Maikimo.net taxonomy tags

“Governments … want their people to see war as a drama of opposites, good and evil, ‘them’ and ‘us,’ victory or defeat. But war is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death. It represents the total failure of the human spirit.” (xviii)

The Rockford Register Star reported earlier this week — Speaker disrupts RC graduation, via AlterNet — that invited speaker Chris Hedges was booed off the stage for giving an antiwar speech at the Rockford College graduation (speech text).

Look, Chris is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose most recent book is War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. The book is about exploding the false myth of heroic war, written by a journalist who’s been immersed in the blood and guts of war around the world for many years. (I’m reading it now.) What the hell else did they expect him to talk about?

“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.

Observation #1: People who won’t learn the lessons of history aren’t well educated, no matter how many years they’ve spent in college.

Observation #2: People who say “God bless America” as they jeer what is essentially the New Testament message of peace discredit themselves. And they discredit God in the eyes of others by misusing his name in a prideful way. In this context it’s like saying to God, “Bless us because we think we deserve it — even though we won’t heed your message, we won’t try to love our neighbors as ourselves, and we won’t tolerate anyone who reminds us otherwise.”

We in the United States have let nationalism get out of control; we’ve made it our golden calf. At the feet of this nationalism we’ve put our treasure, and our hearts also. Bloodlust and sanctimoniousness, mingled together. This isn’t like us. Why are we doing it?

We … can … do … better … than … this.

Today I see a follow-up interview with Chris, The Silencing of Dissent on Graduation Day. Unlike me, Chris speaks with courage, understanding — and yes, compassion — in the face of this sputtering crowd who (ironically) makes his case for him:

You know, as I looked out on the crowd, that is exactly what my book is about. It is about the suspension of individual conscience, and probably consciousness, for the contagion of the crowd for that euphoria that comes with patriotism. The tragedy is that — and I’ve seen it in conflict after conflict or society after society that plunges into war — with that kind of rabid nationalism comes racism and intolerance and a dehumanization of the other. It’s an emotional response. People find a kind of ecstasy, a kind of belonging, a kind of obliteration of their alienation in that patriotic fervor that always does come in war time.  …

People chanted the kind of cliches and aphorisms and jingoes that are handed to you by the state. “God Bless America” or people were chanting “send him to France” — this kind of stuff and that kind of contagion leads ultimately to tyranny, it’s very dangerous and it has to be stopped.

I’ve seen it in effect and take over countries. But of course, it breaks my heart when I see it in my country. That’s essentially what I was looking at was in some ways a mirror of what I was trying to speak about. I think I managed to touch upon it somewhat when I talked upon this notion of comradeship as a suppression of self awareness and self-possession to sort of follow along, locked in the embrace of a nation, or of a group, or of a national group unthinkingly, blindly.

I will never give up on us, but God, I’ve come close.

2003-05-27 update: See also Steve Gilliard’s thoughtful review of Hedges’ book as it relates to Al Qaeda.

Steve Gilliard: “Our inability to respond to Al Qaeda in a meaningful way comes from this impulse to bolster the state in time of war, to embrace the myths of heroic violence.”