It seems that a tenured professor at the University of Colorado is facing termination.

Ward Churchill has been under fire since 2001, when he started making public statements that the victims of the 9/11 attacks were little more then Nazis.

In fact, in his own words he stated:

As for those in the World Trade Center, well, really, let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire -- the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved -- and they did so both willingly and knowingly.

Since 2005 he has been under investigation for these remarks and others.  Among the most serious charges is that he has ghost-writen several books that he has used as references in his own work.  And that he has ghostwriten favorable reviews of his own work.  He has also been charged (in academic circles) with plagarism.

Of course, Prof. Churchill is not going down without a fight.  In a statement recently, he said "I've got more faith in almost anything (than in the university process), a random group of homeless people under a bridge would be far more intellectually sound and principled than anything I've encountered at the university so far."

I am sure that that will endear him to many in the academic community.

It seems that a tenured professor at the University of Colorado is facing termination.

Ward Churchill has been under fire since 2001, when he started making public statements that the victims of the 9/11 attacks were little more then Nazis.

In fact, in his own words he stated:

As for those in the World Trade Center, well, really, let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire -- the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved -- and they did so both willingly and knowingly.

Since 2005 he has been under investigation for these remarks and others.  Among the most serious charges is that he has ghost-writen several books that he has used as references in his own work.  And that he has ghostwriten favorable reviews of his own work.  He has also been charged (in academic circles) with plagarism.

Of course, Prof. Churchill is not going down without a fight.  In a statement recently, he said "I've got more faith in almost anything (than in the university process), a random group of homeless people under a bridge would be far more intellectually sound and principled than anything I've encountered at the university so far."

I am sure that that will endear him to many in the academic community.


I think he should go.  People this f'ed up should not be teaching in a state university.  When is he going to grow up anyway....or maybe it's just a chemical imbalance.

I like Ward Churchill the way I like Jello Biafra.  That said, I wouldn't want to see Jello as a university professor. 

No coincidence, Jello Biafra's label released a double CD of Ward Churchill's rantings several years ago. 

Ward Churchill: another case of

http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s78/AL-B_photos/attention-whore.jpg

I say, let his 15 minutes run out already.  ::)

If he is fired for plagiarism, fine.  For the rest, what would the value of tenure be if he were fired on the grounds of what is considered inflammatory speech?  Consider the possiblities.  There are a lot of educators out there saying some pretty horrendous things.

If he stays there will be trouble,
If he goes it will be double....
8)

If he is fired for plagiarism, fine.  For the rest, what would the value of tenure be if he were fired on the grounds of what is considered inflammatory speech?  Consider the possiblities.  There are a lot of educators out there saying some pretty horrendous things.


True.  And they should all pay the penalty of their remarks.

Remember, this man is also an Anti-Emite.  In remarks in the past, he has blamed a lot of the problems of the world on Jews.

To me, this is simply unacceptable.  It is no more excuseable if he said that terrorism is the fault of Muslims, or that blacks deserve to be poor because they are stupid.  This man is a racist, and he is a moron.  And he simply refuses to take responsibility for his own statements and hides behind "Oh pitty me, they are picking on me because I am right".

I am all for "Freedom Of Speech".  But along with that freedom comes "Taking Responsibility for your Actions".  Any professor is free to say things like "American Indians are racially inferior" or "Asians are naturally smarter then everybody else in the world".  But they then have to pay if their remarks are incitefull or hatefull in content.

And I certainly do not want people like him teaching in "Higher Education" in this country.

Maybe he should apply to teach in Syria or Lebanon.  I am sure his courses would be very popular over there.

yeah, ole ward is a darling of the right because he gives them lots of ammo. that said, if you think we went into iraq to liberate them, then ward is full of crap. if you think we went into iraq because it’s key to an economic strategy that hinges around getting control of the world’s resources then he maybe has a point. we’re all participating in a system that contributes to some really heinous, immoral garbage like the iraq war. that would actually make me a little eichmann too because i do a lot of defense department work. what can i say? a lot of us participate in a system we strongly dislike because we have to eat. the guys who worked in the WTC were the same way, and they died for it.

one of these days we’re gonna have to bite the bullet and start asking WHY people are so pissed they’re willing to die flying planes into buildings. it’s not just because they’re crazy, and it’s not because they “hate our freedoms.” of all the lies the administration has told, that’s the biggest.

