Browkaw gave the commencement speech at OU last May. Apparently quite a few people there disagreed with what he said.
2004 COMMENCEMENT MESSAGE FROM TOM BROKAW
UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA COMMENCEMENT
May 8, 2004
While I know some of you have so enjoyed your days at O.U., the exhilaration of discovery, the rush of intellectual stimulation and the rich rewards of friendship, that you have extended your stay here beyond the conventional four year term. I also know that some of you extended your stay here simply because you couldn't get your act together in four. For what it's worth, in my undergraduate days I was a charter member of the latter category and my subsequent success still is a puzzle to my classmates who were in the former group.
For purposes of this day let's strike a convenient compromise and use as our base-line the normal four year commitment of an undergraduate. That means the class of 2004 was the first freshman class of the new millennium. You entered this transformational phase of your lives at a time when America was in a euphoric state of dot.com prosperity, a climate that produced millionaires and even billionaires only slightly older than many of you here today. Moreover, America was at peace, Osama Bin Laden was a little known shadowy figure somewhere out there and the presidential election in this country was a tepid affair between two baby boomer sons of famous political fathers that stumbled to a contentious finish first in Florida and then the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lesson number one in your new world, the real world: life changes with lightning swiftness. Lesson number two: the promise of a new technology is not always worth the value assigned to it. Lesson number three: it's a dangerous world, even for the greatest superpower in the history of mankind. Lesson number four: every presidential election is important and worthy of your attention and participation.
There are other lessons of course, but on this felicitous occasion let's reflect on the smaller number for in them are the larger concerns and opportunities in your new life.
First, America is at war against a ruthless and cunning enemy so impassioned it is willing to send its young on suicidal missions against the essential institutions and fundamental values of this society, an enemy that is so cold-blooded it cares not how many innocents die or in what circumstances.
That war did not begin on September 11th. It had been underway at American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, at a U.S. barracks in Saudi Arabia and in an attack on an American warship off Yemen. But our response was so uncertain and our sense of national urgency was so faint that the enemy was only emboldened.
We're still in a process of self examination about our failures and oversights, our association with like-minded societies and those who have turned against us. And, of course, we're in a daily state of evaluation about the wisdom and efficacy of the military and legal response to the shattering and horrific events of nine eleven.
That examination and the dialogue that goes with it is not always perfect. There are outrageous and destructive claims across the spectrum of opinion, from left to right and back again. But the fact of this robust debate is a bold statement that the cherished traditions of participatory democracy remain, shaken but not shattered by the assaults from suicide bombers or home-grown demagogues.
The vigorous exchange of ideas is such a critical component of determining our once and future course, it is incumbent on all of us to be vigilant against the temptations to silence criticism or honest questions whether from the left or the right. If we are the defenders of freedom abroad, we must be the stewards of it at home as well. The first amendment was never intended as a blunt instrument to punish contrary points of view.
Moreover, neither can any of us ignore another reality of our time. We have the finest military any nation ever placed afield but as an all volunteer force now, it is not as organic to American life as it once was. Some of you here today will join that military and place yourself in harm's way. Those of you who choose other paths will have a continuing obligation to those in uniform to be mindful of their sacrifices and alert to their needs.
After all, this war against radical Muslims and their patrons of hate cannot be won on the military battlefield alone.
We have to work harder at understanding an enemy who is eager to sacrifice
their bodies to do great harm to what we hold dear, hundreds of millions of young Muslims who love our culture and hate our government, who envy our successes, disdain our pluralism and, most of all, who are enraged by our sense of entitlement.
Young Muslims who live in politically and economically oppressive regimes where they are influenced by devout but zealous and fanatical religious teachers as they are frustrated by the absence of economic and social opportunity.
If they are not the enemy now, they likely soon will be. In Baghdad before the war, at a distinguished university, I came upon a ceremony not unlike this ? the best and brightest of Iraqi society, studying English language and literature, enthusiastic in their devotion Whitney Houston and James Taylor and John Denver. And equally enthusiastic about joining the army so they could fight the United States government.
We cannot ignore them and no army can kill them all so we must begin to understand their rage and deal with it in a new and more effective fashion.
For more than a hundred years the dominant religion of the world has been Christianity, representing about 30 per cent of the global population. Islam during this time has represented about 20 per cent. In the next 20 years or so that will change, if current trends hold, and Islam will represent the higher number.
