Is Ward Churchill wrong?

[Az]

Poll question: Is Ward Churchill wrong?

I personally am having trouble percieving exactly what he said that is wrong. I understand the emotional reactions to his words and ideas. But after setting aside the initial emotions I fail to find fault in his rhetoric.

Do you believe he is wrong? And if you do could you explain to me how he is wrong?

[Swamp Rat]

1. Geaux Prof. Churchill!!! n/t

:yourock:

[NewHampshireDem]

2. Link for those who haven't read "Some People Push Back"--essay at issue

http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/churchill.html

I voted that I agree with him, but he should have exercised a little more tact. That said, I think the things Antrhax Annie and a good number of Freepers say are much worse. I understand hyperbole to make a point--and his point is clearly that not only were the 9/11 victims complicit, we all are complicit in America's foreign policy--but I also understand that on the right you find outright hatred of anyone not 'lucky' enough to be born white and in the USA.

[blurp]

4. Uh, he IS white and was born in the USA.

He claims to be 3/16 native American, though even this now seems to be in dispute.

[H2O Man]

39. Not at all.

We must not let Wild Bill O'Reilly taint our thinking. Ward was the coordinator of the Colorado chapter of AIM (American Indian Movement). He is Creek/Cherokee Metis. There is zero chance that he is not exactly who he says he is. It is not up to republicans to determine who is, and who is not, Indian.

Ward should not be judged entirely upon some less than politically correct statements he made after 9-11. I recommend people read a few of his books, such as "Struggle For The Land," and "Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement." Put him in context for what he is. We do not judge Malcolm X entirely upon his less-than-politically correct "the chickens are coming home to roost" statement.

Ward is, and always has been, more of a Marxist than a traditional Native American. I do not agree with much of what he says. I certainly favor the statement of support for the USA that came from the Onondaga Nation after 9-11. At the same time, I remember when Dennis Banks was given sanctuary at Onondaga. At one time, Dennis was even scarier than Ward. Boy, those were the days. Crazy times.

I think that the United States does better when we remember the Constitution protects even people who shock and annoy us. Ward isn't making an appeal to violence; he is challenging people to take part in a discussion about the state of the nation. Though I might believe he is misguided and obnoxious, he poses no threat to our country. But those who wish to silence him do pose a threat to the Constitution.

[ProfessorGAC]

236. That's How I Voted Too, NHD

And you summed up me feelings quite precisely.
The Professor

[KarenS]

3. I think he's right & I don't presume to tell anyone how to deliver

their message !!

I have felt for a long time now, that it takes the loud ones, the outrageous ones, the "extremists" to move the thinking of the 'average person'. And even after the the change occurs the loud,outrageous extremists are still vilified,,,, VietNam protesters, bra-burning feminists, and civil rights protesters come to mind,,,,

I say "GO, Ward Churchill" !!!

[gumby]

13. "bra-burning feminist"

is an urban legend and unfortunate sterotype.

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/burnbra.htm

[KarenS]

14. exactly,,,,,

the term "bra-burning feminist" sure conjures up a nasty image doesn't it?? That's what I am talking about.

on edit: and don't get me wrong here,,,, the Feminists of the 60s where & are women that I respect & appreciate. Gloria Steinem comes to mind for me,,,,

[sendero]

23. Yes..

... but we can dream, can't we? :)

[creeksneakers2]

5. Ward Churchill is scum

He said the victims of 9/11 deserved their fate. I don't see how anybody could say something much worse. The RW has picked up Churchill as a symbol of academia and liberalism. He has nothing in common with either. I'm shocked that anybody supports him.

[Az]

7. Could you provide the quote where he said that

I haven't seen it myself.

[creeksneakers2]

146. From Churchill's essay "Some People Push Back"

There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center . . .

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.




In other words, he thinks anybody who works in a bank is guilty enough to deserve death.

[K-W]

149. You Misread

He didnt say they deserved to die, just that they werent entirely innocent.

This is entirely your fault for misreading, he didnt even come close to implying that anyone should have died.

[creeksneakers2]

241. What does this mean?

...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.

[donheld]

261. And we all were a bit responsible

Because we have been complacently supporting foreign policies of the usa. that's where this became a battle cry.

[Az]

177. Remember this is entirely his description of how others might see them

The people working in those towers enabled and benefitted from our forces in the field. Without their participation there would be no such force.

[RetroLounge]

255. "In other words"

"In other words"?

Yes, in YOUR words, not his.

It's real simple, read the black letters, not what's in between them, and you'll make less mistakes.

RL

[The Minus World]

271. In Other Words, Indeed...

Your simplification of his point is just that: a simplification. It certainly was not the intent of Mr. Churchill to create an air of justification for terrorism.

He was attempting to point out a basic lesson in causality using the same cold, Utilitarian terminology our war planners employ when calculating where to strike, and how hard.

If you are offended that human life can be reduced to casualty statistics or "collateral damage", take it up with those who manipulate humanity using war, disease and natural resources as tools for population control - not intellectuals who use necessarily abrasive wording to make a point about the recklessness and futility of war.

This kind of discussion, as with any productive discussion of ethics, offends the weak-minded, but it also serves to stimulate critical thought, and that is something we need much more of.

[creeksneakers2]

279. I'm not the one who is weak minded

Read the whole thing. Read all he says. He's a making a good buck laying guilt trips on people and stirring up a ruckus to publicize his business.

A strong mind decides things based on facts. A week mind on dogma.


Strong mind = The US could be right or wrong; our enemies could be right or wrong.


Weak mind = The US is always wrong (or always right); our eneemies are always wrong (or always right.)

The only way I can see a person with any moral values at all supporting a guy who said 3,000 murders were a fitting punishment for people who engage in stock transactions and power lunches is that they must have a weak mind and have adopted the US is always wrong, enemies are always right position. Crazed fanatics.

[Karenina]

280. Well, The Minus World

There's your exhibit A. ;-) Great post! :toast:

[blurp]

9. Did you hear all the students cheering him during his speech?

Watch the video. He gets plenty of applause.

I agree he hasn't much in common with liberalism, but you're wrong about academia. I worked at a University for 6 years. There are plenty of Ward Churchills around, students and professors.

It's a shame. They really represent the very opposite of liberalism.

[bowens43]

19. No he didn't.

[Donailin]

20. if you're shocked

then you haven't read enough nonpartisan history.
What he says is nothing but the logical truth of the matter. This country has committed acts of terror in the name of national security since its inception.

[creeksneakers2]

132. What you are saying might apply

if terrorists had blown up Henry Kissinger and Churchill said Kissinger deserved it. The people in the world trade center have not set American foreign policy .

[K-W]

154. Whos politicians put Kissenger in power?

Who exactly profits off our empire?

[izzybeans]

193. Then you agree with Churchhill

That was exactly his point. He was referring to the CIA office located in the Towers. It was a very small one. We would have used it(the presence of such an office) to justify blowing up a building in Iraq, and in fact we have. We call all else collateral damage. If Kissinger was the only government official in that building by our own government's logic the entire building would be a legitimate target.

Eichmann was not a Nazi who was directly complicit in any killing. But he was a technocrat who as "they" say, "made the trains run on time." Neither are the technocrats who indirectly support our war machine, but their bureaucratic indifference allows them to stay blinded or shielded from the immorality of the whole enterprise. Those who aren't shielded from the immorality come back from war conflicted about their own actions, the actions of their commrades, and that of their opponents. I think this is what he meant on that particular point as well. This is no different than many analysts' explanations of technocracy and modern genocide. Churchill chose a sophomoric language to present it in; that was pretty much it. Now his thoughtless choice of words is being cherrypicked to deligitimate the left, the academy, and all things similar.


I personally don't agree with his position in full and I find his incivility reprehensible but you just made his point for him. He was just pointing out the hypocrisy of not treating 9/11 as a legitimate act of war; that is if we continue to justify massive "collateral" damage of those who our government chooses to attack as legitimate, then why do we unjustify our own "collateral" damage when someone responds by acting as if its an illegitimate use of force. War had been declared. And in a warrior culture like ours, there is apparently no bigger honor than to die in war.

I prefer to see all acts of war as illegitimate but my meager stance doesn't erase the loss of thousands of Americans and many more thousands of Iraqi's, Afghan's, and who knows who might be next. It also doesn't erase the fact that popular consciousness of "our war" contains that fundamental contradiction: Our losses, grievous, their losses, justified. I can't make that distinction. Nobody should.

[Donailin]

264. the money changers don't know what they're doing?

it's all about profit. In grade school we learn Newtons Third Law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. You cannot have enormous wealth in one place without immense poverty in another. It is a zero sum game.

[K-W]

30. No he says they DIDNT DESERVE IT BUT NIETHER DO IRAQI'S

That nobody should be dying, that the whole damn system is wrong because everyone involved is too pig headed to see what damage they are doing.

[DeepGreen]

34. I do not agree in any case that I have witness to.

Everything I have read, seen, listened to, about/from Churchill, I
agree with. His bottom line is that he hates to see children/people die as victims of an aggressor. I have not been in a class of his.
I have not met him personally or had a change to talk/debate with him.
I only have the information I have seen on CSPAN and internet
videos/reports. Yes, there are slanted reports that twist the truth,
duh, like that is nothing new. But, I have not disagreed with what I
have heard him say or what I have read that he has written.

If you can provide a copy of a video of a statement he has made -
in full context - or words that he has written/spoken - in full context that lead you to say he is scum, then I will consider your
point.

[blurp]

6. He is wrong one several points.

For one, he claims the attackers weren't insane.

Bah.

People so full of hate that they are willing to kill themselves and 3,000 people by flying loaded jet aircraft in to buildings are insane.

[Az]

8. So are you saying

that our military forces that claim they are willing to give their life for their country are insane?

[blurp]

10. I'm sure they're willing to risk their lives. That's not the same thing.

But yes, soldiers at the point of wanting to simply kill themselves are insane.

I think most that say they are "willing to die" mean they willingly put their lives at risk.

That's different.

[Az]

11. People that rush into certain death

are often seen as heroes. Even in our culture. Particularly if they are striking a blow against something the people consider to be evil.

[Az]

12. Remember the firefighters on 9/11

Many of them rushed into certain death to rescue other people. They are hailed as heroes and martyrs. Any society looks up to those willing to sacrifice their life to do good. And when you add the notion that some believe there is life after death the notion of sacrifice begins to lose it's hold.

[bowens43]

17. No it isn't.

It's exactly the same.

[DeepGreen]

31. Until you have lived their lives, I do not see how you can judge

and diagnose them. They are insane under what medical definition.
Find out what they have lived through, what their family has lived
through, and their neighbors. Maybe you will find starvation, lack of
education, disease. Then tell me, with no doubt, that you would not be
willing to die to make a better life for those you love. I may be
wrong. I may be right. What I am saying is that there are many who
are too quick to judge based only on their life experiences.

[bowens43]

16. Your OPINION is that they were insane?

They believed that they were a fighting a war. How is what they did different then what the US military did in Iraq?

[K-W]

28. Youc call them insane when they are your foes, you call them martyrs

when they are your friends.

Chamberlains point is to stop looking at things from your American bias and look at things objectively. Every life is priceless. US soldiers die in devotion to a mission given to them by thier leaders that they believe to be worthwhile despite the fact that it is illegal and immoral.

[NoPasaran]

15. I voted wrong/fool

Only because there was no choice for "scum"

[Az]

18. Could you explain your reasoning?

Looking to find out why people are reacting to him the way they are.

[Karenina]

21. The level of outrage

expressed by anyone whose button got pushed is in direct proportion to their level of denial of the TRUTH spoken.

[Az]

22. Perhaps

I still want to hear their reasoning. Maybe the explanation can teach someone something.

[NoPasaran]

25. I think you misspelled "horseshit" as "truth"

Then your comment would make more sense.

[Az]

27. That rhetoric is merely proving the point

Surely you can do better to defend the point you so strongly seem to believe in.

[The Minus World]

272. Bingo

Those who oppose Churchill's statements seem to, conveniently, possess a universal opposition to reading and attempting to understand what he has said.

This isn't a matter of subjectively defining the morality of martyrs and madmen, or assessing who is insane versus who is not - it's a matter of understanding a very basic, very objective truth about violence and retribution.

