Ward Churchill: A Neocon Test Case for Academic Purges

[Itsthetruth]

CounterPunch
February 28, 2005

A Neocon Test Case for Academic Purges
The Attacks on Ward Churchill
By EMMA PEREZ
Emma Perez is the new chair of the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of Colorado

We've done some preliminary research and analysis and it's become clear exactly what's at stake and what we're up against. CU-Boulder has been made the national frontline of the neocon battle for dominance in academe.

CU-Boulder has likely been made their "test case," their break-the-mould moment in a national strategy. Their local resources and troops (thinktanks, legislative, rank-and-file followers) are already fully mobilized and their national resources are mobilizing in our direction (if not already mobilized), and the infrastructure they already have here is formidable. On Ward's specific case, they are already *at least* 3 weeks ahead of us in organizing, and they are using tactics they have been testing since the 90s.

Ward is a prime target. He is vulnerable and, at the same time, has extremely high strategic value. In terms of his vulnerability: he can be isolated from support forces who would traditionally make it hard to attack a tenured faculty. On top of all this, in the post-911 climate, moderates who would normally disagree with his views but then go on to defend his free speech rights and academic freedom, will hesitate because they are afraid of being cast in with his "anti-americanism" (much like the McCarthy period). In terms of his high value as a target (David Horowitz has already written on this): he's not only tenured, but he's a full prof; he's not only inside ethnic studies but he was chair; he's not in just any university in CO, he's at the institutional flagship of "liberalism" in the middle of a red state.

We have to be as clear as possible about the big picture. This is much, much bigger than an individual attack on Ward. What we're looking at is a carefully developed, pre-existing national strategy that has been searching for exactly the right breakthrough "test case." It has found extremely favorable conditions in Ward's situation and in the post-911 climate. As they've been doing already in other areas they want to dismantle the structural footholds (academic freedom/tenure, ethnic studies) that social movements gained for people of color and liberal and progressive intellectuals inside academe during the 60s & 70s. If they are successful in Colorado, it could set a precedent like Bakke. Raising the stakes even higher, Governor Owens has ambitions that reach as far as the White House. The next phases of his career hang on this crucial campaign that will give definitive proof of his leadership ability. If he pulls it off, it's a glorious triple coup-de-grace: undermine the legal foundation of tenure/free speech, hurt/ruin Ethnic Studies...and at no less than the strongest "liberal" campus in the state. His personal investment in this campaign is very high and he is likely to throw his whole weight behind it.


http://www.counterpunch.org/perez02282005.html

[Dhalgren]

1. It's so ironic...

This over-reactive mob mentality and jack-boot patriotism is exactly one of the thing that Churchill was talking about in his paper about 9/11. The way Americans are ever-ready to stomp on other peoples rights and freedoms; the way Americans justify the worst behavior in themselves as "defending" their "honor" or "righting" some terrible "wrong". This is the flavor of American Fascism - so far it is a relatively "soft" fascism, but it won't stay that way for long. Man, if the fascists succeed in destroying Churchill, we will all be heading in the same direction - one at a time or in bunches...

[StClone]

2. Yes that is why it is important for DUers to read up on Ward

So you can defend him, not that you have to agree with him. NaziCons are taking it to the campuses and are hitting professors hard. They want to force Con thought on the student body while taking out the thinkers.

[Senior citizen]

3. We can't let the cons take over academia the way they took over the media.

They obviously picked the weakest link--someone they hoped wouldn't get widespread support.

With regard to Ward Churchill, who is is, what he said, or what he has done in the past doesn't matter. The principles at stake here are much more important than the person chosen for a test case.

[Karenina]

8. McCarthyism on steroids...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1626497

[Democrats_win]

4. No. Lets attack bush instead of defending Ward

We're falling into their trap. If Ward remains, they can say we need reform. If he is ousted, we can say, see the system works.

I've said before, the 19 hijackers resemble bush: "little George Bush's." They were rich MF's born with silver spoons in their mouths who knew nothing about America or any possible wrongs that America may have committed in the past just as GW knew nothing about the people of Iraq, yet he has killed hundreds of thousands.

