^.^
Alrighty.
Unless you've been living in a cave for the past couple weeks, you have probably heard of Ward Churchill, a professor at Colorado University, who recently stated his views on the September 11th attacks...and you probably know the gist of his views...that America deserved the attacks, and his calling the victims "little Eichmanns."
First, I will tell you that I find these views to be utterly insulting and nonsensical, and I for one find comfort in the fact that the majority of the reaction on this subject from responsible human beings has been pretty much right where it should be...outright and utter condemnation.
(Please note the equivocation in that last sentence...it becomes important here in a bit...)
I will also tell you that I agree that Ward Churchill had best be checking through the want ads of his local paper for a job, because the man will not find work at a reputable college or university once he is fired, and I believe that he WILL be fired at some point.
However, this will not happen as a result of his remarks about Sept. 11.
Now, I can see two reactions from this last statement. The first, from those on the Right, and from the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks would be: WHY THE HELL NOT? And trust me folks, I empathize all the way with you on this.
And before the total morons who make up the vast majority of the college/university populace in this country start cheering for victory, please remember that the man WILL be fired. My opinion of these people has sunk too, which is why I hedged a bit earlier when I talked about responsible human beings. The actions of a few students at a recent CU Board meeting called to discuss the case of Ward Churchill convinced me that these people are not normal. As for being responsible, as a former college student myself, I contend that as long as you are getting money either from parents or financial aid, you are not responsible in the true sense of the word.
These idiots were storming around the room where the board meeting was held yammering about an obstruction of Churchill's rights of Free Speech.
However, what the CU Board decided to do should lift the spirits of those offended by Churchill, whether they are victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, or just honest, sensible, reasonable people who think that Churchill's spoutings amount to the equivalent of raw sewage in the arena of ideas.
The CU Board decided rightly that they will look into the writings of Ward Churchill, to see if his writings, which have been controversial as well, are protected by the Free Speech amendment to the US Constitution.
See, STOOPID speech is generally protected, even at a university, because it represents a different point of view from the majority, or perhaps a more "enlightened perspective."
However, if a speech or a book demonstrates teachings that indicate that the professor in question is inept, incompetent, or outright falsifying information, that my friends will get you out of a job at a university, whether you are tenured or not.
And in the case of CU & Ward Churchill, we seem to have a case where our dear friend, the Nutty Professor, has passed off fiction as scientific fact.
In 1993, Churchill published a book entitled "Indians Are Us?: Culture and Genocide in Native North America." In it, he made the following claims:
- The US government had a policy of eventually wiping out the Indians.
- The US Army deliberately spread smallpox among the Indians of the US West.
- The US government passed a lot requiring proof that an Indian was more than one-half Indian before providing a land grant to that person.
All of these claims have been contested by scholars who have some background in Indian history. Ward Churchill claims he is one-sixteenth Creek indian, but this claim is not confirmed. He claims to have served in the military in Vietnam, but those claims have shifted. Churchill himself will not answer questions about his past, or questions about his academic qualifications.
However, Thomas Brown, a sociology professor at Lamar University called Churchill's claim of the use of smallpox to commit genocide "shocking" and "fraudulent." Churchill cited UCLA anthropologist Russell Thornton as his source for the assertion, but in reading the two
claims, Churchill's argument does not match Thornton's. Thornton describes how the Mandan indians may have received smallpox from the deckhands on ships that traded up and down the Missouri River. Churchill claims that smallpox-laiden blankets were distributed by the US Army at Ft. Clark.
Another critic is John LaVelle, a University of New Mexico law professor, who said that Churchill's book "constitutes a regrettable setback in Indian people's struggle for social justice." In further comments, LaVelle said: "...the discerning reader will discover that, notwithstanding all the provocative sound and fury rumbling through his essays, Churchill's analysis overall is sorely lacking in historical and factual veracity and scholarly integrity."