[NoPasaran]

24. Ward Churchill has carved out a niche for himself

as a spokesman for the leftwing version of identity politics. In my view, this is a profoundly racist view that assigns guilt or innocence to large groups of people based on accidents of skin color or place of birth. His characterization of everyone who worked at the WTC as "little Eichmanns" is no different in my opinion from regarding all Muslims as suicide bombers waiting to happen.

That said, I respect his right to his opinions, idiotic and hateful as they may be.

[Az]

26. So are you saying

That people born in the US have no responsibility for the policies and actions carried out by the forces of the US. We are all just guilless ignorant drones working within the confines of a particular geographic location?

[K-W]

29. You misread and misunderstood and now you look silly

because by now most of DU has realize that Ward Churchill was misquoted and said nothing wrong.

[WilliamPitt]

33. He didn't use the phrase 'Little Eichmanns'?

I read his piece. He did.

[K-W]

37. Im glad that you agree with the media

that this one phrase is all that matters from what he said.

Im sick of hearing about how Americans are innocent because they dont know what they are doing. I think alot of them do know what they are doing.

[WilliamPitt]

44. So say that, loud and proud

But avoid referencing Nazis. Godwin's Law applies.

[K-W]

54. I totally understand what you are saying and I agree.

I think there is a much better way to make his point without the distracting comparison to Eichman, on the other hand, he made the comparison in a certain context and his overall point was spot on.

Regardless, that is how churchill sees it. Im not saying we should adopt his works as the pamphlet of our movement. Im saying that we should fight for his rights and fight the obvious intentional distortions and selective dissemination of his words in an attempt to damage both him, all proffessors on the left, and leftist ideology.

Maybe he did shoot himself in the foot, its no excuse to leave him to die on the battlefield.

[WilliamPitt]

56. Agreed

There's a great example below about Malcolm X and his "chickens coming home to roost" comment after the JFK assassination. One cannot judge his life's work by that one phrase, but that one phrase was the dumbest, most tactically tone-deaf statement he ever gave.

He apologized for it.

Churchill should not be left to die on the field. But an apology for that phrase, a re-wording of his point, would make it easier for us to rescue him.

[formernaderite]

101. He did, but he was referencing them as propagandists..

...for the technocrat class...not as anti-semites etc. It's irritating to me, that no one can have a rational discussion without overreacting to every perceived slight. Granted, if you mention a Nazi by name it immediately references the holocaust. This was not what Churchill was referencing...I suppose he could have substituted Karl Roves name as a propogandist.

[Karenina]

105. He used the adjective

"little." Oh, ye of little nuance...

The Germans have copped to their complicity, the absurdities believed that fueled the atrocities they committed. BTW Germany is the ONLY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD to confront its horrific past HEAD ON. The +++ONLY ONE+++. Eventually Americans will also have their noses rubbed in the shitpile to which they have contributed.

See, to have a chance to comprehend Professor Churchill, Hannah Arendt's writings are a prerequisite...

[carolinayellowdog]

217. What about South Africa?

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission appears to have been a head on confrontation with a horrific past. But then all I've heard and read about it has been favorable, and from participants.

[Karenina]

240. South Africa

is relatively new to the game. My comment is in no way intended to belittle their efforts. I applaud them.

You, living in America, cannot grasp the issue as the Germans have. I speak to friends about Professor Churchill's brouhaha. They are OUTRAGED at the comparison until I pose a few questions. It takes about 1/2 hour of INTENSE discussion, the outrage may or may not remain, however the POINT gets clarified, as the disappointment in the American citizenry is very deep and VERY painful.

"Never Again" means just that. Germans have a vested interest in putting their crime on a pedestal as THE WORST EVER. Many Jews, understandably, uphold that view. What makes the Holocaust in Germany "special" is the INDUSTRIALIZATION of human death. Using HUMAN BODIES to manufacture PRODUCTS.

As an American, you have NO DAILY REMINDER of the destruction perpetuated in your name. As I do my errands I see bronze plaques in the sidewalk to remind me of those who were seized and deported to their deaths. How did it happen? Lots of "little" ordinary people, just doing a job, trying to get by. If the signs continue to fly by UNRECOGNIZED could "soylent green" become a reality?

[Swamp Rat]

243. Right on Karenina!

Please tell every German you know about PNAC. Perhaps you can make a synopsis translated into German so that everyone there can read it, especially older folks who never learned English, yet remember life before, during, and after the fall of the Third Reich. In your synopsis you might quote statements by German citizens who describe how they didn't or couldn't believe in what was happening around them. Demonstrate to them all the parallels so they will recognize and acknowledge the birth of the Fourth Reich in America.

Viel Glück mein Freund!

We have our own Waffen SS now too: "The Strategic Support Branch" ... SSB ... mein Deutsch ist sehr schlecht aber ... "Schutzstaffel Büro" ... Maybe it can be modified to follow the acronym better: "Schutz-Staffel Branche."

edit: If, Waffen SS=Strategic Support Branch, then Rummy is a Nazi. HAHA! modus ponens! :D

[Karenina]

252. Swamp Rat,

I ain't got NUTHIN' on my elderly neighbors or relatives. Loose translations: "You wanna know about what happened in NYC? Follow the damned MONEY" - "I'm telling YOU so what I know will not be buried with me." - "BLOODY IDJITS. Same shit different day."

THEY may not be familiar with PNAC but DO KNOW all about Thyssen und IG Farben and Bayer and how these Übermenschen have NO loyalty to anything other than $$$. I would NEVER be so impertinent to TELL THEM where it's at, I listen as they TELL ME. And believe me, I get an EARFUL.

[Swamp Rat]

253. Actually, that is good. I'm GLAD your elderly neighbors or relatives are

vocal. I wasn't suggesting you say anything impertinent to those who know better than we.

This morning I was given a different picture of Germany:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3090102&mesg_id=3091422&page=

neweurope suggests that Germans are unaware of PNAC and the formation of a Fourth Reich... I need to email my cousins in Köln and Gauting (Starnberger See) and see what they think.

[WilliamPitt]

112. 'every perceived slight'

Dropping the Nazi bomb isn't just some wee 'percieved' slight.

[Az]

113. Can you recommend another

culturally shared representation of tyranny of one culture over another?

The point of using Nazi references is our shared understanding of the evil and horror they visited upon another people. Those that were part of the Nazi regieme often marched along willingly believing they were in the right. It is this that using the Nazi ref is trying to convey.

Perhaps we need to cultivate another cultural reference for such situations. Perhaps Hitler is too emotionally charged. So what is the alternative?

[Iverson]

114. targets

I hope you can appreciate that the broader issue of Churchill's right to speak out is being challenged as there is an organized call for the Regents at U of Co. to end his career.

Obviously, this is distinct from engaging Churchill's comments on their merits, the basic thing we should expect in open discourse in a free society instead of being silenced.

In my more modest thread that discussants here may have missed, I posted a link to a petition crafted by Rhetoricians for Peace. This petitions affirms Churchill's right to make controversial statements, and does not engage the content, as this thread does.

Surely the right to make controversial statements isn't too far left for people to handle, even in these wacky times. I encourage your participation.

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/wc1234/petition.html

[K-W]

116. Nazi Germany is where we get our international law

It isnt Ward Churchill's fault that bringing the Nazi's to justice is the precedent for the standards he was talking about.

He is arguing that these people are enough like eichman to have the same ethical standard applied to them that was applied to eichman. He isnt arguing that they are genocidal.

He wasnt even advocating that standard, he was just comparing it.

[WilliamPitt]

32. Well...

I really wanted to stand up for Churchill, because he made a lot of good sense. But he killed himself, absolutely killed himself, with the Eichmann's comment. Godwin's Law all over again: The first person to use Nazis in an argument automatically loses. This wasn't even the 'Bush is a Nazi' chestnut. He used it in reference to the people who got blasted sideways out of a hundred story building.

Is wildly unrestrained capitalism a prime reason for social and financial inequity? An excellent argument can be made on that score. Did the Towers represent that? Certainly, that's why they were targeted. Is American foreign policy over the past fifty years - in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Egypt - a reason why we don't make a lot of top ten lists in that part of the world? That's a no-brainer.

But to throw a loaded symbol like Eichmann into the fray brings utter ruin to whatever point was in the offing, unfortunately. It was a pungent phrase, and I am sure as a writer that he felt a little thrill when he wrote it. But he blew his foot off with that one.

[K-W]

36. Well a good liberal would stand up for him anyway.

Sorry, but turning on a leftist for lack of tact or bad argument choice when the right is trying to silence him for dissent is bad tact on your part.

Why you think it is ok to stand by while someone's free speech is trampled because they didnt use the words you would use I do not understand.

[WilliamPitt]

41. You're the judge of 'good liberals' these days?

Good to know. Let me make a note of that.

[K-W]

55. I thought free expression was a universally accepted liberal principle.

I didnt realize that made me arrogant.

[WilliamPitt]

58. So is judicious choice of words

and an understanding of tactics.

[K-W]

59. Actually those have nothing to do with liberalism.

You are talking about methedology, not ideology.

[WilliamPitt]

62. Ideology without methodology

is masturbation.

It's one thing to believe something. It's quite another to find a way to put those beliefs into action, or policy, or into the public square in a way that will attract attention.

The bridge between ideology and application is methodology, which sometimes requires certain compromises that, I have found, are as attractive to liberals as water is to cats.

But there it is.

[K-W]

73. So you wont be hiring churchill to run any political campaigns.

I still dont see any reason not to fully and strongly defend his right to speak his mind, or not to fully condemn the right wing lies and manipulation that have manufactured this scandal.

He's a college professor, not a host on AAR. I dont think he ever claimed to be crafting a message for mass consumption.

[WilliamPitt]

86. He wrote an article for publication about 9/11

In the age of the internet, fifty million people can witness the smallest sparrow fall, if you get me.

I kind of feel like I am running into a brick wall in this debate, so I will leave it at this:

Yes, we should stand up for his right to speak his mind.

Yes, he made many good points.

Yes, he fucked up when he used a Nazi to make his point.

Yes, he could do himself and the truth movement as a whole a favor by apologizing for it, and by being wiser with his words in the future.

Having the right to speak your mind is also having the responsibility to own up when you speak poorly.

Having the right to speak your mind is also having the responsibility to speak in a way that can be heard and not dismissed, especially when dealing with as important a story as 9/11.

[K-W]

90. You have a right to free speech just as long as you dont offend anyone?

In the age of the internet free speech still means that you get to speak your mind regardless of whether people like what you say.

[WilliamPitt]

97. *groan*

I give up.

[BeFree]

92. Different strokes

For different folks.

If, as it appears, the yardstick with which you measure the success of the application is 'attention', then Ward has been quite the success.

The whole friggin world is talking about him and what he said.
Seems that some folk have a problem with all that attention.

Is 9/11 a subject matter that many avoid? Is it still too early for a full expose' of the matter? Yes. Back into the closet with you, 9/11.

A good journalist, I would imagine, would make an attempt at understanding the ideology, that once methodically applied, led to the attention grabbing explosion, and not merely mince words. But that's just me.

Damn it Ward, 9/11 was just about forgotten, and you had to go yank it out of the closet, sheesh.

[Karenina]

108. Didn't some HEAVILY REDACTED report

on 9/11 get released sometime yesterday, today, tomorrow? :silly: And how about that "suspending laws" shit the House just passed? OOooooo! And can somebody slice me up some of that white meat beefcake???
I L-O-V-E white meat. :9

[BeFree]

122. No! No Skeletons!

Please! Keep the door closed!

Why can't we just forget that 9/11 ever happened, and just go back to....

Oh wait. b*** won't let it rest. Every time they open their bloody damned mouths it's 9/11 this, or 9/11 that. Thousands of people are dead, nay, hundreds of thousands were killed because of 9/11, and some here want to crucify the intellectual showing us the skeleton.

What is that smell?

[Karenina]

128. I dunno,

but can you pass me a dustcloth? What's all this Dreck on the windowsills?

[formernaderite]

103. I agree...but...

I will admit that "some" on the left have added to this debate, by requiring politically correct terminology for everything. There certainly have been cases, where professors were accused of racial and sexist terminology when none were used, however perceived. Language has unfortunately become incendiary on both sides. I long for the days of rational discussions...less screaming.

