| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Evergreen |
Posted - 02/13/2005 : 07:40:45 AM
The Man in the Maelstrom
Ward Churchill speaks out on his controversial essay,
the media frenzy and what the U.S. can do if it really wants to halt terrorism
By Pamela White
Boulder Weekly Feb. 10, 2005
It started when a group of conservative students from Hamilton College in New York, hoping to block University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill's scheduled talk at their school, protested an essay Churchill had written on Sept. 11, 2001. In the essay, titled "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens," Churchill, an American Indian activist and scholar, framed the terrorists attacks as inevitable, the natural result of years of oppressive U.S. policies, which he outlined at length. He also compared the stockbrokers, lawyers and government employees who died in the attacks with Nazi "technocrat" Adolf Eichmann for their role in supporting U.S. actions abroad.
The students' protest caught the attention of the national corporate media, which pounced on Churchill and his controversial essay with rabid ferocity. The result was a national furor. For two weeks now, the corporate media has controlled the story, fanning the flames of anger and even questioning Churchill's ethnicity. Paula Zahn interviewed Churchill - but barely let him speak. MSNBC, Fox and MTV carried the story. Denver talk radio couldn't get enough of the topic, one radio host declaring Churchill's essay treasonous and suggesting that Churchill be executed.
Media attention prompted reactions from members of Congress, who contacted Gov. Bill Owens, demanding a response. Owens, in turn, condemned Churchill's writings and called for university officials to fire him. The Colorado General Assembly then picked up the issue and passed a resolution renouncing Churchill's point of view, and the CU Board of Regents held a special meeting and apologized to the nation for the essay. The regents are now investigating Churchill to determine whether he can be fired.
But, although pundits and politicians have quoted from Churchill's writings at length, often taking the words out of context, the man in the middle of the maelstrom has been given very little room in the press to respond to his detractors. Boulder Weekly sat down with Churchill in his Boulder home on Monday, Feb. 7, to talk in depth about his essays, the media frenzy surrounding him and what the United States can do if it truly wishes to end terrorism.
Link to the interview which is definitely worth reading if you want the TRUTH rather than the one sided opinion taken out of context of the "national corporate media" Which is UNFORTUNATELY what many Americans use to form their opinions.
http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/churchill_interview_pw.html |
| 7 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Evergreen |
Posted - 03/01/2005 : 07:10:03 AM
a live stream of an interview with Ward
http://www.freespeech.org/fsitv/fscm2/genx.php?name=home |
| Evergreen |
Posted - 02/18/2005 : 09:39:08 AM
Yea i've just about had death threats for defending him. (not from anyone here). But my point is there are 2 sides that should be explored. when i first heard the initial stories they were only giving a very small part of the story and then glazing it with bias. I, myself, said in the beginning "i hope he didn't make a mistake and hang himself". I questioned his statements and said this is a pretty bad thing to say. But quickly realized no one in the media was letting him speak his side. And they were just reporting on 2-3 lines from his essay. Out of context came to mind of course. Then they attacked his hertitage??
Randi Rhodes from Air America was going off about the media spin last night on her radio show. Not about Ward Churchill but just in general. It was great. So hopefully the word is getting out there to QUESTION media reports and dig a little deeper. |
| Zachmozach |
Posted - 02/14/2005 : 9:05:50 PM
Ya I don't know about his indian stuff, but the stuff I read in his article and in his interview were right on the money. I don't know the guy, but it takes balls to continue to say what you believe when you are being hounded by everyone and recieving death threats (or at least I imagine it does). |
| Evergreen |
Posted - 02/14/2005 : 11:42:07 AM
Teri said: quote:
he's a fraud
I didn’t post the interview to spur a debate about the man’s heritage. Also, it would take a whole lot more than one statement from AIM to convince me he’s a fraud. His actions in the form of authoring books (filled with historical references in case you’re skeptical)and researching history, and SPEAKING OUT, speak for themselves in that respect. I posted the interview because it took me days to find Ward’s own words and own explanation on the subject of the 9/11 essay. His side of the story is not easily found on tv, radio or internet. Only the side that forcefully calls him a “fraud” and a fake with no moral conscience.
I have no idea what kind of blood runs thru his veins or where his genes originated. I also do not know the details of his relationship with AIM, who by the way, have made questionable choices in the past. The story of Anna Mae Aquash raises some interesting questions about them just to name one. Ward has had numerous death threats quite possibly some from members of AIM!!! In fact, I’d stake all my money on it. But getting to that truth would be about as difficult as determining whether Ward has Indian blood.
Indian? White American? Some of both? Neither? I could care less about that. He’s HUMAN, speaking out for human feelings and conditions regardless of blood/ genetic origin (again, kind of ironic that his blood origin is one of the things being attacked). I see a brave person with a heart and conscience speaking out truths that no one wants to hear. I see somebody who sees what’s REALLY happening in the good ole USA and its eating away at his guts, but he chooses to SPEAK OUT against it rather than pushing the feelings away like so many of us. Yes, I’d call that a hero! A great hero!! Every day I wish that more people were like him. I wish more people would “go for the guts” and tell it like it is. Maybe its just too easy for people to sit back and watch CNN and call him a fraud without exploring the truth or at the very least listen to his side of the story. Same thing has happened to Howard Dean and countless others. Oh wait, that’s one of the biggest problems inflicting our country today, that right winged media spin and only ever getting ONE side of the story. It’s never about truth. Noam Chomsky talks about it extensively in his book Hegemony or Survival. Several of his books actually.
I’m going to quote a couple things from the interview in case you didn’t read it and choose to think simply that he’s a fraud with no feelings or soul. Each statement is pulled from different places in the interview. They are not meant to flow together. For complete successive context read the interview.
