The *real * question, is, of course: what is Churchill’s position on Banner Ads?
It embarrasses me that he is from my state.
Which Dixie Chick are you, again?
Support unpopular views? All of them, or just his? There are a lot of unpopular views, so you’re going to be all over the map on this. I’m guessing that is not what you meant.
Yep, as you and others have pointed out, that was very poorly worded. I was after the right to present unpopular views. Likewise, people have the right to respond to his views, including opinions that he is a jerk and a moron.
OK. I don’t think anyone here would disagree with that.
Feh. Ward Churchill is a pre-packaged stereotype, the lefty professor who poisons the minds of our youth. The tighty righties have been bleating about him for forty years, long before they ever actually knew he existed, or, for that matter, before he even did exist.
Notice how quickly friend Moto drew a connection to Cindy Sheehan, inviting you to share his disdain and offering you a big ol’ scoop of innuendo. Cindy Sheehan hasn’t the slightest need for my defense, or my approval. I have enormous sympathy for her suffering, however much I may feel that said suffering has unhinged her faculties. None of this is her fault, the fault lies with the scoundrels and fools who visited this suffering upon her.
We don’t defend her because she isn’t in the news, she isn’t an object of discussion, hence there is no occassion to defend her. Period. Full stop.
If Ward Churchill didn’t exist, it would have been necessary to invent him.
Hold back a bit there, 'luc. None of it is her fault?
Don’t go all mamby pamby liberal on us here. I feel sorry for CS, and hers is a tragic story. But she chose her path, at least to some extent. We all do.
No, you misunderstand. This is all part of his brilliant plan to get himself on the lucrative Holocaust Denial lecture circuit. As Lyndon LaRouch, Art Bell, and Oprah Winfrey have aptly demonstrated, there is no limit to the amount of asinine glurgage and outright lies you can spew out that will endear you to some demographic which will subsequently and ardently support your political campaign/book and lecture tour/diet plan/mid-level marketing scam.
Let’s face it; rock stars and pundits make a lot more money than college professors. Getting out of the college grind, and in such an explosively publicity-fueled way was the best move Churchill could have made.
Stranger
“Namby-pamby liberal”! My seconds will call on you, sir. Jack Daniels and five card stud at two paces.
Are you that offended by bad spelling? 
Hold on there. I wasn’t making much of a political point with the comparison. I was just pointing out that both of these figures engaged in such obnoxious behavior and rhetoric over time that any allies they had have been chased away.
I also seem to recall that folks who suggested back in the day that Cindy Sheehan had been driven nuts by her experiences were attacked as rightwingers out to discredit her message. Funny how that’s shifted, huh?
For the record, I have never questioned Sheehan’s sanity.
I think it’s pretty meaningless of you to be phrasing everything in terms of either “supporters” or not. It’s possible to have a nuanced view of someone like Cindy Sheehan, and one which has changed in its nuance over time. Don’t feel that you can win some big prize by going back 3 or 4 years and finding someone who said something positive about CS, and then a more recent post by the same poster saying something negative. It doesn’t make that person a hypocrite or a flip-flopper or anything.
There are various public figures on the left (the two most obvious being Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan) who I’ve at times thought “eeeeeyuch, please shut up” and at other times thought “wow, I’m glad someone is raising that topic or point in a visible way… it’s an issue that should be a part of the national discourse”.
I agree with much that has been said above. I have just posted to say, again, that Churchill does not speak for Indians at large (because he ain’t one), for the American Indian Movement, for Indian veterans or for those of us in those demographics who are anti-Bush and anti-Iraq War.
Much he says is not incorrect, but he is not in business to reveal truth, he is in the business of self-aggrandizement. He has always been this way. I don’t believe anyone else here claims to claim Churchill. I do and have for years. Some one said, above, that it’s the same old game with him and it’s played out. That is absolutely accurate.
The only way to support him is in supporting free speech and dissent. Unfortunately, freedom of speech is not always exercised by those who feel responsibility for their words.
I am not inclined to post in the pit not to pile on, but I feel this needed to be said.
As an afterthought and edit, colonists and Americans did in fact knowingly give small pox ridden blankets and clothing to Native Americans. Denial of an ugly past doesn’t make it less true. It doesn’t work vis a vis genocide of NDNs any more than it does regarding the issue of slavery.
Thanks
Hawk
Sometimes I really have to wonder what possesses them to bring some people to this campus. This is the one “non-mainstream” speaker that my self-proclaimed commie prof didn’t try to force us to listen to. Then again, he’s Jewish, so that might explain it.
This is true, but having a nuanced view doesn’t mean that someone didn’t hold a coherent opinion at all, one that they have changed since later facts revealed that their assumptions were wrong. Being wrong doesn’t make you a hypocrite, but it does make you less qualified to make sweeping judgments before the facts are all in. You would probably agree, for example, that public trust in Sharpton et al (such as they had to begin with), dropped once their precious Duke rape case turned out to be a pack of lies.
Yes, although I’ve lost track of what that has to do with anything. When Cindy Sheehan was just a grieving mother who wanted to put a visible public face on families who had lost loved ones, and get a straight answer from Bush as to why we were there, I respected that. When she then started going a bit kooky, did that mean that putting a visible public face on families who had lost loved ones was suddenly, retroactively, a dumb thing for her to have done?
“Cindy Sheehan did X” is not a coherent or meaningful argument in favor of Bush and/or the war.
Um, how badly did the KKK hurt Ronald Reagan, you wacked-out nutjob?
My trust in Sharpton dropped precipitously when the Brawley case was exposed as a pack of lies shortly after it started and he still supported it. And, to the best of my knowledge, he still has not paid his share of the civil judgement against the liars and their supporters. Frankly, at this point, he could discover a way for smokers to not get cancer and I’d still detest him.
[/hijack]
Oh, yeah, Churchill too.
Whoosh, dude, whoosh. I’m sure elucidator is awaiting with breath as bated as mine the GD thread entitled, “Will winning the Presidency backfire on the Democrats?”