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Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of Criticism

By Jeralyn, Section Civil Liberties
Posted on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 11:50:30 AM EST
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University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill released this statement in response to the criticism over his past 9/11 remarks. Hamilton College today canceled Professor Churchill's talk, citing numerous death threats.

Background and details are here.

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    • Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of Criticism | 36 comments (36 topical)
    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 12:04:39 PM EST
    Churchill is the guy that Glenn Reynolds said was the "very image" of the Left these days. I guess Glenn doesn't read your blog, Jeralyn or mine for that matter.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#2)
    by Kitt on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 12:12:00 PM EST
    Pfft....Glenn Reynolds...pfft - divorced still from reality.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 12:16:24 PM EST
    For the record, I like Glenn Reynolds and agree with some of his positions. If you criticize him, please do it for his position on Churchill, which is the topic of this thread, not just to attack him.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 12:36:59 PM EST
    Well actually, I'm criticizing him for his using Churchill statements - which I find repellent - as being representative of the left.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 12:42:20 PM EST
    Were Churchill's comments on 9-11 substantively any different from those of Susan Sontag, Noam Chomsky or Chalmers Johnson? Churchill may have been more egregiously offensive to the victims in his remarks but doesn't he say the same basic thing, that 9-11 was a response to U.S. policies?

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 01:03:19 PM EST
    So is this what bush and gang are talking about when he talks about Freedom? Ward Churchill maybe be an ass, but he has the right to say what he thinks, it was not to attack the people that were killed but to make people think about why it happened. and yes this nation is not about freedom or its own culture or about customs and identity its about global financial power and its ideal of the few oligarchies and bin laden is part of this plan of that system of total evil, you should listen to what ward is talking about or this insane world oligarchies will have you all killing each other for food.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 01:33:28 PM EST
    If Professor Churchill's statement, as linked to above, accurately represents the original context of his remarks, then he has been the victim of a right-wing media smear, like so many others recently. While his use of the phrase "little Eichmans" (Eichmanns?) was inflammatory and probably ill-advised, it was not, in the context he gives it in his statement, inaccurate. The 9/11 attacks, or something like them, were indeed an inevitable consequence of U.S. foreign policy, enabled and engineered in part by the CIA, operating out of the WTC. If an honest criticism of our government is what Churchill is guilty of, it should be no shame for him to be considered the "very image of the Left." Unless he was dishonest in his statement, or there were other circumstances surrounding his original remarks of which I am unaware, we on the left should be defending him, not excoriating him.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 01:37:53 PM EST
    Churchill makes valid points, even if people find them insensitive. Many americans proudly supported terrorists in the late 1980's and early 1990's with cash and words of praise for the terrorist's cause. These americans were not muslims or of any middle eastern descent. These americans were mostly irish-americans who supported the IRA which was waging a bloody campaign against the British government For the most part the United States government & American people were indifferent to those families who lost loved ones that were police officers, soldiers or politicians as they made their contributions to the political arm of the IRA. One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. So Churchill is merely pointing out that as americans we are not free from guilt and might want to look at the example we set before we get too righteous. The real point to be taken away from this entire conversation is an old cliche' that proves too true, he who lives by the sword dies by the sword.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 02:08:17 PM EST
    who said he doesn't have a right to say what he wants? No tax dollars should be spent to employ this man however, at the public university of Colorado, no more than the public university of Colorado should have a Klansman on staff.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#10)
    by Kitt on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 02:16:07 PM EST
    And for the record, I think it's that sweeping statement that Ward Churchill represents 'the left' I find as despicable as Churchill's comments. As it is, I find much of what Churchill says not much different than the likes of Sean Hannity and other 'commentators' on Fox News for instance and many who support this administration take the same tack, just from a different angle.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#11)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 02:23:53 PM EST
    I'm kind of old fashioned on stuff like that - I always think we should just let the widder women beat the cr*p out of him. -C

