I think people need to read Professor Churchill's writings in their entirety, and realize that while some of the language used is deplorable in regards to describing a certain group of Americans in regards to 9.11, the premise behind it is in fact truth. Millions of people die every day without a notice given to them. People in this govt have practiced genocide for years in its policies, and have been able to get away with it under the guise of fighting Communism, fanaticism, fundamentalism, or some other ISM of their choosing, in order to exonerate themselves from the innocent blood they have spilled, and we the people have allowed them to continue to do it. Does that not in even a metaphysical sense make us accomplices? It has ultimately done nothing but put all of us in harms way, and it is reckless and against all that our Founding Fathers believed regarding foreign policy. I suppose that is why some are having such a problem with it. Truth, especially truth that shows the ugliness of your own, is hard to take. However, we must take it and look at it in order to make progress towards a future of peace. Without self-examination, we will only continue to spread the disease.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By Jan Moore

http://www.darknightpress.org/index.php?i=...t&view=9&long=1

I am sure those of you who are reading this are aware of the
controversy surrounding the 9.11 remarks of Professor Ward
Churchill. If not, please read on... But before I go on, please
allow me to state that I do not agree with the way he worded parts
of this essay, and I do not know if it was done to deliberately
spark controversy, but it does make people think, and therefore, in
the current atmosphere in this country it presents a threat to some.

However, while I do not agree with the wording used by Professor
Churchill in some of his descriptions in this essay, I do agree with the
spirit of the paper in as much as the foreign policies of this
nation over decades have produced an atmosphere which is dangerous
to our national security and our people, which I also believe was
the reason for why 9.11 happened. It is not because as Bush the
PNAC puppet says, "They hate our freedom." They don't want our
freedom! It is not as simple as that, and the sooner we as Americans
start engaging in truthful conversations about this issue and the
culpability of our own leaders in lending to this atmosphere of
hate, and ours in allowing them to continually get away with it,
the sooner we can hopefully make progress towards peace.

Therefore, if you feel so inclined, take some time (his essay is a
bit long) and read the entire essay by Professor Ward Churchill that
is causing so much controversy at the link above. It has caused
him to resign from the Ethnic Studies Department at Boulder,
and is causing many (even the Governor of Colorado) to ask
for his resignation as a Professor. Also, a group is putting money
together to put up billboards around Boulder to in my view demonize
Professor Churchill (and I have had at least three exchanges by
mail with the person behind that), and therefore, I think this is
just the tip of the iceberg regarding what I believe will be an all
out attempt to stifle the "Liberal" academia in this country if
Americans do not take a stand.

I believe in free speech for all Americans, and this Professor does
not deserve to lose his job over this one essay, especially when the
media is only highlighting the one phrase they want to use and skew
out of context to demonize all the thoughts included, and also when
Professor Churchill's entire body of works have not been
disseminated for the viewing public in order to make an objective
assessment as to the meaning he is trying to convey. Let me also
make it clear, however, that I am not advocating solely for Professor
Churchill, I am advocating for the First Amendment of the constitution,
because it is hanging by a thread.

We all know that the Right has its political hacks like Hannity,
Coulter, Falwell, and others who have done nothing but belittle
their fellow Americans in light of the 9.11 attacks. Falwell
actually claimed that we were attacked on 9.11 because we are a nation
that loves gays and is Godless. In essence, he said we deserved it, and
Coulter has gone even so far as to suggest that we make a parking
lot out of the Middle East and convert anyone left to Christianity.
They have called their fellow Americans everything from traitors to
pigs simply for not agreeing with Bush, yet I don't see any
billboards up to bring them out. Could it be because more
intelligent Americans understand what the First Amendment is all
about?

States like Ohio are even going so far as to introduce legislation
that would stifle, "Liberal" points of view on their campuses. Where
will it all end? And where are the Democrats and others on the left
in this country in speaking out about this dangerous agenda to
stifle freedom of speech in this country? The Right in this country
gets a free pass with the most egregious and racist remarks against
their fellow Americans because they, "tow the line" and pander to the
chest beating NASCAR crowd. Their death threats against this
Professor then go beyond the pale of what it means to be human, let
alone American, and show how anti-constitution they really are. As
Thomas Jefferson stated, freedom of speech "cannot be limited
without being lost." All Americans of good conscience regardless of
their opinions of Professor Churchill's comments, must then see that
to deny him his right to free speech, will only be the tip of the
iceberg that may well have us reciting the, "Then they came for me"
speech on a daily basis. Is that what you really want?
Is this what we send our children to die for? Is this the real "freedom"
of the Right in America? If so, then by all means export it, because it is
not the freedom this country was founded on, and it is not wanted here.

