BS: Fire Ward Churchill

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 06:00 PM

C'mon back to me, guest. You certainly won't wear me out.

This man gauges his worth from the length of time he can commit to an internet forum. Goodbye mg you are unchallenging in the extreme.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 05:53 PM

Churchill hates the hegemony in the U.S. He makes a good point.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Once Famous
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 05:46 PM

It's hatespeak against America and supportive of terrorists.

When does freedom of speech become destructive?

You can't just yell "fire!" in a stadium, you know

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 05:41 PM

this furor is a result of one poorly chosen phrase with the word Eichmanns in it.
Churchhill was not saying that all those peole deserved to die, or that mass murder was justified. All he really said was that none of them should be SURPRISED that various folks were angry and picked them as targets.

I don't think I agree with Churchill that it is quite that clear, but he was explicating global political reality...whether you agree with his analysis or not. He wasn't even that original, as everyone knew from the earlier bombing attempt at the WTC that certain elements wanted to strike at the USAs financial interests. Churchill was chiding them for being so dense about the feelings their policies and attitudes engendered.

If I were in Churchill's classes, I'd probably argue with him a LOT...but he is certainly qualifed to TEACH those classes!

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Once Famous
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 05:33 PM

Listen Pal. i don't have to demean you. You are doing a great job of that yourself.

but it's just plain old interesting to demean you. in fact, it's just sport for me and I think you actually like it because you keep coming back for more. Just because I've said such things about Ward Churchill that you are sennnnnnnnsitive to and make you so uncommmmmmmmmfortable. What is he? Your fucking lover?

Your pathetic life spent as a guest responding as some kind of high and mighty goon is all the proof I need to know that you really are quite inferior.

C'mon back to me, guest. You certainly won't wear me out.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Kim C
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 05:30 PM

I am all for free speech. But I am also for good manners. I believe it is possible for a person to state an unpopular opinion in an intelligent and halfway decent manner. That is, after all, the best way to change minds, if that is, in fact, what you intend to do. However, if all you want to do is stir up shit, then by all means, say whatever you want however you want without any regard for how many people you may hurt.

My question is, if Churchill thinks that 9/11 was retaliation for crimes against Iraq, does he therefore believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11; and consequently, that the war against Iraq is just?

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 05:17 PM

You got your psychology degree in a tavern.

And here is a fine example of a 'retort' from a person who feels intellectually inferior. He wishes he had studied. But rather than admit that, because that would be to admit his life is less than perfect, he tries to demean those he thinks of as intellectually superior.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Once Famous
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 05:14 PM

My last post directed at Guest. Not my friend Amos.

And I do believe in free speech. Ward Churchill can say anything he wants. He can also be the subject of extreme ridicule and be told he is completely full of fecal matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Once Famous
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 05:12 PM

Oh, blow me. You got your psychology degree in a tavern.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Amos
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 05:11 PM

DaveO has the rights of the situation, and as well has the high ground because he is trying to speak rationally, which neither Martin nor Guest are doing.

It is an interesting point that Ward stepped on so MANY toes by saying something that was not well understood -- most of the reaction was due tot he "little Eichmann" phrase without a full understanding of how it was being used. But it doesn't matter, because it was in poor taste. The REAL quesation is this : in the series of changes that culminarted in 9-11, in what ways and to what degrees DID the United States sow the seeds of this action, and to what degree could they have avoided it at those criticval junctures? This requires an analysis I am not equipped to deliver here to answer but I think some of Ward's thinking is definitely apropos, even if parts of it are overdone.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 05:11 PM

I remember my instructor in an education course I took at the U of Idaho telling us that any restriction of freedom brought compensatory freedoms. If you are jailed, you are free from having to worry about room and board. He said that. I don't believe that's a leftist attitude. "Fascist" is what I thought at the time.

And we couldn't have the artist Ben Shahn come speak about his art to us art students because of his political views. He had been pro-Sacco and Vanzetti, and he was anti- Goldwater.

As a student I had to sign a loyalty oath to get my paycheck from the Library there.

And so on.

