"Little Eichmanns" [Updated]

Move over, Mumia. The Left has a new cause celebre that’s a guaranteed loser: Ward Churchill. The Colorado University professor and Native American activist is in a tub of hot water for the staggeringly outrageous remarks he wrote on the morrow of 9/11. Praising the “gallant sacrifices” of the “combat teams” who downed the World Trade Centers, he branded the those who perished as “little Eichmanns” i.e. technocrats who manage the Nazi-like U.S. Empire.

I saw the essay at the time and was nauseated by it. I have been tempted over the years to write something about it, but have always decided not to. Only because I consider Churchill to be an irrelevant and clearly deranged loner on the edge of the looniest left.

Now I regret not having denounced him. Too bad others on the left also didn’t quickly hurry to divorce themselves from this guy.

Churchill, as you know, surfaced in the news last month when he was invited to speak at an upstate New York university and some conservatives raised a ruckus – as they damn well should. If this guy can hang on to his tenure at CU fine. But damned if student funds from somewhere else should be used to host him as some sort of guest speaker.

The watchful ghouls over at the O’Reilly show and other right-wing blast furnaces hastened to chuck Churchill, a deliciously easy target, on to the fire. And now we see that the usual sort of weak-kneed university administrators at CU have set up a month-long review of him that could lead to his firing.

Free speech and the first amendment should cover all professors, no matter how repugnant. I think it legitimate to defend Churchill’s right to be a vocal asshole (heaven knows most universities are densely populated with such types on both the Right and Left).

What I’m worried about is the way that some liberal groups are hemming and hawing on what he actually said. I’ve seen that some Colorado peace groups are praising Churchill as some sort of font of wisdom and downgrading his remarks as merely “stupid.” Other similar groups are actually supporting him—like this statement from the Rocky Mountain Center for Peace and Justice who in lauding Churchill characterize his remarks as only “ill-chosen.”

No. Not ill-chosen. They were carefully selected, hateful, unforgivable and demented, frankly. And having kept half-an-eye on Churchill since he emitted his execrable screed, I noticed that he has continued to be invited as a guest or panelist at numerous lefty events instead of being ostracized and ignored.

The American Association of University Professors is rightfully demanding protection of the principle of academic freedom. As we all should. That should not stop any of us from excoriating Churchill and his more than unfortunate views. The only defense possible in this case is one of free speech. Yet some of his most knuckleheaded supporters showed up yesterday at the convening of the CU panel looking into his case and what did they do? They shouted down the university administrators. Isn’t that wonderful?

Here’s an excerpt from the Rocky Mountain News coverage of the story:

In a raucous meeting where university leaders were shouted down by Churchill supporters who defied orders to be silent, the regents voted unanimously to authorize a 30- day investigation to determine whether there is cause to fire Churchill, 57.

In what may be an unprecedented action by any major university, the regents also apologized "to all Americans, especially those targeted in the 9/11 attacks and those serving in our armed forces, for the disgraceful comments of professor Churchill."

Two protesters were arrested during the meeting.

Churchill has been the subject of a firestorm of controversy since concerns were raised last week about an essay he wrote on Sept. 11, 2001, in which he compared "technocrats" working in the World Trade Center to notorious Nazi bureaucrat Adolph Eichmann and said the United States invited the terrorist attacks through a long history of violent domination of other cultures.

The left needs better heroes and better martyrs than Ward Churchill.

UPDATE:  Some other good stuff I'm finding on the Churchill story. Take a look at UCLA conservative corporate law professor Stephen Bainbridge who has a similar take as mine i.e. that Churchill is an "ass" but remember what Voltaire said.  Decidedly non-lefty legal eagle Eugene Volokh, for his part, invokes Justice Hugo Black, to argues that the "depraved" Churchill not be fired.

And just so there's no accusation of punching of straw men, I'm reluctantly linking to the original horrifying essay scribbled by Chruchill.  You can read it here.  I forced myself to re-read it just now and actually find it more offensive than when I originally saw it right after 9/11. Church's basic "argument" is one of collective guilt-- it's precisely the premise used by the Nazis in their indiscriminate murder of Jews. I must say, I would be terrified if this guy was teaching my kid.

Comments

[Mavis Beacon]

I haven't read the whole essay but the block quotes I've run across leave no doubt that this guy is a real asshole. Anyone who defends him on any other then free speech grounds is off his rocker. That said, to glibly assert that, "the Left has a new cause celebre," seems a gross exageration based on the evidence you provided. I want more lefty persons/organizations who defend the content of his speeches. Either that or just say he's a loon and STOP BLAMING THE LEFT!

