“If you like bigotry…” (Don Hockaday)

Whose bigotry are we talking about here?  The bigotry of those who called Prof WC and threatened to kill him?  Or Prof WC's own bigotry toward the American business-folk working in the World trade center?  I thoroughly dislike the man for being the sort of caricature liberal that makes Liberal a derogatory term, and for hiding behind the unassailable wall of a professional sinecure.  If that makes me a bigot, then I readily admit to the charge.   

Does presenting the most controversial portion of Prof WC's essay or a summary of same constitute a  distortion of its tone, tenor & general thrust?  Not really.  Here's the opener:

"When queried by reporters concerning his views on the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Malcolm X famously – and quite charitably, all things considered – replied that it was merely a case of 'chickens coming home to roost.' 

"On the morning of September 11, 2001, a few more chickens – along with some half-million dead Iraqi children – came home to roost in a very big way at the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. Well, actually, a few of them seem to have nestled in at the Pentagon as well."

The only sense that can be made of Malcom X' s otherwise irrelevant and tasteless comment, is that it serves to express, given a moment's sympathy with the man, an understable outrage:  "It's about time a rich, powerful white man got murdered.  Now white folks know how it feels to be on the receiving end of hate."  

And Churchill's essay parallels Malcom X's attitude with respect to his own understandable outrage at the brutal, vicious, and ineffective sanctions against Iraq and the brutal, vicious and ineffective bombing of Iraq - to the point that the 9/11 suicide squads become the instruments of his revenge fantasy.  They showed "admirable restraint" in waiting so long to do so.

Of course he does not really believe that two terrible wrongs make one shining right.  For what he really believes, you must read (says Bre'er Hockaday) the abstract reaches of the Cato Institute position paper, that “cites many examples of terrorist attacks on the United States in retaliation for U.S. intervention overseas” and “suggests that the United States could reduce the chances of such devastating--and potentially catastrophic--terrorist attacks by adopting a policy of military restraint overseas."

I don’t see much similarity between Cato’s refrigerator and WC’s load of garbage.

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Sam Swank, Re. Ward Churchill

An interesting discussion this guy has started. Which I suspect is the idea.

There is so much wrong with what Churchill said that it's, to me anyway, a bit like arguing whether or not dog feces actually smell bad. The dog needs to do it, and I suppose it generates some heat. But I try to avoid stepping in it.

The first clue was his "little Eichmanns" reference. Translates to: "I want desperately to be noticed." Any reasoned academic opinion of why he feels that the mothers, fathers, sons and daughters inside the WTC in some way deserved to be incinerated and crushed on 9-11 would be hard to posit since it is by it's nature, totally absurd. So why not throw in a Nazi reference? Since you're already being ridiculous, you might as well compare the people inside the WTC to the chief architect of the Holocaust.

Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson made an equally ridiculous statement that no less than God himself allowed 9-11 to occur, not because of the evils of global capitalism but because of gays, feminists, the ACLU, and People for the American Way ( headed by Norman Lear, creator of "All in the Family", we're talkin' Dark Side here). So there's plenty of silliness to go around depending on whose Ox you're lookin' to gore.

…

Dear Sam:

One New Year's Day three-plus decades ago I was nursing a hangover through the afternoon football game, whose outcome, since neither of the teams was from Texas, was a matter of indifference.  And I noticed that, when the red team was ahead, I cheered for the blue team, but then, when the blue team took the lead, my sentiments were with the red team.  Being inclined to philosophy because of the hangover, I decided that, for me, the final result of a liberal education at a liberal arts college amounted to no more than a tendency to root for the underdog.  

There's some truth in the generalization that the Liberal's job in the world is to root for the underdog, to side with the oppressed against the oppressor, the have-nots against the haves, the powerless against the powerful.  And that's all to the good.  But there's a pernicious temptation to romanticize to underdog and demonize the top dog; to perceive the poor, the powerless, the oppressed as a noble and sacred people of infinite worth, while viewing the wealthy, the powerful, the supposed oppressors as evil incarnate, a vile lot who ought to be got rid of... so that the noble and sacred people can become top dogs and bring in the millennium. 

For instance, PLO leaders justify what we call suicide bombings as martyrdom in a noble cause: "Palestine from the (Jordan) river to the (Mediterranian) sea," a peaceable kingdom in which Israeli subjects will be loved and treated far better than Israel now treats Palestinians.  

Professor Churchill demonizes the top dog. "His published work characterizes the United States as an imperialist power with a history of genocide," says the Wikipedia article on him, which mentions the "Some People Push Back" essay as a case in point. 

And Churchill romanticizes the underdog (given that a well-funded terrorist organization may be perceived as an underdog).  The magic of his imagination transforms al-Qaeda into a major military power whose might was held in abeyance on 9/11.  They showed "patience and forbearance."  Theirs was a "measured response" to the sanctions against and bombing of Iraq.  For the lives of 500,000+ Iraqi children Ben Laden's minions exacted only 5000+ American lives.  Whaaaaaat?

But in terms of the stated theme of the essay, US policy toward Iraq doesn't need to have anything more to do with 9/11 than John F. Kennedy's stand on civil rights had to do with his assassination.  Malcom X's chickens will still come home to roost on the scales of Eternal Justice, hoping to right the balance in favor of the Sacred Underdog.

The comparison to the Falwell & Robertson's interpretation of 9/11 as Divine judgment in favor of their prejudices is entirely apt. 

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