In other words, Ward Churchill wouldn't know truth if it came up and smacked him in the face with a huge sign that said I AM THE TRUTH on it. His claim that the US has had a concerted plan to wipe out the indians has never been proven and is the thin hope of those seeking something...anything...to stick Uncle Sam with. The US government is certainly no angel here, but they are not as guilty as Churchill and his radical buddies make them out to be.
The claim that the US passed a law requiring indians to be one-half indian in order to receive land grants is also proven false, in this case because people have read the law in question, and the language Churchill says is in there...well...isn't.
On those three claims alone, Ward Churchill can be proven to be teaching bad history. The man is entitled to his views, and he is entitled to speak them. However, as I have always said, your right of free speech does not entitle you to an audience. In other words, just because you can say something doesn't mean that people have to listen. However, in a classroom setting, the students are expecting their professor to bring them truthful information on the subject, with a minimal amount of their own biases. If Ward Churchill can not keep his political biases out of his class, he is inept.
If he is teaching falseness and passing it off as the truth, he is incompetant.
In either case, he should forfeit his position at Colorado University.
John B.
(Note: I used a front-page story printed in the Denver Post on February 10, 2005 for some of the info in this article.)
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Democracy in Action...It's a Beautiful Thing, Pt 2
^.^
Welcome back!
In Part One of this article, I went over the victory of democracy in the Palestinian territories, and the total vindication that those elections were for democracy, peace, and the policies of George W. Bush, and Ariel Sharon, who refused to play the "business as usual" game with a committed terrorist.
Now we move on to Iraq, where a possibly even bigger election has just taken place. And I must say that this election mirrors one that was helf not too long ago in Afghanistan, resulting in the election of Hamid Karzai to the Presidency in that country. Iraq's completed election has similar effects throughout the Arab world, but it was done in a more spectacular way. Let us review, shall we?
1: First off, let's splash the entire idea that the Left put forth that the US could not use military force to impose a democracy on a people. I can see George Bush now, saying: "Well, we did...so NYAH!"
2: The terrorists (the word "insurgents" does not convey what these people really are) were supposed to have a banner day! There was supposed to be blood running in the streets, and they were supposed to have a real impact on the election. In fact, in the week or so running up to the election, attacks on Iraqis increased quite a bit. Most of those attacks were on election workers, or against polling stations. However, on the day of the elections itself, there were a few attacks during the morning hours, but by early afternoon, they had died out, and people turned out by the MILLIONS to cast their ballots!
3: The Left thought that turnout would be low, probably due to the terrorists. After all, once a person in Iraq cast his or her vote, their finger would be dipped in a purple ink that would not come off for a few days...and this would make them into easy targets for the terrorists. So why bother? Why risk one's life for what's likely to be a sham election of a puppet government run by those evil Americans...right?
WRONG!
Turnout in Iraq averaged 70%. In some places, it was above 90%. Folks, the United States hasn't seen those kind of turnout numbers for a very long time, if ever. Since the government shut down most of the roads and restricted travel, the people turned it into an impromptu holiday and it was quite festive in places.
By the way, you can take all three of those points I just made about Iraq, and they also apply to the election last year in Afghanistan. The democracy in Afghanistan was imposed there by the US military, it was carried out under the threat of attacks by the terrorists in that country, and turnout was not supposed to be high.
In both cases, the Left, the talking heads on antique TV, and the Liberal know-nothing politicians in Washington got the story horribly wrong.
BUT, let's not talk about the Left for a moment...
Instead, look at the situation in the Middle East, and listen to what various people are saying about the Iraqi elections.
First off, if you look at a map of the region, you see that we've had successful democratic elections in the Palestinian territory, Afghanistan, and Iraq. All three of these are areas in the Arab world that have virtually no experience with democracy whatsoever. The last free election in Iraq was in 1954, there has never been a really free election in Afghanistan until last year, and Yasser Arafat controlled all of the elections in Palestinian areas up until the one last month.