[Ahmed]

Marc, i'll start by saying that you're dead wrong here, once again in an entirely pridictble fashion. You're in such a rush to denounce and presumably distance yourself from the "loony left" that you fail to realize what the attacks on Ward Churchill are really about and how they fit into a much larger picture both on and off campus on what constitutes permissble thought in an post 9/11 era of unquestioned assumptions and never ending wars. Defending Churchill from right wing zenophobes who wish to purge universities, themsleves suppossed centers of free thought, has at all nothing to do with creating hero worship, but is essentially about resisting a very real McCarthyite campaign going on. If you don't believe me read the works of Daniel Pipes and his pet Project Campus Watch. It explicitly seeks to get students rat out professors who views can be seen as "anti american" or critical of the isreali government. Pipes says openly that in a time of war a professors duty is to be with american foreign policy. Sorry, as a memeber of the academic world myslef, i was under the impression that an intellectuals owned no duties to dogmas of any states or governments, and that thought flourished when it was not policed and confined. All this is relevant because pipes and his ilk including the lyn cheney's national endowment of the humanities have mounted a powerful campaign to target professors they disagree with, and set a academic stadard comforming to what they view as patriotic. The same forces that are going after Ward Churchill are the ones who for decades tried to get Edward Said fired, they're the same miscreants who are trying to purge mesa now for years, the same intellectual brownshirts who think the cia should be inbedded in classrooms. They're using time tested witch hunting practices and campaings of smears and distortion. But none of this matters, because it doesn't fit into your idiotic characature of the world where you're the sole truth teller and overseer of acceptable thought who sees through and brazely castigates the "loony left". If you're so blind as to not see a pattern here with whose speach is and isn't attacked, and what is behind the campaing against Churchill, then you're living in the wliderness buddy. Simply disgusting and awful stuff

[reg]

On target marc. But what struck me when I read your post, aside from the lingering of residual remnants of a totally pathetic form of "leftism" that needs to just dry up and blow away, is that I've never heard of this guy before (and I don't live in a bubble). But I've read numerous assaults on the integrity of Susan Sontag in which it was claimed she said something akin Churchill's remarks, which of course is a lie. Why did dishonest clowns like Andrew Sullivan focus on legitimate opinion that differed from the pack mentality or the more vapid emotionalism and brand it as treasonous, when there are real loons out there. Could it be because Ward Churchill doesn't represent squat in the arena of public opinion ?

I have a crackpot Afro-centric brother-in-law who expressed a similiar sentiment at our family Thanksgiving in 2001 and I put my white ass on the line to tell him off. It was impolitic to call the fucker out only because our heated argument ruined the day for our host, my wife's mom who I dearly love. (Yeah, I'm like this at home.) But anyone, right or left (and there were some on the far right who used the occasion of 9/11 to spew anti-semitism) who pulls that crap deserves nothing less than a serious kick in the butt, even if only verbal. Tenure is tenure, but students should boycott his classes and make his job disappear. Reminds me of how much I hate academica....

[reg]

Ahmed, isn't there some distinction between defending academic freedom and excoriating assholes. I believe in academic freedom for right-wing assholes, but I'll be damned if that doesn't mean I can't call them what they are. If Daniel Pipes had tenure somewhere, would it be wrong to call him out for the loon that he his ?

I was so over-the-top on a previous post, I'm bowing out on this one. I mean it. Call me a crackpot or a perv....whatever...I'll just have to eat it. I'm assuming marc is back from his sojourn in lovely Northern California (shit...I walk to those killer Chinese restaurants on Kearny St. for lunch) and will be enforcing his new rules with a vengeance.

[reg]

I'll use my last legal post to correct my own spelling...that would be, uh, "academia" that I hate.

[Ahmed]

And if we're going to discuss this at length, then perhaps the Rocky Montain News shouldn't be are authoritive source. In the interest of fairness Im posting Ward Churchill's responcse to this entire brouhaha

Churchill's statement
January 31, 2005

The following is a statement from Ward Churchill:

In the last few days there has been widespread and grossly inaccurate media coverage concerning my analysis of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, coverage that has resulted in defamation of my character and threats against my life. What I actually said has been lost, indeed turned into the opposite of itself, and I hope the following facts will be reported at least to the same extent that the fabrications have been.

* The piece circulating on the internet was developed into a book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens. Most of the book is a detailed chronology of U.S. military interventions since 1776 and U.S. violations of international law since World War II. My point is that we cannot allow the U.S. government, acting in our name, to engage in massive violations of international law and fundamental human rights and not expect to reap the consequences

I am not a "defender"of the September 11 attacks, but simply pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned. I have never said that people "should" engage in armed attacks on the United States, but that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable consequence of unlawful U.S. policy. As Martin Luther King, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, said, "Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable."

I am not a "defender"of the September 11 attacks, but simply pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned. I have never said that people "should" engage in armed attacks on the United States, but that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable consequence of unlawful U.S. policy. As Martin Luther King, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, said, "Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable."

* This is not to say that I advocate violence; as a U.S. soldier in Vietnam I witnessed and participated in more violence than I ever wish to see. What I am saying is that if we want an end to violence, especially that perpetrated against civilians, we must take the responsibility for halting the slaughter perpetrated by the United States around the world
My feelings are reflected in Dr. King's April 1967 Riverside speech, where, when asked about the wave of urban rebellions in U.S. cities, he said, "I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed . . . without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government."

