Press Action

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Ward Churchill's Real Sins

By Michael K. Smith

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Posted 02/08 |

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A MINOR BIRD

I have wished a bird would fly away,

And not sing by my house all day;
Have clapped my hands at him from the door

When it seemed as if I could bear no more.
The fault must partly have been in me.

The bird was not to blame for his key.
And of course there must be something wrong

In wanting to silence any song.
-- Robert Frost

Posted by scone from on 02/08 at 06:05 PM

(Letter to the Editor of University of New Mexico “Daily Lobo")

Killing the Messenger

Matthew A. Cone

I figured that somebody at the Daily Lobo would take a stab at Ward Churchill, and sure enough, Richard Berthold swallowed the recent news hook, line and sinker. The problem with Tuesday’s column is that it added nothing new to the frenzied attack on noted anarchist and college professor Ward Churchill. It was apparent that Berthold was as knowledgeable about Churchill and his arguments as Bill O’Reilly, and merely seized upon the hot topic in order to push his meaningless case for “free speech” - a supposed Constitutional right that died years ago, if it ever existed at all.

The message that resonates throughout Churchill’s work is straightforward, and is nothing that needs to be apologized for. The argument holds that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were repercussions of a brutal and unrelenting United States foreign policy, that the victims killed in the attacks were not innocent, and that the terrorists who participated in the attack were fighting back. Americans have a difficult time grasping this concept, but an analogy may help to shed light on the terrorists’ dilemma. If a bunch of goons broke into your home, killed your wife and children, scattered Uranium dust in the living room, and stole your most valuable possessions, what would you do? Most of us would likely take matters into our own hands, which is exactly what Churchill argues the terrorists did on 9/11.

Such a messenger is sorely needed in a nation which has since illegally destroyed and occupied two nations, unjustly imprisoned and tortured thousands of innocent civilians, killed and maimed over one million people, and told its citizens shut up and take trips to Disneyland. No matter what happens to Ward Churchill, you can rest assured the message will exist long after we have killed the messenger. All of us have the blood of innocent Afghans and Iraqis on our hands, and each of us have the duty, the responsibility, and the moral obligation to stop the slaughter by any means necessary. As anarchist philosophizer John Zerzan so eloquently put it: “Ignorance and denial do not excuse the complicity inherent in doing nothing.” If we continue to turn our backs on the horrific crimes committed in our names, with our tax dollars, we’ll be just as guilty as the “Good Germans” to which Ward Churchill refers.

Matthew A. Cone, an undergraduate student majoring in English-Philosophy, is the former systems administrator for the national Campus Greens organization.

Posted by Steve Cone from 4 Corners (National Sacrifice Area) USA on 02/08 at 06:28 PM

It is interesting that there is not a peep for some kind of investigation to solve the crimes committed in the WTC attacks. Nobody is asking for hard evidence to show who is culpable; who the actual perpetrators are. Nobody. Who it was that was involved. Nobody really has answered the tough questions. Some people want answers and don’t get any. None. Where is that critical evidence needed to answer those tough questions?

What happened is all that we know. How? No can do. Why? ditto. Who? Who knows? We all know where.

When Ward Churchill dollops out criticism in an unsavory manner, he gets jumped and left in a heap. Silence the no-good lout. He’s no good. He gets treated badly. He’s not a good American.

Nobody wants to know the truth. Fear and loathing is better. It is more comfortable to wrap yourself in a flag than it is to ask questions to get answers. Sometimes, the truth hurts.

Ward Churchill forces everybody to face the truth of the matter and nobody likes it at all. He becomes an object of ridicule. Demonized as if he is responsible for the attacks on the twin towers. It’s becoming a crock of shit.

One of Nietzche’s ‘hideous clumps’ staring us in the face.

Posted by MDPB from on 02/08 at 06:53 PM

Nietzsche

Didn’t spell check his name. Sorry.

Ward Churchill is faulted for having a conscience. How lucky can he get? He’s got a lot going for him. Good for him.

Posted by MDPB from on 02/08 at 07:14 PM

Churchill is being so demonized that I am waiting for someone to blame him for the tsunami, BUT there is also an incredible amount of support out there for him.

Posted by rosemarie jackowski from on 02/08 at 07:20 PM

“Nietzsche. Didn’t spell check his name. Sorry.”

