There’s literally nothing to debate. I also don’t want to debate “of what elements is the sun mostly comprised?” You and BrainGlutton seem to want to argue that professors ought to be immune to the court of public opinion. BrainGlutton is trying to push it even further, that they ought only be immune if they share his extreme anti-American views. The answer is no, they should not. Done, end of discussion, move along to the next thread. Churchill has to take his lumps just like Summers does.
Bullshit. He tries to thread the needle by simultaneously advocating their deaths and then when being called on it claiming “Who, little ol’ me? I didn’t say that.” He called them “little Eichmanns” for such “crimes” as setting underwriting standards for business insurance policies and trading government bonds for 64ths of a point. He said that the ‘penalty’ exacted upon the victims was ‘befitting.’ Eichman was tried and executed, something which could not possibly have escaped his notice when he chose the phrase.
[quote]
He tries to thread the needle by simultaneously advocating their deaths
I have to admit I didn’t read his paper but I did watch Paula Zahn interview him.
He said the attacks were predictable.He also said “they " were looking for reasons. I assume” they" meant people in general. I didn’t hear him say he advocated anything like the attack. I believe he was only trying to explain it.
The attack was against the American monetary infrastructure.The real question should be did the people that died have a control of the American monetary infrastructure.
Let me get this straight. We are on one side of an issue and you are on the other. But there’s literally nothing to debate. You are right and we are wrong. If that were the limit of your debating ability, indeed if that were the limit of your understanding of what constitutes a debate then I would suggest that you move on to MPSIMS to find threads that aren’t beyond your capacity to comprehend.
But that’s not the limit of your understanding or skill. You’ve shown better over the years. Why are you being so obtuse here? It seems pretty clear to me you don’t want to argue the point. Fine. Why not just move on instead of being reduced to saying such ridiculous things?
Well, perhaps I’m missing something. Help me out here. Here are all the elements of the alleged debate as I see them:
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“Why all the fuss?” Well, that’s not a debate. He made outrageous remarks which were picked up by the national media and people object to them. Surely no one is seriously questioning the right of people to make a “fuss,” right? So no debate. Settled issue. In the words of Leland McKenzie, “Move along, Douglas.”
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“Academic Freedom,” whatever that is. One might reasonably construct a debate about it, but it doesn’t appear to me that anyone has here. Churchill was pressured to give up his department chair position, just as Lawrence Summers is receiving no small amount of pressure over his remarks. But he isn’t in danger of being fired that I’m aware of (at least over his remarks – there may be a subsequent discussion over his honesty regarding his ethnicity and what implications that may have, but I think everyone agrees that that would be beyond the scope of this thread). If I’m in error, than that is indeed a debate topic. But if I’m not, then I think everyone in the thread is agreed that some amount of institutional pressure might reasonably be brought to bear on a person who makes remarks seen as objectionable by the institution, yes? Settled issue.
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The content of Churchill’s remarks. It could be that BrainGlutton is trying to start a debate over the content of his remarks – he’s certainly dancing around it, wearing his hatred of America and Americans on his sleeve while misinterpreting or justifying this remark or that to deflect the criticism Churchill so richly deserves. As best I can tell, you are not trying to debate that. So I have no debate with you, and I have no wish to debate BrainGlutton on the point. People who refer to bond traders as “little Eichmanns” whose deaths are a “penalty befitting their participation” in the American economic system are not to be debated, they are to be shunned by all civilized people. People who defend the legal right to make such a remark are commonplace; I’m among them. But people who defend the remarks themselves are also to be shunned by the civilized. I will express my disappointment that more people did not take the opportunity to agree with that, but I recognize of course that not eveyone opens every thread and that one with a “no shit, Sherlock” title such as this one might reasonably be overlooked.
Aside from that, Cranky and I are having a side discussion of what is a position of trust and whether Churchill abused it (if he has one) in the promulgation of his views. That is proceeding normally.
What am I missing here?
Nope. What he said is that additional terrorist attacks are necessary to achieve the political results he favors – which is indistinguishable in any meaningful sense from saying that he wishes for more terrorist attacks to occur.
Huh! I thought you were against the notion that Churchill should keep his job even if his notions are unpopular. If not perhaps it is me who should pack his tents and move to MPSIMS. 
And, while I do not propose to defend all of Churchill’s remarks ( for me, the “penalty befitting their participation” line in particular is going too far ) I have tried to point out when people misrepresent them. I would do the same about your comments that BG hates America but he is here to explain himself.
I have no trouble distinguishing the 2. In the dark period after the last election I thought that the Republicans had gained a national hegemony that couldn’t be broken except by the same thing that broke their last one: an economic depression. While I did say that the disaster would achieve the political result I favor, I wasn’t hoping that those who were predicting such an event sooner rather than later were correct.
Obviously you know what I’m doing here. This guy embarrasses me and people like me, and I have a self-interest in de-affiliating his ideas with his role as a professor and scholar. I’m having to walk a fine line between offering legitimate, useful professional knowledge of academe, and indulging my impulse to drag in any ol’ osbcure bit of insider’s trivia to support my desperate desire to distance my field from this crackpot. You’re welcome to call me out when I do the latter.