[Az]

40. So could you defend the point if not the tact?

This seems to me to be the problem with placing people on a pedestal. We place all their flaws and mistakes up there with the ideas they are defending.

If his points are right but the wording is problematic then defend the ideas and leave him to defend his own words. Its the idea and not the person that is important in these situations. Because we keep holding out for a perfect hero and burn down any ideas that get associated with naturally flawed people.

[WilliamPitt]

43. It isn't just problematic wording

Remember, you're talking to a guy who earns his daily bread with the written word. Calling it 'problematic wording' is a kind euphemism. Words have power, and some words have ENORMOUS SKULL-CRUSHING POWER. Referencing one of the most brutal and evil men ever to breathe air in 100 years as a means of describing people is likewise hugely powerful.

'Problematic wording' is a soft way of looking at a serious problem with his piece. Yes, his points have merit. But words have power, and using the wrong ones - no matter how good the other points may be - sends the whole thing crashing down like the Hindenberg.

[H2O Man]

45. It reminds me

of when Malcolm X made the infamous "chickens coming home to roost" statement after JFK's death. One can not judge Malcolm solely by that statement. However, it ranks as the most stupid and insulting thing he ever uttered in public. The big difference was Malcolm was man enough to say he was sorry.

[WilliamPitt]

46. Exactly

[Karenina]

115. Was Malcolm X mistaken

(with 2 score and 2 years of hindsight) in his quip? :shrug:

[Az]

117. Society is a complex dynamic process

From our perspective we may miss how our actions affect others. What we see as good and righteous behaviour can have a wildly different effect on others. When someone says to our face that we have brought about evil we know in our hearts we have done no evil so we dismiss them as cranks. But we forget the dynamic nature of the process and that our effects can have different consequences than what we intend them to.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

127. Yeah...

Kennedy was one of the good guys...

[Karenina]

131. Perhaps you missed

Malcolm's point.

[H2O Man]

130. In what way?

Was he mistaken in being accurate? Or in how he said it? Fair question. I think that the answer may be as simple as recognizing that the consequences for saying it how he said it were very much NOT what Malcolm wanted. So much so that he frequently made reference to it being a stupid thing to say at the time. Malcolm not only said he was sorry for saying it numerous times in public, he also would say that he wished he never said it numerous times in private.

Was Malcolm mistaken? I hope I have answered that to your satisfaction. (grin)

[Karenina]

138. I am

with you Waterman, in that is is NOT about what one says, rather about what the listener hears which is filtered through his own system. Malcolm took responsibility for that. I do, however, think the time is long past for such niceties.

Does being American mean never having to say, "I'm sorry?" ;-)

[H2O Man]

152. Well, I kind of

knew where you were coming from! Was he correct in what he said in the sense that this country had for so long killed other nations leaders, based upon what was in American business interests? Sure; heck, Malcolm knew the Texas oilman who had been funding Elijah. An old devil named "Hunt."

[Karenina]

160. You shush now...

Da chilluns be in earshot! ;-)

[H2O Man]

163. "Once a rooster

starts crowing, it's hard to shut him up!" -- Malcolm X, 1964

[Karenina]

184. WATERMAN!!!!

:spank: :spank: :spank:

Now you HUSH UP!!!!

[Az]

47. And there is no chance

that the indidivuals and cultures that our policies crush don't see those working for such infrastructures as little Eichmans?

I think this is the problem with jumping on the use of that term. We refuse to see ourselves in the roll of tyrant or oppressor. But to millions, perhaps billions, of people in the world we are exactly that. They are our bullets oppressing people around the world. It is our culture being forced down their throats. It may even be our soldiers killing their children and callously labeling them collateral damage. From their perspective perhaps little Eichmans is too subtle a phrase.

Maybe some skull crushing words are needed to blow our complacency away. A slap in the face can snap a histerical person back to reality. Maybe a slap in the face is what the people need to see the damage they are doing by playing along with Corporate hegemony around the world.

[H2O Man]

48. Yet Ward's slap in the face

will NEVER force people to see the role of some American's in the world correctly. Rather, he will make it impossible for others to do exactly that. The ball is in his court: he can admit it was a really stupid statement, and allow a rational discussion to move forward, or he can allow the right-wing to use his stupidity to further blur the serious issues.

[Az]

49. Alternative?

Gosh, you may consider the remote possiblity of a chance that maybe you have is some tangential perhaps even indistinct way have possibly contributed, if that is too strong a word, to the inconveinience of some individuals somewhere in the world who you never met and should have no reason to be upset other than their own mistaken and fanatical perspective, who now hold you responsible, for some nonsensical reason, for their unreasonalbe feelings of oppression and sense of loss due to some actions taken by armed forces acting in a perfectly reasonable defense of true goodness and freedom.

[WilliamPitt]

51. Black and white thinking

You pose two alternatives: Brutal truth or brutal dishonesty.

Brutal truth blinds the very people who need that truth. Using phrases like 'Little Eichmanns' sets up roadblocks to thinking among people who can't get past the word, which is a disaster because those are the people needing the education.

Brutal dishonesty, as pantomimed above in your admittedly hilarious yet accurate screed, is just as bad in a whole different direction.

Words have power, and there is a way to craft them so they fall somewhere in between, leaning more towards brutal truth but without the land mines that blow up the process.

I have this same argument with people in the 9/11 Truth Movement. They have all their research and all their facts, but have a way of delivering it that absolutely guarantees they will be ignored.

[Az]

57. We are not going to convince everyone

But there are an entire array of means to reach different people. Some people do simply need a slap in the face. I see the Eichmann statement as trying to get people to think from another's point of view. That to those being oppressed by our day to day actions we do seem as Eichmanns. Its a very powerful statement. Perhaps too powerful for some. But I suspect it will reach many. As it will offend many as well.

The thing is we have to use all the tools we have. We need to have the forceful advocates and we need the nuanced ones. Each fighting on different fronts. Instead what we seem to have is each side falling on each other when one uses a tactic that does not fit the other's sensibilities.

Myself I prefer nuanced discourse. But I want battlers such as Churchill out there too. These indivdiuals can turn battles around. Nuance can only advance in steps and increments. A well worded assault from a battler such as this one can redefine the lines. Admittedly it is more an art than a science and can backfire. But we have to stop falling on those that are fighting the same fight as we and instead see what advances we can make of their actions.

[H2O Man]

64. Really?

Other than someone on the extreme left, who is Ward reaching? Middle America? Some moderate republicans? At a time when Ward should finally be maturing, and able to actually reach people with a serious message, he refuses to say that he made an error in judgement on one phrase? I always admired Malcolm .... a man who never hesitated to admit he was capable of saying something foolish at an emotional time. That certainly separates Malcolm and Ward.

[Az]

67. I suspect you are too hard on moderates

I suspect that the initial vocal response will be from those that reject such words as Ward's. But I also think that many from extreme liberals to confirmed moderates will consider the words beyond the kneejerk reaction and reexamine some of their assumptions.

In debate your target is not always the individuals directly opposite you. Those in the audience can learn from how it plays out and see how both sides react. If we turn on individuals that use such controvercial notions we undermine any advances they may achieve.

[H2O Man]

75. politics 101:

There are but three groups: {1} those who agree with you; {2} those who oppose you; and {3} the undecided. Ward has not reached group #3 in a manner that will result in their thinking, "Gosh! I like that analogy! How wise and thoughtful!" Rather, in a subject that is very emotional for all three groups, Ward has given group #2 a weapon to use to keep group #3 from even considering what the reasonable people in group #1 are saying. The only people who just don't get that very easy to understand truth are a small fringe on the extreme left of group #1, who are not able to grasp the simple things in the reality of politics. They are the mirror-reflection of the far-right who believe that the right Rev Jerry F was correct in blaming 9-11 on abortion and homosexuality. Those extremists on the right likewise cling to the misguided belief that Rev Jerry made moderate people "think."

[Az]

79. And all moderates think the same?

Yes his words are going to send some into fits of apaplexy. But perhaps, just maybe, some will stop and consider what he has to say.

[H2O Man]

83. Of course I did not

say that. It's unfortunate that you resort to that.

[Az]

87. Resort?

Nothing to do with resorting. This has been the point all along. Its not expected that all are going to get this point. But it will reach some. Its up to others and other tactics to get the rest.

[H2O Man]

53. Just for discussion ....

do you think that the book "Imperial Hubris" or Ward's article is more likely to make people think? To open up a frank and honest discussion?

Ward's article is going to appeal to a small segment of the far-left. No one outside that tiny group is going to agree with his article. I suspect that you know that the moderate and middle-class Americans who are now being exposed to Ward's "teachings" are not going to consider ANYTHING he has to say with an open mind.

In fact, the right-wing will use him to keep the moderate middle class from even considering any of the potentially important issues he may raise.

On the other hand, there are people who have raised the issues of why those people might hate us .... enough to attack the USA as happened on 9-11. You might read Michael's other book, "Through Our Enemies Eyes."

To suggest that people are limited to either Ward's stupid tactic, or your weak attempt at humor, is just plain silly.

[Az]

60. If it makes some people think then it has achieved something

Sometimes when the battlefield is stagnating you need to send in a jolt to shake it up. I am not advocating that all arguments for these ideas need to be phrased the same as Ward's. Rather that we need to stop attacking our own side when someone does something that we don't necissarily agree with. Instead of attacking them look for how they have changed the battlefield and shore up the new holes and press ahead where they have weakened the opposition.

[JHB]

66. But if it makes them STOP thining and just dismiss him out of hand?

THEN what has it achieved?

When you send that jolt to shake up the stagnant battlefield, to use your metaphor, you should at least make sure it doesn more damage to the other side, not to your own forces.

[Az]

72. Remember the reaction to the boy that pointed out the emperor was naked

At first he was belittled and shouted down. But he kept persisting. In time even the most recalcitrant objector had to admit the trut. The emperor was indeed naked.

[JHB]

84. No, I don't remember him because he didn't exist. He's a character...

...in a fairy tale. In the real world, things don't usually follow the script too easily, so it's "slow & steady" convinvcing that "wins the race", not a big dash from a poorly-setup "extreme example".

[Az]

94. Real world

The real world has the right using every single emotional blackmail tactic in the book. They use every trick they can get their hands on. And we sit here hoping our tenacious hold to slow reasoned progress will win the day. History shows us that if there is not a strong stance against the emotional lemmings of the world they will overwhelm the plodding rational groups.

[K-W]

68. Luckily churchill hasnt burned any copies of Imperial hubris.

And the ONLY people trying to make his message the dominant message of the left are Republicans.

[K-W]

63. I think the far right has proven you wrong.

If the nut jobs from the far right can legitimize themselves nationally with the support of the republicans and the media, im inclined to reject the idea that we need to help the right marginalize the left every time we feel someones message wasnt sensitive enough.

I think its time we stopped giving in to the right and stood up for a nation where people like ward churchill can speak thier mind.

[H2O Man]

70. Of course

if you read what I've wrote on here, you wouldn't need to make a point I've already made. I think if you go up to the top of the page, where someone was questioning if Ward is an Indian, you'll find that I am very clear about this issue.

The thing is, do we support Ward for only the right to free speech, no matter how offensive? Or do we have the opportunity to discuss many of his interesting points, which are indeed worthy of discussion? Ward has more control over that than the right-wing.

I'm guessing I'm likely more familiar with Ward than 99% of the people on DU. I'm in favor of him being a teacher. But I like men who are not incpable of admitting errors. Sometimes teachers get that way.

[K-W]

74. Because that isnt the error he is being asked to admit to.

Dont you see that the reason we dont like what he said and they dont like what he said are entirely different?

He is being asked to apologize for saying horrible things that he never said. It seems an odd time for us to also be asking him to apologize because his comparison was distracting.

[H2O Man]

80. It may to you.

And you are surely as entitled to your opinion as I am to mine. Yet I think the way they are keeping the public from examing the important things he may be saying, is by taking advantage of his inability to say, "Yep. One sentence was really stupid." Again, you are as entitled to your opinion as I am mine, and I admire that you consider things, and are consistent in your viewpoints.

[K-W]

85. I just cant imagine where you are coming from.

When you demand that he must apologize before you will defend him from vicious dishonest conservative attacks.