I feel compelled to respond in regards to Professor Churchill again and the
larger issue that surrounds this absolutely deliberate targeting of
not just him, but academic freedom and freedom of speech in this
country;

I have read in comments around the Internet from the Right, that
Professor Churchill is a traitor, he is mean, he is evil , and he is
arrogant. Opinions that are allowed yes, but certainly not grounds
for the all out smear tactics now taking place against him courtesy
of FOX NEWS and the right wing media that have now gone into full
hypocritical attack mode, attacking everything now from his military
service to his ancestry.

He was also asked to speak in Wisconsin today, and the legislature
of Wisconisn is now trying to bar him from speaking... Again, this
addresses the larger issue at hand. And yes, if you hear him speak,
it does appear as if Professor Churchill has much rage in him. And
why shouldn't he? Did this government not slaughter the Native
Americans as well to take their land?

Did this government not take part in the slaughter of hundreds of
thousands of innocent people since that time all the way through
Central America, Vietnam, East Timor, Haiti, and other places around
the globe? Are they not still doing it, while we rant and rave our
outrage, but yet with it still going on?

The point of Professor Churchill's words whether you find them
shocking or not, is that in essence he is right. All of us everyday,
get up, go to our modems, rant and rave on lists, blogs, message
boards, and the like, and then what? We go back to sleep with the
same slaughter taking place all over the globe, just so we can get
up and do it all over again the next day.

When you look at it in that context, does it not make us look
complacent and complicit in the crimes perpetrated by govt. leaders
in this country and even elsewhere as we sit while they continue to
murder in our names? Should not people who love their country do
more than just rant and rave about such atrocities?

Look at 9.11. We have now received a typical whitewashed report from
a government appointed commission, that was put in book form and
sold to the masses to brainwash them into thinking no one is truly
culpable. No one in the higher eschelons of this government has
taken responsibility, nor has accountability been pushed upon
him/her. Matter of fact, we the people now condone Condoleezza Rice
being Secretary of State! It is our fault that this has happened. No
one was fired. No action was taken. Bush was not questioned
properly, and the soft questions asked him were not done under oath.
And now, the people forget, move on, and this crime against the
American people is only used to justify another war of empire, and
the beat goes on.

Churchill is simply saying (or so I believe) that
Americans had been insulated against the pain of what it was
like to see our own policies come back to haunt us, so we were
complacent about what was being done in our names behind the scenes,
especially after being given a false sense of security by those
actually perpetrating the crimes. He isn't wrong about that, and the
realization of that angers me towards those in this govt. who have
perpetrated these policies and put us in harms way, not against the
man who has the guts to tell us the truth. Do I agree with
everything he has said? In wording, no, but in substance, yes.

You may not like what this man has to say, and that is your right.
He may, yes, be very angry in his words, and he may harbor hatred
for the way this government is run. He may also be arrogant, but
those attributes should not be the focal point of the discussion,
because that is exactly the type of diversion that has prevented the
American people from seeing the truth about their own govt, and
themselves.

There are two different perceptions in my mind regarding
his comments: One group will see it as treason ( and I believe that
is simply out of fear or political expediency), because they believe
he wants us to be attacked. I don't believe that at this point (and
I can post his reply explaining how his words in his 9.11 essay were
deliberately taken out of context by the media), but then what do I
know? Second, the other group will simply see this as his way of
jarring people out of their stupor to get them to realize just how
far the policies of genocide and geo-political hegemony this
government has forced upon other people in this world have come back
to haunt us, and that we better do something quick to change it.
Making us outraged and angry seems to be the only way to do that,
BTW.

However, whatever side you fall on regarding him, it doesn't change
the facts as they are seen. We were attacked, and I do believe the
primary reason for that was because those who did it wanted to hurt
the people who they believe have hurt them...Those in the government
of this country. They (meaning the attackers) are not right, they
should not be exonerated (which is why I wonder why the Right is so
outraged at Churchill, and not at Bush for letting Bin Laden go
free), and it was a heinous act against all of our people that I am
outraged has not been given justice. But is that not how those in
Iraq who want us out of their occupied country now feel? Does it not
even go back to the Patriots who fought the American Revolution?