Is there a hidden spell check utility here that I’m not aware of? I could save myself a lot of grief if there is one. Alas, though, I’m not worthy of such good fortune.

Posted by Nader Rider from on 02/08 at 11:15 PM

http://www.aaup.org/newsroom/Newsitems/churchill.htm

Posted by Theo from Greece on 02/09 at 09:39 AM

MDPB, I’ve read a lot of Nietzsche, and I’m not sure of your reference of his to “hideous clumps.” Could you clarify?

Posted by Tracy McLellan from Chicago on 02/09 at 10:22 AM

A side note - I read that passage from Churchill in a “human rights” package - for a course and thoroughly, thoroughly agree that there is no “free speech” for “hate speech.” One of the reasons that I felt the need to defend Churchill recently was that he is probably the only radical to understand why denying the holocaust is the fulcrum of western hypocrisy, thus something not to be defended. “Free Speech” is a construct.

Posted by j cummings from Canada on 02/09 at 02:04 PM

Harper’s
magazine published an essay by Thomas de Zengotita that began with the quote by Nietzsche.

It is where I first read the quote by Nietzsche.

“... the massive influx of impressions is so great; surprising, barbaric, and violent things press so overpoweringly--"balled up into hideous clumps"--win the youthful soul; that it can save itself only by taking recourse in premeditated stupidity.”

--Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted by MDPB from on 02/09 at 02:27 PM

#9 - There are two positions on free speech. One is that there is freedom for the speech that I hate. The other is that there is only freedom for the speech that I like, i.e. no free speech at all.

Holocaust “deniers” call themselves Holocaust revisionists. They do not deny that large numbers of Jews were killed by the Nazis in WWII. The argument is about exactly how many were killed and whether or not gas chambers were used. The part I quoted from Churchill at the beginning of the article shows that he is on the side of the Holocaust revisionist side of the argument, since he casts doubt on the existence of a “Final Solution” order and the uniform extermination hypothesis in general.

“Hate speech” is a club that can be used by the Right as well as the Left. There’s no reason they can’t throw Churchill out on his ear based on what he has said.

Churchill has a right to free speech. But so do Ernst Zundel and Robert Faurisson.

Posted by Michael from San Francisco on 02/09 at 04:05 PM

Holocaust Deniers call themselves revisionists. Just like Bush calls the estate tax the death tax. Just like religous folks push creationism. Just because someone believes something doesn’t mean its true. Churchill was influenced by Deborah Lipsdadt’s position that to even debate holocaust deniers gives them power. So of course Zundl shouldn’t be thrown in jail...nor shold universities be allowed to employ people who deny any holocausts, be it the Judeocide or, as is often these days, the American holocaust of the last half century. We are talking about ideal situations. If you are claiming that holocaust deniers shouldn’t be “Censored” I agree. I also don’t believe they should be given a platform, and if you’re defending them, then I pity you.

Posted by j cummings from Canada on 02/09 at 05:00 PM

Not to be hostile - but I really hope this isn’t yet another example of Nazi types trying to gain legitimacy in left forums, as I’ve written about here. I believe, personally that even changing the phrase “denier” to “revisionist” is very dangerous. Do you also believe then that both sides of the Darwin/Creationism debate should be told? This is not a two sided thing to anyone but people with a predisposition to if not outright Judeophobia, then some sense of hostility. I appreciate, if not fully agree with Churchill’s work because, as I wrote, unlike many radicals, he understands this issue. I am not accusing the above comenter/writer of racism, but a lack of understanding . Do you believe it is “free speech” to allow all of the phrases that Mickey Z cataloged in his piece today? Marx, someone you cite, did not believ in the bourgeois model of free speech, nor do I. America is the country it is because it constantly lies to itself. The radical implication of this concept is what I am getting at.

Posted by j cummings from Canada on 02/09 at 05:11 PM

I think it should be instructive to any true internationalists that this above commenter puts “denier” in quotes, thus hinting that he believes the holocaust didn’t take place. If Press Action readers and other writers are okay with this, then that is sad.

Posted by j cummings from Canada on 02/09 at 05:17 PM

So does my dead Grama Hodge.

