Ward Churchill's 9/11 opinions Draw Emotional Crowd
Controversial writer Wspeaks at local university
By CLARISSA ALJENTERA and JOE LIVERNOIS
Monterey (California) Herald Staff Writers
Tuesday May 3, 2005, page one
Several dozen people gathered at CSU-Monterey Bay on Monday to read the
names of the victims of the Sept. 11
attacks to protest the appearance of a University of Colorado professor
who they believe tarnished the names
of those victims.
But more than 500 others gathered inside the University Center Ballroom
to listen to Ward Churchill deliver
a scathing indictment of U.S. policies, policies he believes led to the
9/11 attacks.
"We don't believe in any of the things he is saying," said Kenneth
Beadell, who was carrying an American flag
during the remembrance.
Beadell, a Vietnam veteran, was standing about 20 yards from a group of
people who came out to protest the war
in Iraq.
"People have given their lives for people to have freedom to
demonstrate," he said.
The candlelight vigil was planned by the Republican party of Monterey
County along with the young Republicans
at CSUMB.
"This is supposed to be a contrast," said Kelly Bland, president of the
Young Republicans.
The reading of the names of the Sept. 11 victims was not meant to be a
protest of Churchill's lecture,
said Paul Bruno, co-chairman of the Monterey County Republican Party.
"Churchill has a right to free speech," said Bruno. "This is a
contrast. It is not political. Sept. 11
was not political. This man spews hate speech. What we are doing is
remembering the victims."
Around 6 p.m. the names of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks were
read and about 30 minutes later people
protesting the war began chanting anti-President Bush messages. The
group against the war in Iraq dispersed
and filtered into the building while the group reading the names of the
Sept. 11 victims continued.
Gus Moutos, who lost his son Peter in the World Trade Center bombing,
said he wasn't pleased with the message Churchill was sending out.
"I have an objection to anyone who comes to misinform the students,"
said Moutos, carrying a framed photograph
of his son.
During his 1-hour and 45-minute speech, Churchill did not back down
from his 3½-year-old, description of
World Trade Center victims as ''little Eichmanns'' that has recently
turned him into a subject of conservative torment while propelling him
into the latest liberal champion du jour.
In Colorado, politicians and regents are calling for his head, Bill
O'Reilly set aside time on his TV program
to excoriate the professor, and Churchill has received more than 60,000
mostly-angry e-mails since January.
"I'm still standing," he said. "I became the poster boy for academic
freedom. I didn't ask for this."
And he said he doesn't expect it to last much longer, and he noted
Monday that his name is already starting
to fade as a nation turns its attention to "runaway brides and Michael
Jackson."
Churchill has found himself at the center of an academic firestorm for
a 20-page essay he wrote for an obscure
Web magazine the day of the 9/11 attacks in which he described the
victims of the World Trade Center's destruction
as "Little Eichmanns," referring to the Nazi technocrat who assiduously
did his job, leading to the genocide of millions of Jews.
Churchill said Monday he never said that the WTC victims "deserved" to
die, but said that systematic economic sanctions and policies of
aggression by the U.S. have fostered enemies who inevitably reacted in kind.
And, he said, the victims at WTC were working at jobs that, like Adolph
Eichmann's, support a system that
has led to millions of deaths worldwide in the name of American might.
While watching the devastation on Sept. 11, Churchill said he was
struck by the immediate reaction in the
American media that the attacks were "senseless acts."
"This is not happening by accident," Churchill said he told himself.
"This is not happening extemporaneously.
Whoever did this planned it with a purpose. If there's a purpose,
there's a motive. If there's a motive,
you can't conceivably call it senseless."
Churchill said he "immediately flashed on" Malcolm X's reaction to John
F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963,
that "the chickens are coming home to roost."
Churchill then recited a litany of what he termed "genocidal" policies
against people, both foreign and in the U.S., dating back to the
elimination of American Indians, to slavery and to the brutal use of Chinese
immigrants to build the railroads.
In the modern era, Churchill said, the "policy of genocide" extends to
the deaths of more than 500,000 children
in Iraq in 1996 that he attributes to U.S. sanctions on Iraq, to
Nagasaki and Hiroshima, to CIA-led intervention
in Latin America and to continuing conflicts in the Mideast.
