RE: Ward Churchill...Why the hell do we trust Repug. propaganda mills.

[cyclezealot]

Today's Democracy Now featured an interview of Ward Churchill..Unless he now lies and covers up earlier flamboyant speeches, which I doubt...Well, what he said is what is needed to be said and blowhards such as O'Reilly just trying to stir up the freepers with more lies.
In short Churchill said third worlders unfortunately see American's as cogs in a system of world domination and empire..No different than former CIA agents and now authors are saying in their book, "Blowback." I recall when Bush was elected last November, some Islamic nationalists said , 'now it will be easier to hate Americans'.
Churchill said the former World Trade Center had CIA, FBI, and DOD facilities within..According to the Rumsfield doctrine...If civilian facilities house former Hussein faciliites, they are casulaties of war...Why not would the rest of the world think this doctrine applies to them also, when it comes to the World Trade Center..
We may not want our own rules to apply to us, but the rest of the world does not agree...
Churchill is just trying to say what needs to be said to lesses the hatred the rest of the world feels for the US...
A link below...I urge you to read Churchill for yourselves...This is just more Repug repression of the truth and self-analysis to keep us in the dark.

.http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/18/157211

[cyclezealot]

1. I have been converted from a cautious skeptic

to now a supporter of Churchill and our need to demand free speech for all against repressive forces wanting to silence messages that need be repressed by the forces of empire..against others and ourselves..

[bloom]

2. Someone out there promoting peace and fair trade

is the last thing that Horowitz et. al. want.


This would be Horowitz' worst nightmare to have someone like Ward Churchill become popular.

[Psephos]

3. Churchill's message is not anti-hate, and there's a lot not to like in it

But I support, and even welcome, hearing what he has to say.

The only speech that actually needs protection is speech we *don't* like.

[Webster Green]

4. I heard Churchill on the radio one day - He was great!

The guy sounded brilliant to me, and I agreed with everything he was saying.

[texastoast]

5. I listened to an interview with him a couple of nights ago

after having heard him bushwhacked on a local hate talk radio show on our wonderful Clear Channel "news" station KTRH 740am in Houston.

I found him to be of sound, open-minded thinking. However, most Americans don't like to think of their chickens coming home to roost. That's the reality that must be examined and discussed, and Churchill is brave to take it out there.

[Warpy]

6. This former Civil Rights and peace creep from the 60s

has read what Churchill has said about nonviolent protests and realized how full of shit he is on that account. Peaceful demos are how you build numbers. Overreaction by authority against peaceful demos allows you to win.

He does have some very important things to say about how tribal people have been treated in the US, and how they continue to be treated.

I'm not holding his 09/12/01 article against him, since it was written in the same state of shock we all experienced. I just wonder if he's realized that the "Nazis" whose deaths he was so gleefully contemplating were still stuck in traffic on their way in from the slums of Suffolk county. Most of the folks who died in the WTC were low level employees, restaurant workers, maintenance people, and office drones. I do hope he's reconsidered since then.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

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

[Warpy]

11. I read the article, sunshine

did you?

[dave123williams]

7. Regardless of his bona fides, he raises an interesting point...

What is our own culpability in 9/11? What MIGHT we have done that would engender such ire from the rest of the world? Why, we're the GREATEST COUNTRY ON EARTH; who could hate us so?

WHY IN THE WORLD would someone think that bombing the FINANCIAL and MILITARY centers of the US would be an appropriate remedy to our actions worldwide over the last 50 years?

Ach; it's probably our FREEDOMS that they hate so much. I suppose if we remove them, there will be nothing left to hate.

[blindpig]

9. mind control works

Maybe insidious, maybe not. Years of schooling, a lifetime of entertainment, who knows the bells & whistles? Churchill's message is clearly and literally unacceptable to the vast majority of Americans, same with Chomsky. That Churchill's damning essay was a emotion laden screed doesn't take away from its essence. But Americans cannot accept that their country would purposefully do bad things. Things that might invite reciprocal response. After all, Viet Nam was a mistake. Too many know that the only mistake was not "winning".
Even here...........