If he stays there will be trouble,
If he goes it will be double....
8)


:D

one of these days we’re gonna have to bite the bullet and start asking WHY people are so pissed they’re willing to die flying planes into buildings. it’s not just because they’re crazy, and it’s not because they “hate our freedoms.” of all the lies the administration has told, that’s the biggest.



I think this guy sums it up pretty well.

I think this guy sums it up pretty well.

As a Saudi, that guy ought to hold the leaders of his own country responsible as well. Oil Oil Oil! 

Most Americans did not vote for Bush and most of those who did vote for him wouldn't do it again. 

Not that Clinton was much different in the imperialism dept., he was just nicer about it.
::)


True.  And they should all pay the penalty of their remarks.
It's like the old joke about the Soviet Union--
American: My country is better than yours because we have freedom of speech.
Russian: You Americans don't realize we Soviets have freedom of speech too!
American: You do?
Russian: Yes, comrade, but after speech--NO FREEDOM!

If you have to "pay the penalty" is speech really "free"? 

No. 

If we only wanted people to say things the majority agreed with, we wouldn't need a First Amendment.

And please spare me the red herring  of the exacerbating extreme: "What Ward Churchill told his students to shoot police officers" or some such rubbish.

Regardless of WC's opinions about 9/11 or Jews, one might find him unqualified for a six-figure a years professorial position. 


Remember, this man is also an Anti-Emite.  In remarks in the past, he has blamed a lot of the problems of the world on Jews.
He's real sweet on us gentiles though!
Jews do cause a lot of the worlds problems.  GASP! 
:o
Hey, now before you guys throw a fit, I'll just say I'm from WASP ancestry.  Talk about causing a lot of the world's problems! 

To me, this is simply unacceptable.  It is no more excuseable if he said that terrorism is the fault of Muslims
Some of it is.

or that blacks deserve to be poor because they are stupid.
Whereas criticizing the Israeli government or condemning Hamas does not--or should not--imply a blanket statement about all Jews or all Muslims, that statement is purely racist.  It's a comment on innate worth not political behavior.  Indeed, the Nazi government decreed that Jews were genetically defective and made no distinctions. BTW, WC did not mean "little Eichmanns" as a compliment.

This man is a racist, and he is a moron.  And he simply refuses to take responsibility for his own statements and hides behind "Oh pitty me, they are picking on me because I am right".
No, I think Ward Churchill is keenly intelligent, he's just wrathful and misguided.  I agree with you in the sense that people use the status of "victim" to justify their own viciousness.  The Nazis considered themselves *victims* of the Jews.  Church-going Republicans consider themselves *victims* of secular Democrats.


Maybe he should apply to teach in Syria or Lebanon.  I am sure his courses would be very popular over there.

Why not Cuba or Venezuela for that matter!
:D


ward is full of crap.
We knew that already!
;)

Most Americans did not vote for Bush and most of those who did vote for him wouldn't do it again. 


In reality, that quote is both true, and not true.

The simple fact is that the majority of eligable voters do not vote at all.  I think during the 2004 election, something like 38% of eligable voters actually cast a ballot.  And this has been the norm since the 1960's.  So in reality, no president since DDE has probably gotten a "True Majority".

However, George Bush did get the majority of voters who did cast a ballot.  The first time this has happened since Ronald Reagan.  Neither his father nor Bill Clinto were able to get a majorty of cast votes during any of their elections.


And please spare me the red herring  of the exacerbating extreme: "What Ward Churchill told his students to shoot police officers" or some such rubbish.

Whereas criticizing the Israeli government or condemning Hamas does not--or should not--imply a blanket statement about all Jews or all Muslims, that statement is purely racist.  It's a comment on innate worth not political behavior.  Indeed, the Nazi government decreed that Jews were genetically defective and made no distinctions. BTW, WC did not mean "little Eichmanns" as a compliment.
No, I think Ward Churchill is keenly intelligent, he's just wrathful and misguided.  I agree with you in the sense that people use the status of "victim" to justify their own viciousness.  The Nazis considered themselves *victims* of the Jews.  Church-going Republicans consider themselves *victims* of secular Democrats.