GW failed America pre & post 9/11. What should have been a minor pinprick became a lead weight around our necks which continues to drag our country down. If we suffered for 9/11, at least we could claim we got OBL. But no. We get daily reports of our sons dying in Iraq. We get the bill for this mistake.

Ward's rants are wrong. Besides, does anyone want to defend a man who attacks dead people who have no ability to defend themselves? Shouldn't we defend them unless they are proven guilty. If they were to be blamed, it would be very tangential, and certainly not even close to the blood guilt that Churchill implies.

Ward spends paragraphs telling us about the Iraqi people, but they had nothing to do with 9/11. They don't have the resources to do anything about the injustices they have suffered. Yes, America has wronged people, but his rants don't add up to the reality we are seeing. America knows what the problem is, its George W. Bush and the false religion that supports mass murderers big and small.

[Metrix]

5. The U.S. was involved in colonial activity long before

George W. Bush was born. There is a reason that Perkins, who wrote "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," in interviews repeatedly says that he went to the site of the World Trade Center and felt a personal responsibility for what had transpired.

I agree with the essay Churchill wrote in spirit. Try to understand that what has been done to the Iraqis and Palestinians could have been a motive for Arabs seeking revenge. My problem with too close a reading of the essay is that Churchill frames this as the U.S. versus the Arab world. But bear in mind that he says it was a response to a specific reaction seen in the media immediately after the events -- insistence that there was no reason for anyone to attack the U.S., that we were innocent victims. Susan Sontag was criticized for writing along similar lines.

My problem is that on September 12, 2001, when I saw George H.W. Bush speaking on TV, I knew in my gut that the U.S. was in on the whole thing. It didn't take other people even that long to figure it out.

You have to live in the Denver area and be exposed to the print media, TV, and talk radio to fully appreciate the vile, racist nature of the attacks on Churchill.

The professors at C.U., if intellectually honest, understand the nature of the attack. They also understand that it is a collective threat to all of them. The regents are going to have to come to the conclusion that they will diminish the university financially if they succumb to political pressure. They won't be able to attract quality academics. Add that to the football scandal, and enrollment will decline.

[Democrats_win]

6. The 9/11 attack is about 19 losers from Saudi Arabia.

Why do Democrats continue to move beyond the hijackers on 9/11? These 19 are more like "little George Bush's" rather than anything in Ward Churchill's ideas. They're spoiled rich kids, with college degress who don't know their ass from their elbows and couldn't get a job at the Gap either.

I do live in metro Denver and I've seen some of the threats. Usually those making the threats end up looking like fools. That has not happened because Churchill continues to defend something that is 100% wrong in fact and is offensive to the hundreds of millions of Americans who suffered as a result of this attack.

As Democrats why don't we insist on something close to the truth? As much as many liberals correctly believe America does wrong things including the wrongs against the Iraqi people, yet there is in fact no connection between the harm we caused the Iraqis and 9/11. If there was any hint that this link did exist, then I'd support him, but these 19 were sick people, cowards who were never wronged by the United States in any way at all. If this point is wrong, I hope that DU'ers will point out in what way it is wrong.

As long as Democrats continue to support wrong people like Churchill, the Democratic party will not be able to work on our behalf in important issues like Social Security and bringing the troops home.

There is an urgency to picking our battles carefully. The 2004 election was mostly a disaster and bush is moving quickly to take advantage of our loss. Churchill's lawyers will defend him, let us defend those who are dying in Iraq, the children who will loose so much so that filthy rich warmongers can live in extreme luxury.

Let Churchill be a martyr for freedom of speech, remembered just as we remember those who fought McCarthyism, but with a pile of money after he sues KOA radio and the state. Engineers who make mistakes are fired. Churchill is wrong and at the very least should not be defended by those who are so frustrated over the lies of bush.

[chlamor]

10. Ward Churchill Asked Us To Look In The Mirror-"I Want You To Remember..."

Not too many are willing to take an honest glance and sacrifice their toys.There are consequences. From Rafael Renteria a few snippets:


"But those of us who have seen it firsthand know the venal face of what America is becoming. I have often joked that those who have never been to jail have no education, no true sense of the meaning of the violence that permeates this culture, like blood seeps through the bandage covering the wound of an Iraqi child."
<snip>
"I want to speak to you in your isolation, I want you to be in touch with your despair as I speak. I want you to remember what you already know -- the Earth is dying; oil is running out; Iraq is only the first in what will be a series of resource wars, as the impacts of global warming and peak oil cause the infrastructure we call globalization to collapse."

