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The Silencing of Dissent on Graduation Day

by via Pamenides Thursday, Jun. 12, 2003 at 6:29 PM

Text of the Rockford College, Rockford Illinois graduation speech by Chris Hedges Story published May 20, 2003

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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As the Dead Kennedies put it

by Parmenides Thursday, Jun. 12, 2003 at 6:33 PM

Forward to Death
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This is NOT...

by daveman Friday, Jun. 13, 2003 at 1:20 AM

...what graduating seniors and their families want to hear:

"Our country sucks. It is evil."

Not the usual "go out and make a better world" kinda thing that's standard fare.

No, this yo-yo had to get up and make his political statement in a forum where it was not appropriate. Nor was his dissent silenced; he got to make his speech, and it got him on national news as well. Yeah...he got silenced, all right. All over the country.
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BUT ON THE OTHER POST

by systemfailure Friday, Jun. 13, 2003 at 1:23 AM

You were hootin and hollerin about the first amendment and the Freedom of speech.
WHich is it yes or no?
Inquiring minds want to know.
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I dont think thats what the speaker meant at all

by systemfailure Friday, Jun. 13, 2003 at 1:43 AM

Did you read the speech?
I didnt see the "america is evil, our country sucks part"
that you "quoted"or maybe you could highlight it for me....
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OneEyedMan

by KPC Friday, Jun. 13, 2003 at 11:36 AM

Caveman is a fuckin' liar.
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The ability to speak...

by Diogenes Friday, Jun. 13, 2003 at 4:10 PM

...an unpleasant truth is why the First Amendment is the First amendment. It is fundamental to a free society to be able to speak forth and declaim an awkward truth.

A Graduation is a very appropriate place for this kind of message as a Graduation Speech is about the realities of the World the Graduating Class is about to enter. However, it takes BIG Balls to say the "Emperor has no Clothes" in such a forum. It is customary to speak banal generalities about the "big world" the class is about to enter so davie is right to the extent that this is "just not done". Imagine actually talking about the price of empire and the tatters that remain of our once proud reputation of being a Just and Moral Nation.

One of the Bush Legacies will be the final destruction of America's Image as a Peaceful Nation.
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america's image

by think about it Friday, Jun. 13, 2003 at 5:13 PM

America's image from within and to the world has never been that of a peaceful nation. Your talking about a country that has seen a major military engagement about once every fifty years since it's founding. We were born by war. So I think you can save that sentiment. As for being just and moral that is a subjective matter. There will always be one that sees th u.s. as just and moral as there is another that doesn't. Graduation is absolutely not the place for communications of political thought. It's a time for a student and there family to celebrate a milestone and hopes for whats next. Not to be taken hostage and forced to listen to the political beliefs of a speaker. I know you think everyone should listen to you and think like you but alas human nature will never allow it. If it was a republican, pro-bush speaker shooting their mouth off at a private ceremony you would be up in arms and you know it.
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Up in arms - no.

by Diogenes Friday, Jun. 13, 2003 at 9:58 PM

Unlike most Bush Junta supporters I actually do believe in Freedom of Speech. I might disagree, and I might even make a noisy disagreement. I dislike lies and the Bush People rarely deal in anything else. People are free to listen to me, disregard me, or disagree with me. I support your right to do so. Unfortunately the Bush Junta and it's supporters show little willingness to actually abide by the Constitution. It's "just so awkward". "Rules are for other People."

And yes I will agree that we were not necessarily known as a "Peaceful" Nation. However, up until the Conquest of Iraq the U.S. had not overtly, and brazenly, acted as a Banana Republic.

We have always had our failings, but by and large the image we carried abroad was that of a fundamentally decent people.

The Bush Junta is very rapidly destroying that.
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This is just what....

by Sy$teMF@iLuRe Saturday, Jun. 14, 2003 at 12:18 AM

Parents and students need to hear on Graduation Day.

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.
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Yeah, I read the stupid speech.

by daveman Saturday, Jun. 14, 2003 at 2:56 PM

Obviously, you didn't.

It's full of loaded words like "empire", "tyrants", "dubious troika". Then he goes on to blame the US for the terror attacks on our soil. What a load of crap! If you can't see the "Our country sucks. It is evil" in there, you're just totally deluded.

He speaks of what happens in combat. When and where did he serve? Obviously, nowhere...as this statement confirms: "...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." What a load of crap. He has no idea why young people join the service; he can keep his oh-so-sensitive condecension to himself.

I disagree with his beliefs, and I said that they were inappropriate for the occaision...but I did not say he should not be allowed to speak them at that time and place.

You see, I, too, believe in the First Amendment and the rest of the Constitution. And next week, I'm reenlisting for another 5 1/2 years to protect it. So, Diagonal, you can keep your "Last Defender of the Bill of Rights" attitude to yourself. I'm not buying it.

Oh, and KFC...it's buttheads like you that make me regret giving up profanity. But then again, I don't want to stoop to your childish level.
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What's the matter

by The Vet Saturday, Jun. 14, 2003 at 3:02 PM

Can't get a real job...or just can't get the taste of blood out of your mouth.
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The vetrinarian

by daveman Saturday, Jun. 14, 2003 at 4:11 PM

Yeah, I could get a job that pays twice what I'm getting now, easily.

But there are other things besides money.

You know, honor, commitment, service before self.

If you were a real vet, you'd understand.

If you're a real idiot, you'd say, "Can't get a real job...or just can't get the taste of blood out of your mouth."
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I feel sorry for you davegirl

by Sy$teMF@iLuRe Monday, Jun. 16, 2003 at 4:16 PM

You will join the long line of suckers that in the end will cry out "Why didnt I see the truth".
Just like those people who supported Vietnam 30+ years ago. And all the rest of the people that supported brutal dictatorial regimes throught history.
History will be your judge.
And when its too late, you will say,"the dead will never come back to life"
I have pity on you.
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Keep your pity, sissie.

by daveman Tuesday, Jun. 17, 2003 at 12:49 AM

I have no need of it.

There are, however, better uses for your time and energy.
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kinda sux

by 3200fps Tuesday, Jun. 17, 2003 at 2:28 AM

the truth hurts, huh daveman
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I wouldn't know.

by daveman Tuesday, Jun. 17, 2003 at 4:53 PM

I never read any truth on IMC.
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That's because...

by anti-moron Wednesday, Jun. 18, 2003 at 3:54 AM

...you wouldn't know truth if it bit you on your flabby ass.
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Daveyboy

by The Vet Wednesday, Jun. 18, 2003 at 5:09 AM

You missed your appointment for your distemper shots again! You better get them soon or you will become increasingly rabid. Have you been foaming at the mouth more than usual?
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