Rockford Register Star Online - Local & State


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.

i didn't read the entire address, but i just wanted to quote this part of Chris Hedges's commencement speech, because he touches on a reality - well, a potential reality - that i never imagined i would be entertaining as a possibility in my lifetime. we are just too, too close to having the tyrant at home.


andy first considered joining the military in 2000 - i remember talking to him about it prior to the election and saying, "wait till after the election, because if bush wins he's gonna throw a war for sure." well, bush didn't win, but he did throw the war, and i have a sick feeling that it will not be his last.


at the time, andy sat tight; he graduated from rancho del mar, a continuation high school mid-june, 2001, and was awarded a $300 scholarship for college. he signed up at Harbor College.


on 07-19-01, his 21-year-old sister Bekah was murdered. andy was working at a movie theatre at the time; after school started he quit his job, and very soon thereafter, he quit school.


i don't know what he was doing at night, but for a while there andy was spending the better part of every day in bed. so he joined the navy, even though bush is president and a warmonger who does not give a rat's ass about the humanity.


the thing i find the most scary about gw bush is that there is nothing that i would put past him, nothing at all...up to and including martial law, nuclear war, etc. i think the most chilling moment for me since he strongarmed his way into the presidency was when he was quoted saying [or maybe he was videotaped and recorded saying this - i never have been able to watch him or listen to him so i dunno], "If you're not with us you're with them."


i just never thought i would hear such an unAmerican statement coming out of the mouth of an american president.


- posted by barbara @ 5/23/2003 05:17:00 AM