Jesus.

Hedges stops speaking because of a disturbance in the audience. Rockford College President Paul Pribbenow takes the microphone.

"My friends, one of the wonders of a liberal arts college is its ability and its deeply held commitment to academic freedom and the decision to listen to each other's opinions. (Crowd Cheers) If you wish to protest the speaker's remarks, I ask that you do it in silence, as some of you are doing in the back. That is perfectly appropriate but he has the right to offer his opinion here and we would like him to continue his remarks. (Fog Horn Blows, some cheer).

The occupation of the oil fields, the notion of the Kurds and the Shiites will listen to the demands of a centralized government in Baghdad, the same Kurds and Shiites who died by the tens of thousands in defiance of Sadaam Hussein, a man who happily butchered all of those who challenged him, and this ethnic rivalry has not gone away. The looting of Baghdad, or let me say the looting of Baghdad with the exception of the oil ministry and the interior ministry -- the only two ministries we bothered protecting -- is self immolation.

As someone who knows Iraq, speaks Arabic, and spent seven years in the Middle East, if the Iraqis believe rightly or wrongly that we come only for oil and occupation, that will begin a long bloody war of attrition; it is how they drove the British out and remember that, when the Israelis invaded southern Lebanon in 1982, they were greeted by the dispossessed Shiites as liberators. But within a few months, when the Shiites saw that the Israelis had come not as liberators but occupiers, they began to kill them. It was Israel who created Hezbollah and was Hezbollah that pushed Israel out of Southern Lebanon.

As William Butler Yeats wrote in "Meditations in Times Of Civil War," "We had fed the heart on fantasies / the hearts grown brutal from the fair."

This is a war of liberation in Iraq, but it is a war now of liberation by Iraqis from American occupation. And if you watch closely what is happening in Iraq, if you can see it through the abysmal coverage, you can see it in the lashing out of the terrorist death squads, the murder of Shiite leaders in mosques, and the assassination of our young soldiers in the streets. It is one that will soon be joined by Islamic radicals and we are far less secure today than we were before we bumbled into Iraq.

We will pay for this, but what saddens me most is that those who will by and large pay the highest price are poor kids from Mississippi or Alabama or Texas who could not get a decent job or health insurance and joined the army because it was all we offered them. For war in the end is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of soldiers by politicians, and of idealists by cynics. Read Antigone, when the king imposes his will without listening to those he rules or Thucydides' history. Read how Athens' expanding empire saw it become a tyrant abroad and then a tyrant at home. How the tyranny the Athenian leadership imposed on others it finally imposed on itself.

This, Thucydides wrote, is what doomed Athenian democracy; Athens destroyed itself. For the instrument of empire is war and war is a poison, a poison which at times we must ingest just as a cancer patient must ingest a poison to survive. But if we do not understand the poison of war -- if we do not understand how deadly that poison is -- it can kill us just as surely as the disease.

We have lost touch with the essence of war. Following our defeat in Vietnam we became a better nation. We were humbled, even humiliated. We asked questions about ourselves we had not asked before.

We were forced to see ourselves as others saw us and the sight was not always a pretty one. We were forced to confront our own capacity for a atrocity -- for evil -- and in this we understood not only war but more about ourselves. But that humility is gone.

War, we have come to believe, is a spectator sport. The military and the press -- remember in wartime the press is always part of the problem -- have turned war into a vast video arcade came. Its very essence -- death -- is hidden from public view.

There was no more candor in the Persian Gulf War or the War in Afghanistan or the War in Iraq than there was in Vietnam. But in the age of live feeds and satellite television, the state and the military have perfected the appearance of candor.

Because we no longer understand war, we no longer understand that it can all go horribly wrong. We no longer understand that war begins by calling for the annihilation of others but ends if we do not know when to make or maintain peace with self-annihilation. We flirt, given the potency of modern weapons, with our own destruction.

The seduction of war is insidious because so much of what we are told about it is true -- it does create a feeling of comradeship which obliterates our alienation and makes us, for perhaps the only time of our life, feel we belong.

War allows us to rise above our small stations in life; we find nobility in a cause and feelings of selflessness and even bliss. And at a time of soaring deficits and financial scandals and the very deterioration of our domestic fabric, war is a fine diversion. War for those who enter into combat has a dark beauty, filled with the monstrous and the grotesque. The Bible calls it the lust of the eye and warns believers against it. War gives us a distorted sense of self; it gives us meaning.