Humans experience the same feelings no matter what continent they
live on, or what century they live in, and if you push them, sooner
or later they will push back. It is human nature, and I believe that
is exactly what Ward Churchill is telling us. Once we are willing to
admit that by our actions or inactions we too have enabled what is
happening in this world, will we be able to face it head on,
challenge it, and win.

There is no other way, and Professor Churchill though he may harbor
a hatred in his heart which may be no different to some than the
rightwing hate in this country, at least focuses his feelings on
trying to tell the American people that unless we do wake up to the
Great Deception that is upon us, this will never end, and we then
will continue to be complicit in the crimes against humanity by our
silence and inaction. A tough pill to swallow no doubt, but one we
need to take to save us. And of course, the crux of this is that he
has just as much right to say this, as Jerry Falwell has to tell us
that we deserved 9.11 because we are Godless gaylovers.

The targeting of him just to make him a scapegoat for the Right who
hates their fellow Americans is wrong and against all we believe in
as Americans. And if we sit back and allow them to destroy this man,
he will not be the last one. They are targeting our universities
and the academic freedom that is the backbone of this country and
free dialogue. Perhaps we should be looking at it from that angle in
order to see that we need to nip this in the bud, or we will be next.
This is a fight for our freedom of speech, and regardless of how I
may feel about some of his words, I will defend his right to say
them, because by doing so, I defend the rights of all.

Here's the section people find most objectionable:
There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center . . . Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire – the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved – and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to "ignorance" – a derivative, after all, of the word "ignore" – counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in – and in many cases excelling at – it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it.


It's understandable why this is offensive to many people. It is to me for the fact that not everyone who worked at the towers were part of the "mighty engine of profit." Many people, including receptionists and custodians, were there to make a living.

I also, however, defend Ward's freedom to express those opinions. I abhor Joe Scarborough's contention that Ward should be censored. It's also interesting that Jerry Falwell's comments after 9/11 did not get the objections that Ward has gotten from the conservative right.

Obviously, Ward should not be censored as a citizen. As a citizen, he can say and write whatever he pleases. On the other hand, he has made these statements as a paid employee of a public university, meaning that what he says reflects on said university and its community. Thus, should he be allowed to keep his job? That, I think, is the real question at hand.

I truly hate everything this man has said, but I think the premise of his theory is nothing that I haven't already assumed was true. I think most of what he has said is protected by freedom of speech. I do think he crossed the very fine line of giving his opinion about something horrible that happened and condoning it when he said that all of the people that died in the towers deserved it. That was just wrong and cruel.

I think what he is probably referring to when he says technocrats were the technology leaders that were having a meeting about the future of the technology industry in the US, in the towers that day. There were a lot of big time tech leaders at this meeting, with the exception of Bill Gates, and all of them were killed. That is why there has been such a void in the technology field in the last three years and IMO one of the reasons why we have been unable to pull out of this recession and get our tech industry back on the right path. Our big time tech leaders were wiped out along with their powerful business leadership and vision. Since technology is what was leading our big time economy in the 90's, it weakened our economy to a large extent.

IMO he is very wrong about technology, it has been used for some great things. The ethics need to catch up with it yes, but I would hope that is one of the things those leaders were discussing on the day of 9-11 before they died. I have always wondered myself if these men were the real target that day, and I have read many articles that speculate about this fact as well.

I think he truly owes 9-11 victims families an apology because there were probably more people that died that day that were not technology workers, just regular blue collar office workers. The worst company that was affected was Aon. I actually worked on the same floor with a company who was a local branch of Aon and many of their friends and national co-workers died that day. It was truly sad because they initially thought that nobody was in the office except maybe a few lawyers, later they found out most of the office was in early for overtime. They processed insurance claims.

I think that Freedom of Speech is a wonderful thing, but in this case, he is abusing it. I don't think that legally there is much that can be done, but I do think it is justified that he is taking a lot of criticism for it.

Churchill denies that he's ever condoned the attacks or said that those killed deserved to die.



http://www.politicalgateway.com/news/read.html?id=2739


Churchill was on Mike Malloy's program on Air America tonight and echoed the above quotation.

