Churchill flap enshrines 911 fairy tale

[tombldr]

Sorry I don't have an article to point to explicating this perspective. Most of you are probably aware of the bogus flap with Ward Churchill, CU-Boulder prof who wrote shortly after 911 about the 911-blowback angle and suggested that maybe many WTC victims "deserved" it... this is oversimplified but you get the gist, if you haven't followed the flap. Here in Boulder CO it's gotten a little bit heavier coverage...

First thing to occur to me, seeing so much corp media ink and airwaves about this was, more propaganda enshrining the official 911 fairy tale about islamic blowback. Meanwhile enshrining the bogus left/right paradigm, as though "the (blasphemous) left" is merely looking at 911 (the officially sanctioned story of course, which everyone in their right mind agrees with) and thinking maybe we deserved it. And now we have this fake flap about Churchill's stuff which was written over 3 years ago, as though one of the master propagandists working for our rulers just found it, and thought of this brilliant approach to making hay of it. Hey I give the propagandists credit, they're good.

[tombldr]

Oh yeah, and let's not forget about the subsequent attack on U. profs who step out of line & on the nationwide tenure system itself.. antithetical to fascist doctrine. This guy says it as well as I could:

First They Came after Ward, Then...

I hope everyone is following the witch hunt against Ward Churchill carefully as the issue is much bigger than him and concerns all of us. The fascist governor of Colorado has been all over the media lately not only demanding Ward be fired, but also that the tenure system throughout the nation be reviewed in order to fire those like Ward who dare to speak out against imperialism and US oppression, and urging those who wish to donate money to universities to first research the political views of potential entrenched radicals in various departments. This is heating up fast and hugely spilling outside the boundaries of an attack on one person into an attack on free speech and radicalism in general. I am writing a piece on this I will post soon. There is now a 30-day review process whereby Deans and the Board of Regents are combing through every word Ward has written, such as his remarks in a recent Satya interview, and no doubt his preface to Terrorists or Freedom Fighters. -Steven Best

[POA]

tombldr said:

Oh yeah, and let's not forget about the subsequent attack on U. profs who step out of line & on the nationwide tenure system itself.. antithetical to fascist doctrine. This guy says it as well as I could:

First They Came after Ward, Then...

I hope everyone is following the witch hunt against Ward Churchill carefully as the issue is much bigger than him and concerns all of us. The fascist governor of Colorado has been all over the media lately not only demanding Ward be fired, but also that the tenure system throughout the nation be reviewed in order to fire those like Ward who dare to speak out against imperialism and US oppression, and urging those who wish to donate money to universities to first research the political views of potential entrenched radicals in various departments. This is heating up fast and hugely spilling outside the boundaries of an attack on one person into an attack on free speech and radicalism in general. I am writing a piece on this I will post soon. There is now a 30-day review process whereby Deans and the Board of Regents are combing through every word Ward has written, such as his remarks in a recent Satya interview, and no doubt his preface to Terrorists or Freedom Fighters. -Steven Best

I read Churchill's Pacifism as Pathology almost a year ago (it was not an easy book to find...) It's a real eye-opener if anyone here can find it as well because it challenges so many assumptions that a lot of people seem to hold sacred.

[karpomrx]

Back in the 40's, as the USA was torn by war and caught in the contradiction of being allied with the Soviets, the Red Scare was still being used against U.S.citizens
There was a special category called "premature anti-fascists." These were people that had the bad judgement to be active against the fascists before the government had declared war upon Japan and the Germans declared war upon the U.S. These persons may have only contributed a few dollars toward an ambulance in Spain, or signed one of the many petitions of support that were the bread and butter of progressive movements of all types in those days.
Or they may have helped out producing a play or music that was viewed as "leftist". These and many more actions would lead to the heyday of "Tailgunner Joe" and his witch hunts, which led to black-lists,suicides and a chilling effect upon free speech from which this country never recovered. In the popular wisdom now, patriotism is equated with obedience to the "correct" way to be an American.
I see this attack upon an independent thinker as simply another symptom of the police state mentality which, I am sure, is going to sweep aside the few remnants of true liberty which persist,( to the annoyance of all the would be Guardians of Righteousness), a new kind of inquisition begins.
As the people are more and more frightened, living from hand to credit card, they will be shown enemies to blame for this change. It is easier to destroy than it is to investigate, and fear is a great motivator of our worst side.

[Moses]

"pre-mature anti-fascists"?!

Add to this the timely ABC program claiming that conservative speech on campus is being squelched. It does appear to be very very orchestrated.

And Daniel Pipes, Joe Lieberman, and Lynn Cheney et al are behind the curtain.

