Text of the Rockford College graduation speech by Chris Hedges

Rockford Register Star ^ | Wednesday, May 21, 2003 | Chris Hedges

[dixiechick2000]

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.

[GOPJ]

Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

Not a bad speech in style, just full of errors, echoes of Arab disinformation, and left-liberal short cuts = for example that if it wasn't for Putin and Sharon the jihadists would drop their ideology and such.

[A. Pole]

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.

How many read the The History of the Peloponnesian War ?

[an amused spectator]

This, Thucydides wrote, is what doomed Athenian democracy...

Wow! Chris Hedges quoted Thucydides!

I guess he's a lot smarter than I am, and everything that he says is laced with insight and genius.

*sigh* Maybe if we asked him, he'd be nice and be a philosopher-king for America. Only educated "progressive" people from the Left Coast and the Reverted Tory Colonies can lead us in this dire hour of our need!

</sarcasm>

[A. Pole]

Wow! Chris Hedges quoted Thucydides!

I guess he's a lot smarter than I am,

Have you read Thucydides? You can get him for free and instantly at this url: http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.html

Go for it!

[stop_fascism]

Or if you want to spend a few bucks, I recommend the Landmark edition edited by Victor Davis Hanson. Nice maps. Of course, Thucydides is no Herodotus. Now there's a writer.

BTW - Hedges interpretation is about as accurate as the rest of his speach - not at all.

[A. Pole]

BTW - Hedges interpretation is about as accurate as the rest of his speach - not at all.

Could you elaborate what is inaccurate in his interpretation of Thucydides?

[stop_fascism]

T. was a general for Athens. Like most greeks he thought war was a part of life and more fun than peace (Keep in mind that these wars took place only a generation after the Persian wars). Athens had always been a democracy at home and a tyrant abroad. That was one of the reason that its Ionian colonies didn't fight against the Persians.

T. believed that the Athenians lost because Alcibiades had achieved a diferential of power in the polis. Alcibiades, a former butt boy of Socrates, was a charismatic leader with absolutely no morals (an early version of Bill Clinton). He convinced the Athenians to send a large fleet to Syracuse, where it was destroyed. At this point, T. became so discouraged, he stopped writing his history.

Even after the Syracuse disaster, the Athenians rebounded and achieved a major sea victory. Unfortunately, at this point, the polis became angry at their victorious generals and had them executed (including a son of Pericles). It was only after this democratic bit of stupidity that the Athenian military fortunes went irrevocably down the toilet. They no longer had competent leaders. This had nothing to do with tyranny at home or abroad, except perhaps the tyranny of the mob.

At least, that's how I read Thucydides. Hopefully a better scholar than I will comment.

[bigeasy_70118]

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

It's nice that the whole graduation thing didn't get in the way of his pompous and condescending lecture. The students at RC probably were inundated with this crap on a daily basis for four years. This is exactly how they wanted to culminate their college careers. They were right to disrupt this windbag.