(A man in the audience says: "Can I say a few words here?" Hedges: Yeah, when I finish.)

Once in war, the conflict obliterates the past and the future all is one heady intoxicating present. You feel every heartbeat in war, colors are brighter, your mind races ahead of itself. (Confusion, microphone problems, etc.) We feel in wartime comradeship. (Boos) We confuse this with friendship, with love. There are those who will insist that the comradeship of war is love -- the exotic glow that makes us in war feel as one people, one entity, is real, but this is part of war's intoxication.

Think back on the days after the attacks on 9-11. Suddenly we no longer felt alone; we connected with strangers, even with people we did not like. We felt we belonged, that we were somehow wrapped in the embrace of the nation, the community; in short, we no longer felt alienated.

As this feeling dissipated in the weeks after the attack, there was a kind of nostalgia for its warm glow and wartime always brings with it this comradeship, which is the opposite of friendship. Friends are predetermined; friendship takes place between men and women who possess an intellectual and emotional affinity for each other. But comradeship -- that ecstatic bliss that comes with belonging to the crowd in wartime -- is within our reach. We can all have comrades.

The danger of the external threat that comes when we have an enemy does not create friendship; it creates comradeship. And those in wartime are deceived about what they are undergoing. And this is why once the threat is over, once war ends, comrades again become strangers to us. This is why after war we fall into despair.

In friendship there is a deepening of our sense of self. We become, through the friend, more aware of who we are and what we are about; we find ourselves in the eyes of the friend. Friends probe and question and challenge each other to make each of us more complete; with comradeship, the kind that comes to us in patriotic fervor, there is a suppression of self-awareness, self-knowledge, and self-possession. Comrades lose their identities in wartime for the collective rush of a common cause -- a common purpose. In comradeship there are no demands on the self. This is part of its appeal and one of the reasons we miss it and seek to recreate it. Comradeship allows us to escape the demands on the self that is part of friendship.

In wartime when we feel threatened, we no longer face death alone but as a group, and this makes death easier to bear. We ennoble self-sacrifice for the other, for the comrade; in short we begin to worship death. And this is what the god of war demands of us.

Think finally of what it means to die for a friend. It is deliberate and painful; there is no ecstasy. For friends, dying is hard and bitter. The dialogue they have and cherish will perhaps never be recreated. Friends do not, the way comrades do, love death and sacrifice. To friends, the prospect of death is frightening. And this is why friendship or, let me say love, is the most potent enemy of war. Thank you.

(Boos cheers, shouts, fog horns and the like)

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New York Times Reporter Booed at Speech
Tue May 20, 8:31 PM ET

By NICOLE ZIEGLER DIZON, Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO - A New York Times reporter cut short a keynote address to graduates at a private Illinois college over the weekend after audience members shouted down his comments about the war in Iraq (news - web sites).



Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize winner and author of a recent book that describes war as an addiction, was booed Saturday at Rockford College, a small liberal arts school 80 miles northwest of Chicago. After protesters rushed the stage and twice cut power to the microphone, Hedges cut his speech short.

"He delivered what I guess I would refer to as a fairly strident perspective on the war in Iraq and American policy," college President Paul Pribbenow said Tuesday. "I think our audience at commencement were not prepared for that."

Many audience members turned their backs on Hedges, while others booed and shouted, said Pribbenow, who at one point pleaded to let the speech continue.

Hedges said he had given similar talks at several other colleges on his book, but had never had such a response.

"I was surprised at how vociferous it was and the fact that people climbed onto the podium," Hedges said.

Elinor Radlund, who attended the ceremony, said a woman beside her began singing "God Bless America" while a man rushed down the aisle shouting, "Go home!"

"It just got to be a very nasty situation," Radlund said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... er_booed_2

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An article I find to be funnier since it really describes the speech as an assault on the attendees. Check the reactions described, it's as if these people are witnesses to a bombing or something. There's also a link to hear the speech at the bottom.

http://www.rrstar.com/localnews/your_co ... 4814.shtml

Speaker disrupts RC graduation
A New York Times reporter delivers an antiwar speech that offended many.
By CARRIE WATTERS, Rockford Register Star
>> Click here for more about Carrie

ROCKFORD — New York Times reporter Chris Hedges was booed off the stage Saturday at Rockford College’s graduation because he gave an antiwar speech.

Two days later, graduates and family members, envisioning a “go out and make your mark” send-off, are still reeling.

Guests wanting to hear the author and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter are equally appalled.