If everyone in America disagreed with him for the same reason you do, I would agree wholeheartedly. But most of America was told that this man was rooting for the terrorists. So I dont expect him to apologize to them, and I understand if he doesnt find time to apologize to those of us who actually did understand what he said but disagree with his actual point because we are the minority here.

[H2O Man]

125. Please be accurate

I have made no "demands." I believe I have done a better job sticking up for him than you. Again, you ignore my post up towards the top.

I do agree that you are not able to imagine where I'm coming from.

[K-W]

135. I have been 100% accurate.

You want him to apologize because you feel he said something wrong.

He doesnt agree with you. He doesnt think he said anything wrong, so why should he apologize? He has a right to say what he wants whether you or the right wing like it. And if you value free speech you jump at the chance to defend someone you dont agree with. It is just that tolerance that is the foundation of the concept of free speech.

You have done a better job sticking up for him than me? What kind of a childish comment is that? Wanna have a pissing contest?

[H2O Man]

159. You're being silly.

I never made a "demand." I don't care if Ward says he's sorry or not. What he said was really stupid, but that is part of life in America. The only people who don't understand how stupid what he said was are those on the far-left who mirror those on the far-right who praise Rev. Jerry F for blaming 9-11 on abortions and homosexuality. I think Ward and Jerry are both equally entitled to say what they want. I support their rights to be jerks. That doesn't mean that I need to agree with either one, or pretend their supporters add anything of value to our culture.

[K-W]

164. You dont understand Churchill's point.

And I guess you will never let yourself consider that.

Nothing he said compared to what falwell said.

[H2O Man]

171. I fully understand

his point. He's being an ass. His supporters are short-sighted; while they are certainly entitled to their views, they will forever remain an insignificant force in American politics, who are ignorant enough to allow people like the Rev. Jerry to capitalize on their stupidity.

[K-W]

175. Clearly you dont.

Falwell said that it was just punishment for unjust acts.

Churchill said it was unjust punishment for unjust acts.

Its an easy thing to miss, but its very significant.

[Tinoire]

274. Ward didn't do that. The media did 4 years after he wrote the essay n/t

[H2O Man]

42. I agree.

What he said was stupid and insulting. It took away from the option of discussing his other points. I'd prefer that he say, "Hey, you know what? That was a stupid thing to say. I was wrong. I am sorry that I said something so thoughtless and offensive."

As it is, it is not possible to support him. The ball is in his court, and if he were a man, he'd do the right thing.

However, the Constitution is there to protect even the most annoying and obnoxious asshole. He deserves the same Constitutional protection as the infamous right-wing minister who felt 9-11 was the lord's punishment on the USA for abortion and homosexuality. It's odd the right-wing gets so upset about one jackass, but not the other.

[K-W]

76. ignore mispost

[JHB]

35. His foolishness smothers his valid points...

...much like flag-burning.

Eichman was an active and knowing participant in his crimes.

Even if one fully agrees that the international commercial systems symbolized by the towers and the companies within them were an active force of oppression around the world, few if any of the people killed that day were active enough and knowing enough participants to be mentioned in the same breath as Eichman. A man in Chrchill's position should know better than this, both as a matter of history and as a matter of polemics.

[K-W]

38. NO IT DOESNT

What kind of horrible country do you want to live in where a liberal with what is largely a very accurate message says ONE thing you dont agree with and this makes it ok for him to be dismissed and villianized?

Why are so many liberals making excuses for closed mindedness and supression of speech?

[JHB]

50. It wasn't "one thing I disagree with"...

...it was spectacularly foolish misuse of highly-charged symbolism of the sort that will make even people who mostly agree with you blindingly angry. That's why I equate it with flag-burning: one may have the right to do it, but what good is served by expressing one's right that particular way, where people receive a very different message than the one that was intended. And Churchill is someone whose professional and activist experience is such that he should have known better at the time he wrote it.

Why are so many liberals making excuses for closed mindedness and supression of speech?

Tell you what, I'll explain that if you can tell me why so many liberals seem to think insulting people (equating them with mass murderers here, or simply implying they're idiots elsewhere) is the best way to win them to our point of view (or simply turn them from political adversaries to allies). Deal?

[Az]

52. Sometimes extreme examples are necissary

to wake people up to how others percieve them. We have these symbols in our society. They are formed within our social structures and have a real impact on us.

When we try to convey how other societies feel about us we cannot use terms from the alien society as they have no impact on us. We can only use terms we are familiar with within our society. Thus to convey the true evil we are percieved with in other cultures we have to make use of our own cultural perceptions of evil to make the analogy.

This is why the Nazi's so often get pulled into the mix. They represent the pinacle of evil to us. When we wish to convey anothers view of us as terribly evil we can only make use of such analogies.

Such analogies carry with them very strong emotional reactions. It is often just that emotional reaction that is needed to convery another's opinion. Without it the information may have no impact.

[JHB]

61. Sorry, Az, but I've seen this sort of "extreme example" used too often...

...over the past 20 years or so to discredit valid causes, far more than I've seen "wake people up" to them. It's one of the tools the RW has used to separate "liberal" from "mainstream", making us seem alien, and they've been very good at it.

You either recognize that and work against it by paying attention to how you use language any symbolism (and how others actually perceive it), or you wind up playing into the hands of people who want to have everyone dismiss you as a looney radical.

It doesn't mean you don't say what needs to be said. But it DOES mean you have to treat it as a key to unlock doors, not as an "extreme example" battering ram.

[Az]

65. It starts dialog

People may start off the conversation by saying that Ward's comments went too far. But that in itself gets people to thinking about how much too far. Perhaps there is something to what he is saying.

Keep in mind that the right reacts to the things that most threaten it. Strong emotional statements are its favorite target. Remember what they did to Dean? He showed emotions and for that they burned him to the ground. They know that an emotionally charged left is the worst thing imaginable.

Emotions are the single biggest weapon in society. If you can rally a people's emotions you have their minds. We are emotional creatures. Where our emotions lead us we cannot help but follow. The right knows this and they will do everything in their power to crush any attempt to rally the left around an emotional base.

[JHB]

77. How does spitting in someone's face "start a dialogue"?

You already understand that emotions "are the single biggest weapon in society". Do you understand how such misuse of them by someone we should expect to know better turns that weapon against us?

[Az]

82. He is not spitting in anyone's face

Reading what he says it is clear he is not saying that the people in the towers were Eichmanns. He is saying that others may percieve them as Eichmanns. This is the critical phrase. It is a very powerful emotional image. And the right has grabbed onto it and is trying to turn it around. They recognise the power in the phrase and are determined not to have it hit them. They are doing their best to turn it and we are helping them by not illuminating the full implication of his comments.

[JHB]

89. Maybe it's clear to you, but not to me.

If he's "voicing" what the highjackers would have been thinking, he has it mixed in enough with his own voice that it's not clear at all where one ends and the other begins.

Please explain what makes it so clear to you.

That they waited so long to do so is, notwithstanding the 1993 action at the WTC, more than anything a testament to their patience and restraint.

They did not license themselves to "target innocent civilians."

There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center . . .

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.

[Az]

99. The left is often accused of assuming everyone is stupid

So someone puts an idea out there that requires a bit of thought and consideration and everyone jumps all over him. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. We have to stop playing into the rights hands.

[JHB]

102. I agree. I just think Churchill needs to understand that...

...even though he already should.

[JHB]

235. 'Round and round they go....'

I think we've hit an impasse of emphasis. Forgive me if you think I misrepresent you, it's not intended:

Az: We have to stop playing into the rights hands.

JHB: So it behooves us to consider our audience and how best to reach them, not piss them off.

Az: So what do we do? "Dumbing down" the message only plays into the RWers hands.

JHB: So does handing them stuff that so neatly fits their caricatures of us.

Az: What are we supposed to do? Police ourselves into self-censorship? It wouldn't matter. Even if we did that, they'd just take things out of context or just plain made shit up.

JHB: That doesn't mean we have to just hand them material either. And why is it "policing" or "self censorship" to phrase an argument in such a way as to avoid rhetorical or symbolic bombshells that will impede, not promote, the cause that you're striving for?

Az
JHB
Az
JHB
Az
JHB
....round & round & round...

Have a good weekend, friend, I'm signing off this thread.

[Az]

237. Agreement or not

The dialog is necissary and you have comported yourself well IMO.

[bloom]

106. I think you are probably right

that a lot of people don't get it.

A lot of people don't get how the American Europeans went along with the genocide of the Native Americans and allowed it to happen.

A lot of Germans (and Americans) went along with the genocide of the Jews.

Most Americans went along with the genocide of Iraqis following the Gulf War - Madeline Albright said their deaths were necessary or something to that effect.

Some people don't get how the Americans have alienated the Arabs with our foreign policy in Israel.

A lot of people don't get it.

Hitler used the US example of Native American treatment as part of his excuse*. He was also partly inspired by the eugenic movement in this country.

I've heard people defending Israels actions by comparing it to what the US did to the Native Americans or to the Mexicans.

I get the little Eichman reference (even without the revelation that the CIA hired people who had worked for Eichman.)

A lot of peope don't. That I agree with.





*"Hitler's concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America's extermination - by starvation and uneven combat - of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity." P. 202, "Adolph Hitler" by John Toland

[Karenina]

110. Superb post, Bloom!

Too many simply don't WANT to "get it." They've never been FORCED to get it. Salaries depend upon NOT GETTING IT.

[JHB]

226. But how are you "forcing" them to "get it"?

Answer: You're not (and can't) "force" them, so they're dismissing the whole argument because of one inflammatory phrase.

You can rail against that kind of thinking all you want, but if you're REALLY trying to win support, you have to consider the relative utility of such rhetoric and symbolism.

[Karenina]

230. I hold no false hope that they will "get it"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x2612390

[K-W]

78. Name one thing other than the eichman comparison that you disagree with.nt

[Karenina]

111. I'm more interested that this essay

written years ago at the height of a national emotional upheaval suddenly has become a lightning rod.

[kdmorris]

273. That's MY "$64,000 question"

In all the upheaval and discussion of whether Wade Churchill was right or wrong or should or shouldn't, no one seems to question why it only comes up 3 1/2 years later. Why is it suddenly a controversy worth fighting about but it wasn't when he wrote it?

I think we are simply playing into their hands. Give us something ELSE to divide us and we all grab hold of it, start arguing and divide ourselves into even smaller groups.

Get us into enough smaller groups and we are terribly easy to defeat.

[mattclearing]

69. What he's saying is sort of like saying, "Fuck the troops."

And this is something that has been on my mind lately.

Honestly, I don't dig the military. I wouldn't sell my life to politicians, and I regard with extreme skepticism anyone who does.

But I wouldn't say, "Fuck the troops. Anyone who would volunteer to kill innocents and forfeit their right to exercise their own judgement deserves to die."

Saying something like that is just asking for trouble. It's inflammatory, and while it draws attention to itself by the power of its wording, ultimately it is hurtful and contributes to the negativity of the current "dialogue."

It's asking for trouble, essentially. I'm not interested in that kind of trouble.

Looks like he wants (and got) trouble.

[K-W]

81. So you think the right was justified in lying?

Just because Churchill intended to shock, and even now seems to relish the impact he's had, doesnt in any way shape or form excuse the horrific lies and manipulations of the right in this incident.

A vast majority of Americans believe absolute lies about Ward Churchill. That isnt his fault.

[mattclearing]

88. He knows the rules. Do you think he couldn't have predicted it?

I'm not saying they're right. They are totally wrong.

But we all know how wrong they are.

It doesn't change what they are going to do with lockstep determination and complete predictability.

Lies? Reactionary ranting? Demagoguery? Mountains out of molehills?

Is it possible Churchill is the least bit surprised at this reaction?

[Az]

91. Whats the message here

If you percieve duplicity and dishonesty in the opposition stay quiet about it and don't stand up and point it out because you will only be felled by those on your side for having the courage to stand up and say something?

Yes he likely knew that the right would go off on his statement. But is it true? Should we not stand up and applaud the truth when it is spoken? Should we not stand by and defend the truth?