There are exceptions to everything, but in my experience, (which includes working for a university for over 20 years) most educators run from conservative to reactionary.

And freedom of speech includes the freedom to be unpopular and even wrong. It's not just freedom of nice and approved speech. I shouldn't have to tell anyone this.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 05:10 PM

sorry you are so sennnnnnnnnnnnsitive.

And yet again another example of our patients self delusion. See how he thinks he can influence others feelings and emotions. This is because he is unable to feel any of his own. A classic case and not one I would usually use to demonstrate the weaker side of the human psyche ( too run of the mill.)

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Once Famous
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 05:05 PM

welcome to the Internet, pal.

No inadequacies here.

Just like to have some fun, that's all.

sorry you are so sennnnnnnnnnnnsitive.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 05:02 PM

You obviously did because you reacted just how I wanted you to when I started this thread.

Only someone with great inadequacies feels the need to be able to control others. The fact that this control is delusionary is part of the problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Once Famous
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 04:52 PM

Guest, Observer.

You are best at observing your own asshole with a hand mirror.

I don't get highly upset.

You obviously did because you reacted just how I wanted you to when I started this thread.

Better check what Al Franken wants you to say.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: GUEST,observer
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 04:39 PM

Isn't it interesting that both Martin Gibson and DougR get highly upset when truth conflicts with their beliefs?

A substandard intellect (MG) should never tangle with a superior intellect (Churchill).

Remember that Martin, you twit!

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Once Famous
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 03:41 PM

And Guest, I watched this asshole on C-Span spew his American hate. I don't need anyone to identify it for me.

However, you are right. I get a royal charge posting topics that fry the radical left.

Thanks for chomping, douche bag.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: DougR
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 12:48 PM

Sorry, GUEST, I know you hate to be wrong, but I was well aware of the preponderance of left-wing teaching by university professors long before Fox News Network hit the airwaves.

And brucie, don't know where you are getting your figures, but I'd be happy to have a reference to any research that shows a large number of conservative thinkers populate U. S. university faculties.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 11:49 AM

The real controversy as to his status has to do with his international views, and whether his tenure gives him an absolutely rock-solid position as professor despite the unpopularity of his views in certain circles.

While I intensely dislike what I consider the objectionable excess of his argument (the "Little Eichmanns" bit, the "they had it coming" bit, and so forth) I regard the meat of his argument as being contained in the "chickens-coming-home-to-roost" metaphor, which has much to say for it.

Tenure is similar to the right of habeas corpus, in that it's given great honor in official pronouncements, but whenever it threatens to mean something there are strong calls to set it aside.

The "quantum blood" and "real Indian" thing is purely irrelevant to the above arguments, whatever its own merits may be (and I wouldn't presume to judge that). It's only an emotional sideshow, distracting attention from what goes on in the center ring.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 10:02 AM

Teresa, these issues aren't only not separate, they're annealed in a way that may not seem clear unless you've been in those trenches. The position that they should be separate is understood by many, but still, this flawed part of the argument is always going to rear it's ugly head, even if intellectually it doesn't seem to fit.

Who may speak for Indians?

Who is an Indian?

How much is culture versus genetics?

If you're Indian but don't have any knowledge of your culture, are you more entitled to speak for Indians as a whole than say, mixedbloods or non-Indians who have lived on reservations or comingled in such a way as to know what they're talking about?

May anyone speak for all Indians?

What cards are played in a way to always attempt to trump any other card played? "You're not a real Indian" is one of the biggies.

Ward Churchill may come across to many as an angry, in-your-face activist, and what he says may offend Indians and non-Indians (but not all Indians and non-Indians) but you must understand that he speaks from the position of a colonized person. In many colonial countries, the colonizers left after a while (see Africa, SE Asia, etc.) Here, they stayed. It makes a difference in how the indigenous people speak to themselves and the rest of the world because of this. Churchill speaks for those Indians who feel they've been set up all over again.