* In 1996 Madeleine Albright, then Ambassador to the UN and soon to be U.S. Secretary of State, did not dispute that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of economic sanctions, but stated on national television that "we" had decided it was "worth the cost." I mourn the victims of the September 11 attacks, just as I mourn the deaths of those Iraqi children, the more than 3 million people killed in the war in Indochina, those who died in the U.S. invasions of Grenada, Panama and elsewhere in Central America, the victims of the transatlantic slave trade, and the indigenous peoples still subjected to genocidal policies. If we respond with callous disregard to the deaths of others, we can only expect equal callousness to American deaths.

* Finally, I have never characterized all the September 11 victims as "Nazis." What I said was that the "technocrats of empire" working in the World Trade Center were the equivalent of "little Eichmanns." Adolf Eichmann was not charged with direct killing but with ensuring the smooth running of the infrastructure that enabled the Nazi genocide. Similarly, German industrialists were legitimately targeted by the Allies.

* It is not disputed that the Pentagon was a military target, or that a CIA office was situated in the World Trade Center. Following the logic by which U.S. Defense Department spokespersons have consistently sought to justify target selection in places like Baghdad, this placement of an element of the American "command and control infrastructure" in an ostensibly civilian facility converted the Trade Center itself into a "legitimate" target. Again following U.S. military doctrine, as announced in briefing after briefing, those who did not work for the CIA but were nonetheless killed in the attack amounted to no more than "collateral damage." If the U.S. public is prepared to accept these "standards" when the are routinely applied to other people, they should be not be surprised when the same standards are applied to them.

* It should be emphasized that I applied the "little Eichmanns" characterization only to those described as "technicians." Thus, it was obviously not directed to the children, janitors, food service workers, firemen and random passers-by killed in the 9-1-1 attack. According to Pentagon logic, were simply part of the collateral damage. Ugly? Yes. Hurtful? Yes. And that's my point. It's no less ugly, painful or dehumanizing a description when applied to Iraqis, Palestinians, or anyone else. If we ourselves do not want to be treated in this fashion, we must refuse to allow others to be similarly devalued and dehumanized in our name.

* The bottom line of my argument is that the best and perhaps only way to prevent 9-1-1-style attacks on the U.S. is for American citizens to compel their government to comply with the rule of law. The lesson of Nuremberg is that this is not only our right, but our obligation. To the extent we shirk this responsibility, we, like the "Good Germans" of the 1930s and '40s, are complicit in its actions and have no legitimate basis for complaint when we suffer the consequences. This, of course, includes me, personally, as well as my family, no less than anyone else.

* These points are clearly stated and documented in my book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, which recently won Honorary Mention for the Gustavus Myer Human Rights Award. for best writing on human rights. Some people will, of course, disagree with my analysis, but it presents questions that must be addressed in academic and public debate if we are to find a real solution to the violence that pervades today's world. The gross distortions of what I actually said can only be viewed as an attempt to distract the public from the real issues at hand and to further stifle freedom of speech and academic debate in this country.

Ward Churchill
Boulder, Colorado

[reg]

FYI (w/o comment) If anybody wants to track this in detail, here's the original essay by Churchill.

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

[steve]

" If Daniel Pipes had tenure somewhere, would it be wrong to call him out for the loon that he his ?"

Yes, but it would be wrong to support a public attack and call for his resignation as a professor. I'm not sure if Marc supports that, but I would hope not.
On the other hand, it is rather odd, because if you go back and read the readings of Herbert Marcuse, one of Marc's own political heroes, you can find statements by Marcuse that are not different in tone or content from Churchill's statements, especially since Churchill clarified on the vapid Paula Zahn's show [and the poor dear, trying to do a Bill Oreilly act was terribly outmatched intellectually-- I don't think she even knew who Hannah Arendt was when he referenced her! And she seemed completely confused by his use of 'tehnocratic elite'--a Marcusean term if there ever were one...] that he was referring to a 'technocratic elite'.
Having said that, there is something else that is wrong about Marc's comments above. People on the left *did* criticise those comments by Churchill, and Marc knows that full well, since at least one good friend of his on the left did so in his journal and even in the pages of the Nation I believe.
*And*, get this, I too was involved in public exchanges on this matter and I wasn't defending Churchill's Marcuse like ploy [I know that runs against the Amy Goodman-Kim SungIl paranoid fantasy some have of yours truly--my snide apologies]. So Marc knows that what he says about people on the left strongly supporting Churchill at the time is false. In fact, Churchill even got disinvited from an antiwar protest in Burlington in the runup to or early Afghanistan bombing days.

However, I agree with Marc's good friend Henwood on this, letters should be sent to the chancellor calling for an end to FOX News determining which professors are politically correct for their tastes.

[steve]

I see Marc doesn't support Churchill's being fired. That's good. He is wrong to characterise the thoughts as 'hateful', they're entirely in the spirit of Marcuse. I disagree with the argument, but that's another matter on a number of levels.
I will say this, though, he was pretty coherent in his response to the utterly out of her league Zahn tonight.