The emperor is naked. All those applauding his finery are deluded. They are going to try to rip apart those telling them their truth is delusional. Do we shrink away because we don't want to ruffle their feathers? Or do we continue to point out the guy is stark raving naked?

[mattclearing]

95. I'm with Will Pitt. Communication requires tact.

You can say controversial things without being mean-spirited. Look at Martin Luther King's speeches. Read them.

He had a great way of dealing with people whom he obviously vehemently disagreed with.

Letter from Birmingham Jail comes to mind.

Churchill decided to err on the side of controversy. I'm sure he intended to make news, and I'm glad he did for his sake.

In the long run though, comments like this tend to eat at one's character.

People take a person less seriously when they make outrageous statements for the sake of getting attention.

Even if they are right (and I haven't made my decision on Churchill yet).

[K-W]

98. Nobody is arguing that we make Churchill our spokesman.

Yes, if he had more tact, I could get behind his message easily and it would make this situation much easier and a much better opportunity.

But the right wouldnt have given us that opportunity, the right gives us a man with a message that most liberals have a hard time getting behind because they know it means we will want to distance ourselves from it for fear of implicating ourselves.

I dont agree with Will Pitt because I dont think that everyone who speaks must speak tactfully. I think its his choice to speak tactfully and Churchill's choice to not. Obviously Will Pitt has his articles forwarded to more people by us than Churchill. But I dont see anything ethically wrong with Churchill choosing his own message even if you think he made the wrong choice.

And I think that yes, it would be wrong of the left to just stand behind his ideas. Certainly. But it is also wrong to call what he said 'wrong' playing right into right wing lies.

I think we should, as always, stick to the truth. We support Ward Churchills right to say whatever he wants. He doesnt speak for the left, of course, nobody does. The right wing has lied about him, and that is wrong. The state of Colerado cannot constitutionally put his employment in jeapordy over this.

When we bend over backwords to critisize him for saying something no more offensive than things that get said on DU on a reasonably regular basis we are just playing into the conservatives hands and giving them a victory over the menace of liberal college professors so they can take on a less extreme professor next time.

[mattclearing]

104. I'm not saying he's wrong. Maybe wrong-headed, though.

I haven't criticized him. I think his wording was tailored to incite. I think that is a problematic strategy in the long run.

In the short run, it gets people talking, and maybe that is necessary.

[K-W]

107. Then we agree on that.

My point is that we need to resist the urge to let this right wing attack on the left slide because we are uncomfortable defending Churchill.

[mattclearing]

109. Oh no. We never let them slide.

But like I said before, that probably deserves another thread.

[Az]

100. There is room for a variety of tactics

As I mentioned earlier I prefer nuance myself. But I recognise the necessity of bold strong statements. They can often redefine the entire battle field or cause people to think in new ways.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

140. I'll Defer To John Lennon

You say you got a real solution
Well you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well you know
We're doing what we can
But when you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is brother you have to wait

[H2O Man]

162. Great!

Very good! Thank you!

[creeksneakers2]

254. I don't see any truth here

He says power lunches and stock transactions translate into starved infants. I don't know of any company making money by starving infants.

Ward's view of the world is that we are all obligated to make eliminating evil our highest priority. He says people who don't do something to stop evil are guilty.

That's an incredible burden to place on humanity. The guy expects this while at the same time saying its OK to murder 3,000 people.

This isn't truth. This is a case of a guy who has figured out that he can make a good buck laying guilt trips on people.

How much evil have you stopped today?

[reorg]

266. no companies making money by starving infants?

HOW TO KILL A TIGER

SPECULATORS TELL THE STORY OF THEIR ATTACK AGAINST THE BAHT, THE OPENING ACT OF AN ONGOING DRAMA

BY EUGENE LINDEN

The description was brutally honest: "We are like wolves on the ridgeline looking down on a herd of elk," said one of the currency speculators who helped trigger the cascading devaluations that eventually led to the stock-market tumbles that swept the globe last week. Late last year, eight months before Thailand finally succumbed and devalued the baht, the wolves had been on the prowl. They saw the Thai economy not as one of Asia's tigers, but more like wounded prey. Unable to resist, each predator began to plan his attack. "By culling the weak and infirm, we help maintain the health of the herd," said the trader. And cull they did. Through interviews with members of this wolf pack, Time has reconstructed the story of how the traders devoured the Thai currency and set in motion the ongoing crisis that caused last week's worldwide financial trauma. ...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/1997/int/971103/asia.how_to_kill_a.html



Many economists, including Joseph Stiglitz and Jeffrey Sachs, have downplayed the role of the real economy in the crisis compared to the financial markets due to the speed of the crisis. The rapidity with which the crisis happened has prompted Sachs and others to compare it to a classic bank run prompted by a sudden risk shock. Sachs points to strict monetary and fiscal policies implemented by the governments in the wake of the crisis, while Frederic Mishkin points to the role of asymmetric information in the financial markets that led to a "herd mentality" among investors that magnified a relatively small risk in the real economy

(...)

The inflation of the rupiah and the resulting steep hikes in the prices of food staples led to riots throughout the country. I...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_financial_crisis


But the biggest impact, no doubt, has been on the millions of nameless, faceless individuals who can generally be described as poor. And those numbers are rising. As one Asian newspaper headline reported in October 1998: "Number of Asian Poor Set to Double."

But the increase in the number of people living in poverty does not depict the full picture: It reflects soaring joblessness among adults, a rising number of dropouts from school, a reversal of the migration from rural areas to big cities, and, in many cases, an upsurge in crime. Granted, some of these phenomena are observable across all countries in Asia, but they are especially serious among the countries that have been worst hit by the financial crisis.

The crisis has affected virtually all the countries of Southeast Asia, including such affluent societies as Hong Kong and Singapore. But its worst impact has been on Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, and, last but certainly not least, Indonesia.

(...)

Indonesia

"Indonesia is in deep crisis," the World Bank reported in July 1998. "A country that achieved decades of rapid growth, stability and poverty reduction, is now near economic collapse. . . . No country in recent history, let alone one the size of Indonesia, has ever suffered such a dramatic reversal of fortune."

The contrast between pre-1997 Indonesia and the country today is indeed stark. As Peter McCawley of the University of Queensland has said: "Never before in human history did the real living standards of so many millions of poor people rise so quickly for such a sustained period. This is surely an event of great economic significance on our planet. Nowhere has the crisis hit harder than in Indonesia."

In Indonesia, as in other crisis-stricken countries, it is difficult to get precise data. Unemployment was estimated at 5 percent, or 4.5 million people, in 1996, before the crisis struck. Two years later, in 1998, official government estimates put the number of unemployed at 20 million.

Precise figures are not available, but it seems likely that millions of workers lost their jobs in the first few months of 1998, including hundreds of thousands of people in the construction industry. The sharp rise in the jobless rate was followed shortly afterward by rising disorder, in the form of robberies and violence, reflecting a desperation born of poverty.

The number of impoverished people skyrocketed. This is because millions of people who had climbed out of poverty during the boom years fell back under the poverty line. Indonesia estimated that 11.3 percent of its people lived below the poverty line in early 1996. The World Bank put the number at around 10.1 percent in 1997, before the crisis. According to the World Bank, negative growth of 12 percent was likely to raise the percentage of those living in poverty to 14.1 percent, or about 29 million people.

However, in August 1998, when President Habibie delivered a state speech, Indonesia's Central Board of Statistics released data indicating that, by mid-1998, the proportion of the population below the poverty line had probably jumped to 39.9 percent, or 79.4 million people.

To keep things in perspective, the poverty line drawn by the Indonesian government was extremely low: 55 U.S. cents a day for urban areas, and 40 U.S. cents a day for rural areas. That is to say, many people surviving on less than $1 a day were defined as not poor.

...

http://www.asiasociety.org/publications/update_crisis_ching.html

[K-W]

93. That a victim could have avoided being victimized,

does not in any way justify the wrong or in any way incriminate the victim.

[mattclearing]

96. I'm sticking with Churchill's poor choice of words.

His accusers deserve their own thread.

[K-W]

118. But the only reason you are thinking about his words is the accusations.

You cant pretend we are in a vacuum. Right now he is under heavy attack by the right. Lets fight the right's leftist bashing lies first and address his word choice later?

[mattclearing]

123. What do you suggest?

[K-W]

124. Not letting the right's propaganda frame what you think about.

This was obviously a story propagated solely as propaganda. The entire controversy is lies. Based on taking a very academic piece making a complex point and selectively quoting and outright lying about it around the country to arouse scorn. Its good propaganda because his point is easy to mistake, but that doesnt make this his fault.

He is just a radical college professor doing his thing. The story here is the media spinning it into a lie and spreading it around like it was news.

[mattclearing]

126. I didn't really think about it much until this discussion.

And I find the discussion of successful communication fascinating.

The right-wing bitching about some professor's rant? Not so much so.

[K-W]

129. Then arent you also choosing speech over strategy?

Even though atm your critiques of his communication could easily be mistaken for supporting the right wing lies, you choose to say them anyway.

[mattclearing]

134. I believe my strategy is sound.

I haven't compared anyone to Nazis in this thread.

[K-W]

136. Clearly you arent being serious.

You know that isnt what I said.

[mattclearing]

143. My point is that speech and strategy aren't in opposition.

You can clearly speak your mind and use a strategy that ensures you can be taken seriously.

You might not garner much attention, but it is possible.

My jury is still out on Churchill, mainly because I don't think his comments are very important.

I liked that thing that Will Pitt mentioned about the first person to use Nazi's in an argument always loses, though.

However, I do believe the necessity of controversy to garner attention for important issues and the ability to speak clearly about those issues are important topics to explore.

The right-wing attacks are somewhat irrelevant in that they are always attacking something or somebody.

My interest lies in the sliding scale that seems to exists between controversy and mass enlightenment.

Churchill's point was sound, and the way he made it drew people. The problem is that the way he made it wasn't sound.

If you can make a sound point, and draw people in a way that sustains future credibility, then that's something worth pursuing.

[K-W]

147. So you think this is a strategically convienent time

to after ward churchill for his communication techniques?

You are doing exactly what you critisized Churchill for doing. He wante d to say what he said. You think he should have chosen a more strategic way of doing it.

Now you want to talk about his bad strategic choices, but obviously now any criticism of Churchill can feed into the lie driven conservative purge, it is a bad strategic time to go after his strategic choices.

You see how it sucks when other people tell you waht you should be saying?

[mattclearing]

150. I know what I should be saying.

And I stand by my comments.

And really, what lie-driven conservative purge? Has he lost his job? Is he in any real danger of losing his job?

You seem to be picking a fight with me over nothing.

Do you have a point?

[K-W]

156. Why do you think this thread exists?

The ONLY reason we are talking about Ward Churchill is because the conservative media spread this story around the country to arouse anger at liberals and there is a big fight in colarado right now because the governer wants to be able to fire him over this and there is alot of pressure to have him fired.

I wont hold my breath waiting for an apoplogy.

[mattclearing]

168. I told you my thoughts.

If someone fires him, he will have plenty of legal grounds to make a case for wrongful termination.

You seem to be equating my disagreement with his argument with being agreement with the witchhunt.

You are essentially taking my words and twisting them to your own pre-conceived conclusion.

And that would make you no better than the Republicans you seem to be accusing me of sympathizing with.

I should note that I'm a member of the ACLU and somewhat irritated with your badgering.

And no, you'll get no apology from me.

Someone who says outrageous things should not be surprised to find themselves at risk for having done so.

Freedom of speech does not exist in a vacuum.

So again, I ask, is there a point here somewhere?

[K-W]

169. Once you realize that you dont actually know what Churchill said.

Things will be clearer, I promise.

Niether you or he were expressing wrong opinions.

[mattclearing]

180. I have repeatedly refused to criticize the gist of what he said.

In fact, I have made similar arguments.

My point was that the language that he used was inflammatory, and hurts his chances to persuade people to his way of thinking.

It takes away from what he was trying to say and makes it about what was said.

And I haven't read the full text, but I've seen the scattered quotes and read most of this thread, and feel that I have a handle on the issue.

I try not to pass judgment on people, especially not based on words.

IMHO, words shouldn't be grounds for offense ever.

But as long as they are, I think people should make a note and pick their battles accordingly.

