Sunday, February 06, 2005

Growing Chorus: Prosecute Ward Churchill for Treason

By Kurt Nimmo

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Posted 02/06 | Add a Comment

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  1. I think that maybe you are right vix right wing nutters’ image of the left....on the other hand Churchhill really scares people, esp. since even the ACLU and Reggie Rivers are defending him.  I read and agree with your Weather Underground analogy (No one - NO ONE shold encourage any violence!) - I think personally that Churchhill - to me at least, is metaphorical, not intending to be taken at face value.  His style is much more European, that of the semiotics of “Gestures” In a way, he is similar to Agamben, whose gestures are as controversial as his writing.  Gestures can be powerful.

    Posted by j cummings from Canada  on  02/06  at  11:23 PM

  2. It’d be better if people would kill Ward Churchill with kindness.

    George Bush goes AWOL and he is selected President. 

    If Ward Churchill was a dumb as Bush, he could be President, too.  Instead, he’s an instant Dracula, and people line up to drive a stake through his heart.

    People are as cruel and as heartless as Dracula, and just don’t know it.  That’s the way the world wobbles.

    Posted by MDPB from  on  02/07  at  12:57 AM

  3. When a man dies inside an American skyscraper that is attacked by a hostile combatant, we call him an innocent victim.

    But when a man dies inside an Iraqi home that is attacked by a hostile combatant, we call him collateral damage.

    We frame our actions to serve our own purposes.  And WD is being framed by his attackers to serve their purpose of instilling fear in dissent.

    Fear is what got GWB the support that he needed to invade and occupy a sovereign country.  Fear is what got GWB re-elected.  And fear will be the continuing chief weapon of those who war against dissent.

    It’s easy to make dissent impotent.  All you need to do is plant some fear in the possible consequences of dissent.  It’s really that easy to make dissent relatively impotent.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  02/07  at  04:14 AM

  4. hey,

    really nice piece, just one sour note: As a (sometimes) black clad window breaking anarchist I look back at people like Emma Goldman as being part of my political lineage.

    Jack White

    Posted by Jack White from dublin, ireland  on  02/07  at  06:31 AM

  5. Emma didn’t break windows; she attempted to change minds and hearts through her writings and political activism.

    Posted by Kurt Nimmo from  on  02/07  at  11:08 AM

  6. You’re right about Emma, Kurt...but when push came to shove, she helped Berkman in his assassination attempt on Frick.

    Btw, Debs actually ran for president 5 times. Here are his numbers:

    1900: 94,768
    1904: 402,400
    1908: 402,820
    1912: 897,011
    1920: 917,799 (from his prison cell)

    Last year, Leonard Peltier got 25,101 from his prison cell.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from  on  02/07  at  11:41 AM

  7. the interesting aspect of Churchill’s predicament is how his “little Eichmanns” comment about some WTC victims can be properly construed as a anticipatory characterization of the Colorado University Board of Regents

    the Nazis scrutinized books, paintings, films and writings by people, Jews, gays, lesbians and leftists for any sign of what the Reich considered deviant thought

    which is exactly what the CU Board of Regents is doing to Ward Churchill, they would have felt right at home in the Nazi legal system, conducting investigations and developing justifications for why someone like him ought to be purged and/or arrested

    for an interesting artistic presentation of this phenomenom, and the pseudo-scientific justifications behind it, see the recent post-minimalist opera, “Finding Goya”, by Nyman and Hardie

    one wonders how Churchill would have scored through the application of the Lomborosian examination of his physical appearance as emphasized in the first half of the work

    would he have been considered a burglar like Goya, resulting in the burning of his paintings by the Nazis?

    and, the comparison becomes even more compelling when you contrast the treatment of Churchill with the laxity with which the CU Board has treated the athletic department in regard to a scandal in which sex has been used to recruit football players, and several alleged instances of sexual assault, with one complainant discouraged from going to the police by the football coach, Gary Barnett

    of course, the Nazis revered the perfect body image, and the idea of national identity and achievement through sporting competition, so they would have been equally understanding of the special needs of the athletic department, so, again, the “little Eichmanns” comment is an apt description of the Board and it members

    -reposted from:

    http://prorev.com/2005/02/stupid-college-administrator-tricks.htm#comments

    Posted by Treason is lying your country into war from  on  02/07  at  03:06 PM

  8. I’d like to point out that the ‘black clad window breakers’ are the direct descendents of emma goldman. The reason you don’t think so is that Goldman is long dead and gone, her militant activism (including supporting assasination as well as armed and violent revolution in spain) can now be glossed over for liberals who want her to be a slogan on their shirt. This is the same movement to end authority and capitalism and it still has very little to do with the color of a shirt, and you, mr professional writer, are misinformed.
    Peligro

    Posted by Peligro from Minneapolis  on  02/07  at  09:33 PM

  9. I have an admittedly elementary thought about Churchill.

    First, I did not know anything about Churchill until a few months ago when Oxman reviewed him here on PA.