And College President Paul Pribbenow is rethinking the wisdom of such controversial topics at future commencements. This is Pribbenow’s first graduation.

Hedges began his abbreviated 18-minute speech comparing United States’ policy in Iraq to pariahs and a tyranny over the weak. His microphone was unplugged within three minutes.

Voices of protest and the sound of foghorns grew.

Some graduates and audience members turned their backs to the speaker in silent protest. Others rushed up the aisle to vocally protest the remarks, and one student tossed his cap and gown to the stage before leaving.

Mary O’Neill of Capron, who earned a degree in elementary education, sat in her black cap and gown listening. She was stunned.

She turned to Pribbenow and asked him why he was letting the speech continue. He said it was freedom of speech. Pribbenow later said when people stop listening to ideas, even controversial ones, it is the death of institutions like 157-year-old Rockford College.

In tears, O’Neill left the ceremony.

Her husband, Kevin, sat in the audience with their daughter and was as indignant as his wife.

“This is a ceremony. ... The day belongs to the students. It doesn’t belong to a political view,” he said.

Hedges, a war correspondent, criticized military heroic ideals that grow during war. The fervor sacrifices individual thought for temporarily belonging to something larger, he said.

Hedges sympathized with U.S. soldiers. He characterized them as boys from places such as Mississippi and Arkansas who joined the military because there were no job opportunities.

“War in the end is always about betrayal. Betrayal of the young by the old, of soldiers by politicians and idealists by cynics,” Hedges said in lecture fashion as jeers and “God Bless Americas” could be heard in the background.

After his microphone was again unplugged, Pribbenow told Hedges to wrap it up.

Elinor Radlund of Rockford read Hedges’ book on war and was horrified at what she said was the audience’s rude behavior. She was indignant she couldn’t hear the speaker.

“They were not behaving as people in an academic setting, where you’re supposed to be open to a great many ideas,” Radlund said.

Pribbenow said Rockford College takes no political stance, but the job is to challenge students. He reminded audience members of the liberal arts college’s commitment to listening to other viewpoints.

It didn’t happen.

Spontaneous reaction led 66-year-old Gerald Kehoe of rural Boone County down the aisle in his first time to protest anything. He was hurt to hear a verbal attack on the country. He attended Saturday’s commencement to watch his daughter graduate, the fourth from Rockford College.

Rockford College political science professor Bob Evans said it’s a reminder of the “raw edges of emotion” on the issue.

A student who rushed the stage could face reprimand although he still received his diploma.

“It’s important to go on the record that it’s inappropriate behavior,” Pribbenow said.

[Le Haggard]

For those interested, I offer the following quotes and references. You are free to draw your own conclusions.

A Qualifier to the Right to Freedom of Speach, Writing and Publication..

"that these rights might be curtailed by laws enacted to improve the public well-being or to maintain peace during any emergency." - Provisional Constitution in China after the 1911 Revolution

Lee-hsia Hsu Ting. Government Controls of the Press in Modern China 1900-1949 (Cambridge, Mass.: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1974), p. 11.

Numerous other examples are offered in this source. However of particular interest may be the Revised Standard promulgated in 1937, which was "to be used as the source of guiding principles in censorship during war years..." Point I is notable. It identifys views which should be censored as views which:

"A.distort, misunderstand, or twist out of context the principles, declarations, political platforms, policies, and resolutions of the Kuomintang;
B. record incorrectly the revolutionary history and administrative programs of the central government with the purpose of confusing readers;
C. express views from a selfish partisan standpoint incompatible with the principle of placing the interest of the nation above everything else;
D. spread opinions inconsistent with the need of our war of resistance and harmful to the future conduct of the war of resistance;
E. deliberately express pessimistic opinions or exagerate the strength of the enemy, and may tend to weaken the people's conviction in our ultimate victory;
F. undermine the morals and good customs of our country, or give vent to other decadent utterances which may dampen the people's zeal for the war of resistance or exert bad influence on society;
G. contain prejudicial, radical, and bigoted statements that may arouse the ill feelings of friendly nations and become detrimental to our international relations." p. 20-21

Though the current constitution of the People's Republic of China purports to protect the freedom of speech and writing, similar to that in the U.S., a recent Roundtable meeting of the Commission on China identifies the numerous ways that social and political pressures, other than legal actions, are used to censor these "rights." More specifically, these methods are used to censor those views that supposedly are “endangering national security or harming the national interests.”