On Ward’s moral conscience: substance of the soul
Ward said:
Well, I see a half million dead Iraqi children for starters, children that Madeline Albright confirmed she was aware of. This was UN data (on the impact of US led sanctions against Iraq) in 1996 when she went on 60 Minutes and said “Yeah we’re aware of it, and we’ve determined that its worth the price”. It’s worth the price of somebody else’s children to compel their gov’t to do what george bush had issued as the marching orders to the planet in 1991, which is: “the world has to understand that what we say goes”.
I’m not a judge, I WANT THE WHOLE GODDAMNED PROCESS TO STOP, you know? That extends to these collateral damages. I certainly don’t embrace that.
We have yet to address the issue of the Iraqi children. It always comes back to the same, But what about these families?
I want to say this: I have an abiding sorrow for the collateral damage on 9/11, and I never compared them to Eichmann. They were collateral damage based on a set of rules imposed by the United States, TO WHICH I OBJECT WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING.
I even mourn the Eichmanns in a certain sense. I MOURN THE FACT THAT THEY WERE DEHUMANIZED WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING IT, ACTIVE PARTICIPANTS IN THEIR OWN DEHUMANIZATION TO THE POINT WHERE THEY LOST THEIR SOULS AND THEIR HUMANITY ALTOGETHER; THAT THE CALCULUS OF PROFIT OUTWEIGHED THE VALUE OF THE LIVES OF CHILDREN who lived in misery and died young as a result, and they considered it the way it ought to be. That is a sorrowful situation.
The most obvious thing that I adduce is that you’re going to have to change the way you value other people. And stop denigrating, demeaning and DEVALUING them to the point of toilet paper.
The solution is adherence to the law to allow other people first to survive and then survive with some degree of HUMAN DIGNITY.
I go for the gut. That’s my speaking strategy. I go for the gut to provoke a response. And interestingly, if it hadn’t been for the right wingers making this a big issue, I would have failed spectacularly. BUT I CAN”T DEAL WITH MISERABLE, STARVING CHILDREN IN SOME NICE DETACHED, OBJECTIVE WAY. To me that’s the essence of nazi zeitgeist- being able to do that to other people. I CANNOT DO IT. I WILL NOT DO IT, AND FUCK THEM IF THEY THINK THEY”RE GOING TO FORCE ME TO DO IT.
On being judgmental:
Ward said:
I’m not a judge. I want the whole goddamned process to stop, you know? That extends to these collateral damages. I certainly don’t embrace that. I didn’t judge Eichmann. I didn’t impose the death penalty. You can adduce that if Eichmann is worthy of death, because of what he had done in arranging train schedules and such, then these other Eichmanns are worthy of death. But I didn’t pronounce the sentence. I MERELY MADE THE COMPARISON. I’ve pointed this out when I’ve actually gone on with these attack dogs: (recent media) : You show me where I said it was justified. You’re drawing conclusions about what I said. I WANTED YOU TO THINK ABOUT IT. I WANTED YOU TO CRITICALLY ENGAGE. I wanted you to draw conclusions but I didn’t say that. I made the comparisons based on an analysis that I believe to be true. YOU DRAW YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS FROM IT.
I’ve done nothing. I’ve killed no one. All I’ve done is make a pronouncement comparable to what is done every day at the pentagon with regard to massive civilian fatalities here, there and everywhere…I did a framing that was comparable in its purported insensitivity to what the pentagon does as business as usual with no complaint at all from the American public and the response is a terrorist response. Now that we understand it maybe we can fix it.
Hero or fraud?
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| tericee |
Posted - 02/14/2005 : 04:35:43 AM
That guy's not a hero; he's a fraud. Just ask the American Indian Movement:
The American Indian Movement (AIM) Grand Governing Council representing the National and International leadership of the American Indian Movement once again is vehemently and emphatically repudiating and condemning the outrageous statements made by academic literary and Indian fraud, Ward Churchill in relationship to the 9-11 tragedy in New York City that claimed thousands of innocent people’s lives.
Churchill’s statement that these people deserved what happened to them, and calling them little Eichmanns, comparing them to Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who implemented Adolf Hitler’s plan to exterminate European Jews and others, should be condemned by all.
The sorry part of this is Ward Churchill has fraudulently represented himself as an Indian, and a member of the American Indian Movement, a situation that has lifted him into the position of a lecturer on Indian activism. He has used the American Indian Movement’s chapter in Denver to attack the leadership of the official American Indian Movement with his misinformation and propaganda campaigns.
Ward Churchill has been masquerading as an Indian for years behind his dark glasses and beaded headband. He waves around an honorary membership card that at one time was issued to anyone by the Keetoowah Tribe of Oklahoma. Former President Bill Clinton and many others received these cards, but these cards do not qualify the holder a member of any tribe. He has deceitfully and treacherously fooled innocent and naïve Indian community members in Denver, Colorado, as well as many other people worldwide. Churchill does not represent, nor does he speak on behalf of the American Indian Movement.
New York’s Hamilton College Kirklands Project should be aware that in their search for truth and justice, the idea that they have hired a fraud to speak on Indian activism is in itself a betrayal of their goals.
Dennis J. Banks, Ojibwa Nation
Chairman of the Board
American Indian Movement
(http://www.aimovement.org/moipr/churchill05.html)
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| thomasode |
Posted - 02/13/2005 : 10:42:10 PM
gotta love all the good press CU has been getting now days... |
| Zachmozach |
Posted - 02/13/2005 : 1:07:16 PM
Ya this makes me want to go blast indoctrinate on the stereo.
If the general public had any idea of the real US histoy and wasn't being constantly bombarded with nationalist propaganda this guy would be hailed as a hero. |
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