The Ward Churchill Flap

The Ward Churchill flap is a sad commentary on our Academic world, and the kind of person who becomes involved in administration in this world.

First it seems that Mr. Churchill, who is a pretended Native American, according to those who should know about these things, apparently was given a professorial position by those who believed he was one. This was despite his lack of a doctoral degree, and the lack of a department with any desire to make this appointment. The charitable view is that it was a scheme of administrators, hoping to show their devotion to hiring Native Americans; unless of course it was a scheme by radical leftist administrators to bring a friendly advocate to their campus.

Recently Churchill managed to enrage lots of people by calling the victims of the World Trade Center attack on 9/11 “little Eichmanns” who well deserved being murdered, without any process, let along the elaborate due process afforded to the original Eichmann.

This earned Churchill some attention. A number of people who had ignored him or been unaware of his existence, decided to take a look at him.

Some were appalled by what they found. He has been accused of selling artwork he claimed to have created, which were direct copies of the works of others. He has been accused in the past of quoting authors of writing the exact opposite of what they actually did write. Many soon convinced themselves that he was a fraud and a quack and a disgrace to any associated with him.

The administrators, who had been fooled into hiring him, or their successors, took a Rather-different approach. They proclaimed their loyalty to him and accused their critics of trying to violate his free speech and Academic Freedom. After all, had he not made himself known by his statements nobody would have bothered noticing his frauds and dishonesties and his whiteness, and thus their foolishness, and there would be no pressure to dismiss him.

Still others were delighted to find him. Among these was the noted left wing TV political wit (well at least part of one) Bill Maher. Maher decided to give Churchill the opportunity to expand on his views by interviewing him on his TV show. Some felt that this was unusually bad taste on Maher’s part, and Maher’s behavior during the interview did have elements that only a left wing kook could love.

But Churchill’s appearance was actually comical despite Maher’s efforts to turn it into liberal self-hatred and cranky anti-Americanism.

Comical, you ask?

Yes!. Churchill revealed the reason for his condemnation of the inhabitants of the Trade Center who died. It seems they were involved in efforts to promote international trade, and in particular, to export good American jobs to foreign shores. This was their crime, and the janitors and clerks who helped them, and police and firemen who tried to save them were guilty of aiding and abetting them in this horror. And so, according to Churchill, they all deserved the summary execution without trial that they received.

And Churchill insisted on this point despite all of Maher’s efforts to divert him to condemning the importation of slaves from Africa and being to violent in war and such like sins.

Apparently Churchill is not concerned with the poor and downtrodden; certainly the impoverished people abroad who improve their lives by taking on the exported jobs are considerably worse off financially than those who lose the jobs in this country; and the losers are Americans. So he is not motivated by concern for the poor and downtrodden. One wonders how all Americans can be guilty of capital crimes merely by helping poor people abroad at our own expense.

There are only two possible explanations for Churchill’s view: one is that he is a radical chauvinist, who cares not a whit for the people in Taiwan, India, Malaysia, Korea, China, Thailand, Viet Nam, and so on, who have risen to prosperity from these exported jobs. To Churchill, doing something that helps them (and in fact helps our economy and our people as well) is a capital crime, because it hurts some Americans. Never mind that economists tell us that it is beneficial to Americans as well.

The second is that he views our economic dealings with these foreign nations as evil in itself. We are, in this view exploiting the foolish individuals who take the jobs offered to them. Offering jobs to people who do not have them (or who have worse jobs) is a crime against nature. It is one because it benefits us as well, and it benefits the evil ones among us such as those who worked at the Trade Center. This, you see, makes it evil.

This view may seem strange to you, but it is entrenched at most American Universities. It is called Marxism. You see, according to Marx, all economic activity is exploitative, and therefore all those engaged in it are evil. You might think this would exclude the workers, such as those actually at the Trade Center, who are presumably also being exploited (like those Mexicans, Chinese and Vietnamese who would be so much better off without jobs). Apparently not. Do not attempt to follow the logic of it, since there is none. Foreign trade is just plain evil. Countries that avoid it, like Burma and North Korea, are the only truly happy societies.

Now be honest, isn’t this comical? That a grown person in this world, a respected professor at what I had thought was a leading American university, can pride himself on proclaiming such things, and be supported by a large number of colleagues (who seem to agree!) . You have to laugh or cry. I’d rather laugh.

But Maher may have a problem on his hands. I dimly recall a Massachusetts law that makes it a crime to exhibit freaks or midgets or otherwise handicapped persons for profit. I hope for his sake that no such law can be applied to this program.







.








l