The more I read of the utterances and writings Ward Churchill, the closer I come to the conclusion that Churchill has never been right about anything in his life. The Guiness Book people may need to launch a new category.
PirateBallerina has compiled the refutations of virtually every academic word the man has ever written, so Ill leave those alone. (Not to take anything away from that blogs work, but Mr. Churchill has written relatively little in the way of academic research in his life.) Whats more interesting to me is his complete divorce from reality of political life in the twenty-first century.
Correct me if Im wrong, but didnt McGovern lose? Apparently, Mr. Churchill thinks not. He insists he is on the winning side of an argument staged every four years and usually won by the party representing everything Mr. Churchill hates.
Rocky Mountain News notes Churchills childish fascination with the violent Black Panther Party:
Churchill is all but oblivious to the Panthers' criminal side. Instead, in an essay published in 2001 in an anthology titled _Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party, _he laments the “fallen warriors of the Black Panther Party” and urges others to take up their banner.
The story goes on to demonstrate Mr. Churchills willingness to lie and lie again. It points out a table Mr. Churchill submitted as a side bar listing 29 activists Churchill claims were murdered by police.
In fact, the list includes numerous Panthers killed by relatives, colleagues and other armed militants, or who perished in clashes with police that they initiated. He includes the likes of Alex Rackley, tortured and murdered by fellow Panthers; George Jackson, killed in an attempted jailbreak from San Quentin; Frank Diggs, whose murder was never solved (as Churchill actually admits elsewhere in his text); and Bobby Hutton, shot trying to escape (witnesses agreed) after a 90-minute gun battle with police in Oakland.
Ill have to re-read Radical Chic to see if the young Churchill attended Lenny and Susie Bernsteins celebrated hate-fest.
(Reading over the last paragraph, I cannot believe the article talks about words written in 2001 and not 1971-but it was.)
Which brings us to to his recent speeches where, again, Mr. Churchill was wrong about everything, including Thank you and Its good to be here.
When Churchill ascended the dais at CU on February 8, he did so to a fanfare American Indian drumming and singing, continuing his deception.
Then began what some might call a speech:
“I do not work for the taxpayers of the state of Colorado. I do not work for Bill Owens, he stated. Perhaps in his mind he doesnt work for the taxpayers. Fine. Then deprive Mr. Churchill the portion of his paycheck funded by state and federal taxes.
“This institution needs to be protected from the ravages of the rabid right wing, he told the idiot students assembled to croon. But this institution appointed him chair of a department and granted him tenure despite the fact that he barely had academic qualifications to teach. Moreover, CU elevated him based on false information that another college was trying to woo him away with a full professorship. CU needs protection from itself and from lying professors.
Move forward to Hawaii. Churchill says of the current controversy, It’s not just an attempt to purge me; it’s a purge of the academy.”
How wrong can he possibly be? It is the academy and its regents wishing to be purged of the *** that is Ward Churchill. Bill Owens and other regents have made that pretty clear. So have the taxpayers for whom he thinks he doesnt work.
I never wanted to be a poster boy for academic freedom,” Churchill told students. He didnt? Good Lord, he has made himself same.
Just when Churchill almost stumbled onto getting something right, he continued speaking until he was wrongagain.
“I was targeted because they thought I would be an easy target,” Churchill told the crowd of about 800. “That was a mistake.
Yes, Mr. Churchill, you are an easy target. You lied about your military service. The American Indian Movement claims you You lied about your ethnicity. You lied about your mentorship of the Weather Underground. You lied about a job offer to obtain a raise. You lied about your essay. You lied about American Indian slaughters. You lied about the Black Panthers. To paraphrase Christopher Hitchenss book title, there is nothing left to lie about.
You make yourself an easier target by donning an Indian costume and parading about like the Atlanta Braves mascot. As the American Indian movement puts it in a press release, Ward Churchill has been masquerading as an Indian for years behind his dark glasses and beaded headband.
But you are wrong, Mr. Churchill, about they making a mistake. Your life is unraveling right now in a way you never, ever imagined it could. You have been exposed as an academic, military, and ethnic fraud. Your only support comes from fawning, ignorant undergrads who couldnt pour piss from a boot with the directions on the heel. While CU may not be able to fire you, you will never obtain a position of trust in a significant university again.
You were an easy target, Mr. Churchill, and your demise delights those of us who despise ego-maniacal phonies like yourself.
After a lifetime of charging innocent people with heinous crimes, of applauding murder of innocents, and of supporting terrorist organizations with machismo lies, your chickens, Mr. Churchill, are coming home to roost.
Sources:
Rocky Mountain News: I Do Not Work for Taxpayers
Rocky Mountain News: Ward’s World Part 10
Honolulu Star Bulletin: Churchill Attacks Essay Critics
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin links to audio files of Ward Churchill advocating violence in 2003. Surprise, surprise.
UPDATE: Candace de Russy explains why the Churchill affair may help clean up rampant academic corruption. (NRO)
_CORRECTION: The Honolulu Star Bulletin has issued a correction to the story upon which this column was based. Instead of _
“Let’s cut to the chase, I’m not,” the quote in yesterday’s paper continued.
What the paper MEANT to write was:
“Is he an Indian? We really care. We’re trying to protect the rights of Indians to divine for themselves, say this circle of flies in the form of white reporters circling a manure pile like it’s of all consequential importance. Cut to the chase on that."
I guess that’s what I get for believing the mainstream media. Since the two quotes are not really even close to each other, one wonders whether a Star Bulletin reporter even attended the speech.
Churchill went on to say that he is an associate member of the Keetoowah tribe and that associates are enrolled in the band after their genealogy has been vetted by the enrollment office. He said that he is less than one-quarter Indian, so he does not qualify to be a full member.
But that Churcillian statement does not jibe with this official statement from the American Indian Movement:
He waves around an honorary membership card that at one time was issued to anyone by the Keetoowah Tribe of Oklahoma. Former President Bill Clinton and many others received these cards, but these cards do not qualify the holder a member of any tribe. He has deceitfully and treacherously fooled innocent and naïve Indian community members in Denver, Colorado, as well as many other people worldwide.
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