"I want you to remember that George Bush and 59% of all Americans believe in Armageddon, just the way that we believe in Justice. I want you to remember that there is no time. It may already be too late. I want you to remember these things because it is only at the bottom of our despair it is only by touching that bottom that we can find its exit and emerge again into the possibility of enlightened, meaningful, even spiritual, action."

'I want you to remember that America kills everyone who could lead it ­ who threatens to lead it - out of its bloodlust, the sleepless remembrances of its genocides and Columbines, its My Lais and Sand Creeks, its Wounded Knees, Fallujahs and Alamos."

"I want you to remember that for Europe, fascism, colonization and conquest are not the exception, they are the rule. They only appear to be an exception to white America, just as the death camps appeared to be an exception to good Germans. It was not the way they lived. It only affected others."
<snip>
"Look in the mirror. The fascism that so many fear from Bush is nothing foreign. It is your own. The ecological horror that awaits us is nothing foreign. It is your own. The weapons of mass destruction, the nuclear tipped missiles, the hydrogen bombs, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, your own. Look in the mirror with me.'

http://www.counterpunch.org/renteria02262005.html

[not systems]

7. I want to defend a man who defends the memory of the victims...

of the American Genocide.

This mass extermination was perpetrated by the ancestors
of the very people who hold the highest positions of power
in this land.

These unaccounted mass murders children live on the fat
rendered from the land containing the unremembered dead.

Ward brings light to these crimes and that is why they
want him silenced.

Real Democrats defend free speech FYI.

[chlamor]

12. Erasure of Memory

Insight from not systems as usual. The collective memory must be extinguished and we can then move on to the next purge with little understanding of what is happening around us.Here from Rafael Renteria:

"I want to speak to you in your isolation, I want you to be in touch with your despair as I speak. I want you to remember what you already know -- the Earth is dying; oil is running out; Iraq is only the first in what will be a series of resource wars, as the impacts of global warming and peak oil cause the infrastructure we call globalization to collapse.

I want you to remember that George Bush and 59% of all Americans believe in Armageddon, just the way that we believe in Justice. I want you to remember that there is no time. It may already be too late. I want you to remember these things because it is only at the bottom of our despair it is only by touching that bottom that we can find its exit and emerge again into the possibility of enlightened, meaningful, even spiritual, action.

I want you to remember that America kills everyone who could lead it ­ who threatens to lead it - out of its bloodlust, the sleepless remembrances of its genocides and Columbines, its My Lais and Sand Creeks, its Wounded Knees, Fallujahs and Alamos.

I want you to remember that for Europe, fascism, colonization and conquest are not the exception, they are the rule. They only appear to be an exception to white America, just as the death camps appeared to be an exception to good Germans. It was not the way they lived. It only affected others."

More at:
http://www.counterpunch.org/renteria02262005.html

[scarletwoman]

9. You are a collaborator.

So, you want throw one to the howling hyenas of the right because you don't think he merits freedom of speech.

How about the next left wing academic they go after? If you decide her or his freedom of speech doesn't merit protection will you counsel more appeasement?

Just where would you like the line to be drawn? Will you only support the protection of freedom of speech for those who hold their discourse within comfortable boundaries?

How far are you willing to see the right wing purge of academia go?

You are a collaborator.

[AP]

11. Sounds like Owens is using Reagan vs the University of California as...

...his model.

[chlamor]

13. Herbert Marcuse

The One-Dimensional Man must control all thought. A toast to Herbert Marcuse. And to R.R. I'll hold my tongue.

[not systems]

14. Kick for actual information from CU-Boulder...

people should see this.

[scarletwoman]

15. morning kick... (n/t)

[Disturbed]

16. I will keep this short.

Ward Churchill wrote his rant on Sept. 11. '01. I agree with his basic premise and his right to have written it. He should not be fired. Fascism is at hand and Amerika is in peril.

[not systems]

17. very true. n/t