I have to go to work. At a University. Where tenured faculty are supposed to have free speech just like everyone else, and because they're tenured, in theory, they've done some thinking about what it is they're saying.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 09:41 AM

What's all the stuff about the CIA office in the WTC? Somebody told me it was the biggest office outside of Langley Virginia ;I find that very hard to believe. There are so many conspiracy theories going around about 911 it's hard to know what to believe.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 07:56 AM

You all do realize Martin Gibson is just trying to wind all of you up, don't you? That he will use whatever story is ricocheting around the right wing echo chamber, post something here about it in his usual viper language, sit back, and watch the thread shoot over a hundred in less than 24-48 hours?

He is doing his usual Martin Gibson trolling, in other words, and y'all keep chomping at his bait.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 07:53 AM

Sorry brucie, but the O'Reilly/Hannity/Limpaw conglomerate have told DougR and their minions that academia is a bastion of radical liberalism, therefore to DougR, it is.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Peace
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 12:53 AM

That is not actually so, Doug. Education and educators are quite conservative.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: DougR
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 12:51 AM

Bill D.: I suspect there are a lot of morons on tenure at America's universities, but very few conservatives.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Teresa
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 12:43 AM

While I think it's a good idea to be aware of your actions and know their affects on others, I think also that there's a giant leap between that and saying that the 911 victims had it coming. That's very thin ice to tread. I agree with the idea that we should not be surprised if there is violent reaction to U.S. policies inside our borders, but then singling people out and saying they had it coming leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don't know what Churchill meant by this, exactly, but I think he could have been a bit more lucid and a bit less vitriolic in his wording.

Having said that, I am a strong believer in free speech, and I think he should be permitted to say what he feels he needs to say.

The "blood quantum" thing is a separate issue, and I don't think it is a good idea to link these things together.

Teresa

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Peace
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 12:39 AM

No prob.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: katlaughing
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 12:32 AM

Thanks for posting that, SRS. I watched him on CSPAN the other night and, while I think he is a bit of arrogant ass, he's earned the stripes and I would defend his right to free speech. He should not be fired.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 12:09 AM

Brucie, I skipped through to the bottom, then went to my email to pick up a link a freind sent. Sorry I didn't see you'd already posted it.

An essay turned up in The Nation that is closed unless you're a subscriber, so I'll put the gist of it here:

Ward Churchill and the Mad Dogs of the Right
    by Alexander Cockburn

    When it comes to left and right, meaning the contrapuntal voices of
    sanity and dementia, we're meant to keep two sets of books.

    Start with sanity, in the form of Ward Churchill, a prof at the
    University of Colorado. Churchill is known as a fiery historian and
    writer, often on Indian topics. Back in 2001, after 9/11, Churchill
    wrote an essay called "Some People Push Back," making the simple
    point, in a later summary, that "if U.S. foreign policy results in
    massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when
    some of that destruction is returned."

    That piece was developed into a book, On the Justice of Roosting
    Chickens. About those killed in the 9/11 attacks, Churchill wrote
    recently, "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."

    At this point Churchill could have specifically mentioned the
    infamous bombing of the Amariya civilian shelter in Baghdad in
    January 1991, with 400 deaths, almost all women and children, all
    subsequently identified and named by the Iraqis. To this day the US
    government says it was an OK target.

    Churchill concludes, "If the U.S. public is prepared to accept these
    'standards' when they are routinely applied to other people, they
    should 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 [World Trade Center workers] 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,
    [they] 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."
    I'm glad he puts that gloss in about the targets, thus clarifying
    what did read to some like a blanket stigmatization of the WTC
    inhabitants in his original paper.

    A storm has burst over Churchill's head, with protests by Governor
    Pataki and others at his scheduled participation in a panel at
    Hamilton College called "Limits of Dissent?" In Colorado he's
    resigned his chairmanship of the department of ethnic studies, and
    politicians, fired up by the mad dogs on the Wall Street Journal
    editorial page and by Lord O'Reilly of the Loofah on Fox, are howling
    for his eviction from his job (Loofah? See O'Reilly's lewd fantasies:
    www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11272004.html).