[Jim Rockford]

Ahmed -- now we come to it at last. The great sickness in the Middle East, and among Muslims in general, is anti-Semitism. JUST like people failed to speak out about Lynching, when a black man or woman a day was lynched in this country, Muslims have failed, and failed utterly, to speak out about the utter sickness of anti-Semitism and pure barbarism that inflicts their societies. Anti-Semitism is the canary in the coal mine, that includes the Islamic world's barbaric treatment of women (teens not even 14 stoned to death for being raped) and religious minorities as well as basic human rights. [I am not Jewish btw]

The amount of utter double-standard, anti-Semitic trash that flowed through Ed Said's work, and his classroom comments, is simply amazing. That an intelligent person could hold these views (calling Jenin a case of genocide, throwing rocks at Israelis, denying the legitimacy of the Israeli state, and celebrating terrorism against Israel) is simply unbelievable. Edward Said was the man who felt Yasir Arafat was too "soft" on Israel and wanted more terrorism.

That you defend this man (or Churchill) proves Marc's point EXACTLY. The Left is sick, sick with anti-Semitism, sick with anti-Americanism, sick with pseudo-marxist-nihilist celebrations of terror, murder, and sickness. Arafat, Pinochet, the Colonels of Greece, Pol Pot, and Mbuto are all the same. They are monsters. The folks who defend them, from Churchill to Said, are nothing more than Lord Haw-Haws, or Stalin's stooges like Duranty.

Pipes has done yeoman work exposing the sick skein of anti-Semitic, anti-American hatred running through Academia. The sort of sick, disgusting things you'd find at Berkeley or San Francisco. Groups like CAIR are angry at the rocks being lifted, and the ugly things underneath shown the daylight of the American people's gaze. They don't object to the celebration of murder, merely folks KNOWING about it. [Note: I don't agree with everything Pipes says, probably not most of it. Nor do I hold Israel perfect and blameless. However, I draw the line at deliberate murder of kids, and innocent civilians. I'm funny that way. I suspect most Americans are too]

Academic freedom and freedom of speech means folks like Said, Churchill, or neo-Nazis (who they share anti-Semitism with btw) are free to celebrate "a million Mogadishus" and such. Cheer for every American death, and horrible slaughter of innocents from Beslan, Maalot, and NYC. That doesn't mean in America there won't be a response. People turning away from anyone espousing this garbage. Prices paid in forgone speaking fees, and close scrutiny of resumes.

Churchill deserves to be fired, not because of what he said, but because he lied about being an American Indian, and being a Special Forces Combat vet. He was neither. AIM itself has disavowed him, and has engaged in legal battles against him. Indian artists have fought with him over his selling paintings as "legit" American Indian work. Churchill was only married to an Indian, his late wife. He is a liar of the first order. A base hypocrit like Mailer, a critic of US violence abroad who stabbed his own wife nearly to death, and is best known for championing convicted murderer Jack Henry Abbott's release from prison due to his writings. Something he accomplished. Then opined his subsequent murder of a bartender was "OK" since Abbot was a good writer.

Ultimately the Left has failed. It has failed to call out Churchill, Sontag (reg she DID celebrate 9/11) ...

Sontag shortly after 9/11 "Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a “cowardly” attack on “civilization” or “liberty” or “humanity” or “the free world” but an attack on the world’s self-proclaimed superpower undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? How many citizens are aware of the ongoing America bombing of Iraq? And if the word “cowardly” is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue) whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday’s slaughter, they were not cowards."

... and Norman Mailer (who called the wreckage more beautiful than the towers); and Stockhausen who called it the greatest work of art ever.

Failure to call these folks on their love of death, anti-Americanism, terror, murder, and not so subtle anti-Americanism makes the Left irrelevant to the national debate. The American people know these things are morally wrong, and know by the Left's silence in the face of evil that they don't agree with them. Thus when Bush talks of freedom, and specifically rebukes anti-Muslim hate crimes, people trust him. They distrust folks like Joe Biden who wants the Mullahs to have nukes so they'll have better self esteem. They abhor and hate the Left, knowing full well the Left hates them, simply for being Americans.

The Left used to stand for right and wrong, but sadly they've been intimidated into silence, agreeing with the Ward Churchills and Ed Saids of the world. Sadly, Marc, it's too late. The Left has made it's bed, and so lost it's moral legitimacy. Nothing but politics now. With the Left espousing the hate America line. It's the work of generations to clean out that stable.

[reg]

RE: SONTAG - "(reg she DID celebrate 9/11)"

I can't help it...

THAT IS A FUCKING LIE! SHAME...SHAME !

[Marc Davidson]

With regard to Jim Rockford's diatribe, the only possible response is an awe-filled silence.

[NeoDude]

The blanket generalizations of The Liberal/Left remind me of other nationalistic right-wingers bent on reforming the world in their own image.
-----------------------------------------------

Liberalism tore down the structures that held races and peoples together, releasing the destructive drives. The result was economic chaos that led to millions of unemployed on the one side and the senseless luxury of economic jackals on the other. Liberalism destroyed the people's economic foundations, allowing the triumph of subhumans. They won the leading role in the political parties, the economy, the sciences, arts and press, hollowing out the nation from inside. The equality of all citizens, regardless of race, led to the mixing of Europeans with Jews, Negro, Mongols and so on, resulting in the decay and decline....We have seen firsthand where Marxism leads people, in Germany from 1919 to 1932, in Spain and above all in Russia. The people corrupted by Liberalism are not able to defend themselves against this Jewish-Marxist poison.

