Defend Ward Churchill?
Mar 4 2005 12:34
The great native american activist and professor of ethnical studies(before hysterical nationalists drove him from the University through death-teats) has been labeled a terorist by the state of Colorado. Sign the petition to support him.
Mar 4 2005 13:40
#2
That fucking Bob Black just libeled me. Be very careful with quotes from members of AIM, it split into various sections years ago, and the accusations, mud-slinging and general abuse continue on all sides. The whole question of who can claim to be an 'indian' remains controverisal and problematic (as do any hereridity based claims do to with ethinic origin). I would not trust any statement by Bob Black (esp the claim that iam responsicible for a holocaust) he seems to be a 'careerist' in terms of being controversial and taking the 'more radical/revolutionary than thou' positions to maintain his 'status' and to sell (rather lame) books (though i did enjoy abolution of work). He has acted in unacceptable ways in the past when dealing with people in the movement who disagreed with him.
Mar 4 2005 13:43
#3
i agree bob black isnt to be trusted, i was just using it as a starting point to find out if anyone has read some ward churchill, and whether he is a seperatist.
Mar 7 2005 23:40
#4
If I remember rightly ward churchill want's to see various american indian nations created within north america, mainly based on the existing national parks.
He also thinks being a member of an tribe should be like being a citizen of a nation i.e. something you can marry into, or move into and be assimilated, not somethink determined just by genetics.
Mar 7 2005 23:51
#5
i think whats of more interest is his retarded commentary upon the twin towers attack. Basically seeing it as legitimate resistance to US imperialism, and that the attacks themselves as a more effective form of resistance than the left has managed in years. 
Mar 8 2005 10:39
#6
I don't think minorly shit politics (and I guess that's what I see that kinda view of the WTC being taken out) is a good enough reason to not care about harrassment by the state and accusations of terrorism for political beliefs.
Mar 8 2005 14:08
#7
i wouldn't call dismissing 5,000 deaths as collateral damage in legitimate self defense is "minorly shit" politics.
to be honest tough shit on him, if he wants to make ohh soo controversial remarks then he has to expect this kind of response. Not defending the harrassment and wider agenda of those going after him, just think that i've bigger fish to fry than some self important prick maintaining his professorship.
Mar 9 2005 21:31
#8
That Bob Black called Churchill a New ager sounds like racist slander based on his conection with native americans. Im not an expert on him tough.
You can listen to his controversial(and absolutly ace) comments on pacifism and 9/11 here:
http://www.alternativetentacles.com/product.php?product=601&sd=u-8aXbUnzr5lx27V3pg
Mar 9 2005 22:47
#9
OK: Ward Churchill has written some excellent books about the history of American genocide, AIM, the Black Panthers etc. And even on this CD he says some good stuff about armed resistance.
HOWEVER: the arguments on this CD about 9/11 are rediculously immoral. He says that although he's "not a fan of Bin Laden... the [9/11] action was correct".
Not saying he should be censored or fired, etc. just pointing out his wrongness on this.
Mar 11 2005 00:04
#10
Still its hard to give a controversial comment in a short snappy format without saying something that sounds realy crazy...
I think that he has a point that we should take extreme measures to stop the starvation in the third world and so on..
I dont think that Al Quaida is any good for that tough since they would most likely replace one faschist form of capitalism regime with another one.
He has written a book on the same issue. Maybie it would be worth checking that one out before making any absolute comments on the speech on the CD.
I wonder how hard it would be to get it in Sweden
Mar 14 2005 00:02
#11
Jason Cortez wrote:
That fucking Bob Black just libeled me. Be very careful with quotes from members of AIM, it split into various sections years ago, and the accusations, mud-slinging and general abuse continue on all sides. The whole question of who can claim to be an 'indian' remains controverisal and problematic (as do any hereridity based claims do to with ethinic origin). I would not trust any statement by Bob Black (esp the claim that iam responsicible for a holocaust) he seems to be a 'careerist' in terms of being controversial and taking the 'more radical/revolutionary than thou' positions to maintain his 'status' and to sell (rather lame) books (though i did enjoy abolution of work). He has acted in unacceptable ways in the past when dealing with people in the movement who disagreed with him.
