TVW, the University of Washington television channel, has announced it will rebroadcast Chris Hedges's recent talk, "Why Does America Need War Now?", at the Univ. of Puget Sound in Tacoma. -- TVW's schedule has slated the recorded lecture for Sun., Oct. 23, from 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., on the program "Author's Hour." -- Chris Hedges is the former New York Times war correspondent who has wrote the prize-winning War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (Anchor, 2002) as well as the recently published Losing Moses on the Freeway: The 10 Commandments in America (Free Press, 2005). -- Some excerpts from Chris Hedges's Oct. 13 talk, which received a standing ovation from the packed house, are transcribed below. -- (UFPPC's book discussion group, "Digging Deeper," will wrap up its two-part discussion of these books on Mon., Oct. 17, at the Mandolin Café, 3923 S. 12th St., Tacoma, from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. -- All interested are welcome to attend.) ...
WHAT: "Why Does America Need War Now?" -- a lecture
WHO: Chris Hedges, author of War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning
WHEN: Sunday, October 23, 2005, from 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
WHERE: TVW (The University of Washington's television station)
--
[From Chris Hedges's talk on Oct. 13, 2005, at the University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA]
From WHY DOES AMERICA NEED WAR NOW? By Chris Hedges
University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA
October 13, 2005
The vanquished know war. They see through the myth of war. . . They know the lies. . . . They know the lies that permeate the memory. The vanquished know the essence of war -- death. . . . a state of almost pure sin. . . . The words of the vanquished come later. . . . But by then, few listen. . . .
War for us is presented primarily through the distorted prism of the occupiers. . . . Those who cover war also dine out on the myth of war. . . .
I have spent most of my adult life in war. My life has been marred, let me say, deformed, by war. . . . I have watched young men bleed to death. . . . I have stood in warehouses with the corpses of children. . . .
War has found me, found us out again. . . . We have become tyrants to others weaker than ourselves. . . .
The seduction of war is insidious. . . . Of course, we do not see the war in Iraq. The press always masks the reality of war. . . . There is no more candor in Iraq than there was in Vietnam. . . . But the military has perfected the myth of candor. . . . In war, the press is always part of the problem.
After our defeat in Vietnam we became a better nation. . . . But this humility is gone. . . . We have been led to believe that our technology makes us invulnerable -- a lie unmasked, sadly, tonight in the streets of Baghdad. . . .
All things, including human beings, become objects in war. . . .
I miss what war brought. . . . War at its inception always feels like love. . . .
"Vietnam war films are all pro-war," writes Anthony Swofford [the author of Jarhead]. . . . The magic brutality of the films . . . is pornographic for the military man. . . .
War has become part of our industrial landscape. . . . Weapons that carry out this slaughter are beautiful. . . . I have seen them at work. . . . They are angels of death. . . .
War is addictive -- indeed it is the most potent narcotic devised by man. . . .
In El Salvador I was hooked. . . . War perverts and destroys you. . . . It destroys the continuity of life. . . . I covered the war in Salvador from 1983 to 1988. I was evacuated three times by the U.S. Embassy because of death threats. Each time I returned. . . . I could not articulate why I accepted my own destruction. . . .
Taste enough of war, and you come to believe the Stoics were right: we will at last destroy ourselves in a vast conflagration. . . .
In war, we deform ourselves, our essence. . . .
Love offers the only chance to escape the poison of war, it is the only antidote. . . .
War is necrophilia. . . . War, ascendant, wipes out Eros. . . . Soldiers, in war, make the act of love . . . an object of ridicule . . . denying in effect that they have ever had tender feelings. . . .
[War photographer] Kurt Schork died [in 2000] because he could not free himself from war. . . . War finally kills you. . . . It starts out like love, but it kills you.
--Transcribed by Mark Jensen.
|