From:
Der Reichsführer SS/SS-Hauptamt, Rassenpolitik (Berlin, 1943)
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/rassenpo.htm

German democracy was always a particular playground of European liberalism. Its innate tendency towards excessive individualism was foreign to us, which lost it any connection to real political life after the war. It had nothing to do with the people. It represented not the totality of the nation, but turned into a perpetual war between interests that gradually destroyed the national and social foundations of our people's existence.

From:
Goebbels Speech at the 1933 Nuremberg Rally
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb41.htm

We offer the youth the freedom to develop their nation, even in the case of smaller nations. We offer them room for creative fantasy, the opportunity to transform great thoughts to reality outside the lecture hall. We offer the realization of dreams on a world scale, a common Germanic will, a common European will. We fill the spiritual vacuum left by liberalism with the magic of a worldview that draws self-confidence and meaning to life from race and the blood of one's ancestors.

From:
The Danger of Americanism
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/sk03.htm

Their critique of America? To liberal and urban!

[Green Dem]

Can't we have a serious discussion about academic freedom? The only difference between this thing and those hypothetical moral dilemmas hashed out at high school church camp retreats (would you eat your best friend if your plane crashed and you were stucked in the Andes without food?) or the ridiculous ticking time bomb scenarios currently being hashed among allegedly serious people about the legitimacy of torture (so like dude if the nuke is set to go off at four oclock in Times Square and we catch Abdul on the Jersey Turnpike at 3:45 and he's sweating and wearing a t-shirt that says "I just blew up Manhattan and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" do we beat the crap out of him or electrocute him and then beat the crap out of him?) is that this has the misfortune of actually being real.

Look everyone: there are loons out there. Some of them are on the left. Some of them are on the right. Quite a few of them are not meaningfully either.

But to make this a kind of test case for Academic Freedom in Our Time is just embarassing. I'm sure all those professors and administrators who had to show up for this hearing were more than than anything else embarassed that this had to happen at *their* college.

The fact of the matter is that there is now underway a systematic effort by a certain segment of the American right to undermine the academic freedom of legitimate, rational, and often quite brilliant professors (especially in mideast and Arab studies) with whom this segment of the American right happens to disagree. I realize its not quite as sexy a story as this loon's, and while I have little faith in the SCLM to properly cover it, it - not this - is the *real* story.

[John Moore (Useful Fools)]

There's one thing wrong with Marc's excellent post: there are few right wing loons in academia because the right wing has been almost completely excluded from a number of areas of study. Conservative history students report being counseled (by historians) to seek other fields because they will never get a PhD, much less tenure, because of their political views.

In other words, "academic freedom" means "freedom for the left to throw out the right."

I think it would be appropriate for those universities with a "diversity" fetish to try it on ideological positions of professors. If Sandra O'Connor imagines that diversity in the student population is important enough to over-ride the equal protection clause and basic American principles, how about diversity of ideology in the professorship.

At this point, the ratio of leftist to rightist professors, as estimated from voter rools, ranges from 6:1 to 25:1 in major universities and colleges. This is defended by the assertion that conservatives are not intelligent enough to become professors or deserve tenure.

It is hardly surprising that looney leftist professors keep popping up. They sit in their ivory towers, circularly arguing themselves into crazier and crazier viewpoints, while forcing conservatives to stay in the closet with their political views - ask, but don't tell!

Equal protection under the law would seem to apply when the ideological ratios get so out of hand, and so far from the ratios in the general populace.

This clown should never have been hired. Notice that even now, he dresses and wears his hair like a stereotyped Indian activist. His comments on America are insane - tin foil hat quality observations. He belongs in the University all right - as an exhibit in the forensic psychiatry department.

I guess I need to apologize to the Catholic Church, which invented the concept of academic freedom, when I say that it has gone too far. Too many professors are doing the equivalent of shouting Fire! in a crowded theater.

State funded schools will find themselves losing funding if they continue to represent only the radical left side of the political spectrum. That would be a shame, but it is a natural unintended consequence of the arrogant one-sided leftist professoriat. Alumni are angry and are withholding funds. Just as the left has destroyed the legitimacy of the main stream media, it is now destroying the humanities and pseudo-science departments of academia.

[steve]

"Look everyone: there are loons out there. Some of them are on the left. Some of them are on the right. Quite a few of them are not meaningfully either."

As far as I can tell, he's no more a lunatic than Marcuse or Fanon or Malcolm X...Oh, that's right, they weren't lunatics. So, instead of the easy lazy way out, why not actually debate the substance of people's ideas instead of lazily attributing 'hateful' motives, 'mental illness', etc. Why not just disagree with him and point out what's wrong with his arguments? I've done that without having to resort to the lazy way out of "he's a loon".
I mean, think of it like this. He is at least a relatively consistent thinker, one with whom I've disagreed in the past, but still will have to give him that much. I've never thought much of his association with people like Russell Means for starters.
He's a lot more coherent than people who believe in social democracy *and* simultaneously (!) fueling an already overbloated military budget to supply troops to occupy Iraq, Afghanistan, the Sudan, and God knows where else...