* I am not a "defender"of the September 11 attacks, but simply pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned. I have never said that people "should" engage in armed attacks on the United States, but that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable consequence of unlawful U.S. policy. As Martin Luther King, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, said, "Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable."

I think he needs to be a little more specific when he says our foreign policies result in massive death and destruction abroad. I don't remember the last time we slammed two 747's into a tower with a bunch of civilians in it.

Our airlines have a lot of decommissioned airplanes because of 9-11. Maybe the government out to buy them and oblige our enemies by doing the same to them that was done to us, all while saving us a ton of money in defense funds.

That way Mr Churchill can be right and we can all feel better.

IMO he condones it in so many words. I don't think you have to look too far into it to figure that out.

If you read the beginning of his essay, you'll see his argument about that.

Okay, I read it and he discussed 500,000 children's death due to "Economic Sanctions" The minor military operations in Panama and Granada. Trans-Atlantic Slave trade.

I will agree these are serious issues, but he is losing me on the part where we are responsible for the preceding situations that made us do these things. Did we just up and decide one day that we should impose "Economic Sanctions" because we thought it would be nice to see 500,000 children die? That is absolutely sick. Do these people think that we are purposely causing their suffering. It is corrupted governments and other outside and very unfourtunate factors that destabilize their countries and force us to react. I just don't think he is right about this, we are reacting to already oppressive and dangerous goverments and situations - not causing them.

You know something else, it is because we don't retaliate in the way that I suggested in my last post that makes me know that we didn't deserve this. We would never attack China because of the trade issues that we have with them that have destroyed American lives, jobs, families. What about all of the people here whose lives have been ripped to shreds because of other countries economic policies and trade policies towards us? There are people in America that have died from lack of health insurance, there are sick children that can't get health care, people that have invested a lot of money in school only to have their jobs shipped overseas. There have been very serious "Economic Sanctions" against us to that have had very devastating and often deadly consequences for Americans as well, but we do not retaliate by killing innocent people. There is a big difference in how we handle ourselves in foreign policy and what we are expected to put up with from other countries.

There is a double standard in this world and foreign countries often think that the policy be, America give us what we want and do what we want, but don't interfere when we don't do what you want or give you what you want. That is insane to expect us to put up with that.

These countries have got to stop blaming us for their problems, believe me, I truly think that America would like nothing more than to take care of its own first.

I would be interested to know the actual figures of how many people have died here from situations directly resulting from economic, trade, or any other foreign policy directed at us. Not to mention Pearl Harbor and 9-11. I think the figures would be eye opening.

None of this debate on Churchill's remarks would even be possible if he was censored.

Of course not. That's a straw man.




You seem to be arguing that it couldn't have been a mistake in American policy.




He notes that

Perhaps we can start here and work our way through history, to enlighten those who believe that this government (meaning those who are running it, and those who have and are enabling and supporting it's destructive policies) are never at fault for what comes back to bite us on the butt. There are also today over 1450 Americans families in this country who no longer have their loved ones (and thousands more who have loved ones who have had their souls taken from them), because we have learned NOTHING from 9.11. However, let's start here, although the slaughter of Native Americans had begun sooner than this. This is what we need to teach in our schools in order to truly instill in our children a respect for life and to work for peace, and to note that not everything done by this government has been or is in the best interests of its people. That is not exonerating any other side, it is merely bringing forth truth about our own which must be done.

Anyone who loves this country will stand up to defend it against its government when what this government is doing goes against all that is decent. Where do we go next? Central America? Vietnam? Iraq? The point of all of this, is that yes, planes were plowed into buildings in this country that killed innocent people... And what did this governemtn then do? Did it LEARN form that? Hell no, we then allowed the very protagonists who say BRING IT ON to SHOCK AND AWE little Iraqi babies that are just as innocent and precious to this world as an American baby, a Palestinian baby, a German baby, or a baby born anywhere else on this planet...What we did to fallujah alone is ten times worse in firepwer and destruction tha what happeend her eon 9.11... And then people wonder why we are hated, and why there are those who plot to do the same to our children.
It simply has to stop.