Posted by Tracy McLellan from Chicago on 02/09 at 05:19 PM

If one considers the terms of a given debate too degrading to even enter into, you have the option of not entering that debate. You don’t have the option of suppressing others. Applying highly misleading labels like “denier” is no different than the Right calling you or I “anti-American” or “terrorist sympathizer.”

Churchill argues that Lipstadt, by “denying” all Holocausts EXCEPT the annihilation of the Jews in WWII, is a far more damaging theorist than Faurisson, Zundel, et al. I agree with that. So it’s hard to take her seriously vis-a-vis Faurisson and the rest.

I think Clarence Darrow did a fine job of debating Creationism. He didn’t lend any power to the Creationists, quite the contrary. He subjected them to well-aimed, remorseless ridicule.

Glad you agree that no one should be censored. But last I heard Zundel was still in jail.

Posted by Michael from San Francisco on 02/09 at 05:37 PM

Your use of language betrays your motivation. I don’t think you are being neccesarily Judeophobic, but I do believe that the practice - to me - of quibbling - even if you “don’t deny that many Jews” (the only argument is between 5 million, some say and 6 million others say) were killed. When you veer off the side of the road is where you talk about gas chambers and the final solution. I agree, by the way, that the Americans could have prevented the Judeoide, and chose not to - and don’t get me started on Zionist culpability...but I am very offended that it would be important to any self-respecting left winger to quibble over the holocaust.

And I don’t think Zundl shold be jailed as I said, but why is it so important to you? I presume you don’t share his agenda, do you?

Posted by j cummings from Canada on 02/09 at 09:14 PM

I don’t know what you mean by “veer off the side of the road.” Are you in exclusive possession of the truth about the Holocaust? Is anyone?

I’m not quibbling about numbers, merely saying that numbers can be questioned without it constituting a crime. Numbers about every other atrocity under the sun are endlessly debated, why can’t the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust be debated?

I don’t see any reason for you to be offended by anything I have said.

I don’t know what Zundel’s “agenda” is and it’s irrelevant to the matter of his human rights. He has the right to say what he wants about the Holocaust without being hauled off to jail for it.

On the matter of why the issue is important to me . . . it’s because if one person’s rights are denied everyone’s rights are diminished.

Posted by Michael from San Francisco on 02/10 at 02:21 AM

I’ll take you at your word. I’ll just say this...are you Jewish? Thought not. And I’m not using this for Zionist purposes, I have holocaust survivors whom I know, people who led resistance in the camps and others who barely survived.

Object lesson, to prove your inadvertent racism: If you understand why African Americans don’t think it proper to debate numbers in terms of slavery, Gays not to debate their sexual practices, Arabs not to deny the occupation or be Islamophobic, then you can understand why Jews think it is a slippery slope, esp. when practiced by non Jews, in terms of debatng the numbers killed. As the Jewish Marxist Daniel Singer states once we establish that Hitler “was notas bad as some say” and then in turn, push the concept that he was only responding to the Bolshevik revolution, we justify Hitler. Also, the importance of the Holocaust to humanity, ato human rights, and to Romani, Jews, Slavs, Gays, Communists and others who werek killed is not the numbers, is the fact it happened. Adn even if the revisionists claim to not be racists, they serve a very racist purpose, as well as a purpose that is antithetical to humanity.

So yes, I am in posession of crystal clear unambiguous truths. Again, I ask, are you Jewish? If you can at least acknowledge what I am saying, I will believe you are not a racist. Otherwise, well then I hope that you can say that when you quibble over numbers that you aren’t working with people who eventually want to show that the holocaust, if it happened at all was provoked by those ribald Jews of Weimar.

Posted by j cummings from Canada on 02/10 at 11:32 AM

Another object lesson that may hit closer to the present: doesn’t it piss anyone off when some neocons attempt to place doubt on the Lancet study hat shows 100,000 were killed in Iraq? The point that neocons and others are trying to make in this sort of denial is unambiguously wrong. If it pisses people off, then it should piss people off when reports far more well grounded than Lancet’s brilliant report are disputed by a self proclaimed leftist. I really hope I’ve made myself clear.

I know some American so-called leftists who have allowed their natural anger at Israeli treatment of Palestinians to turn into regularly reading some holocaust deniers. All white people. No Palestinians or Arabs I know of have ever done such a thing, knowing what historical memory is, for all those who deny the Nakhba. And you probably believe that is wrong to defend or imply as some Zionists do, the Nakhba, so why do you defend or question the holocaust?