[K-W]

181. Alright, this is silly, we largely agree.

I assure you my point was never that you were saying anything wrong. Have a nice day.

[mattclearing]

189. Likewise, no offense taken.

My hair bristles at the mere hint of agreement with the right-wing. It's nothing personal.

Take care, and have a nice day yourself.

[Karenina]

201. YOU are NOT

his target audience. He is a professor presenting ideas to HIS STUDENTS who are perfectly able to engage him in a classroom as they see fit. His JOB is to get a rise out of them and teach them to THINK critically, using whatever devices are available. I WANNA KNOW exactly HOW this old manuscript got catapulted into the public arena.

[mattclearing]

213. That would be interesting to know.

We just wake up one day and it's all the rage?

I seem to remember a lot of manufactured looking news happening in the immediate wake of 9/11.

We seem to have become frighteningly accustomed to it in the time since.

Like, amber alerts, for one. Suddenly everyone is afraid someone will steal their kid again. Did we wake up in 1983?

Same thing with a lot of the celebrity garbage.

Someone is encouraging nonsense journalism to distract from things like HR 418.

I'm sure it's from the top.

[Karenina]

191. HOW OLD

is this blasphemous treatise again??? :shrug:

[Hobarticus]

71. His message is sound, but the delivery unfortunately tainted it...

I understand completely what he's getting at, and I think most DUers understand what he's saying, even though they don't agree with it, but to toss that little morsel in was ridiculous.

Many writers have said the same things as he has, without alluding that the victims were Nazis. That's just stupid.

Nonetheless, I'll defend his right to speak his mind.

[Karenina]

120. There ya go again!

Refusing to grasp the stark analogy.

Maybe Gilbert & Sullivan will help...

"As office boy I made such a mark
that they gave me a post as a junior clerk
I cleaned the windows and I swept the floors
and I polished up the handle of the big front door

(He polished up the handle of the big front door)

I polished up the handle so carefully
that now I am the ruler of the Queen's Navy

(He polished up the handle so carefully
that now he is the ruler of the Queen's Navy...")

[K-W]

121. He wasnt calling the victims Nazi's

that is a dishonest reading of his work

[fortyfeetunder]

119. C'mon folks, think outside the (ethnocentric) box!

Consider the MLM regards all WTC victims as martyrs and the plane hijackers as insane infidels. That is why many are uncomfortable with Ward Churchill's diatribe.

Ward Churchill's words were jarring because he wanted us to take ourselves out of the "poor me USA victim" complex and put ourselves in the shoes of the hijackers and their supporters.

His points were no different than what Bill Maher said on his show after 9/11, that the plane hijackers weren't cowards.

To the USA haters, we deserved 9/11, and they feel no sympathy for us today, especially after our unwarranted invasion and occupation of Iraq. Ward Churchill wanted us to get a clue....

[DemocratSinceBirth]

137. They Made Different Points

I wouldn't call someone who voluntarily got in a plane that was going to be flew into a building a coward...


I would expect decent human beings to extend the same level of empathy to the victims of 9-11 that they would extend to all innocent victims of wars regardless of the perpetrators...

[K-W]

139. So you agree completely with Ward Churchill.

That was exactly his point. You just missed it.

His point is that the whole thing is wrong wrong wrong.

He doesnt thing anyone should have died, but hes not going to let Americans pretend they are innocent victims in a world full of immoral crazies.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

144. He Went A Lot Further...

If he would have said we mourn the loss of all innocent life and that the tragedy of a grieving Iraqi mother, a grieving Palestinian mother, a grieving Israeli mother, a grieving American mother are all sad he would have not been controversial...


What has gotten so many folks upset is that he said certain folks who labored in the Twin Towers weren't victims because of the profession they chose....

[Az]

151. But the problem is that our succes

comes at the cost of other's suffering. That is exactly the point he is trying to make. Think naked lunch. He is trying to pry back the happy illusion we create for ourselves that enables us to participate in systems that have horrendous concequences. Just because a person is not stuffing a rifle barrel in some child's face does not mean they are not contributing to the system that winds up killing children.

[K-W]

161. No that isnt what he said, you are spreading lies.

This is a part of a larger argument. He is just pointing out that they werent completely innocent because he is showing the that United States, in its foriegn policy kills with just as little caus and with just as much collaterral damage as the attackers. He is pointing out the double standard.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

133. To The People Who Said Ward Churchill Was Spot On...

Do I deserve to die because I have $7,000.00 worth of mutual funds and stocks and by my limited participation in the stock market am contributing to the technocrats that Dr. Churchill says are linked to the carnage in the Middle East?


Does Jon Corzine, liberal Democrat senator from New Jersey deserve to die because he was part of that techocratic corps?


How about John Soros?


If there is a technocratic corps then John Soros who made tens of biillions in currency speculation is their grand poobah....


The point is sick....

[K-W]

141. Stop spreading right wing lies.

He never said they deserved to die.

His point was that they no less deserved to die than the people our government is killing and has killed.

But thanks for jumping to conclusions and then closing your mind on the subject.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

148. Thank You Being So Judgemental....

You don't know shit about me so chill ....


I have made his essay part of my favorites...


Here's the probative part:





"There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center . . . 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."

[K-W]

167. You jumped to a conclusion.

You read one cherry picked segment of an article meant to lead you to draw the wrong conclusion and you drew the wrong conclusion.

Now when I explain to you that what he was actually doing was laying a framework to argue that the US has killed people for the same amount of 'guilt' you ignore me and continue to spread misinformation dissementated by the right wing because you are too attached to your conclusion.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

190. I Read The Whole Bloody Thing..

Here's the link:

http://www.darknightpress.org/index.php?i=news&c=recent&view=9&long=1

[K-W]

192. Then you should know that the section you quoted is deceptive alone.

So I wonder why you quoted it.

His point was never that he agreed that the terrorists were justified, just that they have just as much of a claim of justification as the US does when it goes out and bombs people in wars to support our empire.

[Az]

145. Deserve vs Understanding other's rational

He is not saying that people deserve to die. In fact he has quite openly said that is not his point. The entire point is to understanding the motivations of other people instead of just labeling them evil.

Acts of violence do not simply come out of the blue. People have a natural tendency to avoid killing each other. In order to overcome this requires some impetus. To kill yourself in doing such an act takes a great deal of impetus.

Our actions have consequences. Our succes and fortune are balanced on the fact that we decided decades ago that protecting our advantages out weighed the notion of building up other's fortunes. So we defended our advantages and kept others from sharing in our fortune.

To enable this agenda we have sought to influence other nations and keep them controled. We have meddled in their freedoms and supported leaders that favored our policies rather than their citizens.

We have favored our own fortune over others. This will cause us to create situations where others are handicapped because we have forced our way in. This is going to create anger from those we step on. Failing to realise this is just foolish.

As their anger grows they will try to fight back against our actions. In so doing we will interpret their actions as hostile to us. So we move to "defend" ourselves. In defending ourselves we inflict further oppression on their people. Eventually it will grow to a point that it is intolerable to those we are "defending" ourselves against. Being poorer than we they cannot field traditional forces to stop our actions so they resort to whatever tactics they can to move us from our course.

To them we are evil. They see our forcing of our culture as outright war. We have our vast military might and nuclear weapons to boot. To resist against our self annointed righteous actions is to assure their own destruction. To their frame of mind there are few things as evil as that. So they act as only they can. Covertly. Conspiratorially. As we inflict damage on their civilian population (whether through cultural damage or collateral damage) they seek to inflict it on ours. They cannot stand against our military forces so they stand against that which enables them.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

155. I Take Ward Churchill At His Word...

He said that by the profession they have chosen they have made themselves legitimate targets in his eyes...

[Az]

166. So are the dead children

Valid targets? Or should someone be brought up on charges for them?

We declared war on their culture when we decided we wanted their oil. We have belittled their ways and beliefs. We have marginalized them and oppressed them when given the chance. Who should they strike back against? What exactly is a valid target in war?

A poor people cannot field an army. If they take the civilized path and only kill people in uniforms while wearing uniforms then they will be obliterated. They don't want to be obliterated. They don't want to be overrun by our culture or our armed forces. So what should they do? Simply give up and buy an Armani suit and start trading on the stock exchange? Not exactly an option for them.

The whole point of this issue is to realise that these people have their backs up against the wall. We are coming through with our culture and our ways and forcing them onto them because they have something we want. Its our way or the highway. And all those that benefit from our way are seen as part of the problem by those being run over by it. So you tell me. Who are they supposed to hit back against to defend their way of life?

[Karenina]

219. Az, don't you see it's ALL ABOUT

AMERICANS?!?!?!! Why should they bother their "beautiful minds" with the destruction wrought by their MIC in their names??? Why should they bother with any point of view from "the other?" That damned Injun just stepped WAY outta line with what he wrote! He mebbe ain't even a real Injun! Siccem!!!!

[Az]

222. It is interesting

to see how everyone that might possibly be associated with him took a giant step back from him. I am so reminded of the boy pointing to the naked emperor. No one wanted to be near him when he first opened his yap.

[Karenina]

228. He's not pointing at da nekkid *dauphin

which would be blasphemous enough, he's pointing at ALL who facilitate DA PLAN. Americans have not yet widely accepted that card-carrying NAZIS direct from GERMANY were installed in the CIA after the war and that they've been there, working their magic, ever since. :shrug:

How can they POSSIBLY grok the analogy of LITTLE eichmanns EVERYWHERE, tiny cogs who grease the machine and facilitate its functions???

[Az]

229. I am more troubled by a different aspect

There was a study performed shortly after WWII that showed that the US controled a vastly overwhelming percentage of the worlds resources relative to their population. This was a sort of fork in the road. Should we find a way to correct this imbalance or seek to defend our wealth. We chose defening our wealth.

This created the vacuum that we see today. Outsourcing and all our economic woes seem to be the offspring of this shortsighted descision to keep our disproportionaly share of world resources.

[Name removed]

170. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Karenina]

153. Every post I have seen from you

on this topic takes the analogy PERSONALLY! Newsflash! It's NOT about YOU. It IS about looking a car wreck from a different corner.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

158. Am I George Soros Or Jon Corzine?

He said that the technocrats at the WTC were enabling the United States to wreak havoc in the world and therefore were responsible for their fate...


Jon Corzine was part of that technocratic corps and George Soros still is...

Do they desereve to be blown to Kingdom Come....

[K-W]

172. Churchill belives nobody should have died, you misunderstand him

and continue to spread misinformation about him.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

178. I Speak The Trutth...

He said the victims of 9-11 who worked in the finance industry were part of the technocratic corps that fuels the American military machine that wreaks havoc on the rest of the world and are therefore responsible for their fate.....

[K-W]

179. Right, but he didnt say they deserved it, you made up that part.

You dont agree that we were attacked because of our corporate driven foriegn policy in the middle east?

[Karenina]

183. "The technocrats at the WTC

were enabling the United States to wreak havoc in the world..."

And whether you can stomach that or not, it is FACT.

"and therefore were responsible for their fate..."

Reading comprehension is your friend. It's AMAZING to me the double standard Amis hold with regards to their own pursuits, especially upon being treated to their ideas of what the Germans SHOULDACOULDA done in WWII.

EVERYONE IN THE WORLD CAN SEE CLEARLY WHAT YOUR GUB'MINT HAS BECOME.

Most still have empathy (much more that you collectively show for those who have been harmed in your names) and can separate the *regime from its deluded, brainwashed citizens.

If, for example, you work in the "defense industry" and have qualms about dropping bombs on a country 50% of whose population is under 16, YES you DO need to read a bit of Hannah Arendt.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

196. I thought There Were Dozens Of Professions And Businesses

Represented Among The Victims Of 9-11 even if you exclude "working people" as most folks understand it...

[K-W]

197. He has made it clear he was only referring to the ones

involved in global empire. The rest he says are in the same category that the pentagon refers to as collaterral damage. Not that he agrees that this is right, he thinks it is all very wrong.

[Karenina]

231. In the beginning was...

THE PLAN

In the beginning was the Plan.
And then came the Assumptions.

And the Assumptions were without form.
And the Plan was without substance.
And darkness was upon the face of the workers.

And the Workers spoke amongst themselves, saying, "This is a crock
of shit, and it stinks."