    Anyway, Churchill, after expressing his disapproval of the hits (and violence in general), makes a statement to the effect that the WTC 9/11 victims can be characterized as complicit in American foreign policy’s criminal coil and that, accordingly, they were probably factored into this terror targeting following such reasoning.

    When the event occurred, my response was, like many people’s (and, apparently, Churchill’s): ‘I thought something like THIS would eventually happen’. Naturally, I condemned the war effort in Afghanistan because it seemed clear the Afghan people themselves did not collectively attack America and therefore, did not collectively deserve to be bombed. ‘I thought something like THIS would eventually happen’ because I’ve had the good fortune to cultivate an able and critical mind. ‘Blowback’ is not a difficult concept to digest and Chalmers Johnson was timely reading.

    Apparently what Churchill’s done is to open up discussion to a new direction. Some questions might be forwarded:

    ‘How exactly are people passively complicit in government policies they disapprove of?’

    or

    ‘To what extent should citizens think of themselves as facilitators of those policies with concomittant, disastrous and deadly boomerang-like repercussions?’

    I am sure there are more such questions there (and those of you who following Churchill’s trial will tease them out as this debate continues).

    Such questions are always uncomfortable and there is no known way to broach such subjects with the easy comfort one has talking croquet technique over tea and crumpets. I am not all that impressed with Churchill’s choice of language, but that’s a matter of taste. He’s nevertheless raised an interesting issue I had not thought about. (The irony is of course, I would never been exposed to his thinking if The Right had not drawn attention to it.) In that he attempted to smash the image of American purity, everybody ought to be able to agree there’s a word for him:

    Iconoclast.

    Posted by Theo from Greece  on  02/08  at  07:04 AM

  10. Mickey wrote:

    Btw, Debs actually ran for president 5 times. Here are his numbers:

    1900: 94,768
    1904: 402,400
    1908: 402,820
    1912: 897,011
    1920: 917,799 (from his prison cell)

    Last year, Leonard Peltier got 25,101 from his prison cell.

    Let’s hope that Nader, if he runs again, doesn’t end up running from a cell.  Not long ago, I would’ve assumed that if his enemies on both/either sides of the aisle had had enough on him, they would’ve made their move sooner.  Still, given the current climate as exemplified by the fact that Coulter is in no danger of treason charges while Churchill is, you never know. :/

    I’m still amazed at how often other folk in my age bracket have never heard of Debs when the whole discussion of 3rd Parties in the U.S. comes up.  Okay, not really amazed.  He was only mentioned in passing when I was in public school.  It wasn’t until I took a Labor Studies course in college that I heard it again.

    Posted by alsis38 from Portland, OR  on  02/08  at  10:06 AM

  11. Ralph doesn’t have to be running for electoral office to take the controversial positions that he is taking.  Just do a Google News search on him and you’ll see him currently criss-crossing the country, speaking against our continued occupation of Iraq.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  02/08  at  11:11 AM

  12. Um, Kurt, how much money are you willing to put on Wayward Ward being fired? What odds are you offering?

    Sounds like easy money to me!

    http://www.MondoBoulder.com

    Posted by Peter Aretin from Independent Republic of Greater Boulderia  on  02/08  at  01:36 PM

  13. I liked the article until the cheap attack on anarchists. Funny, considering Churchill’s book “On the Justice of Roosting Chickens” was put out by the anarchist publisher AK Press. Careful not to make the dismissive idelogical attacks that you are attempting to criticize.

    Posted by sean nortz from  on  02/08  at  09:14 PM

  14. NR wrote:

    *Ralph doesn’t have to be running for electoral office to take the controversial positions that he is taking.  Just do a Google News search on him and you’ll see him currently criss-crossing the country, speaking against our continued occupation of Iraq.*

    Yeah, I know. Saw him in Seattle about two weeks ago.  It’s just too bad that threats to class action (et al) don’t have that same sexy vibe that the destruction of the towers aparently does.  To my mind the former’s as important in its own way as the latter.  It *should* be a major controversy, but I don’t blame Nader for the fact that the media is self-centered and hopelessly tone-deaf.

    Posted by alsis38 from Portland, OR  on  02/08  at  10:45 PM

  15. From time to time, I will peruse several blogs and message boards that are frequented by people who like to call themselves “progressive Democrats”.  And the most talked about subject of progressivism, on many of the boards, is the chairmanship of the DNC and Howard Dean.  Nary a word about what is happening to WC and the war on dissent.  Regrettably, I find that to be both pathetic and symptomatic of today’s buy-partisan Democratic Party.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  02/08  at  11:05 PM

  16. Yeah, that echo-chamber effect is really something, isn’t it ?  I joke to people that if I had a blog, it would consist solely of my three major obsessions: My collages, 3rd Party politics, and women’s jazz.  Thus I would be guaranteed the least number of hits of anyone in blogland-- but the three or four people who stopped by would at least be spared thoughts of-- “Oh, Lord !  Not all this crap about Dean AGAIN !!”