[steve]

"Conservative history students report being counseled (by historians) to seek other fields because they will never get a PhD, much less tenure, because of their political views."

ah yes, i see those right wing students just desparate to be historians instead of MBAs or power lawyers...of course, it makes sense, the historians get paid so much better.

[Green Dem]

"There's one thing wrong with Marc's excellent post: there are few right wing loons in academia because the right wing has been almost completely excluded from a number of areas of study. Conservative history students report being counseled (by historians) to seek other fields because they will never get a PhD, much less tenure, because of their political views."

I was waiting for someone to bring up this nonsense. Conservatives are widely represented in business, engineering, law, and the sciences at America's top colleges and universities, and well represented at colleges and univerisites generally in the humanities, as well as virtually every other discipline.

The fact of the matter is though that academia is simply not a very lucrative gig, and conservatives are less inclined than liberals and leftists to be willing to sacrifice the prospect of making money for an academic career - and that's the best case scenario.

Fundamentally, there is a real misunderstanding about the state of academia today. To the extent that there were ever "cushy academic jobs" it simply isn't the case for most who choose to become academics. The problem is particularly acute in the humanities, and it has nothing to do with ideology. For every 1000 English PhDs that graduate every year, there are only a few hundred positions that open up, and most of those are low-wage, few-to-no-benefit, adjunct gigs at obscure 4 year colleges and community colleges - not tenure track positions at major research universities. Under half of humanities PhDs - including many from top 10 schools - will ever land a tenure track position *anywhere*, let alone a major research school. Close to half of all professors today are adjuncts, and that number is likely to grow to 3/4 in the next decade or two.

The fact of the matter is that as with Hollywood and music and sports there are simply too many people who want to do it for a living, and to claim that conservatives are being systematically excluded is just silly.

[steve]

It's what ya get when ya mix victimology + conspiracy theory.

[Marc Cooper]

Hey Ahmed: When someone gets university tenure they don't get intellectual immunity, pal. Of course the right wing is going to go after professors they dont like. The idiotic indefensible statements of someone like Ward Chruchill makes it that much easier. I have purchased and will be distributing to my friends on the elft a nice little leather collar with a chrome eyehook on it. After the firmly fit the collar around their throats they can then attach Albatross Churchill by the eyehook and try to lift off in battle against the right.
So let me be clear: Repugnant ideas are not sufficient reason to fire Churchill. They are more than sufficient to repudiate him and excoriate him. By the way.. his clarification that you post is classic backpeddling, Ahmed. Why dont u dig up the stinking carcass of his original essay and let the readers decide what he really meant. There's not much nuance in "little Eichmanns."

One of the most moving experiences I had took place in December 2001 at the AFL-CIO executive council meeting in Las Vegas in which they memorialized the 800 or so union members killed in the WTC (that's right, almost a third of the victims). These were flight attendants, passengers, janitors, cooks, waiters, firefighters etc... Their crime was to show up for work that morning.
And let me pre-empt the rebuttal. That building was also full of stockbrokers and business executives. I suppose in Churchill's twisted little world they are the "real" Eichmanns. No, in reality, tey are just human beings like teh rest of us trying to support their families. Their crime is the same as the window-washers.They showed up.
There is something really, really repugnant about a professor who has to work maybe 9 hours a week for a lifetime of comfy tenure, sucking off the tit of a public university that finances itself with all of the same sources as the rest of the "empire" and then implying that while he sits around stroking his pud he's a pure, strident voice for the oppressed while anyone else who has a job is "complicit." Churchill ought to be on O'Reilly's payroll-- that's where he belongs.
I suppose if someone nuked CU tomorrow and killed off all those Pentago math researchers and conservative law enforcement sociology consultants and Churchill went up in flames with them we could write them all off as just one more set of "little eichmanns."

[Marc Cooper]

THREE POSTINGS EACH AND THEN OUT. BE ADVISED.

[Josh Legere]

I was in a rather jolly mood after opening up the weekly and seeing that Bob Dylan and Merle Haggard are going to play 5 shows at the Pant ages, and I am glad to see someone take a shot at good old Ward.

The guy is in asshole that should not get fired. But an asshole nonetheless. The line "densely populated with assholes" line is a true gem. Having just started part time grad school this week, I was reminded on why I hated my first University experience. Don't forget that most graduate students are assholes as well.

The guy is a fucking University professor for god’s sake. How fucking arrogant to think that you can judge people who just might have taken "technocratic" jobs not out of desire, but out of necessity.

I spent Wednesday in Cincinnati for work. We got lost in a depressingly rundown downtown Cincinnati neighborhood. My boss (a technocrat with a house, wife, and 2 kids) commented on how unsettling it was to see how an obviously once vibrant city has been laid to waste largely by the effects of jobs moving abroad (globalization). He confessed how guilty he felt that most of my co-workers cannot afford to buy a home in Southern California and feels bad that they cannot (by economic reality) be paid enough to purchase one anytime soon. My boss is not the typical asshole entertainment executive, but a decent guy who is basically stuck in his path. He can't quite and enter a Cultural Studies program. Nor does he live a life of indulgence. The fucking guy likes his kids and gardening. He say the reality of economic injustice in Cincinnati and vocalized even though he is not an “intellectual” nor a regular reader of the Nation. He is pretty much A political, but he is the type of person that would be perceptive to a social movement for economic justice. Yet Ward wants him dead.