"Doing this to other people is a fundamental requirement to what it
means to be the United States," he said.
So, he added, it should not come as a surprise when the United States
becomes a target. And the response to
America's "terrorism problem," Churchill said, is to "perpetuate the
reason people dislike us to begin with."
Churchill came under fire after he had written an essay saying the
United States set itself up for attack
because of an unlawful American foreign policy that resulted in killing
countless innocent people around
the world.
Caitlin Manning had heard Churchill's information and was eager to see
the literature that was given out before
the lecture began. The flier urged Churchill to go back to his ''tee
pee'' and said anyone on his side was with
the terrorists.
"I'm actually one of the few people who read his quotes and looked at
what he said," said Manning, a faculty
member at the university. "I thought there was some truth to it. It was
the racist stuff what brought me here."
Although the flier looked as if it was circulated by the CSUMB College
Republicans, members of the organization
said they didn't create it.
Churchill's appearance was partly sponsored by CSUMB's MEChA
organization.
Zoilo Avila, 23, co-chairman of the campus group, said MEChA has been
trying to lure Churchill to the campus
for years, even before Churchill became the subject of the heated
debate. Avila also said he welcomed the
protest outside.
"I think it's great," he said. "It's a dialogue that is healthy. He
stated his case and it's a different side
and a different light. It's important that people not become
intellectually lazy."
Churchill was paid $4,000 from student-body fees for his appearance.
Native Americans suffered - and overall still suffer on reservations from the legacy of - even a much much greater genocide than the European Jews, many of whom went on to perpetrate a semi-genocidal catastrophe in another non-European land and against another indigenous people - Native Palestinians.
I think that Churchill is more than qualified to judge who "little Eichmann's" are. It's like the Arab journalist in the documentary movie "Control Room" said (paraphrased): 'It's not enough that the US wants to oppress us, kill us, and take or control our land; the US wants us to like it too!'
In addition to it being obvious the day it happened that someone at the highest levels prevented our excellent air defense from stopping this Inside Job, anyone who is serious about radical workingclass change knows that this kind of action is unthinkable. In other words, only the capitalist class has, as Ruppert states, the Motive, Means and Opportunity to carry out this mass murder, with the goal for the capitalist class being as was immediately obvious to perpetrate fascism at home and war abroad, all to maximize the profits of the capitalist class, the primary goal of capitalism. To use this reactionary crime, high treason in fact as it was carried out by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld & Rice, as a means of attacking Americans who gain nothing from all of this, is viciously reactionary.
We should remember Ward Churchill supported the contras, the CIA's murderous thugs, in Nicaragua, against the Sandinsta government.
Whether Churchill is just plain stupid or has a reactionary agenda, he is not worth $4,000 or 1 penny of anyone's money, much less student fees.
What we need is labor organizing to put an end to capitalism. To do that, it is the duty of all people serious about radical change to reach out to our fellow workers, find common grounds of suffering, which is not difficult, and build a labor movement strong enough to organize a general strike. Only a strong labor movement can put an end to such heinous, anti-workingclass crimes as the 9/11 Inside Job.
I don't know if what you say is true, but, if he were of 1/8th Black descent, then that would have made him Black by the traditional laws of most (if not all) states in the U.S. -- and he certainly would have been treated that way by white society.
Many African Americans are far from not pure "black" either. Thanks to the historical legacy of slavery, the slave master and other white rapists, many blacks could probably best be described as Euro-African-American or even Euro-African-Native American. Or, as the former and famous Black Panther Johnny Spain humorously quips, "Why does white society call me a light-skin black man, and not a dark-skin white man?" His mother was white; his father was black (and maybe still part white, due to the slave master in his father's ancestry).
My biological ancestry includes African, Native American, and Irish. Yet, I (and my black parents) not only identified, ethnically and culturally, as Black, but were legally stipulated as black by the government -- whether any of us liked it or not. My mother has dark skin; her sister has very light skin. I was not raised culturally as Native American or Irish, so I don't culturally identify as either. If Churchill's mother "told him he was Native American", and she was, and he culturally identified, or was raised as such, and his community of brothren and sisteren was Native American, then that's good enough for me. Race, ethnicity, and culture were never absolute and fixed concepts or realities.