Posted by j cummings from Canada on 02/10 at 11:59 AM

Thanks for calling me a racist.

Numbers are always debatable about every atrocity, no matter who is expressing skepticism about what number. Arguments that don’t stand up to the facts should be exposed for that. The matter of impure motive is a religious question. If someone can substantiate what they say, then their argument deserves to gain currency; if they can’t, then they deserve intellectual oblivion, but not punishment.

I don’t see how it serves a racist purpose to question whether gas chambers were used in WWII. What percent of the population is even interested in the question? Is it over .001%?

My estimation of the Nazi regime would not change even if it were proven that not a single gas chamber existed in WWII. Is it somehow better to murder millions by starvation, slave labor, and mass shootings?

Interesting that you think whether or not I’m Jewish is relevant to the discussion. It’s not.

Posted by Michael from San Francisco on 02/10 at 04:29 PM

On Palestinians never reading Holocaust revisionsists, that’s just not true. The late Edward Said noted in 1998 that there was a wave of Palestinian interest in “Roger Garaudy and his Holocaust-denying friends,” which he very much regretted. So to say that Palestinians don’t read Holocaust “deniers” is not accurate. (See Said’s “The End of the Peace Process, pp. 285-6)

Posted by Michael from San Francisco on 02/10 at 06:41 PM

I didn’t call you a racist, and I’m glad you cleared up your views in regards to the Nazis. First off, being Jewish may clear up some things about historical memory, just as in discussing Gay or Black or Arab affairs, it helps to understand whether the person questioning Gay, Black or Arab orthodoxy is Gay, Black or Arab. One of the reasons that Noam Chomsky and others have been able to convince much of the American left of the justice of the Palestinian cause is because he was Jewish. Jews, who comprise much of the urban left in America were able to take it from him, and from Edward Said what they couldn’t hear from say, Tom Haydn. Every group has ethno-particular standards, even when we don’t want them.
I know people that saw gas chambers, and knowing the historical records Germans kept which prove their existence, it seems just quizzical than one would even entertain such a notion, were it not for the ultimate goal of attempting to disprove the holocaust or find doubt, and as is the stated goal of many “revisionists” David IRving among them, to convince “history” if you will, that Hitler was the lesser of two evils. If it is just a case of “hmmm, I wonder,’ then I’ll buy that. But I think that even if 0.00001 percent of people are wrong on an issue, dead wrong, they’re still wrong. Which is why its so stupid and empowering of his ilk for Toronto to lock up Zundl. It just makes him look like some hero...and he sends out letters. Read a piece by me on this site about an experience o mine with one his followers. He most emphatically does have an agenda. Just because he doesn’t have the means to carry it out doesn’t mean he isn’t a nutter, as are his followers.

Posted by j cummings from Canada on 02/10 at 06:47 PM

Again, I’m sorry if you felt I called you a racist. I didn’t. In regards to Arabs/Palestinians and Holocaust denial, I was simply speaking of people of my aqquantance. I know that Said passage, and also know that Lebanon hosted a “revisionist” conference that Said spoke out against, a few years back..

Posted by j cummings from Canada on 02/10 at 06:54 PM

If it’s true that much of the left was convinced of the justice of Palestinian national rights because a prominent Jewish intellectual (Chomsky) told them so, it’s a defeat for left values - primarily independent thought. It’s self-evident that violent disposession of Palestinians is a crime.

Tom Hayden? He was in the hills of Beirut in 1982, admiring the Israeli slaughter below. Hard to develop sympathy for Palestinian rights through him.

Not sure if David Irving is a Holocaust revisionist or not. Ward Churchill thinks he is, but I’m not sure other revisionists call him one of their own. And LOTS of people in power thought Hitler was the lesser evil against Stalin, which is a major reason why WWII happened in the first place.

Every person on earth “has an agenda.” So what? Zundel has the right of free speech, same as the rest of us. Except he doesn’t, because he “has an agenda.” He should not be released from jail because incarceration “makes him look like some hero,” but because he was wrongly imprisoned in the first place.