[Moses]

ABC's Assist to Campus Conservatives:
Were censorship stories too good to check?

February 3, 2005

On February 1, ABC's World News Tonight offered an uncritical platform to conservatives who complain that their free speech is being curtailed on college campuses across the country.

ABC anchor Charles Gibson introduced the segment by saying that conservatives "claim they are victims of a double standard on college campuses," and seemed to boost that notion by saying, "There certainly is evidence to suggest that colleges are bastions of liberal thinking. Seventy-two percent of faculty members in one survey identified themselves as left of center."

ABC correspondent Dan Harris ran down a series of examples to back up this storyline, beginning with a community college that wouldn't allow a screening of the movie "Passion of the Christ" because it had an R rating.

Harris went next to a soundbite from David French of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education: "You're going to get more political and intellectual diversity at your average suburban mega-church than you are at an elite university." Harris prefaced that statement by calling French's group "non-partisan," seemingly an attempt to make an obviously ideological soundbite seem less so.

Harris then moved on to Columbia University, "where Jewish students complain about harassment from pro-Palestinian professors." ABC included a clip from a documentary that makes a series of claims about allegedly anti-Israel professors, but made no attempt to balance that with a source who might challenge the arguments advanced in the documentary. The New York Civil Liberties Union, for example, has concluded that "the major academic-freedom problem arising out of the current Columbia controversy is that a film produced by a Boston-based advocacy group has provoked public officials and others to demand the punishment of certain identified Columbia professors based largely on the ideological positions that these
professors have advanced in their writings and lectures." (NYCLU letter to Village Voice, 2/2/05)

In a segment purportedly about free speech threats, ABC might have noted these issues, which include death threats against pro-Palestinian professors and the cancellation of at least one class because the teacher thought its criticisms of Israel might be too controversial. That Columbia instructor, Joseph Massad, has also publicly challenged the accuracy of charges made against him in the documentary. Including these aspects would have complicated the simple story ABC seemed to want to
tell, however.

Harris also cited another case popular on right-wing websites: As he put it, this one happened at "Foothills College, where this freshman says he was told to get psychotherapy after refusing to write an essay criticizing the U.S. Constitution." The student, Ahmad Al-Qloushi, then appeared on ABC and said, "I was attacked and intimidated because I love America."

ABC apparently felt no need to check Al-Qloushi's claim-- an unusual journalistic decision, given that he is making a serious charge against a specific instructor. The network might have at least discovered that the name of the college is Foothill Junior College, not Foothills, as it is called on many right-wing websites that have taken up Al-Qloushi's cause.

ABC might also have done well to examine Al-Qloushi's essay, which is available on the Internet (he did not "refuse to write" it, as Harris mistakenly reports). The essay is unresponsive to the assignment-- an examination of a book which argues that the U.S. Constitution reflected the elite interests of those who wrote it. Even conservative blogger James Joyner (Outside the Beltway, 1/16/05), after reviewing Al-Qloushi's work, called it "an incredibly poorly written, error-ridden, pabulum-filled essay that essentially ignores the question put forth by the instructor." "I'd have given the exam a failing grade, too," wrote Joyner, who edits the journal Strategic Insights at the Naval Postgraduate School.

It appeared that an attempt to balance these perspectives would come from former university president Robert O'Neil. Harris reported that O'Neil "says conservative students may be trying to protect themselves from ideas they don't like." But O'Neil's soundbite fed ABC's storyline: "I think there's a sense that, well, liberals have had their way and they've advanced their views for quite some time. There should be balance."

Actually, "balance" is not a major principle in academia, where professors are supposed to be chosen for the excellence of their scholarship, not for their ideological views. But it is a professed value of journalism, which makes this an odd comment by Harris:

"Many academics say conservatives are blowing a few isolated incidents way out of proportion in order to launch a McCarthyesque witch hunt, which is designed to intimidate professors, limit academic freedom and promote a
sort of affirmative action for conservative professors."

If "many academics" are saying this, why weren't they included in the report, rather than being paraphrased by the correspondent? If ABC did not want to give the professors attacked a chance to respond, the network was at least obligated to check the accuracy of the stories the students were telling-- and note that the full story was more complicated.

---

ACTION: Contact ABC and ask them why their report on conservative complaints about free speech infringement did not evaluate the validity of those complaints, and did not offer any experts who might challenge those claims.

CONTACT:
ABC World News Tonight
Phone: [phone]
mailto:[e-mail]

As always, please remember that your comments have more impact if you maintain a polite tone. Please cc [e-mail] with your correspondence.

[Moses]

What sort of education does the gov of CO have?