And the Workers went unto their Supervisors and said, "It is a pail
of dung, and we can't live with the smell."

And the Supervisors went unto their Managers, saying, "It is a
container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none may abide
by
it."

And the Managers went unto their Directors, saying, "It is a vessel of
fertilizer, and none may abide it's strength."

And the Directors spoke amongst themselves, saying to one another,
It contains that which aids plant growth, and it is very strong."

And the Directors went to the Vice Presidents, saying unto them, "It
promotes growth and it is very powerful."

And the Vice Presidents went to the President, saying unto him,
This new plan will actively promote the growth and vigor of the company
with very powerful effects."

And the President looked upon the Plan and saw that it was good.
And the Plan became Policy.

And that, my friends, is how shit happens.

[Swamp Rat]

246. LOL! n/t

:D

[jsw_81]

142. He is wrong

To equate office workers in the Twin Towers with Nazis is utterly insane; I am appalled to see that so many DUers support this lunatic. This kind of hard-left, anti-American mentality is why we keep getting our butts kicked in election after election (and we can definitely forget about carrying Colorado in '08).

In addition to being an anti-American nutjob, Churchill is also a total fraud. He has based his entire "career" on being a native American, but it turns out that he isn't even native American. He's really nothing more than a white guy with a bad haircut and too much time on his hands.

[Az]

157. No, it is the opinion of those that attack us

And that is the point. It is not that those who were working in the towers were doing evil things. It is that those who are affected by our actions as a nation percieve all those involved in it to be supporting of it.

My tax dollars pay for the munitions that are dropped on children in Iraq. How could the parents of a slain child be satisfied with the apollogy that hey these things happen during war. Its collateral damage. It's their freaking child that is dead with American shrapnel piercing its body. But hey. These things happen. They better get over it or we will shoot them.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

165. Does That Mean The Inhabitants Of Dresden Deserved To Be Firebombed And

The Residents of Nagasaki and Hiroshima deseved to be radiated because Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan committed unspeakable crimes in their names...

[Az]

174. Good question

Keep in mind that this was an example of similarly armed societies oppposing each other. All sides fielded significant armed forces. From each sides perspective they thought they were fighting for something true and righteous. In the end we had to resort to tactics that targetted civilian populations because they were enabling the forces on the front lines.

In the case of the middle east they don't have forces that could stop us for a day let alone establish a line. There is no possibility of meeting us on the field of battle with any expectation of victory. So what are they supposed to target. As we came to the conclusion that targetting civilian populations was acceptible to end the conflict they too come to the conclusion that the only recourse they have is to target civillian populations to force us out of their nations.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

185. But they were still innocent victims and not complicit in their death..

Professor Churchill has argued that some victims by the profession they chose made them complicit in their death....

[Az]

194. Not complicit

He is arguing that we look to understand how such things come about. That we learn that our actions have further reaching consequences than we might immediately suspect. There is no such thing as deserving death (IMO anyway). But there are means of learning how such things come about. If I pay for someone to buy brass knuckles and they hit you with them you are going to see my actions as part of the problem. And if you can't directly face the guy with the brass knuckles it may seem like a good idea to go after the person paying for the brass knuckles in the first place.

[K-W]

195. His point is that they choose to ignore the consequences of thier actions

they avoid being complicit by ignoring it, and that makes them just as guilty.

[Az]

198. Its a little more nuanced than that

Complicit seems to indicate knowledge of consequences. That you concsiously support the end. I don't think the argument is that the occupants knew they were contributing to other's suffering. Rather it is that the oppressed see them as contributing and thus consider them part of the problem.

[K-W]

200. he specifically made a point of the fact that they choose to

ignore the consequences. Its not as if they were kept from seeing what they are doing.

I can see what they are doing and I have alot less info about it than they do.

[Az]

202. Thanks for the correction

I will adjust my thoughts accordingly. :D

[K-W]

204. Have you read "confessions of an economic hitman"

by John Perkins?

Its a great insight on this subject.

[Az]

205. Have read of it

Definately one on my to purchase list.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

208. We Are Debating On Parallel Tracks...

If I am walking to work and obeying all the traffic signals and a car runs a red light and runs me over and the driver doesn't stop I was the victim of a hit and run driver....


If I go to work at the World Trade Center and a group of men hijack a plane and blow up the plane, the building, and me I am a victim of a terrorist attack ....


Whatever grievances the terrorists have or whatever my nation did to invite the attack doesn't rob me my of my victim status....

[Az]

212. Not quite

You were either one of the group that were actively seeking to press US interests into their territory or you were collateral damage.

The argument is that the towers were targetted because it was part of the economic dominance and effort to press our interests into the world. And like children bombed in Iraq all the others were merely collateral damage. It is unfortunate that they happened to be in the vicinity of some that the bombers considered to be valid targets.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

225. That's Two Different Arguments...

One argument says the terrorists saw the WTC a symbol of American economic power and therefore a legitimate target...

Professor Churchill is arguing that certain people because of their vocation were complicit in their demise and are unworthy of their status as victims...

Those are two profoundly different arguments and if the good professor only advanced the former and not the latter argument we wouldn't be having this debate which at this point has become sterile....

[Az]

227. The towers didn't create the economic power

It was the people inside that made the power.

[K-W]

214. A car accident would be random, the 9/11 attacks werent.

They hit large New York Office buildings because of the role the people in large New York Office buildings play in what the US does in the middle east. That is what he is saying.

Your car comparison is actually a good contrast.

[K-W]

176. Nobody is saying that anyone deserves to be bombed.

He is saying that a nation that bombs so many people unjustly shouldnt cry victim when it gets bombed.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

182. Are We Taliking Nations Or Individuals?

The argument that America invited the attack because of it's policies in the Middle East and should seriouly look at changing it's policies is one that men of good will can debate..


The argument that individual Americans were responsible for their deaths because of the profession they chose is barbarous....

[Az]

186. Nations

The argument is that our nations policies and actions are responsible for the suffering of others to an extent. These individuals look at our nation as an oppressor and evil in nature. Those that are part and parcel of that infrastructure and enable it are seen as part of the problem. Thus being incapable of standing against us in a pure civilized military fashion they resort to the only means of meaningful resistance they have. They strike at those that enable the process in hopes of diverting us from further actions against them.

[K-W]

188. And that the harm we caused is only a secret because they ignore it.

And that choosing to ignore where thier profits come from does not absolve them of the harm it does.

[K-W]

187. So now people arent responsible only nations?

I dont follow your argument.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

203. If A Person Works In The Finance Industry His Contribution To The Carnage

In The Middle East Is So Attenauted As To Make His Complicity Absurd....

[K-W]

207. This is New York City, this is where the movers and shakers are

He wasnt referring to accountants. He was referring to people in the financial industry who are profiteering off US imperialism.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

215. We Are Making Progress Now...

Is it Professor Churchill's argument that certain people by the profession they chose were complicit in their death...

So if you are a hot shot bond trader you were complicit in your own incineration....

[K-W]

221. this has nothing to do with which profession you choose, nothing at all

I dont know where on earth you got that.

He is saying that corporations with offices in the twin towers werer involved in the abuses that triggered the attacks, and that many of the people in the towers should have been aware that they were contributing to abuses but chose instead to just blindly follow profit.

He is simply pointing out that an argument can be made that they are guilty. That is all. It leads into his broader point, that until we stop killing people around the world with similar levels of justification, we cant be shocked when someone does it to us. This isnt the saintly US versus the horrible inhuman islamic militants. There are lots of innocent victims, but no side has a manopoly on them.

[Az]

223. Clarification

Guilty in the eye's of others.

[Karenina]

206. Brought to you by...

:evilgrin: And when the shoe is on the other foot??? :shrug:

[DemocratSinceBirth]

211. I'm Missing Your Point...

The death of one innocent person is tragic...

[bloom]

173. seems like I read that

the is 3/16th Native American.


How black did blacks have to be for them to be discriminated against - kept out of the white swimming pools and all that.

People see people as black/white/red depending on whether it suits their purposes.

If he wants to identify with his native American heritage that is Ok with me.



I'm about 3/16 Danish. I prefer that identity to my 1/2 German identity. So there you go.

[Karenina]

209. Dontchoo go be

dissin' da Deutsch now! :spank:

[bloom]

234. I saw a show on LINK or FSTV

the other day. "Art Liberates" or something.

Artists of various sorts in Berlin dealing with Nazi guilt and all that stuff.

It made me want to go over there and check it out. I've never been to Denmark or Germany. (Part of the reason I felt closer to the Danish side was due to knowing my grandfather whose father was the one to make the journey over here. There are people I could find that I am related to in Denmark - not so Germany).

(I am so removed from one whole German side of my family that I just tracked them down and found out the names/occupations of 4 of my great grandparents myself a year ago).

But here the Germans are and it seemed, anyway, that most of them "got it" as far as not being interested in UberNationalism. I know that isn't everybody - and just like here - you're going to get all kinds.

At least Germans have more of a clue about guilt than people in the US.

If you go to the link in this thread - it's just plain scary.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3093154

http://shlonkombakazay.blogspot.com/2005/02/holy-st-its...

[Karenina]

242. The "guilt" thing

is a tactic that prohibits a WHOLE LOT of Germans from speaking the truth to power. They see it and feel it, but being GERMAN are prohibited from SAYING IT.

At a birthday party a young soprano who had just returned from studying in Israel said to me in a whisper, "I was shocked at the racism I saw." Not at all shocked, I encouraged her to speak in a normal voice and tell us her experiences and how she felt about what she had perceived. She said, "But I'm GERMAN! I'm NOT ALLOWED."

[ArkDem]

199. I am convinced he may be the man to lead the Democrats out of

the wilderness.

[Skeptic_All]

210. The following quote is where my problem with W. Churchill

begins and ends........

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.

This comment, while certainly inflammatory in it's intent and meaning, is a cruel insult to the many Jewish citizens of this country who lost their lives this day. The cruel and insensitive use of the name Eichmann is a slap to the surviving family members of these victims. A man of Churchill's alleged intellect should have been able to grasp the impact of these words prior to their print and assuming he did, one can only conclude there was a visceral, mean-spiritedness behind them.

He made his bed.................

[Az]

216. Its not just Jews that suffered

Gays, Humanists, Gypsies, and a host of other individuals that they saw as enemies of the state suffered along with the Jews. The effects of Nazi Germany reach beyond just the Jews. It is embedded in all our pysches. And this is exactly why it has such an impact when used. This is exactly in keeping with the intent of his statements. He is trying to get us to see that to the view of those being effected by our policies in action we are as much an oppressor as we see the Nazi's to have been.

And consider exactly what recourse they have to our actions. We don't act this way against China or Russia because they can field significant military might against us. But these smaller and poorer nations cannot resist our actions in that way. If we decide we are going to press our culture and desires on them without their permission they have little they can do to resist.

[K-W]

224. Leftist college professors also suffered.

If that makes a difference.

[carolinayellowdog]

232. "If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way..."

The implication is inescapable that the 9/11 attack was the best, most effective, and in fact only way of "visiting" an appropriate "penalty" that Churchill can imagine. (He does leave open the possibility that someone else might be able to imagine a better method.)

[maxsolomon]

218. he's not wrong

if he'd said "good germans" instead of "little eichmans" no one would have an issue.

someone please list the compainies that had offices there. paula zahn seems to think all the offices were filled with waiters, chefs, janitors, policemen, & firemen.

[Az]

220. My personal connection

A friend had a son that was working on the 92 floor of tower 2. He was a stock broker.

[ArkDem]

233. Little Eichmann!

[Karenina]

238. Yes! from the point of view

of someone adversely affected by the (hypothetical) run on his company's stock with the MSM headlines "WAR." This is NOT about YOU. It is about the pov of someone who has been hurt by ALL the tiny greased cogs.

But nevermind your gub'mint's involvement, it's MUCH MORE FUN to go after some professor making waves with his students... :SIGH:

[ArkDem]

247. I agree with Churchill. What are you talking about?

[Karenina]

256. A kick is a kick!

It's a world citizen thang. You wouldn't understand. :kick:

[Az]

239. Kick

Some seem to think there is still stuff to discuss on this subject.

