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As of February 20, 2005, 8:40 AM GMT, a February 16, 2005, article entitled "Turnabout: Ward Churchill Now Target of Terrorists" (http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=13089) appears on the third page of Google news search results for: "Ward Churchill". The article, by Jeremy Robb, is posted on ChronWatch, which is intended to be critical of the "ultra liberal" bias of the San Francisco Chronicle , and initially appeared in the "Fun Stuff" section on the front page of ChronWatch. Under the pretext of "satire," the article reports that Al Qaeda has objected to being compared with Jews by implication of Churchill's describing the World Trade Center "technocratic corps" as "little Eichmanns." (Adolf Eichmann was a Nazi bureaucrat, who supposedly was just obeying orders.) Jeremy Robb falsely reports:
In a printed statement, Churchill said "I am shocked that I have become the target of Al Qaeda. I hate Americans as much, if not more, than they do. I only wish I could have been on one of those planes to prove how much I hate Americans. And I certainly would never insult these freedom fighters by comparing them to Jews."
Given the outright lies about Churchill going around in the blogosphere and the larger Internet, many will write off the ChronWatch article as being yet another intentional, blatant distortion of Ward Churchill's "Some People Push Back" essay , this time under the pretext of parody or satire, and they will be right. The article is total bullshit, and the quote Jeremy Robb attributes to Churchill was just made up. But what's interesting is that Google's "computer algorithms without human intervention" portrays this as a news piece, like any other, and some persyns have actually interpreted it as such.(1) Elsewhere, the body of the article was reposted, without comment, on right-wing University of Haifa Professor Steven Plaut's blog.(2) However, the ChronWatch article does not actually parody anything in the San Francisco Chronicle . On the contrary, the Associated Press articles, covering Ward Churchill's struggle with the Colorado bureaucrats, in the San Francisco Chronicle , have distorted and in other ways misrepresented the content of Churchill's essay. Other blog posts, filled with shameless lies about Churchill and racist attacks (repeated off-line) having to do with his American Indian lineage, appear as legitimate "news" on Google.
Evidently, reading-comprehension problems are not limited to "satirists" and their readers.
In another example (http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/sept112001/wardchurchill021705.html) of a half-assed "defense" of Ward Churchill that actually undermines him, Steven Best, Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, undermines Churchill's credibility by contributing to his detractors' distortions of what he said.(3) According to Steven Best, "Churchill wrongly viewed the World Trade Center as a military target and absurdly judged everyone killed in the twin towers as 'little Eichmanns'."
But Churchill did not "judge everyone killed in the twin towers as 'little Eichmanns'," only those whom he called the "technocratic corps." This is patently clear from just reading Churchill's description of the "little Eichmanns" in his essay.
Under the pretext of overcoming Churchill's alleged lack of "nuance" and even going as far as to contradict himself in the same paragraph, Steven Best falsely attributes statements to Ward Churchill, such as: "Churchill declared that the 2,977 people killed in the 'sterile sanctuary of the twin towers' were not innocent victims, but rather ' little Eichmanns.' Without nuance or qualification , Churchill argued that those killed in the World Trade Center were as culpable for US violence as top Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann was for Hitler’s 'final solution'" (emphasis mine). Not only does this clearly misrepresent what Churchill said right in his controversial essay, Steven Best had the nerve to write this more than a week after Churchill unnecessarily clarified: "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" (emphasis mine).(4) Steven Best even notes this clarification. Yet, Best insists on insinuating that Churchill was "back-peddling."
From MIM's point of view, all Amerikans need to take collective responsibility for crimes of their government. Churchill's argument touched on a different subject --the golden rule that Amerikans supposedly love with Christian values. If "collateral" damage is OK for Amerikans to carry out as the government said during the Gulf Wars, then "collateral" damage certainly cannot be blamed when the terrorists took out a CIA office in the World Trade Center. Those people flying into the twin towers did nothing that Amerikans had not been doing for years and the only way for peace is for the main perpetrators to recognize that.Steven Best feigns ignorance(5) on behalf of the bourgeoisie, not just the broad Amerikan labor aristocracy: "unlike Eichmann U.S. technocrats may be genuinely oblivious to the violent nature of the system for which they work." But not only are the "technocrats" responsible, so is the majority of the larger Amerikan population. As Deborah Frisch points out, it is "[tempting] to agree that 'titans' of finance are more guilty than the rest of us. But even though they're better compensated than the rest of us, they're no more guilty, really. We're all little Eichmanns. Only the far left is willing to admit it."(6)
Steven Best asserts: "Left unqualified, Churchill's words can be read as an endorsement of terrorism and mass murder; thus, they had obvious inflammatory potential that the Right exploited to full advantage to launch a new round of Culture Wars." This is wrong. Churchill did indeed specify who the "little Eichmanns" were in his essay, and Churchill's words do not endorse terrorism or mass murder. It is only open reactionaries and idiots like Steven Best with reading-comprehension problems who could "read" Churchill's essay in this way.
For those who still do not get it, if you are going to "defend" Ward Churchill, only to misrepresent what he said, just stay out of it. There may be a difference between distancing oneself from Churchill's ideas, and misrepresenting his ideas, but many "liberals and Leftists" have certainly crossed this line into fueling the gross distortion of Churchill's ideas. Steven Best says: "Numerous liberals and Leftists have defended Churchill’s First Amendment rights, while offering more thoughtful and nuanced analyses of 9-11." But many so-called leftists have also contributed to the butchering of Churchill's essay.
Between now and the conclusion of the CU chancellor and regents' investigation in March is not the time for so-called nuance. But now is the time to defend Churchill thoroughly. Individuals who cannot do this should at least refrain from making questionable "interpretations" of Churchill's essay.
Notes:
1. http://graffitiwall.radioleft.com/blog/_archives/2005/2/5/303426.html
2. http://www.stevenplaut.blogspot.com/ (accessed February 20, 2005)
3. "Killing the Messenger: Ward Churchill's Sins Against the Empire," http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/best02102005/
4. "January 31 2005 statement from Ward Churchill," http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/sept112001/wardchurchilljan2005.html (scroll down)
5. A pattern exhibited by mouthpieces of the labor aristocracy (or even capitalists covering up for the labor aristocracy) who "defend" Ward Churchill for their own purposes, only to trash what he said and undermine his credibility. See: "Support Ward Churchill; don't slander him all over again," http/www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/agitation/iraq/sanctionspolls.html
6. Deborah Frisch, "A Psychologist's Defense of Ward Churchill," http://www.criticalhistory.com/index.php?itemid=753