[K-W]

10. The scary part is how few liberals understand

that the marginalization/criminalization of leftist ideology is one of the main reasons our country is in such incredibally bad shape.

[cyclezealot]

12. That is why hoping America can come around seems so hopeless.

American's get all uptight and are incapable of listening to a fair assessment of it's foreign policy..A foreign policy administered by Wall Street string pullers is not a required aspect of patriotism..
We analyze the effects of financing the Mujadeen during Reagan's era in the fight against Soviets in Afghanistan or toppling governments such as when we installed the Shah, or as we did with the military generals in Greece during Nixon's administration..Or our aid to the Argentinian military thugs that the Reagan administration called 'authortarian ,but democratic...' And now see South American as vehemently anti American...So despised about the world and we haven't the ability to ask why...
Think the hatred we brew is unwaranted by foreigners...Why is self-examination unpatriotic...Our form of patriotism is the 'scourge of despots...' The famous/decorated Marine Commandant Smedly Butler wrote about this..When will we learn...\
Those who choose to recall this history pay a price with this government screwing about with their lively hood. A free and brave people..Right...

[The Minus World]

13. The Thing about Ward Churchill

is that he requires critical thought to understand. His opinions and analyses cannot be pared down into representative soundbytes; and if they were, they'd be as effective as a Chomsky appearance on Hannity & Colmes.

Sadly, I've seen many DUers castigate this academic for his controversial statements as though he were the one lonely voice representing the hundred-fold iterations of progressive, leftist groups that exist yet receive little-to-no coverage in the mainstream news.

I'd expect such intolerance from under-educated right-wingers who possess political views about as profound as a keg-party ass-slapping contest.

[Disturbed]

14. Those who castigate Ward Churchill..

either do not understand his msg., refuse to understand it or are Fascists that do not wish for the people of this planet to obtain social justice. Having read his entire articles on his site I do understand his msg. and agree with is views.

The Right Wing have picked him out to castigate the entire group of people that are not blind to the U.S. Foreign policy of the last 100 years, which has been Capitalist Empirialism. The list of countries that the U.S. has attacked directly or indirectly is long. The U.S Govt.s, both Repub an Dem have not cared about Democracy. The goal has been the spread of Capitalism that favors U.S. Corps. The chickens do come home to roost every once in awhile.

[H2O Man]

15. Take the time

to read some of his earlier works. If you really want to appreciate the depth of his work, I'd recommend two books (one from the 1980s, one from the '90's): {1} Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement (co-authored by Jim Vander Wall); and {2} Struggle For The Land, with a foreward by Winona LaDuke.

Regarding the controversy about his 9-11 essay: it is not necessary to agree with every sentence in order to support his basis ideas; nor is it necessary to agree with any sentence in order to support his right to speak on whatever he believes.

However, those who insist that "the left" fails Ward by not agreeing with his every sentence actually fail him in the greater sense: Ward is not demanding that his word alone be the gospel. He is urging people to think for themselves, to not have anyone else do their thinking and make their decisions for them. He is fully aware that when any two people think just alike, only one of the two is thinking. And we witness that adolescent "hero worship" mentality, which childishly demands 100% agreement, with some of the immature supporters today. It is, interestingly, the opposite of what traditional Native American societies teach children and youth.

[cyclezealot]

16. Hannity , O'Reilly purposely twist Churchill to zing the freepers.

If Churchill can't reduce his thinking to soundbites, then Hannity will...As Gore Vidal wrote about the United States of Amnesia.."The end of History."

[janx]

17. I don't know Churchill, but I know that university.

He has a STELLAR reputation as a teacher. His students admire and respect him very much.

[Itsthetruth]

18. And Old And Popular Saying

If you want to sum up Churchill's message you could repeat what all of us have said at one time or another: "What goes around, comes around."