United States Congress, Congressional-Executive Commission on China. Roundtable meeting on Media Freedom in China, (107th Cong., 2nd sess. Online, June 24, 2002), p 15.

Available at: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/cong021.html

Obviously the US is not the PRC. However, I find it interesting to consider China's history and current attitudes toward censorship in comparison to recent attitudes in the US towards those American Citizens who have spoken against US government actions, be they the French, the Dixie Chicks, Chris Hedges, or individuals posting online. In my opinioni, the reasons for censorship in China seem very similar to what I have heard professed in Post 9-11 America. I would like to ask everyone what precidence they believe actions, such as those in the above articles, could set for the future of Free Speech in the US?

I can't recall the source, but I'm sure someone else will. Who was it that said something to the effect of "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"?

Le'

"Freedom is always and exclusively the freedom for the one who thinks differently." ~~Rosa Luxemburg

[Panther]

However, I find it interesting to consider China's history and current attitudes toward censorship in comparison to recent attitudes in the US towards those American Citizens who have spoken against US government actions, be they the French, the Dixie Chicks, Chris Hedges, or individuals posting online.

Cute.

Everyone has 1st Amendment Rights which include Freedom of Speech. That Right is bestowed upon each of us by our Creator. Chris Hedges has that Right. There are other Rights bestowed on us by our Creator. It is typical for many to desire to pick and chose which Rights they support. Fortunately, the Constitution is a whole document which includes the acknowledgement of all of these pre-existing, inalienable, individual Rights. However, our inalienable Rights which are granted to each of us by our Creator are granted to all of us. And that is a double-edged sword that cuts both ways. The Dixie Chicks have the Right to say nasty things about the President, but those who disagree have the Right to disagree. And given the fact that they make their living off of selling themselves as a product, those who disagree can let that fact be know through refusal to purchase the Dixie Chicks products. But, it seems that for a certain group, that isn't acceptable. Too bad. Chris Hodges has the Right to speak his mind, but those who he is addressing, insulting and who disagree also deserve the same opportunity to speak their minds. That is one of the problems with statements made by such people as "celebrities" or in such a manner as Hedges did. Those who disagree weren't given the same latitude at the podium as Hedges was AND those who disagree with the radical-left-wing hollywierd types are not given the free air-time or coverage to state an opposing view. Like so many, Hedges condemns the U.S. (and Israel) as disingenuous imperialists, pariahs, and tyrants who are the true perpetrators of injustice carring out acts of gratuitous and senseless violence. He paints a picture of U.S. forced Christianity on Iraq with phrases that can only conjure up the Crusades of old. (We are to believe that the U.S. is out to convert the world to Christianity and yet the U.S. is also the big ally of Israel. Contradictory. And it is never mentioned that of the nations which we are supposedly forcing a religious belief on, only the U.S. has Freedom of Religion guaranteed and acknowledged as an inalienable Right granted to us by our Creator in it's Constitution. Funny thing that 1st Amendment... It has many components. That whole Bill of Rights thing is great because it protects each of our individual Rights from being infringed upon by a majorit, mob rule.) While accusing the U.S. of all manner of atrocity, he ignores the crimes commited on the other side. Or he somehow creates a world where the U.S. is responsible for the crimes of the other side! He refers to patriotic Americans as being "comrades". And in the midst of all these insults to the Nation that guarantees his Right to make those insults, he takes the side of the enemy. Supporting their cause, excusing their actions, cheering them onward. He has that Right. He also has the Right to leave the U.S. and move to the middle east. I strongly encourage him to exercise both. Most of us like our country the way it was Founded.

[Don Rearic]

I don't understand what this has to do with "Freedom of Speech."

I don't see some Orwellian Crackpot from the Bush Administration, and let's face it, there are a few of them, coming out and placing this man in handcuffs. Did I miss something?

Panther, that was very eloquent. Let me sum up my feelings by saying this.

If Wayne LaPierre of The National Rifle Association was the one being heckled and booed, I'm sure there would be no eloquent defenses of his real or imagined right to free speech.

Therefore, to me, the point is moot and silly. I love all the defenders of Free Speech, carefully picking and choosing only those they agree with... Icky.

[Le Haggard]

In order to clarify why I thought the issue of Chris Hedges' speech pertained to Freedom of Speech issues, the references to the freedom of speech was in the original articles posted and cited as why the university officials did not stop the presentation when others found it objectionable.

"Mary O’Neill of Capron, who earned a degree in elementary education, sat in her black cap and gown listening. She was stunned.