The success of these elections cuts the Middle East's autocratic nations into seperate areas, with little support for each other. If I were in Damascus or Tehran, I would seriously be looking over my shoulder at the possibility of a democratic uprising, in part inspired by the elections being held on my borders. The only reason the Iranian people haven't risen up yet is because the mullahs are feeding them some line of bull about how the US is about to attack them. It's the classic way for a government to avoid facing problems at hmome...have the people focused on a problem on the foreign relations front.
If either Syria or Iran collapses in a heap, and democracy is allowed to flourish there, it would be an huge thing. If both go, even better. If we throw Saudi Arabia on that pile, even better. Now, don't get me wrong...none of this will be a cake-walk. I doubt that Iran, Syria, or Saudi Arabia will go quietly into the night. These are entrenched regimes, possibly with the power of the military behind them, and the collapse of any government is seldom a neat affair.
However, things are possible in the area...good things. And for every person in Jordan who says that the election in Iraq is a sham to allow the Americans to stay there and suck all of the oil out of the country, there is a Yemeni wondering if this is only the beginning. When I saw that, I thought "You know, this could be just the beginning."
John B.
Welcome back!
In Part One of this article, I went over the victory of democracy in the Palestinian territories, and the total vindication that those elections were for democracy, peace, and the policies of George W. Bush, and Ariel Sharon, who refused to play the "business as usual" game with a committed terrorist.
Now we move on to Iraq, where a possibly even bigger election has just taken place. And I must say that this election mirrors one that was helf not too long ago in Afghanistan, resulting in the election of Hamid Karzai to the Presidency in that country. Iraq's completed election has similar effects throughout the Arab world, but it was done in a more spectacular way. Let us review, shall we?
1: First off, let's splash the entire idea that the Left put forth that the US could not use military force to impose a democracy on a people. I can see George Bush now, saying: "Well, we did...so NYAH!"
2: The terrorists (the word "insurgents" does not convey what these people really are) were supposed to have a banner day! There was supposed to be blood running in the streets, and they were supposed to have a real impact on the election. In fact, in the week or so running up to the election, attacks on Iraqis increased quite a bit. Most of those attacks were on election workers, or against polling stations. However, on the day of the elections itself, there were a few attacks during the morning hours, but by early afternoon, they had died out, and people turned out by the MILLIONS to cast their ballots!
3: The Left thought that turnout would be low, probably due to the terrorists. After all, once a person in Iraq cast his or her vote, their finger would be dipped in a purple ink that would not come off for a few days...and this would make them into easy targets for the terrorists. So why bother? Why risk one's life for what's likely to be a sham election of a puppet government run by those evil Americans...right?
WRONG!
Turnout in Iraq averaged 70%. In some places, it was above 90%. Folks, the United States hasn't seen those kind of turnout numbers for a very long time, if ever. Since the government shut down most of the roads and restricted travel, the people turned it into an impromptu holiday and it was quite festive in places.
By the way, you can take all three of those points I just made about Iraq, and they also apply to the election last year in Afghanistan. The democracy in Afghanistan was imposed there by the US military, it was carried out under the threat of attacks by the terrorists in that country, and turnout was not supposed to be high.
In both cases, the Left, the talking heads on antique TV, and the Liberal know-nothing politicians in Washington got the story horribly wrong.
BUT, let's not talk about the Left for a moment...
Instead, look at the situation in the Middle East, and listen to what various people are saying about the Iraqi elections.
First off, if you look at a map of the region, you see that we've had successful democratic elections in the Palestinian territory, Afghanistan, and Iraq. All three of these are areas in the Arab world that have virtually no experience with democracy whatsoever. The last free election in Iraq was in 1954, there has never been a really free election in Afghanistan until last year, and Yasser Arafat controlled all of the elections in Palestinian areas up until the one last month.