The Sand Creek Massacre
Southern Cheyenne
November 29, 1864

Colorado Territory during the 1850's and 1860's was a place of phenomenal growth spurred by gold and silver rushes. Miners by the tens of thousands had elbowed their way into mineral fields, dislocating and angering the Cheyennes and Arapahos. The Pike's Peak Gold Rush in 1858 brought the the tension to a boiling point. Tribesmen attacked wagon trains, mining camps, and stagecoach lines during the Cival War, when the military garrisons out west were reduced by the war. One white family died within 20 miles of Denver. This outbreak of violence is sometimes referred to as the Cheyenne-Arapaho War or the Colorado War of 1864-65.

Governor John Evans of Colorado Territory sought to open up the Cheyenne and Arapaho hunting grounds to white development. The tribes, however, refused to sell their lands and settle on reservations. Evens decided to call out volunteer militiamen under Colonel John Chivington to quell the mounting violence. Evans used isolated incidents of violence as a pretext to order troops into the field under the ambitious, Indian-hating territory military commander Colonel Chivington. Though John Chivington had once belonged to the clergy, his compassion for his fellow man didn't extend to the Indians.

Sand Creek Massacre

In the spring of 1864, while the Cival War raged in the east, Chivington launched a campaign of violence against the Cheyenne and their allies, his troops attacking any and all Indians and razing their villages. The Cheyennes, joined by neighboring Arapahos, Sioux, Comanches, and Kiowas in both Colorado and Kansas, went on the defensive warpath.

Evans and Chivington reinforced their militia, raising the Third Colorado Calvary of short-term volunteers who referred to themselves as "Hundred Dazers". After a summer of scattered small raids and clashes, white and Indian representatives met at Camp Weld outside of Denver on September 28. No treaties were signed, but the Indians believed that by reporting and camping near army posts, they would be declaring peace and accepting sanctuary.

Black Kettle was a peace-seeking chief of a band of some 600 Southern Cheyennes and Arapahos that followed the buffalo along the Arkansas River of Colorado and Kansas. They reported to Fort Lyon and then camped on Sand Creek about 40 miles north.

Shortly afterward, Chivington led a force of about 700 men into Fort Lyon, and gave the garrison notice of his plans for an attack on the Indian encampment. Although he was informed that Black Kettle has already surrendered, Chivington pressed on with what he considered the perfect opportunity to further the cause for Indian extinction. On the morning of November 29, he led his troops, many of them drinking heavily, to Sand Creek and positioned them, along with their four howitzers, around the Indian village.

Black Kettle ever trusting raised both an American and a white flag of peace over his tepee. In response, Chivington raised his arm for the attack. Chivington wanted a victory, not prisoners, and so men, women and children were hunted down and shot.

With cannons and rifles pounding them, the Indians scattered in panic. Then the crazed soldiers charged and killed anything that moved. A few warriors managed to fight back to allow some of the tribe to escape across the stream, including Black Kettle. The colonel was as thourough as he was heartless. An interpreter living in the village testified, "THEY WERE SCALPED, THEIR BRAINS KNOCKED OUT; THE MEN USED THEIR KNIVES, RIPPED OPEN WOMEN, CLUBBED LITTLE CHILDREN, KNOCKED THEM IN THE HEAD WITH THEIR RIFLE BUTTS, BEAT THEIR BRAINS OUT, MUTILATED THEIR BODIES IN EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD." By the end of the one-sided battle as many as 200 Indians, more than half women and children, had been killed and mutilated.

While the Sand Creek Massacre outraged easterners, it seemed to please many people in Colorado Territory. Chivington later appeared on a Denver stage where he regaled delighted audiences with his war stories and displayed 100 Indian scalps, including the pubic hairs of women. Chivington was later denounced in a congressional investigation and forced to resign. When asked at the military inquiry why children had been killed, one of the soldiers quoted Chivington as saying, "NITS MAKE LICE." Yet the after-the-fact reprimand of the colonel meant nothing to the Indians.

As word of the massacre spread among them via refugees, Indians of the southern and northern plains stiffened in their resolve to resist white encroachment. An avenging wildfire swept the land and peace returned only after a quarter of a century.
http://www.lastoftheindependents.com/sandcreek.htm

His words (poorly chosen, or an expression of a sanguinary nature) are part of the message! He was out of line, and is therefore a liability to the truthful message, that our foriegn policy has consequences!