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#12)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 02:26:09 PM EST
    If an honest criticism of our government is what Churchill is guilty of, it should be no shame for him to be considered the "very image of the Left." Unless he was dishonest in his statement, or there were other circumstances surrounding his original remarks of which I am unaware, we on the left should be defending him, not excoriating him. Leslie, I don't subscribe to groupthink abd I consider myself someone on the left. Churchill speaks in broad geenralizations and paints with a broad brush. I don't tolerate that from the right (that's one of my gripes with Instapundit) and I shouldn't accept that from the left. If Churchill wants to be a rhetorical bombthrower, that is of course his prerogative, but he should consider the risk that his rhetoric will mask the message. Simply put, if you're screaming, people tend to pay more attention to the fact that you're screaming, not to the content of what you are saying.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#13)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 02:36:05 PM EST
    Where is the contrast in that thought about Klansmen? Klansmen are a group guilty of persistent crimes against innocent people; Churchill is apparently a Vietnam vet, but that state-sanctioned (illegal, unconscionable, immoral) war aside, is not part of any such attempt to spread violent hatred against a race. He doesn't appear to support violence of any sort, but merely to rue its inevitability, just as the theocracy in Iran is a direct, inevitable result of the CIA reinstallation of the Shah. These are almost mathematical results. This use of the term 'Left' to include any inclusive analysis is not new, and still not without peril for freedom of thought. Bush said they hate us for our freedoms, but apparently thinking or presenting contrasting facts is not one of those. Free to worship demonstrably wrong dogma -- how medieval. Non-Left characters like Pat Buchanon have also made similar assesments, and Pat Robertson's analysis blaming gays is at least as offensive, yet without similar outrage from (gay-hating) Rights. There is a Left, but most Democrats, such as myself, do not belong to it, as much as we stand shoulder-to-shoulder protesting BAD POLICIES. That doesn't make the actions by the CIA and US military in my lifetime any less abhorent to me. Facts-in-evidence, these actions have been a series of extremely damaging mistakes. How is damaging the Republic superior to analysing those actions in their actual context? They don't hate us for our freedoms; they hate us because we murder their children.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#14)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 02:37:51 PM EST
    Cliff: "I always think we should just let the widder women beat the cr*p out of him/" And if the widders learn to fly planes?

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#15)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 03:01:41 PM EST
    Where is the comparision with the Klansman? Klansman are about prejudice of minority races, religions, etc. This "professor" similarly believes in the prejudice (in this case) of white collar business people, who had 9/11 coming to them. No difference, except that the Klansman choose minorities to prejudice.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#16)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 03:11:08 PM EST
    Wow, if you think Klansmen 'prejudice' minorities, you must have missed the part about lynching, beating, raping, torturing, and terrorizing. Leading classes in a college usually does not include such acts, unless you go to some strange alma mater.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#17)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 03:48:30 PM EST
    et al - The next time you get confused about why you are losing election after election, just think of what this guy said, and your comments. The Repubs couldn't ask for anything better. And yes, he has the right to say what he wants. But given that he is a public employee, and given that he is so offensive to so many of his employers, the state should have the right to fire him. He is a poster boy of all that us wrong with tenure.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#18)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 03:57:14 PM EST
    Well from what I read here, we will all be at war within 5 years, and that is what Bush and business want.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#19)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 04:05:37 PM EST
    Ward Churchill is quite possibly the most accurate chronicler of atrocities perpetrated upon indigenous populations today, he himself being of indigenous ancestry, with (to my knowledge) at least one of his books banned in the U.S., ( Struggle for the Land ). Why is it so difficult to understand that we weren't attacked because of our "freedoms", we were attacked because of our on-going support, finaciering and active participation in the genocide perpitrated by a foreign aggressor upon the indigenous population of Palestine? There's alot to be said of G'ma's old saw about how the truth hurts.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#20)
    by jondee on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 05:47:17 PM EST
    Ill take Churchill to task when a U.S president declares a day of mourning and reconciliation for what was done to the Indians and the slaves. Otherwise take the talk radio mind-set and stick it - maybe in one a' em widder women.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#21)
    by demohypocrates on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 06:21:21 PM EST
    Sounds more like a 'stick it' to the families of 9/11 victims whose loved ones were likened to Nazis. If you dont mind having them in the reach of your scattershot, you and Mr. Churchill deserve a place together.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#22)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 06:25:52 PM EST
    I guess it's because I'm from Oklahoma where nearly everyone is part Indian (I was in college before someone told me I was an oppressed minority), but I am frankly tired of people whining and crying over American Indian issues. We fought, we lost, we are now Americans, so get over it. I don't give a whit about days of mourning, and I frankly think Sports teams named "Redskins" "Braves" or after various Indian tribes is a sign of respect. I guess this is my NOT IN MY NAME moment. For the record, I am a Choctaw Indian, with a roll number.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#23)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 07:04:40 PM EST
    Gerry - What's a roll number? (Serious question, not a troll.) Thomas "mouth run before mind" Ware: His book is probably as idiotic as his politics but it, like every other book in the world, is in fact available in the US. It took me two seconds on Amazon to find it. Man, the looney left can't even gin up good conspiracy theories anymore. -C