The success of these elections cuts the Middle East's autocratic nations into seperate areas, with little support for each other. If I were in Damascus or Tehran, I would seriously be looking over my shoulder at the possibility of a democratic uprising, in part inspired by the elections being held on my borders. The only reason the Iranian people haven't risen up yet is because the mullahs are feeding them some line of bull about how the US is about to attack them. It's the classic way for a government to avoid facing problems at hmome...have the people focused on a problem on the foreign relations front.
If either Syria or Iran collapses in a heap, and democracy is allowed to flourish there, it would be an huge thing. If both go, even better. If we throw Saudi Arabia on that pile, even better. Now, don't get me wrong...none of this will be a cake-walk. I doubt that Iran, Syria, or Saudi Arabia will go quietly into the night. These are entrenched regimes, possibly with the power of the military behind them, and the collapse of any government is seldom a neat affair.
However, things are possible in the area...good things. And for every person in Jordan who says that the election in Iraq is a sham to allow the Americans to stay there and suck all of the oil out of the country, there is a Yemeni wondering if this is only the beginning. When I saw that, I thought "You know, this could be just the beginning."
John B.
Democracy in Action...It's a Beautiful Thing
^.^
Alright. It is now two days since the elections in Iraq, and the Left in this country is astounded that the elections went so well...mostly because it means that George W. Bush has been totally vindicated in his idea that the United States can use military force to bring democracy to an authoritarian state.
All the rest of the authoritarian states would do well to learn a few lessons from the example of Iraq.
But, before we get to that, let's take a look at not one, but TWO elections that must surely have the people in the White House jumping up and down, shouting "YES!"
First, at the beginning of January, we had the election in the Palestinian territories. In them, Abu Mazan prevailed over a bunch of no-names and has succeeded the late terrorist, Yasser Arafat to lead the Palestinian people, and during his first month in office, he has already done more for the Palestinian people than Arafat did in the last two years of his life.
Despite sporadic incidents, the cease-fire that Mazan asked for after winning the election appears to be holding. In case you don't remember, there was a time not too long ago where mortar attacks from Gaza or the West Bank would hit some Jewish settlement in the occupied territories, or a town in Israel proper. Once this happened, the Israeli army would respond with overwhelming force, lock down an area of the occupied territory, bulldoze a few houses, perhaps kill a few Palestinians who they accused of being terrorists, and generally make life a living Hell for the inhabitants. After a while, the Israelis would pull out, some idiot terrorists would vow revenge for the "acts of oppression" committed by the Israeli army, and before long, another mortar attack would be launched, starting the cycle again...
The cycle has largely been stopped.
Instead, Israeli army units are pulling back from the border areas, and Palestinian security forces are being deployed in an effort to stop terrorist attacks into Israel.
At the same time, Mazan has started cracking down on corruption within the municipalities. On a visit to Gaza, Mazan saw some shops that had been built without legal permits. Under the regime of Arafat, these shanty shops had been allowed. Mazan ordered them demolished. One man who lost his shop was not happy, but he seemed willing to accept it as long as all of the illegal shops were demolished.
"Abu Mazan said he was going to enforce the laws," the man said.
Abu Mazan's approach to the peace process, and perhaps the very fact that he is NOT Yasser Arafat has also opened some doors that had been closed to the Palestinians prior to his winning the presidency.
See, ever since Yasser Arafat started attempting to pretend that he was a statesman and not a terrorist, both Israel and the United States have attempted to work with him. I believe, based on the results of the talks, that the United States and Israel were honestly working toward a just peace in the Middle East, with Israel living side-by-side with a Palestinian state. Arafat however, wanted no such thing. I know this because former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and former US President Bill Clinton handed Yasser Arafat *95%* of what he wanted. He wasn't going to get ONE thing, and he threw the agreement in everyone else's face and walked out of the talks.
Yasser Arafat never wanted Jerusalem by itself...he wanted that city, plus Haifa, Tel Aviv, Ashkelon, and every square inch from Elat to Kiryat Shimona...preferably with the Jews driven into the sea. Once Israel and the United States realized this on some level, they stopped doing business with the man that I called the "little evil elf".