    Why should Churchill apologize for anything? Is it a crime to say
    that chickens can come home to roost and that the way to protect
    American lives from terrorism is to respect international law? I
    don't think he should have resigned as department chair. Let them
    drag him out by main force.

    So much for the voice of sanity. Now for the dementia of the right.
    The New Republic's Tom Frank (not the Frank, please note, who just
    wrote a book about Kansas) describes in TNR how he recently sat in on
    an antiwar panel in Washington.

    Frank listened to Stan Goff, a former Delta Force soldier and current
    organizer for Military Families Speak Out, who duly moved Frank to
    write that "what I needed was a Republican like Arnold
    [Schwarzenegger] who would walk up to [Goff] and punch him in the
    face." Then upon Frank's outraged ears fell the views of
    International Socialist Review editorial board member Sherry Wolf,
    who asserted that Iraqis had a "right" to rebel against occupation,
    prompting TNR's man to confide to his readers that "these weren't
    harmless lefties. I didn't want Nancy Pelosi talking sense to them; I
    wanted John Ashcroft to come busting through the wall with a
    submachine gun to round everyone up for an immediate trip to Gitmo,
    with Charles Graner on hand for interrogation." After Wolf quoted
    Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy's defense of the right to
    resist, Frank mused, "Maybe sometimes you just want to be on the side
    of whoever is more likely to take a bunker buster to Arundhati Roy."

    Now suppose Churchill had talked about Schwarzenegger's war on the
    poor in California and called on someone to punch the guv in the
    face, or have a jovial Graner force Pataki to masturbate what remain
    of Schwarzenegger's steroid-shriveled genitals, or have Ann Coulter
    rub her knickers in his face or get blown up by a bomb? He'd be out
    of his job in a minute.

    Right-wing mad dogs are licensed to write anything, and in our
    Coulter-culture they do, just so they can burnish their profiles and
    get invited on Fox or CNN talk shows. Why else would Tony Blankley
    call on the Washington Times editorial page for Hersh to be
    imprisoned or shot for treason? But it's a PR game only right-wingers
    are allowed to play.

    After savaging Churchill, the mad dogs of the right turned their
    sights on Shahid Alam, a professor of economics at Northeastern
    University in Boston. Alam, author of the excellent Poverty From the
    Wealth of Nations, wrote a column for the CounterPunch website in
    December in which he argued that the 9/11 attacks were an Islamist
    insurgency, the attackers believing that they were fighting--as the
    American revolutionaries did, in the 1770s--for their freedom and
    dignity against foreign occupation/control of their lands. Second, he
    argued that these attacks were the result of the political failure of
    Muslims to resist their tyrannies locally. It was a mistake, Alam
    said, to attack the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Now he has been
    labeled "an un-American" professor by Fox News, and there's an
    Internet campaign to have him stripped of his faculty position. So
    write to all the appropriate names, defending Churchill and Alam; and
    if you feel like an outing to execrate Frank and The New Republic,
    there'll be a demonstration sponsored by the DC Anti-War Network, the
    DC chapter of the ISO and others at 5 pm on Friday, February 11,
    outside TNR's DC editorial offices at 1331 H Street NW.

    This article can be found on the web at:

    http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050221&s=cockburn

    Visit The Nation
    http://www.thenation.com/

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Peace
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 12:02 AM

I posted that link at Feb 13, 9:01 PM.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: number 6
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 11:59 PM

It's the line in the article referring to the 9/11 victems as 'little Eichmans" ... that is what the stink is all about.

"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. "

Yup, .... the firemen, clerks, dining room staff, analysts, policemen and woman ....... Yup, they were all aware that morning when they wnet to work there poat in the Global economy.

This Churchill guy has a tenure ?!?!?!?!

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 11:51 PM

Here is the entire text by Ward Churchill that has come to light.

It begins:

[Globalization] "Some People Push Back" On the Justice of Roosting Chickens
written by Ward Churchill // 9-11-2001
This article appeared in Pockets of Resistance #11 September 2001

When queried by reporters concerning his views on the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Malcolm X famously – and quite charitably, all things considered – replied that it was merely a case of "chickens coming home to roost."