She turned to Pribbenow and asked him why he was letting the speech continue. He said it was freedom of speech. Pribbenow later said when people stop listening to ideas, even controversial ones, it is the death of institutions like 157-year-old Rockford College." (Emphasis mine.)

There were also numerous references to the microphone being unplugged as well as "that people climbed onto the podium" and rushed the stage in an effort to stop the speech.

So, just for further clarification, do you think that attempts, such as those in the articles, to stop a person from presenting a public speech, regardless of the topic of the speech, is an attempt to restrict the speaker's freedom of speech? I do not refer to those who chose to leave or turn their backs in silent protest, but those who actively try to stop the speaker from presenting or continuing to present their view.

Whatever the stance on this question, I feel it should be universally applicable to all topics regardless of individual view with the exceptions of inciting a riot, slander, and those public presentations that are prohibited by law.

If there is an example of a speaker presenting the opposite view of Chris Hedges' speech and having similar behavior from people trying to stop the speech, I would personally feel that these same considerations for free speech should apply as well, regardless of my agreement or disagreement with their platform and topic.

[Kevin Mackie]

Just as a follow up. Freedom of speech is not a universally inalienable right.

The constitution only disallows the government's infringement.

Private entities such as colleges, schools, and corporations are well withing their own rights to censor anything that goes against their principles. (Even public schools routinely censor publications and free expression.) But, that's....for the sake of the children. (I'll relate a story about my experience in private to anyone who wants to hear it. It's quite funny and it happened in the days when one could actually bring dangerous material onto school property without fear of expulsion.)

Try writing about something controversial in your school paper, or in your company's newsletter. You can and may be censored. Try posting some trash about your employer on a public bulliten board and see if you ever take advantage of their pension plan.

Rockford College, (a private institution), has every right to screen out what they find offensive and not compatable with their traditions and beliefs. This happens everyday. They should have known what the speaker's topic was a bit sooner.

Although rudeness should not be tolerated under nearly every circumstance, the speech obviously did not meet the expectations of the graduates and other attendees who were perhaps looking for something upbeat, entertaining, or congratulatory. Under most other circumstances, one could ask for a refund of their admission cost and leave, or simply leave and cut one's losses. This was not the case here. This was a captive audience who had to listen to this guy's drivel. Nevertheless, there's something to said about the character of those who eiether grinned or grimaced and bore it.

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It was not a good speech to have at that college, that could have been avoided I think. I do believe the way it was handled is pretty interesting, not only the students reaction but also the media's view, especially in the second article posted.

What I was actually wondering about was the content of the speech itself. On the idea of war, and the surrounding positives that are often so romanticized.

[Panther]

What I was actually wondering about was the content of the speech itself. On the idea of war, and the surrounding positives that are often so romanticized.

"War is hell." - (I don't recall)

"There's nothing 'romantic' about being dead." - me

"No one ever won a war by dying for their country. They won the war by making the other poor dumb son-of-a-bitch die for HIS country." - George C. Scott portraying General George S. Patton

While there is a certain hero status rightly bestowed on those who make the ultimate sacrifice, the truth is that posthumous rewards hold little gratification or consolation for the recipient or their loved ones. Those who make that sacrifice deserve more than can be given. They deserve the recognition, status, and acknowledgement they have paid the ultimate price to attain. What they have done and given is not "romantic", but it is indisputably "noble". It is selfless, not selfish. The deceased gain no "positives" from their demise. The "positives" are gained by the people and cause they have given their lives for. While that arguably gives them gain in the "here-after", it does nothing tangible for them in the "here-now". To put it more succinctly, there aren't any "positives" about being taken from your loved ones. (For sake of discussion, I ignore the religious/spiritual beliefs which have benefits when reaching the "here-after". And that is ignored for both the U.S. soldier dying for family, freedom, & country and the Islamic fundamentalist dying to achieve an "endless supply of virgins.")

More later... sometimes work must take precidence over lengthy posts.

[ljr]

So, just for further clarification, do you think that attempts, such as those in the articles, to stop a person from presenting a public speech, regardless of the topic of the speech, is an attempt to restrict the speaker's freedom of speech? I do not refer to those who chose to leave or turn their backs in silent protest, but those who actively try to stop the speaker from presenting or continuing to present their view.

I do not believe that the mike should have been shut off, or there should have been any threats of violence, such as rushing the stage. But, turning your back or even booing would be ok in my book.