I think you are right about that trust thing, at least in the ideal.
In practice, being chair does give someone more responsiblity, but it’s not a position of, say, honor or prestige, and doesn’t put someone above his colleagues. It’s often an administrative burden that willing faculty take turns sharing, and faculty regular leave a chairmanship for their regular position with no loss in prestige (unless they resign in disgrace, heh). That doesn’t really answer the point about him having some authority over teachers and curriculum, I realize, but I thought it might be helpful for people outside of academe to understand that being chair doesn’t mean one has been promoted or is held in higher esteem by the university. I would question how much influence he has over his fellow faculty–he can’t change their course content, or force them to teach his ideas. And I don’t think he could cajole them into making vast curricular changes to extol his own ideas.
As for the teaching side, it seems that higher education has always been willing to tolerate some eccentricity in its faculty ranks, even looking the other way when faculty seem to violate good sense and good pedagogy. I am not sure why this is, but perhaps it’s some acceptance of the idea that young people in college are not as vulnerable and impressionable as those in K-12, and that higher education is not compulsory. It is not to our credit that we’ve been uneven in this laissez-faire attitude–it’s more likely to be suspended when it comes to things that…well, fuck it, I hate the term, but it’s easier to just say “aren’t PC”.
In Churchill’s case, it seems his writings, and his speaking engagements, are separate from what he does as a professor in the classroom guiding students and grading them. It is in those direct relationships with enrolled students that I see the trust issue as being most compelling.
Colleges which hosted him in the past admitted to having him as a provocateur, generating debate on campus (although not, to my knowledge, about 9/11).
This is a really interesting question for me, for all kinds of reasons that will bore the ass off the average person. I think faculty and their institutions want to have it both ways. Studies have shown that prominent faculty tend to feel much more affiliation with their discipline than their institution. At the same time, however, they gain some legitimacy from their place of employment. Institutions are very proud of their best faculty, and are quick to trumpet the affiliation whenever faculty are lauded. Yet they use ‘academic freedom’ to distance themselves from faculty who say/do embarrassing or objectionable things. They want all of the reflected glory and none of the tarnish.
I am sure that Ward Churchill (and institutions who hired him) used his faculty position as a legitimizing factor. This is not just some guy, this is the CHAIR of a department at a flagship state research university. You’ll find that in every juried publication, in every biographical statement. Who is this guy, where does he teach. It’s like a sig file. And yet, for all that it’s not like he’s speaking FOR the University when he writes.
In reality, major universities really don’t have close ties to their faculty–they tenure them (hopefully with care; the tenure decision is usually based on one’s standing in the academic community beyond the institutional border) and pay them, but they do not monitor their writings, lectures, publications and so forth. There is a hands-off attitude which is often summed up as “academic freedom” but I believe it is broader than that. I happen to think that hands-off attitude is crucial for academe, but it has its drawbacks too. One of which is demonstrated by situations like this. Faculty will do, say, and write a lot of things as themselves, a scholar in their particular field (or even just as themselves) but their institutional affiliation is almost never separate from what they are doing–nor is their PhD credential. Its kind of a paradox–your employer has almost no control over what you say, but the fact of your employment there is attached to you like GLUE.
What’s worse is that it looks like CU didn’t tenure him carefully. It’s a separate issue (because I readily believe a properly-tenured professor might come up with stuff just as offensive), but it has really bitten them in the ass.
Christ I’m rambling.
I dunno if any of that answers what you were talking about.
Because this post just wasn’t long enough yet, I wanted to share some interesting quotes from a Hamilton faculty member that appeared in the Chronicle if Higher Ed last week–I thought the guy was damned apt. Here’s an excerpt:
*“Colleges, if they choose to be a marketplace of ideas, have to be willing to bring in people who say pretty repugnant things.” Nevertheless, [Phillip Klincker, an associate professor of government] adds, “If I want to have someone come to class to talk about problems with the Treaty of Versailles, I don’t have to bring in a Nazi.”
[cut some stuff here]
. . . Back at Hamilton, the issue has moved beyond simply Mr. Churchill’s words. Mr. Klinkner says the controversy proves that academe cannot think of itself as separate from the rest of society. “You can forget about the notion of the ivory tower and that we can keep all these things in-house,” he says. “Any piece of information that exists will get out. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. This was not good for Hamilton, but we need to acknowledge that we can no longer say, No, we’re going to play by our own rules.” *
Yes, but only WRT their job security.
You are misrepresenting my position. I have nowhere suggested Summers should be held to a different standard than Churchill; I stated that in both cases, their tenure as professors should not be in jeopardy.