On the morning of September 11, 2001, a few more chickens – along with some half-million dead Iraqi children – came home to roost in a very big way at the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. Well, actually, a few of them seem to have nestled in at the Pentagon as well.

The Iraqi youngsters, all of them under 12, died as a predictable – in fact, widely predicted – result of the 1991 US "surgical" bombing of their country's water purification and sewage facilities, as well as other "infrastructural" targets upon which Iraq's civilian population depends for its very survival.

If the nature of the bombing were not already bad enough – and it should be noted that this sort of "aerial warfare" constitutes a Class I Crime Against humanity, entailing myriad gross violations of international law, as well as every conceivable standard of "civilized" behavior – the death toll has been steadily ratcheted up by US-imposed sanctions for a full decade now. Enforced all the while by a massive military presence and periodic bombing raids, the embargo has greatly impaired the victims' ability to import the nutrients, medicines and other materials necessary to saving the lives of even their toddlers.

All told, Iraq has a population of about 18 million. The 500,000 kids lost to date thus represent something on the order of 25 percent of their age group. Indisputably, the rest have suffered – are still suffering – a combination of physical debilitation and psychological trauma severe enough to prevent their ever fully recovering. In effect, an entire generation has been obliterated.

The reason for this holocaust was/is rather simple, and stated quite straightforwardly by President George Bush, the 41st "freedom-loving" father of the freedom-lover currently filling the Oval Office, George the 43rd: "The world must learn that what we say, goes," intoned George the Elder to the enthusiastic applause of freedom-loving Americans everywhere.

How Old George conveyed his message was certainly no mystery to the US public. One need only recall the 24-hour-per-day dissemination of bombardment videos on every available TV channel, and the exceedingly high ratings of these telecasts, to gain a sense of how much they knew.

Find the rest at the web link above.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 11:39 PM

Blood quantum is one of those nasty hangovers from the 1880s Dawes act. Much of what goes on now depends on whose ancestors signed up (was willing to take the risk to sign up--many weren't so now since they're not enrolled they're not "real" Indians). So mixedbloods today have a couple of hurdles. Was their tribal affiliation simply diluted by lack of family registration, or was it diluted by intermarriage? And at what point may someone who has a couple of cultures in their immediate family still choose to take an identifiable path? It's a bloody-awful battle when you start arguing about who is and isn't an Indian. I would say that people like Jamake Highwater made this much worse by masquerading as an Indian (he's Greek) for many years. A lot of people were burned. Last time I read anything about Churchill, he's simply your garden-variety mixedblood. And entitled to take a position and choose to defend it if he wishes.

As someone else remarked, he has tenure. And a lot of people who have a lot of reasons that go beyond the current flap are hoping to make things hot enough that he'll choose to or have to leave. If you think this is simply based on remarks regarding Sept. 11 and his opinion of the culpability of Americans in general, you're naively mistaken. The internecine warfare between Indians and mixedblood Indians makes this look like child's play.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 11:34 PM

Ward Churchill didn't say squat about the victims of 9/11. What he dared to say was the US has engaged in certain very bad, damaging (to the populations of the Middle East) activities that resulted in Al Qaida attacking the US.

So what is wrong with saying that, especially when it is true?

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: number 6
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 11:33 PM

Here's his statement on the victims of 9/11.

"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. "

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 11:31 PM

Don't worry Sorcha, Martin doesn't know what Ward Churchill said either, he just knows it is Ward who is getting kicked around the right wing media echo chamber by the Limbaugh/Hannity/O'Reilly conglomerate. And that's good enough for folks like him and DougR.

They are just following their marching orders from their right wing nut pundit gurus.

And Limbaugh hath said: "Go forth and spew vile hate about Ward Churchill!" so they did.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: number 6
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 11:30 PM

His public (severe) statement in regards to the victims of 9/11 is an nothing but an insult to their survivng families and loved ones. That's what is at issue here, not that he is advocating his dissent to the current U.S. regime. If not fired, then send him to some sensitivity courses. No, fire the f8cker. It's not a matter of free speach here, it's a matter of outright ethics and morality.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Sorcha
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 11:24 PM

Can you say 'tenure'? And why did they tenure him? He has a brain, let him use it. I am also not too sure what he said was so awful. Can someone explain why?