Bob Black's an utter utter cunt. If he dislikes Ward Churchill, the latter must be worth defending.
Mar 14 2005 01:34
#12
egad you seem to have missed the boat, revol. He never justified the attack in his own terms. He entered into the logic of the American military, and said that, just as american dismiss as 'collateral damage' the huge civilian casualties of their attacks on 'legitimate' targets, so could the huge loss of civilian life be justified - or explained away - as collateral damage to an assault upon the 'Little Eichmanns' (bureaucrats of empire) at the CIA listening post in the towers.
I think he was trying to raise two questions: why, when this is done to us, is it not 'collateral damage' but human lives; why is it cruel for Saddam to put military facilities in schools, hospitals etc - but not for America to put a major CIA listening post in the WTC?
So, Churchill's attitude is more subtle than you suggest. However, the fundamental fact of the matter is that Ward Churchill is the victim of a wide-spread and growing campaign of intimidation on American campuses, lead by republican fascist fuckers trying to stamp out whatever liberal dissent is left in that country.
Mar 14 2005 01:42
#13
Quote:
Counterpunch, February 5 / 6, 2005The Right has a License to Write Anything
Ward Churchill and the Mad Dogs
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
When it comes to left and right, meaning the respective voices of sanity
and dementia, we're meant to keep two sets of books.
Start with sanity, in the form of Ward Churchill, a tenured prof at the
University of Colorado. Churchill is known nationally as a fiery historian
and writer, particularly on Indian matters. Back in 2001, after 9/11,
Churchill wrote an essay called "Some People Push Back", making the simple
point, in his words, that "if U.S. foreign policy results in widespread
death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that
destruction is returned."
That piece was developed into a book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens.
On the matter of those killed in the 9/11 attacks, Churchill wrote
recently, "It is not disputed that the Pentagon was a military target, or
that a CIA office was situated in the World Trade Center. Following the
logic by which U.S. Defense Department spokespersons have consistently
sought to justify target selection in places like Baghdad 1991 this
placement of an element of the American 'command and control
infrastructure' in an ostensibly civilian facility converted the Trade
Center itself into a 'legitimate' target."
At this point Churchill could have specifically mentioned the infamous
bombing of the Amariya civilian shelter in Baghdad in January, 1991, with
400 deaths, almost all women and children, all subsequently identified and
named by the Iraqis. To this day the US government says it was an OK target.
Churchill concludes, "If the U.S. public is prepared to accept these
'standards' when they are routinely applied to other people, they should be
not be surprised when the same standards are applied to them._ It should be
emphasized that I applied the 'little Eichmanns' characterization only to
those [World Trade Center workers] described as 'technicians.' Thus, it was
obviously not directed to the children, janitors, food service workers,
firemen and random passers-by killed in the 9-1-1 attack. According to
Pentagon logic, [they] were simply part of the collateral damage. Ugly?
Yes. Hurtful? Yes. And that's my point. It's no less ugly, painful or
dehumanizing a description when applied to Iraqis, Palestinians, or anyone
else." I'm glad he puts that gloss in about the targets of his
characterization, thus clarifying what did read like a blanket
stigmatization of the WTC inhabitants in his original paper.
A storm has burst over Churchill's head, with protests by Governor Pataki
and others at his scheduled participation on a panel at Hamilton College
called "Limits of Dissent." In Colorado he's resigned his chairmanship of
the department of ethnic studies, and politicians, fired up by the mad dogs
on the Wall Street Journal editorial page and by Lord O'Reilly of the
Loofah on Fox, are howling for his eviction from his job.
Why should Churchill apologize for anything? Is it a crime to say that
chickens can come home to roost and that the way to protect American lives
from terrorism is to respect international law? I don't think he should
have resigned as department chair. Let them drag him out by main force.