:mad: You are also misrepresenting my views. I believe the U.S. has been in the wrong in a great many things our government has done in recent decades. I also consider those of the elite who dominate the American economic system to be the enemies of most Americans (and of practically all foreigners). I also believe the U.S. should subordinate its sovereignty, to some extent, to international bodies such as the International Criminal Court, as the European nations and many others have done. None of those positions are “anti-American.” I am a better patriot than any conservative, because I want what is best for my country and for the wider world.
Is it then your position that it was proper for the University officials to pressure Churchill to resign his chairmanship?
Oh, please. In this thread alone you have opined that “if (the terrorists) had been soldiers, then Churchill would be perfectly right: The WTC was a ‘legitimate target by standards proclaimed by the U.S. government itself,’” that “American global financial empire is arguably the main impetus behind the American global military hegemony – which is still not equivalent to Hitler’s rule, but it comes a hell of a lot closer” and that “it is, in many respects, a fundamentally predatory system,” and suggested striking “The Hamptons, or Westchester County.” You are anti-American by any reasonable interpretation.
I really have no problem with that, although Cockburn does.
Not anti-American, simply an argument for an impartial application of rules (and that in an entirely hypothetical situation).
:dubious: Horseshit. I am criticizing America’s ruling elite, economic system, and government policy. There is nothing anti-American about criticizing any of those things – such criticism is something good Americans do, and have always done. Was Henry David Thoreau anti-American? Was William Jennings Bryan? Was Martin Luther King? Was Eugene Debs? (Answer: NO. Especially WRT Debs.)
OTOH, manhattan, believing uncritically that your country, or whoever is authorized to speak for it, is always in the right is not patriotic. It is an abdication of a citizen’s personal moral responsibility. IMO, it verges on treason. See this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=296108
Actually, all we had to do was wait a bit. Rather than simply cheering on the terrorism of others, Ward Churchill advocates terrorism and specifically counsels others to engage in it and therefore should be fired.
The onlly possible response to this which wouldn’t belong in the Pit is that son, you ain’t no V-for-Victor Debs.
Nor would I pretend to be. Debs was a great leader, I’m a nobody. But I can be just as patriotic as he, or Bryan, or Thoreau, and I think I am. (And I know I’m more patriotic than Dubya.) Who you are is irrelevant to that, isn’t it? Do you think a Republican senator is more patriotic than you, because he is a senator?
You sound like one of those insane people who, when people laugh at them, say “They laughed at Galileo! They laughed at Newton! They laughed at Einstein!”
So back on the topic, still think Churchill should keep his job? Does your notion of academic freedom extend to specific exhortations to violence complete with advice on how best to accomplish it?
Of course it does. Academic freedom, IMO, should include everything up to and including revolutionary politics. I repeat: An academic should have the freedom to advocate armed revolution against the United States government. So should everybody else, for that matter. It really rankled me when I applied for admission to the Florida Bar and had to swear that I had never belonged to an organization advocating revolution against the State of Florida or the United States. I signed the oath, of course, and honestly; my most radical affiliation to date had been with the Democratic Socialists of America, a distinctly non-revolutionary organization. (I’ve more recently joined the Socialist Party USA – still non-revolutionary and not even strictly Marxist. Communists, Trotskyists, Maoists, etc., consider us wimps.) But I shouldn’t have had to take such an oath at all. I should not even have been asked the question.
Now, the statements attributed to Churchill in your link do give me pause – but I still say revolutionary politics are legitimate politics, even if I don’t embrace them. A revolutionary, by the way, can still be a patriot. Churchill is not a patriot, even in principle, he doesn’t really approve of the USA as a project – and that’s a legitimate position to hold, too. But it is possible to be a good, patriotic, loving-your-country American, and still want to overturn its political and economic system, for the good of the country.
And the only “how-to” in that link is the following:
Seems like strong stuff now, would not have in the '60s – which speaks better of that decade than of this one. I don’t really want to harm our ruling class, but I do want the motherfuckers good and scared! 
BTW, manny – I am more patriotic than thou! 
WOW manny
a triple post yesterday.
a double post followed by a single today.
If I didn’t know better I’d ask if you were padding your post count
I just caught a clip of one of Churchill’s speeches to a group in Berkeley, CA. He calls openly for the destruction of the USA…“the USA has got to go, and take Canada with it!”. He turned into quite a coward though, because he used to say thet the NYC firemen “deserved to die”. Now he’s saying that their deaths were “unnecessary”.
Yeah Ward, keep on preaching your hate for America…hopefully the Uof C will come to their senses and fire you. Meanwhile, why don’t you move to one of those societies that you so admire…like Quaddaffi’s Libya.
Does Churchill still cash his paychecks? Why doesn’t he really live by his convictions? I’d hate to be a Colorado taxpayer, and realize I was payng taxes to support this moron.
Isn’t one of the purposes of the Florida bar (and the other state bars) to enforce and help maintain Florida law? By joining the bar, you’re pledging to help uphold the law and be a fair advocate, so that your clients will have access to the protection of the law. In other words, by joining the bar, you’ve become an agent of Florida law. So, it makes sense that they’d want you to swear an oath that you don’t want to subvert or violently overturn that law.