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New Paltz, NY--A firefighter and a firefighter's son were among over 100 signatures on a petition calling for the witch hunters of Ward Churchill to be held responsible for their actions. New Paltz is the home of the State University of New York, New Paltz, a university in a similar position as the University of Colorado, where Ward Churchill is a tenured professor.
The support for the petition in New Paltz is overwhelming. There was one youth strongly upholding the media perpetrated attack that Ward Churchill is a "fraud," because supposedly "he is not an Indian." When told that the Honolulu newspaper responsible for the original story retracted, the youth persisted. A womyn also declined signing and argued saying that Ward Churchill should have used less emotionally charged language.
As MIM wrote in its article about "Talking Points," there was also one persyn opposed to our petition who opposed the Allied bombing of Dresden but did not take a consistently pacifist position either. As predicted by MIM, that discussion took longer than other ones.
MIM informs activists that it is necessary to have the necessary statistical knowledge of Amerikan views in order to know which views to address and when to tell people that their own views are rare and that the main problem is the one that sees Amerikkkan civilians as the only innocent citizens in the world or maybe only Amerikkkan, British and I$raeli ones--another common position. Even professors who do not study public opinion for their profession are likely to have spoken with large numbers of students and have a relatively better idea of the common constellations of views. Ward Churchill knows the inconsistencies in his audience's views and how to bring them out.
Another critic said that Ward Churchill wanted to "wipe the United States off the face of the map." Our newly trained petition activist retorted: "Have you been down South? They're talking about the Confederacy every day and no one says anything about that." This was not enough to win the signature, just "I'm going to have to think about it."
Told that Ward Churchill has been called a "terrorist-sympathizer" and "traitor," few people seemed impressed. Larger than the number of people disagreeing with the petition was the number of people who not only agreed with the petition but also agreed with Churchill. The quick and stunning success in New Paltz shows that the longer the enemy attacks Ward Churchill the more chances will come out to demolish the mythology created by the Bu$h media spectacle about 9/11.