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#24)
    by jimcee on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 07:22:42 PM EST
    This is more about alumni money than philosphy. There was a recent change in the prexy due to a soft insurrection of some tenured people. The new prexy was trying to get along and gave the director of the "Kirkland Project" some leaway. The director over stepped their bounds and cost the College "legacy" money and the event was cancelled. As best as can be ascertained the director of the "Kirkland Project" is leaving on a personal sabbatical or some such thing and the eight year program is under review. There is a kind of cool velvet thing going on on that campus and that should be interesting to see what will happen there. As an insight, this information comes from employees of that old Indian school, Hamilton College in Clinton NY. Kind of insider stuff and take it as you will. It's less a first ammendment issue than it is a financial issue. After all, Mr Churchill could say all he wants on any street corner so he really can "speak to power" but not at Hamilton College. IMHO, The College made the right choice.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#25)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 07:45:34 PM EST
    Roll number refers to the 1906 Dawes "indian" registration. Quantum and tribal registration is based on the Dawes roll to a large extent.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#26)
    by jimcee on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 08:44:19 PM EST
    By the by, There are some in the First American nations that doubt Mr Churchill's credentials as a member of that community. It seems that there may be a poseur situation with this fellow. Just saying, but living close to the situation.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#27)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Feb 01, 2005 at 11:30:55 PM EST
    You gotta have a roll number to claim anything with the BIA. My Great- Grandmother was a full bloded Choctaw. Somewhere along the way, I got Cherokee as well, but no roll number for that tribe.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#28)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Feb 02, 2005 at 12:57:35 AM EST
    Jim: "et al - The next time you get confused about why you are losing election after election," Haven't lost an election in five years. Haven't HAD a legal election in five years. 80% of the American voters (in 28 states) are forced to entrust their votes, without paper trail or right to recount, to $R Bush-backer companies, on secret software "tested and certified" by $R Bush-backer companies, and in many states overseen by Bush campaign chair SecState Katherines. We CAUGHT Triad in Ohio changing the machines and falsifying the vote totals. Affidavits from county election officials are on record. We caught them doing it, but the Aschroft FBI is unwilling to prosecute, just as Aschroft refused to obey the law and hold a formal investigation into Florida 2000. The Ohio Katherine RAN from supoenas, and refused to hold the legally required recount, running out the clock like a true traitor to his office. DC politicians have to move on, but the crimes just go onto the list, and eventually the bell will toll. NO ONE ONE PLANET EARTH WOULD ACCEPT ELECTIONS WHERE ONE PARTY COUNTS THE VOTES. America deserves better than LIES, cowardly warmongers, and fake elections.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#29)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Feb 02, 2005 at 06:02:31 AM EST
    Gerry - Ah, the same people who banned Churchill's book (except, for Amazon and my local library, of course) have clearly stolen all the elections. Question: do you use Reynolds Wrap or store brand tinfoil? -C