Posted by Michael from San Francisco on 02/10 at 07:33 PM

I just used Tom Haydn as an example of someone lily-white. Otherwise we have no real quarrel (as in our reasoning for wanting to see no one imprisoned happens to be mutually exclusive and non contradictory.) I understand what you are saying in/re certain issues, but still have a problem, but not one that I can’t live with… And whatever Irving is, he is a sick #### who deliberately distorted history.

Posted by j cummings from Canada on 02/10 at 10:15 PM

“LOTS of people in power thought Hitler was the lesser evil against Stalin.”
Like capitalists and royalists. MZ’s book Saving Private Power is excellent on this point. NO ONE the left thought that which is why many were so disaponted with Stalin’s pact with Hitler -though that bought the Red army time to kick Hitler’s ass - say what you will about Stalin or WWII being an unjust war from an American standpoint, but the Red Army, and particularly communist partisans saved Europe from fascism, including quite a few people I know...it is just the agenda of many historians - right wing historians to show that however monstrous Hitler was, Stalin was worse. I submit that even if Stalin killed more people, Hitler was worse. For details, one should consult Michael Parenti’s very acessable book Blackshirts and Reds on this issue.

On Chomsky explaining Palestine to the masses....you have to see where I’m going even if you disagree. In the early seventies, it was impossible for anyone, white, black, Arab, to write about Palestinians in a positive light, in the North American left press, including the New Left. Chomsky changed all of this, and no one doubts that his Judaism lent him credibility on this issue. I don’t think that a a “goyishe” leftist would have had the same impact. Of course the far left were never Zionists, but among liberals and left-Zionists, Chomsky was able to move them to a more universalist position, by virtue of his connection with Judaism. I stand by that point. It is sad but true.

Posted by j cummings from Canada on 02/10 at 10:27 PM

Blackshirts and Reds is a wonderful corrective to the usual anti-Communist hysteria we get, but it has this serious flaw: Parenti lumps Chomsky in with liberal anti-Communists, failing to consult Chomsky’s justly admired essay “objectivity and liberal scholarship,” which clearly distinguishes his anarchist convictions from the liberal variety he is critiquing. Parenti can’t be unaware of that essay, and even if he were it would simply bespeak colossal intellectual incompetence. A main point is that Stalin, currying favor with the bourgeois governments, helped crush the anarchist revolution in Spain, thus aiding the rising fascist cause.

On Palestine. . . before Chomsky there was Alfred Lilienthal, who wrote extensively on the injustices of Zionism long before Chomsky did. However, he is Jewish too.

If your point is correct about needing to hear Palestinians are human beings from a Jew first, then why isn’t it correct to say that we need to hear from a German like Zundel to correct whatever distortions may have been imposed by the Holocaust gas chamber cult with its lurid tales of Jewish skins being converted to lampshades, body fat being made into soap etc. It makes sense that a German might be uniquely motivated to counter ferocious caricatures of WWII era Germans. The fact that millions of Jews were indisputably killed by the Nazis doesn’t mean that every detail of the exterminationist hypothesis is correct, a point Ward Churchill concedes in the quoted material at the start of my essay.

Posted by Michael from San Francisco on 02/11 at 03:39 PM

I agree vix the critique of Chomsky as a cold war liberals. Otherwise I’m not gonna even respond to the other stuff, for that would be repetitive. see my Press Action piece
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/cummings09282004/

Posted by j cummings from Canada on 02/11 at 04:08 PM

Read your article. We’re far apart. Joining the cult of “anti-anti-Semitism,” as Alfred Lilienthal calls it, is not the thing to do. Saying we shouldn’t “work with” Holocaust “deniers” begs the question of what a denier is. As I’ve indicated, Ward Churchill is on the “Nazi” side of the argument, so that means we should shun him?

Israel does more than “claim to be acting for Jews,” it actually IS acting for Jews, not just those residing in Israel but all Jews wherever they happen to reside. As for poll results, I’m not aware of anything remotely approaching a majority of Jews opposed to the imposition of Jewish supremacy in 1948 Palestine and continued to this day.

Of course the Institute for Historical Review should be “heard out” if it can attract an audience.

The Holocaust is not quantum physics. It’s an historical event subject to interpretation, just like every other historical event.