    I can’t compete with Josh Frank’s verve [ahem] regarding the whole Dean foofaraw.  Suffice it to say that I saw him once on the campaign trail two summers ago and was distinctly NOT impressed.  Same old platitudes, different year.

    Posted by alsis38 from Portland, OR  on  02/08  at  11:52 PM

  17. Having done a little further reading, I must retract my rash wager about Ward Churchill’s possible firing. Fortunately, you don’t seem to be a betting bunch!

    Wayward Ward is, in fact, pretty vulnerable to charges of academic fraud, though his actual termination still remains a long shot.

    http://hal.lamar.edu/~browntf/Churchill1.htm

    But I think I can still confidently predict he will not be tried for treason, except on the radio, of course, where, though speech is free, talk is cheap.

    Peter Aretin

    Posted by Peter Aretin from Independent Republic of Greater Boulderia  on  02/09  at  12:10 PM

  18. Incidentally, I think a lot of those black-clad anarchists are agents provocatuers. I mean, let’s get real here, breaking windows at McDonalds, how is that going to do anything but make people think you’re an asshole? Fighting with the police. Good idea, since that’s exactly what they want, those goons like cracking heads. I have all the respect in the world for nuns who pour blood on nukes, but none for idiots who think they’re on the barricades, throwing rocks at cops, somehow believing they are changing the empire. The media loves ‘em--makes the rest of us look like idiots. Emma Goldman, if she were around today, would call these guys what they are: poseurs, idiots, punks in black. On the other hand, there are plenty of anarchists who say the same things about the black-cladders.

    As for betting on Ward. No, thanks. I’m unemployed and don’t do bets. Thanks all the same. I’d rather pay the rent and think about where the next meal is coming from.

    Posted by Kurt Nimmo from  on  02/09  at  05:55 PM

  19. Ward Churchill is a raving lunatic. However, I believe that he should keep his job and engage in free speech with no repercussions unless he advocates violence. The downside to this is that it exposes the left and makes us unelectable.

    Posted by Mike sCHMIDT from VANCOUVER, CANADA  on  02/11  at  01:39 PM

  20. The Uni admin and even the regents would resist firing him merely for being outspoken, but they will have a harder time with potential issues of fraud and plaigarism.

    He is certainly giving a lot of people who don’t deserve it a black eye by masquerading as an Indian and a scholar.

    Posted by Peter Aretin from Independent Republic of Greater Boulderia  on  02/11  at  02:04 PM

  21. I thought this might be of interest - in the Indian Country News* guestbook there is an entry by the talk radio host Bob Newman (aka Gunny Bob). Here is a link to his page at 850 KOA talk radio: http://www.850koa.com/shows/newman.html and here is a link to one of his articles on Mens News Daily: http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/m-n/newman/2005/newman020605.htm
    They speak for themselves imo. You might even go so far as to say they’re deafening.

    Now, check out his guestbook entry in Indian Country News. As they say, there is something rotten in Demark.


    http://www.850koa.com
    Bob Newman
    Sunday February 6, 2005
    5:47 PM

    Thanks for your efforts to support our investigation of Ward Churchill. 

    Link to guestbook: http://www.indiancountrynews.com/guestbook.cfm

    *Indian Country News is owned by Paul DeMain - to see how how he pertains to this issue follow this link: http://www.coloradoaim.org/history/1994PaulDemainsupportstheBellecourts.htm

    Posted by Chaos Flutterby from  on  02/14  at  10:31 PM

  22. It was necessary to read only one sentence of one of Mr Newman’s literary works to size him up.

    Any man who refers to himself as a “pundit” except in jest and who doesn’t know how to spell “hippie” is manifestly a Doofus of the First Water.

    Posted by Peter Aretin from Central Boulderia  on  02/15  at  02:17 AM

  23. It strikes me that Ward Churchill is a phony of the first order.
    I don’t send my children to his classes so it’s not my business what the hell he does or says.
    The people that are paying for his “services”....well I’d say they’ve a right to take a good look at what they are getting for their money.
    I just read his “little eichman” piece.
    How can you take him seriously?

    We are all at odds with one another...left vs right, blue - red, blah blah blah because we listen to air heads like him and those that would react with cries of treason.

    The democrats? Insane.
    Republicans? Again, insane.

    Crazy times we live in. Time to start thinking for yourself.
    Common sense don’t seem so common these days.

    To all the whuners.....Stop whining and do something.
    Peace

    Posted by geo from NY  on  05/18  at  07:55 PM

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