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#30)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Feb 02, 2005 at 08:24:03 AM EST
    Posted by Cliff at February 1, 2005 03:23 PM I'm kind of old fashioned on stuff like that - I always think we should just let the widder women beat the cr*p out of him. -C Would you let the Iraqi widders do the same to the Sean Hannitys and Rush Limbaughs saying worse things about the "collateral damage" in their country, too? Plus, I would think that fans of Instacracker would be the ones to use Reynolds wrap first. For the record, I do not like Reynolds, see no value in most of his inflammatory posts because they largely are unsupported by, you know, facts - and he never seems to retract anything when it is shown to be, um, unreality-based. And he was completely off base by saying that Ward Churchill (or anyone else, for that matter) should be considered to be the voice of the Left.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#31)
    by Che's Lounge on Wed Feb 02, 2005 at 10:05:52 AM EST
    People like Reynolds and Faux (AKA the Ministry of Propaganda) jump on stuff like this because they need to perpetuate their own existence in the media and stir the pot just as much as they accuse Churchill of it. Any rational person (49% of the electorate) knows that Churchill's more personal comments towards the 9/11 victims do not represent the views of the mainstream left in this country. Morons like Reynolds just strip themselves of any remaining credibility by inferring as much. Churchill's views about our international policies, however, are nothing new.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#32)
    by Kitt on Wed Feb 02, 2005 at 02:32:54 PM EST
    I'm at work so can't find the link at the moment but I was listening to NPR and heard a blurb from Churchill who explained why the comparison to Eichmann. Eichmann did things like make up train schedules; he wasn't directly responsible for the death of people..in other words he helped provide parts in the machinery to keep the Nazi machine going. The same with those in the twin towers. I see his point, especially those directly involved in 'finance' - however, I don't know that I agree with him.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#33)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Feb 02, 2005 at 02:49:11 PM EST
    "I see his point, especially those directly involved in 'finance'" LoL. Yeah, they clearly deserved to be blown up, they were involved in finance. They're clearly guilty, just like the Nazis. This biggot has no buiness teaching at a public (or private for that matter) university. This hate monger should be canned. We all know it.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#34)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Feb 02, 2005 at 04:36:52 PM EST
    Paul In LA - "Haven't lost an election in five years. Haven't HAD a legal election in five years." That sound you are hearing is me laughing. Honest to goodness. Do you really believe the stuff you write? Che - True, they are nothing new. But that doesn't mean they are not totally wrong. And insulting.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#35)
    by Kitt on Wed Feb 02, 2005 at 05:20:14 PM EST
    MB - Regardless, Mr. Churchill if hired, can work anywhere in either the private or public sector. Your call for his being 'canned' should extend to those all around who say whatever about whomever. Because if I had my way, the likes of Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, James Dobson, and a hell of lotta other jerks wouldn't be employable. Don't quote me out of context. I don't agree with Mr. Churchill's assessment. I see his point in the same way I can see Poker Jim's point(s) while not agreeing with him. It can be done.

    Re: Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of C (none / 0) (#36)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Feb 02, 2005 at 05:52:56 PM EST
    "Posted by Jim: "That sound you are hearing is me laughing. Honest to goodness. Do you really believe the stuff you write?" You laughed about killing 100,000 innocent people in Iraq, Jim. You guys are so greedy for undemocratic power that you don't mind that more than 2/3 of the country has no right of recount any more, no guarantee of the sanctity of their votes, no securing of their right to vote. That's a fact in evidence. If you can laugh about disenfranchizement, then you aren't even American.

    Professor Churchill Responds to Firestorm of Criticism | 36 comments (36 topical)