Posted by Michael from San Francisco on 02/11 at 06:15 PM

The title of Mr Smith’s article is
“Ward Churchill’s Real Sins.”

Churchill’s Real Sins, however, get lost in commentaries about the Holocaust and the true feelings of “the People,” who are variously defined as Germans or Gentiles or Americans.

Discussion of the Holocaust derails the intended topic, which invites us to consider whether or not Ward Churchill is a man more sinning than sinned against.

Mr Smith, author of the article, is asking his readers to push aside the lunacy of Rightist or Fundamentalist criticisms of Ward Churchill to uncover Churchill’s REAL sins.

It seems that Michael Smith is simply saying that Churchill is the pot calling the kettle black, or is the man in the glass house who throws stones, and that the Rightists are attacking Churchill for the wrong reasons.

Aside from my feeling that Mr Smith is kicking a man when he’s down, I also feel that the article lacks focus. I can’t agree with Mr Smith’s assessment of what constitutes “common sense” as applied to the behavior of people during WWII, or during any other war.

That Ward Churchill puts the word ‘right’ in quotation marks - while referring to Faurisson’s ‘right’ to deny certain elements of the Holocaust - does not strike me as indicative that Ward Churchill is opposed to free speech. I would suggest that the quotes indicate Churchill’s frustrations with people who exercise the right to be wrong.

Writers write using their own subjective filters, and that’s as close to truth as one can get. I am not in the least shocked when a person protests that opponents to her or his own ideas is ‘wrong.’ Lacking any crystal ball or any other means to know how Churchill’s mind was working when he placed quotes around the word ‘right,’ I strongly suspect that Churchill was expressing frustration with Revisionist views. He did not suggest repeal of the First Amendment; he simply reacted naturally to the views of a person with whom he strongly disagreed. And one who “strongly disagrees” with you is saying that he thinks you’re “wrong.” I see no sin in this.

So I am still wondering: What are Ward Churchill’s Real Sins? Nobody seems to be addressing that issue, and that issue was the topic of Mr Smith’s opening article.
T Davis
San Francisco

Posted by T Davis from San Francisco, CA on 02/11 at 08:38 PM

The fact he stole Lemmy from Motorhead’s haircut.

Posted by j cummings from Canada on 02/11 at 09:02 PM

Responding to j cummings:

The allegation that Churchill stole Lemmy from Motorhead’s haircut has not passed muster with those of us who demand a preponderance of evidence to back up such a serious charge.

In a prior post, you remark,

“”....there is no “free speech” for “hate speech.” One of the reasons that I felt the need to defend Churchill recently was that he is probably the only radical to understand why denying the holocaust is the fulcrum of western hypocrisy, thus something not to be defended. “Free Speech” is a construct."”

You go beyond my depths when you say that free speech is a costruct. I thought that the term “construct” could be applied to all speech, free or not.

I agree with you that quibbling over the numbers of murdered and the methods of murder in WWII indicates a pathologically dehumanized sense of priorities. Some seem to feel that the mere absence of gas chambers would transform a concentration camp into a pleasure palace.

Again, though, the topic of this discussion is announced as an outing of the dark side of Ward Churchill from a left or progressive or dissident point of view.

With all due respects to Motorhead and Nietzsche, and in complete agreement with your (j cummings’) position on the holocaust, I would still like to read comments from the paricipants that address the intended topic expressed in the title of the article by Michael K Smith.

That you identify “free speech” as a construct, -by which I guess you mean that free speech is a hollow phrase unworthy of defense or concern - does not persuade me to demand the repeal of the First Amendment.

Since, as best I can tell, you generally reject Michael K Smith’s assessment of Ward Churchill, I would like to read your more specific comments on that issue. I, for one, do not have a clear understanding of Mr Smith’s charges against Ward Churchill.

So, help me out, good buddy: Tell me your understandings of Mr Smith’s charges against Churchill, and tell me why you disagree with the charges. You have adequately addressed issues of the holocaust and your feelings about the revisionists who insist: Since their aint no gas chambers, being a Jew in WWII Germany was quite pleasant, a bowl of cherries, a rose garden. I know that such nonsense is horrifying, but it’s not the advertised topic of this discussion.

