Chris Hedges

Didn't get a chance to update yesterday, whole lot of stuff to talk about today. For now, I'll talk about a speech I watched last night that wasn't by George W. Bush.

Chris Hedges:



spoke at IC last night about his book War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning. In general, the talk was pretty powerful. Hedges speaks in a very deliberate and heavy tone that seems to repeatedly remind the listener that he has "been there" and he has really "seen it." Even though the speech was mainly a rehashing of most of the main points of the book with a few examples to illustrate, and I had already read the book, I still found myself moved by his reminder that war is not what we see on TV, but a FUBAR situation that pushes humans to all ends of the emotional spectrum while dancing around the edges of its core, which is Death. At least that's the message I have gotten from Mr. Hedges. Unlike him, I have never been face to face with war, so I have no way of knowing if his account of it all is correct. But it certainly is compelling.

I found myself a bit surprised at how snugly his talk fit into the general sentiments of Ithaca activists. War is horrible. The media lies. Bush and crew are bad. Now I'm not saying there isn't some validity to each one of these positions, but in my experience with world renowned journalists such as Bill Moyers and Seymour Hersh, they give speeches that force the local population to challenge their deeply held convictions about the political realities of complex issues such as war and the forces that bring us into it. I don't mean to say that Hedges wasn't challenging and rewarding, which he most certainly was. I just mean to say I was surprised by how accomodating his views were to the prevalent views of Ithaca. For myself, perhaps it is good that someone whose reporting I greatly admire has now challenged me to reassess how I view the politics of my host city here, which I usually do with a pinch of skepticism.

Also, interestingly enough, I got the distinct impression that bringing Hedges to campus was a political statement by the Provost of IC, Peter Bardaglio. In his introductory speech, Bardaglio made a stinging reference to Hedges being a witness to war unlike George W. Bush, followed by a plea to the audience to keep Hedges words in mind when listening to the State of the Union later in the night. And Hedges was definitely anti-war. In some ways, this doesn't surprise me since Bardaglio and the Office of the Provost were at the forefront of the Engaging Democracy And Troubling The Water speaker series in the 2003-2004 academic year, which for all intents and purposes, did end up leaning on the left side of the spectrum. But at the same time, Bardaglio has also been one of the most vocal supporters (perhaps appeaser would be a better word) of the Ithaca College Republicans' push for "Intellectual Diversity" on campus. Bardaglio co-wrote a guest commentary with Roger Custer, calling for IC to "embrace intellectual diversity." He was also integral in bringing Jonah Goldberg to speak on campus in the spring of 2005. My guess is that Bardaglio is personally liberal, but his position as Provost forces him to take seriously the complaints and initiatives of Republicans and conservatives on campus. In other words, his expression of external politics is overrided by the internal politics of IC.

Here is an article that takes exception to "Intellectual Diversity," as well as a description of the controversy at Source Watch. Professor Charles Venator Santiago of IC wrote about it in the Ithacan here.

A few choice Hedges quotes I was able to jot down in my notebook:

" I always distrusted power, no matter whose hands power was in."

"Current coverage of war in Iraq does not expose the pathology of war."

"War for now is presented briefly, through the distorted prism of the occupiers."

On embedded reporters: they have "no relationships to victims, essential for balanced coverage" of war.

"The press has lost the outrage to expose great lies, to hold liars accountable, and even when it is uncomfortable, to expose the truth."

"Once you master a people by force, you depend on force for control."

In war, we are "compelled forward not by logic, or passion, or understanding, but by fear."

"we have become the company we keep."

"The seduction of war is insidious."

"And the essence of war, Death, is always held from the public view."

Post-Vietnam: US citizens were "forced to confront our own capacity for atrocity, for evil, and in this we see ourselves."

In war "all things, including human beings become objects. Objects to gratify, objects to destroy, and sometimes both."

"It doesn't matter how many Mr. and Mrs. Johnsons are anti-war because those who know how to use the weapons are not."

When asked about parallels between the Bush administration and the Nazi propaganda tactics, Hedges responded that (and this is a paraphrase): this administration runs a very sophisticated propaganda machine, Bush flying onto the air craft carrier after major combat operations had ended reminded me of Triumph of the Will. They are very aware of propaganda techniques and how to manipulate public opinion, and some of those tactics may have come from them, but that is as far as I would go with the Nazi analogy.

The New York Times is in a "slow self-immolation."

"If you think Fox is bad, turn on Trinity Broadcasting or CBN - and then maybe the Nazi analogy works."

- Glitter