I wouldn't be surprised to find out this guy is a GOP/Neo-Con plant! The damage is done to the whole issue by this guys' "choice of words"!

http://www.counterpunch.org/mickey02092005.html

February 9, 2005

It's the Singer...Not the Song

What Ward Churchill Didn't Say
By MICKEY Z.

My sources tell me that U.S. intelligence has just uncovered a chilling pre-9/11 edict from Osama bin Laden on the topic of striking the infidels where it hurts:

"What is necessary is cruel and strong reactions. We need precision in time, place, and casualties...we must strike mercilessly, women and children included. Otherwise, the reaction is inefficient. At the place of action, there is no need to distinguish between guilty and innocent."

Actually, not only do I not have any "sources," but that quote does not come courtesy of the reigning bogeyman...it's a January 1, 1948 diary entry by one of Israel's founding fathers, David Ben-Gurion (talking about the Palestinians, of course.)

It's the singer, not the song...and when those crooning are Israeli, the tune they carry is never panned by the American corporate media. Golda Meir can declare, "There was no such thing as Palestinians; they never existed" while Menachem Begin can conversely admit the existence of Palestinians but paradoxically call them "beasts walking on two legs" and "cockroaches" but the H Word isn't uttered.

Thanks to Ward Churchill, we have a good idea of what provokes the H Word in today's McSociety. But is he really guilty of hate speech for what he said? In the end, that's a matter of opinion...but I do know what Churchill didn't say.

Ward Churchill didn't say this: "God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them. And then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did." That was George W. Bush, twice un-elected president of the United States of Advertisement.

Ward Churchill didn't say this: "There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire." That was John F. Kerry and he was still considered soft (he just didn't hate enough, I guess).

Ward Churchill didn't say this: "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building" or this: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." That was the noted humanitarian Ann Coulter.

Ward Churchill didn't say this: "Covert action should not be confused with missionary work." That was Nobel Peace Laureate, Henry Kissinger

Ward Churchill didn't say this: "Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country" or this: "Democracy has justified itself by keeping for the white race the best portions of the earth's surface." That was Mount Rushmore's own, Teddy Roosevelt.

Ward Churchill didn't say this: "The Antichrist is probably a Jew alive in Israel today," or this: "Communism was the brainchild of German-Jewish intellectuals," or this: "The Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew." That was political power broker and God's best friend, Pat Robertson.

Ward Churchill didn't say this: "I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you...Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty; we are called by God to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism." That was the very holy Randall Terry, founder of "Operation Rescue," speaking to a like-minded audience.

Ward Churchill didn't say this: "Racism isn't holding blacks back, it's their own laziness!" That was Bill Cosby (net worth: $540 million).

And here's one more thing Ward Churchill didn't say: "Freedom of speech...just watch what you say." That was Ice T (before he started playing a cop on network TV).

One last note: The last time I checked Ward Churchill's most recent book, "On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Reflections on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial Arrogance and Criminality," is ranked #365 at Amazon...thus proving yet again that hate sells.

Mickey Z. is the author of four books, most recently: "The Seven Deadly Spins: Exposing the Lies Behind War Propaganda" (Common Courage Press). He can be found on the Web at http://www.mickeyz.net.

Published on Thursday, February 10, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

Academic Freedom? What Academic Freedom?
by Dave Lindorff

Amid all the controversy over the observations of University of Colorado professor and leftist Indian political activist Ward Churchill concerning the military justifiability of the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center, it's easy to overlook the fact that freedom of academic expression on American university campuses is already virtually dead.

Churchill, who holds a tenured position at his university, is actually in an unusually strong position. With his tenure, the only way that the lynch mob out to fire him can get rid of him without facing a huge damage suit in court for breach of contract would be to prove a case of moral turpitude or dereliction of teaching duties or something equally heinous.

But for many teachers on American campuses--indeed for most teachers on some campuses and all at some--tenure is a thing of the past. Increasingly, universities large and small, famous and unknown, are turning to contract hires to do the teaching. These virtual professors are only offered "folding chairs" that carry a contract--one year, two years, three years, or maybe five years. At that point, they have to be renewed. They cannot be considered for tenure. Many other teachers are simply adjuncts, hired on a year-to-year or semester-to-semester basis to teach one or two classes. They have no contract at all to protect them.