Gimme a break: Help clarify Michael Smith’s charges against Churchill, then clarify your own opposing (or shared) views.
Although this approach might lack the zest and vitality of the Motorhead scandals, it would restore my faith that the people of North America still have some grasp of the concept of “topic.” And faith that my North American compatriots might show some mercy to an old man like me, and help me work through my befuddlement over just what it is that MK Smith dislikes about Ward Churchill.

T Davis

Posted by T Davis from San Francisco, CA on 02/12 at 02:46 AM

T Davis said in reply to Smith: I would suggest that the quotes indicate Churchill’s frustrations with people who exercise the right to be wrong. - you hit the nail on the head. I also believe that Smith is very confused. To assert that Churchill who simply takes the anti-holocaust denial position and extends it to the entire edifice of human life over the course of the last entury, is on the “Nazi” side of the argument is smearing Churchill. Whether Smith realizes this or not, I am not sure. He seems a true believer, and not one to even bother with. I’m surprised his work was published here, given the very offensive correllation between the concept of “holocaust deniers” and the n word. in his first paragraph. I know Mark knows better than that.

What were WCs sins? To paraphrase Tim Wise, they were to believe that Americans could understand nuance and irony. I appreciate you agreeing with me about the Holocaust, but vix gas chabers, people I know and love saw them, and Germans kept records, so...arguing that is offensive. On free speech (and all speech, as you say) as a construct, I mean that truly free speech does not exist nor has it ever existed, it is like a unicorn. I think its good to defend WC on free speech grounds, but it would be better to defend WC on the grounds of academic freedom, a subtle distinction or betteryet, to defend him on the substance of his points - which I did, though I maintain some distance from some of his conclusions...see a piece by me on this site “Same as it ever was”

Posted by j cummings from Canada on 02/12 at 01:43 PM

Thanks for calling me a confused racist.

On Churchill being on the “Nazi” side of the argument . . . the part I quoted from him at the beginning of my essay is a main line of contention of “deniers,” to wit: if the Jews were systematically gassed by the millions, why the hodgepodge of anti-Jewish policies instead of a “fixed policy” of total extermination, especially by gassing?

If I’m a “true believer” barely worth bothering with, how come you’ve posted over a dozen responses to my article?

Glad to cause offense by pointing out that so called deniers are the intellectual’s version of “nigger.” What I mean by that is once this label is affixed to someone there is no need to examine what he/she actually says. Affix the pejorative label and dismiss. Whatever that is, it’s not debate.

People have a right to argue that gas chambers didn’t exist whether or not they actually existed. Unfortunately, that right is not respected. Interesting that you assume that eyewitness testimony is equivalent to truth. Doesn’t it have to be evaluated? If people say Jesus walked on water I should just accept that he did?

Free speech is a construct . . . yes, and a damn good one. Agreed that it can never exist in perfection, but the question is whether we approach or recede from perfection by denying people the right to argue as they like. Obviously, we recede.

Churchill’s sin in my view is in holding that those who don’t share his view of the American Holocaust and the Nazi Holocaust do not have the right to express their views. Nonsense.

Posted by Michael from San Francisco on 02/12 at 05:05 PM

I too am somewhat uncomfortable with Mr. Smith�s kicking Churchill when he is down. Whatever merit there may be in Smith�s astute commentary, it seems poorly timed. On the other hand, Churchill did reference Eichmann in the essay in question, so perhaps it�s inevitable that the whole issue of Nazis and the holocaust would arise.
It�s been some time since I read Churchill�s essay, the one for which he is currently being demonized, but I don�t remember him stating or implying, as Mr. Smith suggests, that US foreign policy is what it is because of the enthusiastic endorsement of wickedness by conscious majorities.� What he seems to be saying, in the original essay and in his recent talk, is that too many Americans do not resist or protest the kinds of hideous crimes their government commits. People are too passive, too complacent. This does not imply that they are fiendish or enthusiastically evil, but it does suggest that they are quite capable of BANAL evil. And can any intelligent, informed American deny this? One has only to consider the 60 Minutes episode in 1996, where Leslie Stahl questioned Madeline Albright about the deaths of half a million Iraqi children because of US economic sanctions against Iraq, and Stahl asked, incredulously, �Is it worth it?� Albright�s infamous answer: �We think it�s worth it� did not touch off a firestorm of protest in the streets, although it should have. It did not cause hundreds of thousands of protesters to march in SF, Washington DC, throughout the country.
Nor did he say that the other day in his talk at U. of Colorado. He did say the US policies, for example the sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s, were met with widespread support among the public, by which he means far too few protested against the sanctions, which did indeed cause a holocaust of at least 1.5 million Iraqi deaths. And I cannot deny this. Did I do enough to resist it? Certainly, I wrote letters to public officials, I circulated information. I marched. I protested. But did I do enough? Did you? Ward Churchill is commendable for raising these uncomfortable issues.
I also do not see how Churchill�s putting the word �right� in quotations indicates he necessarily doesn�t believe the said individual has free speech rights. It merely indicates Churchill recognizes the irony of the situation, i.e., that Faurrison has the �right� to be wrong. But I suspect it will be more than �bitter irony� if Churchill is fired for his speech on the strength of an argument all too similar to his own. Can we equate Churchill with a holocaust denier/revisionist? If Churchill loses his job it will be because he has offended the mighty and powerful, who do not appreciate being disabused of their delusions about US foreign policy and its consequences.