So a primary challenge of your generation is to bank the fires of hostility now burning out of control, to neutralize the hatred, to expedite not just global competition economically and politically, but also global understanding.
A place to begin: the Presidential Election of 2004. The choices we make in a presidential election are an indelible reflection of our common will, hopes, desires and commitment to the privilege of citizenship. So they are not to be taken lightly, especially in a year when the issues are so great and complex.
Moreover, I am persuaded the American political system, if not broken, is at least cracked and the fault lines have created an unsettling landscape.
After more than 40 years of observing the American political process up close, and covering it from the republican precincts of Omaha to the dixiecrat sensibilities of the South to the liberal activism of California and urban America to the conservative instincts of the Rocky Mountain West, from the State House to the White House, I am persuaded that we have become one country, two nations as a result of the determination of both parties to divide and conquer. I am also persuaded that during this time of profound change and challenges at home and abroad that it is a schematic for structural weakness at a time when there is both a need of and a longing for finding common strength on common ground, however uneven it may be.
I have no illusion that American politics should resemble spring break, when everyone gathers on a beach and loves everyone else.
But must it be scorched earth all day every day?
In a country that is so evenly divided, when a handful of precincts in a cupful of swing states can determine the outcome of a presidential election, I know that is not just the instinct but in fact the battle plan for both parties. Couple that attitude with the modern tools of campaigning ? ruthlessly efficient mass marketing, polls and surveys that map the electorate down to the fungus in their suburban yards, media campaigns and buys that target every paranoia, however real or imagined ? and you have politics as kill and kill again.
That party machinery is reinforced by the sinews of another hard fact of modern political life, the single interest organization.
Through a variety of means ? campaign fund raising, mass mailings of sophisticated propaganda (and I chose that word deliberately), well organized telephone networks of like-minded activists ? the single interest citizens have become a power in American politics well beyond their numbers, alone.
They have the ability to make surgical strikes on the election process, to single out candidates to promote or oppose and to impose their single issue on the general welfare of the people who otherwise might have a broader range of interests they wish to have represented.
These special interests are not confined to one side or another of the ideological spectrum. They are members of the NRA; but they?re also members of the Teachers Unions; they are manufacturers and they are consumer activists; they are physicians and they are trial lawyers.
In so doing, they too often reduce the American electorate to a body that is less than the sum of its parts. And they encourage a population of public servants who too willingly develop myopia in which their vision is confined to the narrow interests that helped elect them.
Their modus operandi and their impact on the commonwealth have been well documented in the mass media but their money, their momentum and their focus is so considerable mere exposition is not enough for course correction.
It is a hard, complex task, but it is also exciting because it is an unparalleled opportunity to define your time and leave a lasting legacy.
Sixty years ago the young men and women your age were fighting for their lives and world freedom during WWII. The odds that they would succeed were difficult, at best. They were taking up arms against the two most formidable military machines mankind had ever assembled.
By the millions they put on uniforms and learned new skills, from piloting multi-engine bombers to parachuting behind enemy lines, from fighter planes to amphibious landings, from ships on the sea to submarines beneath the ocean. They invented new weapons and tactics on the run, they broke enemy codes and designed their own. They mastered one of nature?s most awesome forces and used it to end the war ? and then to keep the peace.
At home, those not in uniform turned the country overnight into a war supply depot, stopping the production of cars and trucks to churn out tanks, warplanes and new vehicles for the transportation of materiel. Farmers grew more food and civilians ate less so the men in uniform would be well fed.
When it was over, when the peace had been won with millions of casualties, they returned to America to re build their enemies, draw the line against Communist oppression, marry in record numbers, go to college in record numbers, give us new industries, new scientific discoveries, new laws to expand the rights of those who had been left behind too long.
They weren?t perfect, by any means. They let racism be a fixed part of the American landscape for far too long; they were too slow to acknowledge the place of women as equal partners; some of them believed too much in war as an instrument of politics but others among them were the most eloquent critics of that thesis.
They?re in their 70?s and 80?s now, this magnificent generation, what I call ?the greatest generation,? formed by a great depression, hardened by war, restless in their pursuit of peace and prosperity, driven to excel and constantly excited by the possibilities of tomorrow.
Some are here today, quiet reminders of a difficult time and a heroic response.
They have given you a priceless legacy for your own unique and profound set of challenges. Remember them as you leave here to change the world and the circumstances you have inherited. Share their excitement in the opportunities before you, however taxing they may be, and most of all, anticipate the satisfaction of history?s judgment that you did not fail.