[Karenina]

245. It's SO MUCH EASIER

for Americans to huff and puff about comparisons to Nazis than to GROK what their gub'mint and MIC is doing to folks who didn't do NUTHIN' to them. KILL dem SANDNIGGERS!! They're shooting at OUR BOYS who are there to facilitate *corp's plan to get rid of their "excess population" and steal their resources. Yeah, Professor Ward Churchill... THAT'S the TICKET! PINKO COMMIE ANTI-AMERICAN!!!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

257. That's cool...

Anybody that disagrees with you is a philistine...


We surely will make people see the errors of their ways by turning them into cartoons...

[Karenina]

263. I could give a fuckin shit

reading posts such as yours.

The day that AMERICANS, as the Germans have already done, TAKE RESPONSIBILITY and demand ACCOUNTABILITY for the ATROCITIES committed in their names, we can talk. Until then, you must forgive me for cheering on ANYONE who grabs you by the neck and rubs your nose in the shit you've deposited on the carpet.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

270. Sad

"I could give a fuckin shit"
Posted by Karenina

"Until then, you must forgive me for cheering on ANYONE who grabs you by the neck and rubs your nose in the shit you've deposited on the carpet"


I guess my attempts to engage you in civil discourse have failed and you have resorted to using the anonymity of the net to hurl insults and personal invectives at me as if they were rice at a wedding.


It is profoundly sad and reflects more on the perpetrator than the target...


Peace

Brian

[Karenina]

275. Do forgive me, DSB

"You" did not mean you personally. But you can say you to me! ;-)
My raised hackles represent the UNMITIGATED FRUSTRATION and PAIN I feel watching the land of my birth go STRAIGHT DOWN THE TUBES. It is a HORRIBLE sight to behold. It starts with the refusal to listen, comprehend and learn. The First Amendment has been relegated to the dustbin of history when a years old essay gets "discovered," the MSM spins what it says and folks are exercised about what the MEDIA says it says.... :argh:

[DemocratSinceBirth]

277. It's Cool.....

I just think that we get further by dialogue than by monologue...


Of course there are lots of folks who won't listen or refuse to listen...


But there is no alternative....

[Uzybone]

276. Wow impressive argument there!

this has been an excellent discussion excluding your sitting on the sideline, mocking, insulting, unimformative posts. You win no one to your side by arguing like George W Bush would.

[trof]

244. "the yuppie holy war against ashtrays "

Oh I LIKE that and I'm gonna use it.
:evilgrin:

[Swamp Rat]

248. Putting aside whether Ward Churchill is right or wrong...

Isn't it amazing that so much media coverage is given to this story?

Isn't it GREAT that a topic normally relegated to academia or internet forums like DU is getting hashed out on the boob tube?!? :)

The more the RW media and Bushbots try to crucify Ward Churchill, the more Americans will hear the debate and Churchill's more salient points - even if criticized on propaganda TV.

Call it a distraction, but THIS distraction gets to the heart of why we were attacked, and why many in the world hate America.

[Az]

249. It would be nicer if it was getting reported accurately

Unfortunately they are cutting his statements apart and putting them in an inappropriate light. Even read correctly they are challenging ideas that force us to look at ourselves in ways we are not used to. The common citizen does not like being told that they may be part of something wrong.

[Swamp Rat]

250. Good! I'm glad they have chosen this story to propagandize.

Where did all the stories about Peterson, Jackson, et al get us? Nowhere. None of those stories were about a direct criticism of America's foreign policy. Now that Ward Churchill is the whipping boy (one that WILL punch right back! :D), many more people will be drawn into a national debate... this is good, even if the corporate media have the upper hand when it comes to spinning and lying.

[bpilgrim]

269. long time coming

and i agree, the more this get discussed the better.

our leaders would NEVER have the courage to take on this issue.

and it's people of color ONCE AGAIN taking the bold steps that are NECESSARY to move this country forward and out of our CARTOON WORD VIEW.

congratulations Ward Churchill :toast:

peace

[baldguy]

251. Ward Churchill is an asshole!

Protest him. Speak out against him. Debate him.

That's what makes America great. That's what Churchill forgot.

He should not be fired for his beliefs, or be investigated by the government, or be subject the threats of violence or death.

That's the type of country the GOP wants to turn America into.

[bloom]

258. I don't think he forgot.

Activism is what he encourages.

[Az]

259. What do you mean forgot?

I don't think he has a problem with freespeech. Seems to rely on it as a matter of fact. Or are you saying the US is so great it can do no wrong?

[3lefts]

267. Why are you constantly bringing up Iraq in your arguments?

We were not bombing Iraqi children on 9/11/2001 yet you continually bring it up as justification for the US being a target. What was the justification then for the WTC bombing in '93? Or the Cole? Or any other terrorist attack against US interests that occurred in the 90's?

You say we want their oil? Of course we do. We are an oil based economy. Hell, the entire planet is heading that way. China anyone? Every president for the last 50 years had "Protection of the middle east fuel resources" as an item on their national security agenda. All of them - Dems and Repubs.

Not everyone in the Middle East hates the US. Ask Kuwait or Qatar or the Saudi Arabian government if they are thankful that the US intervenes on their behalf.

We were attacked by bin Laden because:
1) He considers it offensive that Americans (infidels) occupy the holy land, ie Suadi Arabia and
2) He believes that we do not pay enough for the oil that we consume.

[GetTheRightVote]

260. His choice of words should improve the reasoning is sound

We to make amends to the people of the world for our horrible and misguided crimes against the human race. May God truly shine on this earth and bless us with a way out of this darkness.

:kick:

[Darranar]

262. He makes a few good points...

the general thrust of his argument - that the United States can hardly claim to be an innocent victim - is rather accurate, but he greatly exaggerates the kindness and capabilities of al-Qaeda and is far too harsh on those who worked at the WTC.

[JVS]

265. People who use such inflammatory language are just like Hitler

[bpilgrim]

268. BUSH is NOT "JUST LIKE HITLER"!

so stop saying that, please :evilgrin:

peace

[Tinoire]

278. He is totally right. Not jarring & even gentler than Chomsky about it.

He wrote that essay on Sept 11 right after watching the catastrophe.

There's not a damn lie in his essay and yes... little Eichmanns. There are tons of bureacratic little Eichmanns running around doing their job supporting this regime. But what the gell, get angry at Ward instead and go back to sleep- everything is ok, our government saud so, said they hated us for our freedom. LMAO! People are willing to die to get back at us because it's our "freedom" they hate. Bull-shit. It's the "freedom" we force down their throats as we starve them into submission so we can steal their resources.

===

(snip)

BW: So the essay started as a "from-the-gut" response. What were your thoughts going into it?

WC: This was absurd what was being said. No one's calling (the reporters) on it for describing it as senseless. You've got a little contradiction in packaging here going on between the official news sources who are proclaiming it senseless and then the more official officials - the official officials - who are proclaiming it things like, "They did it because they hate our freedom," and other really profound and insightful things of that sort. It can't both be senseless and for a reason at the same time.

I don't think I was the only one with a different response from the mainstream. It just happens to be the way I framed it. Where that begins is borrowing from Malcolm X's thing about the chickens coming home to roost.

The essay "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens" was written on Sept. 11 and then posted to the Internet that night. Churchill started with Malcolm X's famous quote, likened the roosting chickens to returning ghosts and asked who those ghosts might be.

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 U.S.-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 it's worth the price."

It's worth the price of somebody else's children to compel their government 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."

What we say goes - that's freedom. Do what you're told. And if you don't, basically the way this works out is we'll starve your children to death.

A communiqué from al-Qaeda, in which the relatively unknown group claimed responsibility for the attacks, would later confirm that the plight of Iraqi children was primary on the terrorists' list of grievances against the United States.

(In the essay,) I went from mentioning Iraqi children to Iraqis over all - the children being a half million, there being another half-million dead adults in a population of about 20 million in a short period of time and not during the war... I mentioned the Palestinians, particularly the children in the Intifada, as a direct consequence of U.S. priorities and U.S. support to those who are doing it to them. I think I made a little mention of a bunch of Panamanians who ended up in a trench who were reported as not having died until the trench was opened up and there they were lying under the quick lime. I think I talked about something on the order of 200,000 uplands Mayan Indians in Guatemala. I think I talked about a whole bunch of dead people in El Salvador and Nicaragua, killed under false premises... I think I talked about people who had been burned alive at Dresden. The nuclear bombings (of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), since we're on the subject of weapons of mass destruction... Back to the Filipinos, back to the turn of the century. I think we're talking about at a minimum 500,000 to 600,000 people and maybe well over a million in the name of liberating them from their colonial masters and turning them into a U.S. colony... Which takes us into the Indian wars and Wounded Knee and that whole series, all the way back to the Wappingers, the guys who supposedly sold the Dutch the island (of Manhattan) for beads and trinkets, which they didn't. They gave them permission to use the tip of the island as a port facility for trade, which was to the advantage of both. The Dutch falsely proclaimed it to be a sale, and when the Indians objected, they sent out a military expedition and resolved the problem by basically butchering all of them...

All of those chickens came home to roost (on 9/11), because there had never really been a response in-kind in all that entire grisly history. It was sort of manifested in the symbol of those twin towers at the foot of something called Wall Street. And Wall Street takes its name from the enclosure of the slave compound for the trans-Atlantic slave trade. So now there's a bunch of those ghosts, too. All the symbolism is confluent (at Ground Zero)...

(I) Churchill then discussed the concept of collective responsibility and the notion that some of those who worked in the World Trade Center were not only aware of, but participants in actions that caused harm and suffering abroad. Such events could not occur without broad support from the American public, he said.(/I)

Since Madeline Albright said that on 60 Minutes, (the suffering in Iraq) could hardly be mysterious to the people in the buildings that would be hit. They just flat considered it irrelevant. Or they embraced it. These aren't exactly centers of organizing opposition to U.S. policy.

I don't say they had detailed information. They were not concerned enough to gather it. They simply embraced it. They applauded it. They voted for it. But they're not innocent of it at the same time.

How do you end up participating in this process and being proud and triumphalist about this process and making your vocation the participation in and proper functioning of that system and be innocent at the same time? And that takes me to the Eichmann comment.

BW: Your Eichmann comparison seems to be the thing that has upset people the most.

WC: Oh, yes... I said specifically the comparison to Eichmann devolved upon the technicians of empire. Is there some definition you can give me where a food-service worker or a child or a janitor pushing a broom is a technician of empire? I wasn't talking about that, clearly. That's the only point that's been raised. "How can you say that an 18-month-old baby girl on a plane was comparable to Eichmann?"

Well, the fact of the matter is, I never said that. To use Pentagon-speak, that would be the collateral damage... I don't know that they had any specific intent to kill everyone that was there. In order to get at the target, the dead bystanders were "worth the price," to quote directly from Madeline Albright. (The terrorists) used the exact same logic used by Pentagon planners and U.S. diplomats - "This is an unavoidable consequence of getting at the target."

If there's somebody to blame, following the logic that's used now, it would be the people who put a CIA office in the World Trade Center or put command and control infrastructure of other sorts in there. It's always "their" fault. It's always Saddam's fault. He situated an intelligence office in a hospital... That was the justification for bombing the hospital. Well, if you're going to apply that rule, it's going to come back to you. By enunciated Pentagon rules, (the World Trade Center) was a legitimate target.

I don't accept the legitimacy. I'm feeding it back to (the American public, and saying), "How does this feel?" I contest the legitimacy straight down the line. But if you're going to do it to other people on these pretexts and pretend it's OK, then you can't complain when it comes back to you in the same form. That's the point.

(snip)

http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/churchill_interview_pw.html


But what the hell, let's stone Churchill and pretend that we are not little Eichmann technocrats of this empire. If only people were as appalled over what the US has done/is doing to other countries!

I note with great amusement that those condemning Churchill the loudest for speaking the truth have repeatedly defended the brutal imperialism of our foreign policy by spinning that only under Bush is war dirty and that wars by Democrats were gentle humanitarian interventions. No wonder some people feel we need more and more protection from terror so that our capitalistic little system, reinforced by the MIC, can keep protecting the great "American way of life". Spin it anyway you like, people are dead, children are starving for this great way of life and they're none too happy about it.

[LSdemocrat]

281. Doesn't matter if ANYONE thinks he's wrong, he should be allowed to speak