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 11:19 PM

Good idea. I have no idea whether Churchill is Indian or not. I also don't care. I don't think one need to be a Native American to teach American Indian studies. But hey, that's me.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: shadygrove
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 11:10 PM

About the 'blood quantum debate', there is no debate as far as I can see in Churchill's case; he has no demonstrable Indian ancestry. It isn't just a question of how much. And my intention in posting an opinion was not to get involved in a flame exchange, so I will leave it at that.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 11:09 PM

No professor--and especially not a history professor--should EVER be fired for speaking their mind and voicing a dissenting opinion from the current government administration, no matter how much of a minority view it is, and whether it is right or left wing.

Even if they are mediocre scholars.

If we can't speak freely in an academic setting, we're pretty much screwed.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Sorcha
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 10:59 PM

Seems Martie is on the prod again. Not sure which side I'm on.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Amos
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 10:55 PM

Neither is free speech, come to think of it....


A

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 10:54 PM

BTW, when it comes to American Indian scholarship, Ward don't even measure on the scale much. There are many, many much better scholars than him.

I don't really care one way or the other about the whole quantum blood thing. It's too damn destructive to get into that sort of stuff, though I know a lot of native folks who do get sucked into those debates. It's just really counter-productive, IMO.

If you think there are a lot of wannabe Indians, check out the wannabe Celts sometime.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Once Famous
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 10:51 PM

My last post was in response to Shadygrove.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Once Famous
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 10:50 PM

I agree.

And maybe, just maybe their will be some genuine integrity in that role.

Not just a fucking big mouth.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 10:48 PM

I wouldn't say he is widely respected in the field at all, but I agree he is a long time activist, and good buds with Russ Means.

He is also tenured, which is why he won't get fired. Now, if you are a lowly adjunct, or hired gun for a semester or year, you wouldn't dare speak your mind at an American college or university these days, because you absolutely would get fired.

Same sort of shit happened to a friend of mine back in the 1990s, by the name of Gonzalos Santos, a math prof who used to teach at U of Colo. but moved to SUNY. He was also targeted by the right wing for his CISPES activism and criticism of US government policies in Central and Latin America. He didn't get fired either. Tenure is a good thing for academic free speech. Which is why tenure ain't offered much anymore.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: shadygrove
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 10:45 PM

May an enrolled American Indian express an opinion? Ward Churchill has been trading on his apparently non-existent Indian ancestry for his entire public career. At the minimum, he is a fraud. His politics don't enter into it, as far as I am concerned. There are qualified people of legitimate American Indian ancestry who could have been hired for his position. As a non-Indian, he is not qualified to head up an Indian studies department or to act as a spokesman for Indians. I am sure that most Indians would agree with me that there are more than a few 'wannabees' out there, especially in the academic setting, who claim vague Indian ancestry (almost always 'Cherokee', for some reason) but whose ties to actual living Indians are tenuous to non-existent. Why some whites have this strange compulsion to represent themselves as Indians, even if they have a small quantum of Indian blood, is strange to me; it seems to bespeak an unhealthy self-hatred. Ward Churchill is a symptom of this phenomenon. He is an impostor, and his post should go to a genuine Indian.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Once Famous
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 10:44 PM

I've heard he's not even a Native American Indian.

I figured that a hater of America like you Greg F. would relate to this douche bag. You are a fucking poison to this country and so is he.

He hardly represents what a majority of this country thinks.

He is about hate, I repeat and I hope he loses his $90K a year job where tax payers are paying for it.

Can't wait to hear the news.

I'll be the first to post it hear.

Subject: RE: BS: Fire Ward Churchill
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 09:18 PM

Ward Churchill has been making the same kinds of political statements for years. He is an activist, and is an important voice in American Indian scholarship and politics. He is widely respected in the field. The governor and the politicians who are weighing in on this issue have no business promoting their political agendas in this matter.

SRS