Right-wing Smear Campaign Aimed at Native Professor, Ward Churchill

Native scholar, activist and writer Ward Churchill has found himself at the center of a firestorm, for an essay that he wrote in the aftermath of 9-11. This controversy illustrates the dilemma that progressives and others on the left face—speaking truth to power in an America that allows fewer and fewer opportunities to voice opposition opinions. Right-wing Smear Campaign Aimed at Native Professor, Ward Churchill
By, Jim Baumer (http://www.jimbaumeriswriteforyou.com)

Native scholar, activist and writer Ward Churchill has found himself at the center of a firestorm, for an essay that he wrote in the aftermath of 9-11. This controversy illustrates the dilemma that progressives and others on the left face—speaking truth to power in an America that allows fewer and fewer opportunities to voice opposition opinions.

When George Bush gave his inaugural address two weeks ago, he went to great lengths to emphasize the importance of freedom and liberty, particularly in regard to the then-upcoming Iraqi elections and to justify the ongoing war on terror. While our president was talking about the need for democracy in other lands, our own American democracy teeters at the edge of an abyss—crippled by questions of voting legitimacy and witnessing a media that day-by-day, becomes less an organ for information and news about events around us, and more an instrument of propaganda and an apologist for all things Republican. As the security culture tightens its noose around lady liberty, brought about under the guise of protecting us, we witness the curtailment of basic civil liberties courtesy of the Patriot Act and watch our own freedom and liberty disappear under the fog of fear created by an administration that is bubbling over with hubris.

Churchill, who has written prolifically about so many issues, speaks with a voice that radiates with the language of indigenism—by that, I mean he makes the rights of indigenous peoples his highest priority in his political life, while drawing on the traditions that have evolved over thousands of years by native peoples the world over. This definition comes from Churchill’s essay, “I Am An Indigenist” (From A Native Son; Selected Essays On Indigenism, 1985-1995-South End Press).

Because Churchill isn’t bound by the Eurocentric paradigm that so many of us have been indoctrinated into from our years of public school education, it’s important to recognize that when his writings are filtered through a European model of understanding, it is easy to take what he writes out of context. And taking his writing and statements out of context is exactly what Bill O’Reilly and others seeking to pile on Churchill, have done. Churchill is a direct threat to their outmoded Eurocentric worldview. Rather than accept his critique, they prefer to slander him and muzzle him by discrediting his scholarship with lies and false innuendo.

It is interesting to me that the essay that has elicited so much recent controversy was actually penned shortly after the events on 9-11, over three years ago. The essay, which made its way around the internet, was eventually developed into a book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens. The first rule that any neophyte journalist learns, is not to take a source’s words out of context—that’s Journalism 101, basically—unless the object is to slant what your source says and make it align with an angle or opinion that you want to push. Then, you are practicing advocacy journalism, which is of course what Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity practice on Fox, as do others like Pat Buchanan on MSNBC, to name but a few on the right side of the propaganda continuum.

The quote that got Churchill in trouble and the one being used to tar and feather this unique and courageous Native spokesman and activist, is the phrase or characterization of “little Eichmanns”, as in the "…technocrats of empire" working in the World Trade Center were the equivalent of "little Eichmanns." So, what did Churchill mean? Would he, a member of an oppressed and innocent class, take delight in the pain and suffering of other innocent people? Of course not! He was not characterizing the Twin Tower victims of 9-11 as “Nazis” at all, as has been attributed by others on the right. Just this afternoon, O’Reilly, on his nationally syndicated radio program on several occasions stated that Churchill was calling the victims of the WTC incident, “Nazis”.

It’s obvious in listening to O’Reilly, as he fumes about Churchill, that either he lacks the intelligence to read a nuanced essay, such as the one that Churchill is being demonized for, or he has an obvious predilection for a specific ideological agenda. While it might be tempting to engage in the same ad hominem attacks and name-calling that O’Reilly predictably resorts to on a daily basis, in actuality, O’Reilly, while a mean or even a hateful person, is not stupid.

As he stated in his January 31 press release, Churchill carefully noted that just as the Allied forces targeted German industrialists for attack during World War II, so did those attacking the WTC in New York. The “Eichman reference was in regards to Adolph Eichmann, who was never charged with direct killing, but whose job it was to ensure the smooth operation of the German infrastructure, which made genocide possible. There is no dispute that the Pentagon was a target or that there were CIA offices in the WTC. Just as our own military officials have targeted individuals and targets as “legitimate”, by the same logic, the location of similar command and control infrastructure in the WTC made it a “legitimate” target for attack by whoever flew those planes into the buildings. At no point in his essay did Churchill call those killed in the WTC “Nazis”. That is a fallacious statement that O’Reilly continues to recite in order to add credibility to his meme that the left “hates America”, as he is fond of repeating, ad nauseum.

Unfortunately—given the limited attention span of so many Americans—writers like Churchill don’t engage in sensationalism and sound bite journalism. If his attackers had taken the time to read his books, they would recognize that his research and scholarship is thorough and well documented. He is not a quick read and he meticulously footnotes every chapter of every book. For those members of the right-wing noise machine, taking the time to understand his thoughts and ideas would require time, which is time that keeps them from their hate-filled and venomous attacks on those they disagree with. It’s much easier to grab a sentence here and a phrase there and twist it, in order to assassinate the character and good name of a man that they’ll never come close to being like.

While it might be a good way to build an audience that applauds every word that falls from your lips, it’s certainly no way to insure liberty and freedom in our own democracy.