America at it's most narrow-minded!

New York Times reporter Chris Hedges had been asked to deliver a speech speech at the Rockford College's graduation ceremony. He gave an speech on the feelings of brotherhood created by war, the content of which should not have been too surprising to the graduates or to their family.

Well, the audience behaved very badly from the get-go, shouting him down, yelling slogans, using horns to drown him out - three students actually stormed the stage! His mike was cut twice but hooked up again after a few minutes. Some students cried, others walked out. Afterwards, Hedges had to be escorted from campus under protection of campus security.



That story in itself shows up the superpatriot laager mentality quite well, as does the newspaper headline of the local paper: Speaker disrupts RC graduation (actually, some members of the audience disrupted the graduation ceremony, Hedges was simply doing what he had been invited to do: give a speech).

If you want a really frightening look at the mood and mindset of middle America, have a look at the posts on this forum of the local Rockford paper.

Read the views and xenophobic beliefs held by many in this community, views and beliefs which they wish to export to the rest of the world with evangelical fervour.

Read em and weep...



Chris Hedges was interviewed 4 days later over this debacle. He says: 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. And 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.



As I gave my talk and I looked out on the crowd, I was essentially witnessing things that I had witnessed in the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina or in squares in Belgrade or anywhere else. Crowds, especially crowds that become hunting packs are very frightening. People chanted the kind of clichés and aphorisms and jingles 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. More here.



Who should we fear more, I wonder, Arab extremists or American extremists???