So much for the voice of sanity. Now for the dementia of the right. The New
Republic's Tom Frank (not the Frank, please note, who just wrote a book
about Kansas) describes in TNR how he recently sat in on an antiwar panel
in Washington.
Frank listened to Stan Goff, a former Delta Force soldier and current
organizer for Military Families Speak Out, whose speech duly moved Frank to
write that "what I needed was a Republican like Arnold [Schwarzenegger] who
would walk up to [Goff] and punch him in the face."
Then upon Frank's outraged ears fell the views of International Socialist
Review editorial board member Sherry Wolf, who asserted that Iraqis had a
"right" to rebel against occupation, prompting TNR's man to confide to his
readers that "these weren't harmless lefties. I didn't want Nancy Pelosi
talking sense to them; I wanted John Ashcroft to come busting through the
wall with a submachine gun to round everyone up for an immediate trip to
Gitmo, with Charles Graner on hand for interrogation."
After Wolf quoted Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy's defense of
the right to resist, Frank confided to The New Republic's readers, "Maybe
sometimes you just want to be on the side of whoever is more likely to take
a bunker buster to Arundhati Roy."
Now suppose Churchill had talked about Schwarzenegger's war on the poor in
California and called on someone to punch the guv in the face, or have a
jovial Graner force Pataki to masturbate what remain of Schwarzenegger's
steroid-shriveled genitals, or have Ann Coulter rub her knickers in his
face or get blown up by a bomb? He'd be out of his job in a minute.
Right-wing mad dogs are licensed to write anything, and in our
Coulter-culture they do, just so they can burnish their profiles and get
invited on Fox talk shows. Why else would Tony Blankley call on the
Washington Times editorial page for Hersh to be imprisoned or shot for
treason? But it's a PR game only right-wingers are allowed to play.
Mar 14 2005 08:26
#14
si wrote:
so could the huge loss of civilian life be justified - or explained away - as collateral damage to an assault upon the 'Little Eichmanns' (bureaucrats of empire) at the CIA listening post in the towers.
do you think using the term 'Little Eichmanns' is an accurate way to describe the people who died on sept 11? and what the hell are talking about "CIA listening post" for? is there any proof for that claim?
Mar 14 2005 09:51
#15
gav wrote:
si wrote:
so could the huge loss of civilian life be justified - or explained away - as collateral damage to an assault upon the 'Little Eichmanns' (bureaucrats of empire) at the CIA listening post in the towers.do you think using the term 'Little Eichmanns' is an accurate way to describe the people who died on sept 11? and what the hell are talking about "CIA listening post" for? is there any proof for that claim?
From the talk of his I listened to, he was not describing CIA station there (yes there was one http://www.usasurvival.org/ck1152k1.html) as the little Eichmanns, more describing the people to operated the levers of capital i.e bond traders etc. as little Eichmanns as the 'technocrats of genocide' - while I would agree that this is a generalization of the people who died on that day and is a cold way to view such death, he later says, "Would I rather they did not have to die? yes, absolutely."
I think Ward should be defended simply because it is correct that he/we attempt to look for radical (from Latin 'root') causes of events - which often means asking people to face up to uncomfortable realities.
Links to Ward Chuchill MP3s:
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=search&nav=&session=&searchtext=ward+churchill
Mar 14 2005 13:17
#16
on reconsideration, I accept anarchist606's account. however, I still view churchill's position as sustainable for the same reasons: that he was not condoning the attacks in terms of his own morality, but in terms of the american military that dismisses the bombing of Al-Jazeera's office as 'unfortunate' and the women and children victims of a bombing of an Iraqi air-raid shelter as collateral.
has anyone read Bob Blacks 'critique' of Ward Churchill (http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/02/1720196.php)? It certainly isn't impartial, but i always wondered if this part can be substatiated (especially since it isn't referenced):
He also asserts:
Anyone have any information on him?