Btw, many English don't consider themselves European, and many Irish -- in Ireland -- don't consider themselves white. I've been accused and *blamed* by numerous whites throughout my adult life of either being "too black", when I say something sociological/historical that whites don't want to hear and face -- while, ironically, Churchill gets accused of not being Indian enough for doing the same -- or my being accused and "*complimented*" by numerous whites throughout my adult life as "not really black", when other whites are complimenting my speech, manners, or intelligence.
The white man's "one drop rule" legally declared anyone who had, *one single drop* of so-called "black blood" to be black -- with no choice in the matter. So, by many whites' reasoning, one drop of "black blood" makes someone *too black*, while suddenly, now, (even well more than) one drop of Indian blood makes someone *not Indian enough*! White-American society is always trying to set and manipulate the standards of race, ethnicity and culture to suit their own purposes -- and especially when a minority -- who many whites are trying to discredit -- is telling whites something they don't want to hear.
Churchill's Native American identity has been disputed by the Amercican Indian Movement, (which he has also been a prominent spokesman for), well before the "Roosting Chickens" Article. A press release by AIM in 2003 refered to him as adescribed as a "Self Hating White man", http://www.aics.org/AIMGGC/press12162003.html. His role in the Denver chapter of AIM has also very contiversial within the movement.
Churchill himself has never claimed more than 3/16 Cherokee blood, though at other times he has claimed only 1/16 Cherokee, and yet at other times some Creek ancestry. He is an "associate" member of the Keetoowah band of Cherokee and does not have full membership which requires 1/4 Cherokee descent. The Keetoowah earlier established an "associate member" program, (which has become discontinued due to abuse), to recognize friends of the tribe. Associate membership does not require any proof of Indian ancestry, http://www.aimovement.org/moipr/cherokee.html
Look, I agree with the with the Churchill's arguements regarding our moral responsability for the WTC, (for all the Freepers reading this, the citizens of Dresden didn't do anything either). The culpability for 9/11 lies with all americans, (black, white and brown), living inside this Fourth Reich. I just think that false claims to an ethnic identity weakens those arguements.
So if his lineage was really that much of a big deal (which it actually is among us), then why in the hell wasn't it put "out there" as militantly as it is today? These folks have plenty of moving and shaking going on, so it could have been done.
No it doesn't!
(Liberals, and even progressives -- and judging from people like Chomsky, Zinn, Moore, M.Parenti, Solomon, etc., and their support for Kerry in the last election -- maybe it's just, in general, *Americans* -- are so easily distracted.)
Churchill would be *EXACTLY RIGHT* even if he were a white, long-haired blonde, blue-eyed, tall, skinny model with big tits, red pouty lips, and straight outta Sweden!
It'd be wonderful if a white guy as prominent as Churchill *would* say such a thing.
Full Blood is right -- for those who are distracted by the side issue of Churchill's lineage, and by those who want to distract us from the *MERITS* of Churchill's arguments and onto ad hominem issues.
Furthermore there are Uncle Toms, Uncle Bananas, Uncle Coconuts (I met a politically-white-ass-kissing' College Republican one supporting and puppy-dogging some arch-Zionist female know-nothing student at Churchill's speech at Berkeley), and even Uncle 'Tomahawks', and all their sellout groups, fighting for Mighty Whitey, The Man, in every minority.
Wrong. It lies with those in power who are busy destroying the world in the name of 'more power.'
And it lies directly in the hands of those who orchestrated 9/11 - we know from all the evidence now that people in our own government must have been involved because no one else can STAND DOWN the US military.
Can you? No? Then your culpability in 9/11 is secondary, if anything. Each one of us can do the best we can, but we can't bat against the Bill Gates's and the Donald Trumps . . . the white and the powerful and the male. These are the real perps, not us.
Has anybody noticed that if the victims were really "little Eichmanns" how come Churchill hasn't given any specific names of who exaclty deserved to be killed?
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.