Is my boss one of those " little Eichmanns" who was worthy of death? How would he be classified? He doesn't particularly love his job. Nor his he a technocrat in the service of empire, but rather a fucking normal person trying to survive. He is a normal human being with a real life (I am sure that the serial posters are the opposite) and is not lucky enough to have an ideal job. He does not complain much, but sucks it up and does the best he can and tries to be a decent person to people he encounters. I am sure Ward would take one look at his profession and send him off to the re-education camp.

Ward made a massive misjudgment. Massive actually cannot even describe it. His line of thought is the same as all of the great killers of the world, Mao, Hitler, etc. The fact that "activists" in the "intellectual" world would defend his politics is disgraceful.

I heard many of his lectures during my brief delusions as being a "radical" and I am sickened for it.

He is the worst kind of Lefty. He does represent a brand of Stalinism the left cannot seem to shake off. He has a Weather Underground mentality in the year 2005. Pathetic.

This after all is a guy who has a CD called "In A Pigs Eye View." Still holding on to that 60's bullshit.

[Josh Legere]

I wonder if Ahmed and Steve defended Charles Murray during the Bell Curve fiasco. Murray like Ward deserved intellectual freedom. But like Ward, he is an enormous asshole and his pseudo-science was not worthy of defense. Ward's "work" is pseudo scholarship that likewise, should not be defended.

I am sure they were on campus, working on speech codes to ensure that "hate speech" is silenced.

Maybe Ward "work" is less than worthy. If I do shitty job at work, I get fired. Why are professors exempts from reality? Just because you have a PHD and a radical pedigree, you should not be guaranteed a job. For gods sakes some of you look at "intellectuals" like a fucking aristocracy. God save the Queen! Can the Royal family do no wrong? Maybe Ward should have to be worthy of employment.

Professors like him are not real scholars. They are entertainers. They are hired because wealthy kids that go to CU (a hippy haven) like to experiment with radical politics for a few years before becoming technocrats. Like many professors these days he is a performer who's purpose is to keep students entertained.

The Left are fucking pathetic. Calling Ward in intellectual is an insult to the word. He is proof that many lefties these days are really not for real. It is entertainment and not a social movement that is meant to succeed. For gods sake get some standards.

[Jim Rockford]

reg -- what part of:

"Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a “cowardly” attack on “civilization” or “liberty” or “humanity” or “the free world” but an attack on the world’s self-proclaimed superpower undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? How many citizens are aware of the ongoing America bombing of Iraq? And if the word “cowardly” is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue) whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday’s slaughter, they were not cowards."

Does not sound like a celebration of 9/11 to you? Sontag said it was both courageous and JUSTIFIED. She also repeated Maher's sentiments that the 9/11 hijackers were "braver" than bomber pilots and other such trash. She said what she said, and was what she was. An apologist for cold-blooded, fanatical, awful murder. Celebrating the slitting of flight attendants throats to draw out the pilots, calculated murder of thousands, because people with non-white skin and non-Christian religions did the awful deed. Remember, in Sontag's and other Leftists moral views, there is no absolute right or wrong, no deed in and of itself that is wrong, just the political. context in which it takes place. Sontag despite her talent is not any different than that old Nazi Ezra Pound.

Green -- "The fact of the matter is that there is now underway a systematic effort by a certain segment of the American right to undermine the academic freedom of legitimate, rational, and often quite brilliant professors (especially in mideast and Arab studies) with whom this segment of the American right happens to disagree. I realize its not quite as sexy a story as this loon's, and while I have little faith in the SCLM to properly cover it, it - not this - is the *real* story."

The problem with these "brilliant" Mideast and Arab Studies Professors is that they are anti-Semitic. Columbia (home of Said) is notorious for this. Columbia accepted 2.5M from the United Arab Emirates, a loathesome pithole of repression, *official* anti-Semitism, and intolerance. Joseph Massad is a Jordanian Prof at Columbia who consistently characterizes Israel as a racist state, asked a former Israeli armed services student (in Israel there is universal mandatory conscription) how many Arabs he killed and would not allow him to speak in class, another Professor Saliba told a student she could not have ties to Israel because "her eyes were green." Massad told students that Jews in Nazi Germany were not physically abused or harassed until Kristallnacht in November 1938. He led a class discussion about Jenin and shouted 'I will not have anyone sit through this class and deny Israeli atrocities.' Massad, has argued in his writings that Israel is a racist state that does not have a right to exist. He claims that Israel does not represent the Jews and has called for a "one-state solution" to the Middle East conflict. Palestinians have lost international support, he wrote in 2003, because Yasser Arafat has made too many concessions to Israel and has tried to suppress the intifada. Columbia 's Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures Department chairman, Hamid Dabashi, advocates "dismantling the Zionist entity."

