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February 15, 2005
Prove it Ward!
You would have thought that with all the brouhaha over Ward Churchill's three-year-old essay, his too-happy critics would bother to do a bit of research, learn a fact or two, before jumping on the bandwagon. But, alas, there are no standards if you are defending the empire, whereas everything you've ever written will be gone over with a fine tooth comb if you are talking about its cruel nature.
So I came accross an almost comical piece, except the Denver Post ran it as if it were a serious op-ed. It's by Andrew Cohen, identified as "an attorney and a CBS News legal analyst." First he claims that Churchill's writing is "unintelligible":
First, it is terribly written. It reads like a souped-up high school paper written by a kid straight out of his first rhetoric class. Several passages are unintelligible.For example, Churchill writes: "Property before people, it seems - or at least the equation of property to people - is a value by no means restricted to America's boardrooms. And the sanctimony with which such putrid sentiments are enunciated turns out to be nauseatingly similar, whether mouthed by the CEO of Standard Oil or any of the swarm of comfort zone 'pacifists' queuing up to condemn the black book [sic] after it ever so slightly disturbed the functioning of business-as-usual in Seattle."
What does that mean? Many more passages reflect a level of ardor that seems ill-suited to the give and take of true political science.
Well, dude, if you can't tell a "black book" from the "black bloc," of course you won't be able to understand that passage. This is Churchill's standard critique of the mainstream --and self-identified "pacifist" left-- regarding their attitude towards the "black block," an anarchist political grouping. Most of the tension between those groups bubbled to the surface over the question of property destruction -- such as the infamous window breakings during the WTO Seattle protests in 1999. I mean there's nothing surprising that a random right-winger can't follow an internal left debate, but shouldn't you have to at least a bit of googling before being allowed to publish an op-ed on a subject that you are so ignorant about?
However, being utterly ignorant is no obstacle to this writer:
More important, however, is that there are no sources for the many astounding claims he makes in his piece. No footnotes. No endnotes. Perhaps they were not included because of space. But if Churchill wants to move past this controversy, if he wants to truly take a stand for academic rigor as well as academic freedom, he ought to reveal what those sources are. If he has the courage of his convictions - as I am sure he does - he ought to put his cards on the table and give the world, and his students, the proof behind his conclusions.Here are just a few of the factual conclusions Churchill makes in his essay that he ought to be required to show proof for:
He asserts that 500,000 Iraqi children died "as a predictable - in fact, widely predicted - result of the 1991 'surgical' bombing of their country's water purification and sewage facilities, as well as other 'infrastructural' targets upon which Iraq's civilian population depending for its very survival."
He cites a "wave of elation that swept America at reports of what was happening along the so-called 'Highway of Death:' perhaps 100,000 'towel-heads' and 'camel-jockeys' ... in full retreat, routed and effectively defenseless, many of them conscripted civilian laborers, slaughtered in a single day by jets firing the most hyper-lethal types of ordnance."
...
Ok, for the first one, let's start with Madeline Albright? Remember her? Secretary of State under Clinton? She not only acknowledged the number, she belives the price was worth it:
Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.
--60 Minutes (5/12/96)
The number, of course comes first from a 1995 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and later a 1999 UNICEF report [Addition: FAO numbers were preliminary, and later challenged, but important in that they suggested the scale of the disaster. Most people refer to the UNICEF report.] The lowest estimate is "106,000 to 227,000" -- so, what should we do Andrew? Fire Ward Churchill if only a quarter of a million kids under the age of five died under the sanctions rather than half a million as UNICEF estimates?
The second, "highway of death," I'm tempted to leave as a googling exercise but one can at least check out the BBC version, which has a lower estimate, still in the tens of thousands, and some testimony from Ramsey Clark's War Crimes Tribunal... I mean, it's one thing to say "it was worth it; we had to kill them in order to stave off larger battles," and all the usual justifications one hears, but what do you with this kind of total denial?
There is much to discuss about that infamous essay -- but how can there be a reasonable discussion when the facts about the real world as it exists, not as it is depicted by the propaganda system, are treated as figments of one's imagination?
In any case, I hope more people start asking those questions. Let's discuss. How many hundreds of thousands of children under the age of five died due to our sanctions on Iraq? What is this "highway of death"? What happened during the Vietnam War? What are the human costs of IMF imposed "structural-adjustment programs"? Which dictators received U.S. support during the cold war? After? Did we mine the harbors of Nicaragua? What did the "contras" do there? Why do we have soldiers and bases all around the world? What's torture business that keeps popping up all over the headlines?
Posted by zeynep at February 15, 2005 01:05 AM
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Comments
Starting a discussion sounds like a good idea. I’m not only advocating dialogue because of the moral worth of human relations. I like it because it also may be a good strategy to mess with their minds. Their minds are under a spell of identity politics. In other words, they can’t think because they have been programmed to react and follow a specific ideology.
Presently, in this country, lots of people only feel good if they follow the script of their identity politics. I think it continually worsens as time passes. Journalists call this the “culture wars”.
Back in history, I remember meeting Hong Kong students that were highly skilled at polluting communist red guard minds. They would agree with the Communist brain washers, but would start adding details and additions to the Communist thought pattern. That scared off the Communists and they would no longer deal with the students because the leaders were afraid that their cadre minds would become “un-brainwashed”.
So, all of this reminds me of a Saul Alinsky lesson. This father of all organizers, taught that we should start where people are and learn how to use their force to topple them---judo. On a personal note, one fun example is a time I visited a military surplus store where the sales staff wore camouflage. They were the typical fear mongers who believed that the only moral choice is to “take back America from all he enemies”. Just for the hell of it, I agreed with the guy, and started throwing in examples and details about how the government and others can take your freedoms in a second. I didn’t expect to generate such fear, but the guy didn’t know how to handle such a conversation when I didn’t use their rhetoric and “party-line slogans, etc.”
If you ever want to see a very effective ultra "conservative" mind control operation, just go visit a few Amway meetings. They promote creating an entire new "system". They thought Ronald Ray-gun was ok, but they objected to the way he maintained the current system. About ten years ago, they were the largest single Republican Party contributors and the single largest contributors to the Canadian Conservative Party.
Bob
Posted by: Bob at February 15, 2005 11:50 AM