Clearly, a person who has no job security has no freedom of expression. Such professors and adjuncts are no better off than the worker in a Wal-Mart or a General Electric factory--which means they have no more freedom of speech than a 12th century serf. They speak out at their own risk. If any adjunct or contract-hire teachers spoke out politically the way Churchill did and roused the wrath of the unwashed masses and the loofahed and lathered Bill O'Reilly, they'd be gone in a flash--if not the next day, then certainly at the end of the term.

At Temple University, a unionized urban institution here in Philadelphia, for instance (where teachers have been working almost a year without a contract because of management intransigence and demands for givebacks in the area of faculty governance), increasing numbers of professors are working on a contract basis. At Alfred University, where I taught journalism for a year, tenure is a bad joke. Although awarded after a typically exacting process of peer review, it has to be renewed every five years following a new peer review, thus providing as much academic freedom protection as a felt body-armor vest.

There is no question that the lack of tenure makes for less outspokenness, iconoclasm and strength of conviction. I remember when I was working as an adjunct journalism instructor at Cornell University back in 1989, going to an assistant professor colleague who was on the tenure track, looking for support for a proposal I wanted to make regarding the department's minority students, whom I had found were having trouble with my and other teachers' coursework and were then being asked to leave the school, instead of being offered remedial or preparatory assistance. He said, "Oh, that's a controversy I can't get involved in until I get my tenure."

With the bloodhounds of the right getting into full McCarthy lynching mode these days, including organized groups of student yahoos who monitor their teachers' lectures and backed by a phalanx of right-wing media mouths ready to amplify any complaint about non-mainstream viewpoints expressed by teachers in or outside the classroom, the fight for academic freedom has become more than academic. Yet instead of working to strengthen this important and historic tradition not just of tenure but of the very culture of free expression on campus, administrators are caving in to political pressure and undermining both.

Ward Churchill is a fighter, and will go down slugging. Most academics, I'm afraid, will just shut up and become conventional thinkers.

Dave Lindorff has been working as a journalist for 30 years. A regular columnist for CounterPunch, he also writes frequently for In These Times and Salon magazine, as well as for Businessweek, the Nation and Treasury&Risk Management Magazine. In the late 1970s, he ran the Daily News bureau covering Los Angeles County government, and in the mid-'90s, spent several years as a correspondent in Hong Kong and China for Businessweek. www.thiscantbehappening.net

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0210-23.htm

I'm not saying he should lose his job over this! I'm saying his admitted poor choice of words damaged the case he was trying to make!

I saw him speak the other day on C-Span at the University of Colorado!

He was asked a question by a student about his own liability to attack by terrorists because he is an American Professor working for an American University, and getting paid $90,000 dollars a year!

He said he himself is also guilty, and liable! Well at some point you have to ask ; Do you feel some terrorist is justified in attacking you and your family because he feels you are guilty of some association?

He was sloppy, and idiotic in giving any impression of a justified mantle to mass murderers!

Fanatical thinking is a form of insanity! It should be clearly labeled as such! HE DID NOT DO THIS!

Americas' foriegn policy mendacities are well known! Islams' bloody history is also well known! We are all steeped in blood and "Karma"!

Fanatical self-rightious mass murderers who wish to resurrect the Caliphate have no capital with me either philosophically, historically, metaphyisically, or otherwise!

Churchill did not make that clear! That was a major mistake, or a deliberate sabotage of the larger message!

On the Injustice of Getting Smeared
A Campaign of Fabrications and Gross Distortions
By WARD CHURCHILL

In the last few days there has been widespread and grossly inaccurate media coverage concerning my analysis of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, coverage that has resulted in defamation of my character and threats against my life. What I actually said has been lost, indeed turned into the opposite of itself, and I hope the following facts will be reported at least to the same extent that the fabrications have been.

The piece circulating on the internet was developed into a book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens. Most of the book is a detailed chronology of U.S. military interventions since 1776 and U.S. violations of international law since World War II. My point is that we cannot allow the U.S. government, acting in our name, to engage in massive violations of international law and fundamental human rights and not expect to reap the consequences.

I am not a "defender"of the September 11 attacks, but simply pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned. I have never said that people "should" engage in armed attacks on the United States, but that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable consequence of unlawful U.S. policy. As Martin Luther King, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, said, "Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable."