American Nazis, KKK members, and anti-Semites all have the academic freedom to make such issues part of their course work. And the public that pays their salaries, either directly or indirectly (unless Columbia wants to pay back the Federal Funds it sucked down over the last hundred years) has a right to demand an explanation for things that are far outside the mainstream.

Green, I consider the sentiments expressed at Columbia (which is far from the worst offenders) far outside the mainstream or even respectable, intellectually or morally. They are, in and of itself, indefensible. But then, what can you expect from a region that regularly accuses Jews and Americans of stealing organs from Palestinian and Arab children, and repeats the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as fact. Repeatedly. In Newspapers, TV, and radio.

Want some real ugly hate? What I'm talking about? See this ugly link at UCI:

http://standwithus.com/UCI_incitement2005.asp

Watch him justify bombing buses. Civilians in Pizza places. THIS Leftists is the face of the folks you justify. Green here's EXACTLY what I'm talking about. You can refuse to face it, excuse it, or justify it, but this guy is no different from Said except he's on tape.

[Note: I used to be a Leftist. THIS is exactly why I am not.]

(Now I'm done).

[John Moore (Useful Fools)]

"Conservatives are widely represented in business, engineering, law, and the sciences at America's top colleges and universities, and well represented at colleges and univerisites generally in the humanities, as well as virtually every other discipline."

What a bunch of nonsense.

So academia is full of conservatives and no right winger would want to be a historian? ROFLMAO.

Talk about silly stereotypes. Apprently all right wingers want is big money in somebody's world, but not in reality. There are right wing historians, but not many young ones because of the discrimination I described.

As far as there being plenty on the right in engineering, that used to be true but is not any more (obviously some schools are exceptions). My data is from articles involving surveys and other numerical research such as voter rolls.

But it also comes from my life as a faculty brat at two Universities, and student at one of those and one other (UCLA). Engineering schools now have a high democrat to republican ratio - not as high as humanities, where it is approaching a singularity (0 in the denominator of the ratio), but 5:1, 6:1, etc.

As one in the enineering gprofession (software and electronic engineering). it's clear that conservatives are rare and social conservatives are very rare. Any read of slashdot will show that.

Then I hear that academia is not paid well. My father, as a retired distinguished professor, makes far more as a retiree than the average working PhD engineer. The benes and perks are great, too.

The difficulty of getting a professorship or tenure is real. It is a consequence of baby boomers filling the top positions and is true throughout our society (and the west). It's a demographic trend. One reason for the high demand, by the way, is the high pay and great perks of professorship. The bottleneck just makes it that much easier to keep out the conservatives - the more applicants, the easier to throw one out.

I do question the need for many of the soft humanities professors. So much of their writing is total trash - especially in English departments. How many psychologists are teaching thoroughly discredited theories (such as Freudian and derivative psychoanalysis)? How many of the sociologists are doing valid scientific studies as opposed to the pathetic ones that are always in the paper, where adequate controls are missing, cofactors not accounted for, etc?

The left has won, so far. You will write the history, because historians are mostly leftists (especially young ones who are facing the ideological filtering). English departments are even worse, but then there is nothing obective in the field to measure ideas against. J schools and Ed schools are solidly democrat. Same for social work and psych. B schools may not be as left as engineering - heck, they might even have a conservative majority - somewhere. But that's little solace.

References and sample data: http://www.missouri.edu/~aab2b3/dk_aw_voter.pdf
Stanford full professors: 183D/31R
Stanford assoc professors: 40/0
Stanford humanities: 72/2
Stanford hard sciences: 78/15
Stanford total faculty: 275/36 ( 7.6 : 1 )

When you have a minimum ratio of around 5 to 1, and voting is by majority, the 5ers completely control. And that is the case in every department category at Stanford including professioonal schools (53/11 - slightly below 5-1).

Other studies show similar results and many different schools.

So the conclusion is simple: every department in every university in the US, with a few exceptions, is totally dominated by the left.

Sorry, Josh. The Bell Curve is basically correct in its theory that the society is stratifying by IQ. Most of the controversy was over racial average IQ differences (just one of many chapters), which psychometricians simply accept as fact (but they don't know why the disparities other than it is not culture or poverty). THe theory of g as a universal indicator of general intelligence is solidly proven, and now backed up by physical measurements such as evoked response potential latency.

See http://www.gnxp.com/ for a bunch of very serious experts expounding (with a comment's section) on the subject (warning: not for the faint-of-heart PC crowd). The race disparities are very troublesome, obviously, to anyone who wants a healthy multiethnic society (which I think most Americans desire). Note: those who say there is no such thing in science as "race" need to go to gnxp and find out otherwise. It is full of research geneticists.

Marc is right to call out Ward Churchill. If the left wants to be taken seriously, it needs to condemn the idiots like Churchill that are within it.

Jim Rockford, you are correct in your last post. Well done. One could be perhaps forgiven for using the word "courage" early on in the situation, before the nature of the reward for suicide was made so clear. Beyond that, they were simply vicious mass murderers, the vanguard of the Islamofascists.