Now we have Abu Mazan, and while I don't want to throw all of my eggs in this one basket, I really do hope that he is serious about making real progress in the peace process. Like I said, doors have been opened that were slammed shut on Arafat. Mazan and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will be meeting soon, and a meeting with President Bush is also planned. This is a signal that in Abu Mazan, we have a man that we can do business with.
I believe that the future of the Palestinians and the Israelis has been brightened, and it was done through a democratic election that we backed wholeheartedly.
More democracy in action in Part II...
John B.
Alright. It is now two days since the elections in Iraq, and the Left in this country is astounded that the elections went so well...mostly because it means that George W. Bush has been totally vindicated in his idea that the United States can use military force to bring democracy to an authoritarian state.
All the rest of the authoritarian states would do well to learn a few lessons from the example of Iraq.
But, before we get to that, let's take a look at not one, but TWO elections that must surely have the people in the White House jumping up and down, shouting "YES!"
First, at the beginning of January, we had the election in the Palestinian territories. In them, Abu Mazan prevailed over a bunch of no-names and has succeeded the late terrorist, Yasser Arafat to lead the Palestinian people, and during his first month in office, he has already done more for the Palestinian people than Arafat did in the last two years of his life.
Despite sporadic incidents, the cease-fire that Mazan asked for after winning the election appears to be holding. In case you don't remember, there was a time not too long ago where mortar attacks from Gaza or the West Bank would hit some Jewish settlement in the occupied territories, or a town in Israel proper. Once this happened, the Israeli army would respond with overwhelming force, lock down an area of the occupied territory, bulldoze a few houses, perhaps kill a few Palestinians who they accused of being terrorists, and generally make life a living Hell for the inhabitants. After a while, the Israelis would pull out, some idiot terrorists would vow revenge for the "acts of oppression" committed by the Israeli army, and before long, another mortar attack would be launched, starting the cycle again...
The cycle has largely been stopped.
Instead, Israeli army units are pulling back from the border areas, and Palestinian security forces are being deployed in an effort to stop terrorist attacks into Israel.
At the same time, Mazan has started cracking down on corruption within the municipalities. On a visit to Gaza, Mazan saw some shops that had been built without legal permits. Under the regime of Arafat, these shanty shops had been allowed. Mazan ordered them demolished. One man who lost his shop was not happy, but he seemed willing to accept it as long as all of the illegal shops were demolished.
"Abu Mazan said he was going to enforce the laws," the man said.
Abu Mazan's approach to the peace process, and perhaps the very fact that he is NOT Yasser Arafat has also opened some doors that had been closed to the Palestinians prior to his winning the presidency.
See, ever since Yasser Arafat started attempting to pretend that he was a statesman and not a terrorist, both Israel and the United States have attempted to work with him. I believe, based on the results of the talks, that the United States and Israel were honestly working toward a just peace in the Middle East, with Israel living side-by-side with a Palestinian state. Arafat however, wanted no such thing. I know this because former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and former US President Bill Clinton handed Yasser Arafat *95%* of what he wanted. He wasn't going to get ONE thing, and he threw the agreement in everyone else's face and walked out of the talks.
Yasser Arafat never wanted Jerusalem by itself...he wanted that city, plus Haifa, Tel Aviv, Ashkelon, and every square inch from Elat to Kiryat Shimona...preferably with the Jews driven into the sea. Once Israel and the United States realized this on some level, they stopped doing business with the man that I called the "little evil elf".
Now we have Abu Mazan, and while I don't want to throw all of my eggs in this one basket, I really do hope that he is serious about making real progress in the peace process. Like I said, doors have been opened that were slammed shut on Arafat. Mazan and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will be meeting soon, and a meeting with President Bush is also planned. This is a signal that in Abu Mazan, we have a man that we can do business with.
I believe that the future of the Palestinians and the Israelis has been brightened, and it was done through a democratic election that we backed wholeheartedly.
More democracy in action in Part II...
John B.
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