This is not to say that I advocate violence; as a U.S. soldier in Vietnam I witnessed and participated in more violence than I ever wish to see. What I am saying is that if we want an end to violence, especially that perpetrated against civilians, we must take the responsibility for halting the slaughter perpetrated by the United States around the world. My feelings are reflected in Dr. King's April 1967 Riverside speech, where, when asked about the wave of urban rebellions in U.S. cities, he said, "I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed . . . without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today - my own government."

In 1996 Madeleine Albright, then Ambassador to the UN and soon to be U.S. Secretary of State, did not dispute that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of economic sanctions, but stated on national television that "we" had decided it was "worth the cost." I mourn the victims of the September 11 attacks, just as I mourn the deaths of those Iraqi children, the more than 3 million people killed in the war in Indochina, those who died in the U.S. invasions of Grenada, Panama and elsewhere in Central America, the victims of the transatlantic slave trade, and the indigenous peoples still subjected to genocidal policies. If we respond with callous disregard to the deaths of others, we can only expect equal callousness to American deaths.

Finally, I have never characterized all the September 11 victims as "Nazis." What I said was that the "technocrats of empire" working in the World Trade Center were the equivalent of "little Eichmanns." Adolf Eichmann was not charged with direct killing but with ensuring the smooth running of the infrastructure that enabled the Nazi genocide. Similarly, German industrialists were legitimately targeted by the Allies.

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, 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. Again following U.S. military doctrine, as announced in briefing after briefing, those who did not work for the CIA but were nonetheless killed in the attack amounted to no more than "collateral damage." If the U.S. public is prepared to accept these "standards" when the 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 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, 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. If we ourselves do not want to be treated in this fashion, we must refuse to allow others to be similarly devalued and dehumanized in our name.

The bottom line of my argument is that the best and perhaps only way to prevent 9-1-1-style attacks on the U.S. is for American citizens to compel their government to comply with the rule of law. The lesson of Nuremberg is that this is not only our right, but our obligation. To the extent we shirk this responsibility, we, like the "Good Germans" of the 1930s and '40s, are complicit in its actions and have no legitimate basis for complaint when we suffer the consequences. This, of course, includes me, personally, as well as my family, no less than anyone else.

These points are clearly stated and documented in my book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, which recently won Honorary Mention for the Gustavus Myer Human Rights Award. for best writing on human rights. Some people will, of course, disagree with my analysis, but it presents questions that must be addressed in academic and public debate if we are to find a real solution to the violence that pervades today's world. The gross distortions of what I actually said can only be viewed as an attempt to distract the public from the real issues at hand and to further stifle freedom of speech and academic debate in this country.

http://www.counterpunch.org/churchill02032005.html
Ward Churchill is the author of On the Justice of Roosting Chickens.

No, I don't think that we are incapable of making mistakes. I do think most of what he says adds insult to an already injured "American psyche" (for lack of a better term), lets not even talk about how this must be affecting those that lost family or friends in 9-11.

I also think he is also assuming we are so arrogant we think we can never be attacked for any reason, much less one that another country can justify.
Again, this is where he loses me, because I would assume that any time we have ever been attacked by any other force, the other force did not assume we were innocent. I mean that is the definition of war isnt' it? In WWII, the Japanese attacked us because we were cutting off their supply lines. I am sure they thought this was a perfectly acceptable reason for a strike. My thought on the matter is, no matter what the reason, we were attacked, it was wrong and we have a right to retaliate and voice our cause. He is not helping our cause with what he is saying, I think he is hurting it, so why doesn't he just go fight for the enemy?
He doesn't think that we were "innocent" in the matter, well, frankly speaking what country is ever innocent when it comes to war? A perpetrator can be just as guilty as a retaliator depending on the politics involved.

(Continuation of response above, I hit reply to soon!)

Everyone has a cause, their own perspective, their own experiences that form who they are, how they feel, and what they do in life. There isn't much one can do about things that happen to them or how they feel about it, but they do have a choice in what their resulting behavior will be. I think the resulting behavior coming from the terrosit mind is what we are fighting. You can look at this from a thousand different perspectives, and even justify either side if you feel the need to. But in a time of war, after his nation has been attacked, Mr. Churchill cannot have his cake and eat it too. IMO he needs to quit protesting like its the sixties, pick a side and stick to it, because the threat is a lot more dangerous this time.