Colo. Prof. Says He Mourns All Killed 9-11

[truthpusher]

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/10849808.htm

Posted on Tue, Feb. 08, 2005

Colo. Prof. Says He Mourns All Killed 9-11

DAN ELLIOTT

Associated Press

BOULDER, Colo. - A University of Colorado professor who once compared some of the World Trade Center victims to a Nazi war criminal said Tuesday he mourns for everyone killed on Sept. 11 and conceded that he could have explained himself better.

(snip)

"I wouldn't retract it. I would explain it better," Ward Churchill told The Associated Press.

(snip)

"If someone were to ask me, 'Do you feel sorrow for the victims of 9-11,' of course I do," he said. "Let's begin with the children. Yes, they were innocent. And I mourn them. But they were not more innocent than those half-million Iraqi children."

(snip)

Churchill said he did not mean to say the World Trade Center "technocrats" were Nazis but were, like Eichmann, bureaucrats who participated in an immoral system.

more:
http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/10849808.htm

[SpiralHawk]

1. Sorry, Ward, your 15 minutes are up

You were a useful tool for some good old-fashioned agitprop, but that's it. Your usefulness has expired.

On to the Jacko trial, and other cultural marvels and travesties.

Are you ready Media Bots? Ok, G-O J-A-C-K-O !

[donheld]

2. This has been so blown out of proportion it's insanity

i doubt very many people really read the entirety of what he said.

[meppie-meppie not]

11. thank you for saying that! Not only have people failed to read his

article in it's entirety but they take choice little snippets out of context and for nothing more than inflammatory purposes. Flame baiting gone amok. I watched an interview last week that Churchill had with Paula Zahnn and she wasn't interested in the truth, nope just whoreish spin as always :mad:

[candy]

3. Well,duh ! He could have explained himself better?

He's a disgrace!

[despairing optimist]

6. As you said. He should have got it right the first time

I read and reread the part of his essay about the little Eichmanns, and it is not clear in the context of what he wrote that he meant the term to apply only to higher-ups in the WTC. Ironically, his chickens have come home to roost too, and he makes it harder for other critics of the empire to argue their case without being marginalized the same way.

[intheflow]

7. He wrote the essay on 9-12-01.

Emotions were running high all over. I think it's far more telling that his words are being used and distorted 3-1/2 years later than what he wrote in the passion of the moment.

[The Magistrate]

8. To Surrender To Passion In A Permanent Form, Sir

Can be a grevious error....

"You only get two mistakes, and usually your second is somebody remembering your first."

[despairing optimist]

9. Compare Ward Churchill's essay with Susan Sontag's,

and you'll see how someone can make her points while not painting with a broad brush. Sontag also took lots of flak for her New Yorker essay, which didn't call anyone names. It's the difference between coming off as a dignified, dissenting intellectual and a petulant child.

I grant Churchill his point. Indeed, he makes much the same point as Sontag did. But it's all in the way he made it, which he concedes can be interpreted as insensitive. Because of that he has harmed the cause he wanted to help. He doesn't deserve all the recrimination, but then neither does the progressive antiwar effort that will have to deal with it now too, and will be expending resources that it could have put to better use. Take us, for instance. We're arguing about Ward Churchill when we should be fighting the disastrous policies that led to the mess we're in globally, economically, politically.

[w4rma]

4. Ethics of being a cog in a machine that, on occasion, promotes evil. (nt)

[T Roosevelt]

5. Why is this a story now?

When it happened over three years ago? Because the RW is looking for an academic demon, and Churchill happens to fit the bill, and was an easy target now that he was going "on tour"...

Read this excellent post from digby:
Witnessing History

Along with these from the Rude Pundit:
No Free Speech For Ward Churchill (With a Side Note on the Pressing Need To Sodomize Bill O'Reilly With a Microphone):

No Free Speech For Ward Churchill, Part 2 (And the Continuing Need to Sodomize Bill O'Reilly With a Microphone):

And the Kevin Drum post:
PACK JOURNALISM

[AliceWonderland]

10. I saw him speak at CU Boulder tonight

It was his first public address; they had to get a legal order to allow him to speak. The hall was packed full so a crowd stood outside the student union centre shivering and listening on speakers. The audience was a wide range -- some hecklers, some young republicans, mostly supporters (of academic freedom if not all Churchill's ideas). I agreed with him on some points and disagreed on others; mostly, though, I was surprised that this whole affair is considered so controversial. It suggests such a narrow range of debate, sadly. Personally, I'm all for getting views on the table, no matter how offensive to various parties, and debating them publicly and thoroughly.

There's also the context of the corporatization of CU right now. There seems to be a marked move to the right on campus -- there's another incident with a female instructor right now, an environmental studies prof much beloved by her students. Her contract wasn't renewed, and people are suspicious of big donor money from Coors or Lougheed Martin influencing the decision.

An interesting evening, though. I had some good exchanges with people outside as we tried to keep warm.