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Times Watch for May 23, 2003
Reporter Chris Hedges’ Condescending Contempt
Following his notorious anti-war graduation tirade at Rockford College, Times
reporter Chris Hedges on Wednesday went on the left-wing radio show
Democracy Now! (a
daily news program broadcast on far-left
Pacifica radio and other outlets) to discuss the
hostile reception
he received. His microphone was unplugged twice, and one graduate threw
his cap and gown onstage in protest.
Alternet has a transcript of Hedges' comments to Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman. She introduced Hedges: “You are the author of ‘War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning.’ You have reported from many war zones, you've been in Guatemala, you've been in El Salvador, you've been in Bosnia, you were in Iraq during the Persian Gulf War, you were held by the Iraqi Republican Guard. Can you talk about some of those experiences?”
Hedges response reflected condescending contempt for his audience. “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.”
The graduates were not only racist and intolerant, Hedges explained, they were brainless as well: “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.”
Hedges then demonstrated how the song “God Bless America” leads to tyranny: “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.…there was a kind of symbiotic relationship between everything that I've experienced and everything that was happening in that crowd.”
When Goodman asked Hedges how the Times had responded to the controversy,
Hedges says: “Well, they're looking into whether I breached the protocol in
terms of my very pointed statements about the Iraqi War. I mean, that's
something that makes them uncomfortable. I don't think they have a problem
with the book, because the book talks more generically about what war does to
societies although it certainly does mention what it has done to us since
9/11. So that's something that they're looking at.”
Goodman: “The right-wing media has certainly picked this up….What's happening?
Are you getting a lot of calls?”
Hedges replied: “Yeah, well I don't do trash-talk radio. I didn't before and I'm not going to start now. And since I don't own a television I'm sort of spared being inflicted with this stuff.”
Hedges won’t do “right-wing” “trash-talk radio,” but he will appear on the left-wing radio program DemocracyNow!, which sells tapes of Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and Ralph Nader on its web site and boasts interviews with anti-American writers Robert Fisk and Gore Vidal. It’s no wonder he felt at home there.
The bias in David Rosenbuam’s tax-cut story starts at the top with the headline: “A Tax Cut Without End.” The phrase rings in the ear like “War Without End,” and that’s apparently Rosenbaum’s intent: He doesn’t like tax cuts and wants you to know it.
“For a president who seems to favor the largest possible tax cut in every circumstance—whether the economy is strong or weak, whether the budget is running a surplus or a deficit—this legislation was a substantial accomplishment. Before this week's agreement, all the stars seemed aligned against another large tax cut. The budget deficit, long the bugaboo of Republicans, could reach $400 billion this year, by far, the largest in history in dollar terms and growing with each new estimate. The public is not clamoring for lower taxes. Just Thursday, The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed that only 29 percent of the public believes ‘tax cuts are the best way to increase economic growth and create jobs,’ while 64 percent said there were ‘better ways.’”
(Rosenbaum has to say the deficit is the largest ever “in dollar terms” because when the US was fighting World War II the deficit as a percentage of Gross National Product hovered around 25%, compared to around 3% today.)
Rosenbaum writes: “How in the face of all these obstacles was he able to win Congressional approval of one of the largest tax cuts in history—on top of the $1.3 trillion, 10-year cut adopted just two years ago? Part of the answer, of course, is Mr. Bush's popularity, rooted in his stand against terrorism and success in the war in Iraq. At every turn, the White House and allies in Congress insisted to Republican holdouts that challenging the president on tax cuts amounted to disloyalty to a wartime president.” Rosenbaum cites no evidence of these accusations of disloyalty made by Bush or any other Republican.
“This year, Mr. Bush was helped by the fact that Democrats abandoned that approach and offered tax cuts of their own — smaller than Mr. Bush's, aimed at the middle class and not the wealthy, but tax cuts nonetheless. Democrats were never able to make the case that their way was the better way.”
But a chart accompanying Rosenbaum’s story with figures offers some evidence contradicting Rosenbaum’s “only the wealthy” claims. The chart, with numbers provided by the accounting firm Deloitte & Touche, show that in some instances Bush’s tax cut is larger for the middle class than it is for wealthier individuals. For a married couple with two children making $41,000 a year, taxes would fall from $1303 to $95—a 93% cut (those percentages would fall in future years unless Congress makes the temporary tax changes permanent). By contrast, a household of the same makeup but with $530,000 in annual income would save 10% in taxes in 2003. Yet the opening sentence accompanying the graphic reads: “The House and Senate conference agreed to a tax bill that will reduce taxes in 2003, particularly for the wealthiest.”
Rosenbuam addresses this example of middle-class tax relief from Bush only tangentially, concluding his article: “For sure, this is not the last Bush tax cut. Under the legislation, popular tax relief like the $1,000 tax credit for each child and tax bonus for married couples are to expire at the end of 2004. Congress will not want to let them lapse in an election year. So be prepared for another tax bill next year.” Middle-class taxpayers with families probably won’t dread the next “tax bill” from Congress the way Rosenbuam wants them too—since it will reduce their actual tax bill.
For the rest of David Rosenbaum’s story on tax cuts, click here.
E-mail Times Watch Director, Clay Waters, with Times Watch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org