Posted by whats_his_name from Northern CA on 02/13 at 04:00 AM

“Once again - this time in the name of a ‘crusade’ to ‘rid the world of evil’ - Americans have enthusiastically embraced a policy devolving upon the systematic and potentially massive perpetration of war crimes and crimes against humanity."----Ward Churchill “On The Justice of Roosting Chickens, p. 16

He says this in the context of an assertion that the “preponderance” of Americans have rejected international law. I, myself, doubt whether anything but a tiny fraction of Americans knows the first thing about international law.

Had hundreds of thousands of Americans marched in response to the hideous statement by Madeleine Albright in 1996, Churchill could have responded that such demonstrations were all meaningless “marching in circles,” mere symbolic action.

Churchill is not speaking ironically in saying Holocaust revisionists have no right to publish their views. He makes no criticism of the jailing of such revisionsists for their views, cases of which he cites in “A Little Matter of Genocide.” Also, in a talk at University of Colorado this past Tuesday he said that those who want to march in a Columbus Day parade have no right to do so. In short, he is prepared to defend your rights only to the degree to which you agree with his politics. Sound familiar?

As to kicking a man when he’s down, he’s not down. And I’ve given nothing useful to the lynch mob coming after him.

Posted by Michael from San Francisco on 02/13 at 04:43 AM

Well, I stand by my point: too many americans don’t give a rat’s ass what their govt. does abroad, or whether it commits war crimes. Just keep the SUVs tax deductible and the gas cheap. In effect if not in conscious intent, it amounts to an enthusiastic embrace of the govt’s criminal agenda.

The important thing to grasp is that no American is innocent. No one. Not even Mr. Churchill, who did wax a bit self righteous in his essay, if memory serves. In his speech at U. of Colorado the other day, at least he admitted that he too, is not blameless. He should have said that in the original essay. It might’ve made the bitter truth serum easier to swallow.

Posted by whats_his_name from on 02/13 at 01:48 PM

A lot of Americans WANT their government to do cruel things abroad because they’ve been led to believe a lot of nonsense, i.e. that we inhabit “a dangerous world” full of narcotraffickers and fanatical Arab terrorists and Communist dictators determined to ring down the curtain on decency and humanity. These are false fears, but we have a responsibility to SPEAK TO THESE FEARS, not dismiss people as idiots or hopelessly reactionary scumbags before they’ve ever had a chance to hear a decent political critique. I’m not saying we should waste our breath on the Rapture crowd, but a large majority of Americans are capable of listening to reason. The problem is, they never hear any.

Churchill did recently say he is not innocent. But he trades on his Indian identity an awful lot, and being an Indian means you are obviously innocent of the genocide at the basis of this culture. So I think he’s being disingenuous in saying that he doesn’t believe he is innocent. By virtue of his Indian identity, he is innocent and we are guilty.

To my mind, Churchill has a far greater responsibility to act against the imperial state than the average American because (1) he is aware of its crimes and (2) he has immense freedom as a professor to think and act as he likes. These observations do not apply to the vast majority of Americans, or certainly not to anywhere near the same degree.

Posted by Michael from San Francisco on 02/13 at 06:44 PM

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Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Ward Churchill's Real Sins

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