The problem in many areas is that they lump "Jews" and "Israel" together into one bag labeled "Cause of the World's Problems".  To many on the extreme, Israel really runs the world, and every organization from the UN, the US, UK, and even Saudi Arabia and Egypt.  They also control all the banks, TV networks, movie companies, publishing houses, and newspapers.  Mush like the "Red Scare", they see Jews hiding under every rock, and that they are the cause of all the problems in the world.

9/11?  Oh, that was a Jewish/Israeli plot to get the US to destory the Muslims.  High gas prices?  Oh that is a Jewish plot to control the world's economy.  The Internet?  Oh that is a way for Jews to control all access to information.

To be honest, even Ward's plagerism charge is relitavely meaningless to me.  After all, everybody plagerizes from everybody.  Of course in most cases, it is called "improvement".  What bothers me most is his false sources.  He wrote positive reviews of his own work, hiding uner an assumed name.  And in his work, he used sources that turned out to be himself.  That is something that is simply not acceptible in academic circles.  And he was caught red-handed.

Of course, his career has been full of such lies.  He first came to the attention of anti-war groups in the 1960's after serving in Viet Nam in the Army.  He made claims that he had served in a Recon unit, and had participated in war crimes.  He claimed to have had Airborne training, and had participated in incursions into Cambodia and Laos.

Of course, in the 1980's it came out that he was actually trained as a truck driver, and that his tour in Vietnam never saw him more then 30 miles of Saigon.  And of course there were his claims that he was a member of the Weathermen.  This was so secret that not even the FBI new of him being a member.  In fact, even members of The Weathermen that had been caught have all claimed that they did not know who he was, and had never seen him before.

In short, he is morally bankrupt, and has a 30+ year pattern of lying to suit his purposes.  Even his Doctorate is of an honorary nature, which means that his even being a tenured professor is not legitimate.

However, George Bush did get the majority of voters who did cast a ballot. 


In 2004, yes.

In 2000, I don't think George Bush got the majority vote:

http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/2000presgeresults.htm


After all, everybody plagerizes from everybody. 

Be careful using absolutes there, Mushroom. As a parody author, I can tell you the worst thing to levy against another writer is a call of plagiarism. Most people I know of come up with their own material. To say that everybody plagiarizies from everybody is a bit insulting. It's also possible for two people to come up with roughly the same idea at the same time independent of one another.

I honestly don't know enough about Ward Churchill to know if he is a plagiarist, but, assuming for the moment he is, that appears to be the least of his faults.

Be careful using absolutes there, Mushroom. As a parody author, I can tell you the worst thing to levy against another writer is a call of plagiarism. Most people I know of come up with their own material. To say that everybody plagiarizies from everybody is a bit insulting. It's also possible for two people to come up with roughly the same idea at the same time independent of one another.


Reread what I said:

After all, everybody plagerizes from everybody.  Of course in most cases, it is called "improvement". 

A great example of this is in computers.  When MicroSoft came out with Windows, Apple accued them of stealing it.  Never mind that Apple themselves stole the idea from Xerox.  And do you think that every car company in the world independently came up with the idea of how cars are designed?  4 wheels, driver operating to the side (as opposed to the center, which was the norm for wagons), turn signal indicator on the left side of the steering wheel.  Or TV sets, which almost universally had the controls on the right side of the screen.

But of course there is also cases where things are clearly plagerized.  Look at how many times "The Seven Samuri" has been made into a film.  Everything from The Magnificent Seven and The Bad Pack and A Bug's Life is just a retelling of that movie.  But none of the other movies claimed to be original.  They all freely admitted that they stole the original idea.

Everything made is simply an improvement on something that came before.  However, very few people try and claim that an idea was entirely their own.

Send him to Antartica, baby!

In 2004, yes.

In 2000, I don't think George Bush got the majority vote:



Oh, oh, oh, oh Ohio
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won_.php

I read what you said.


Reread what I said:

After all, everybody plagerizes from everybody.  Of course in most cases, it is called "improvement". 

A great example of this is in computers.  When MicroSoft came out with Windows, Apple accued them of stealing it.  Never mind that Apple themselves stole the idea from Xerox.



I'm somwhat familiar with the way Apple started. They did steal the idea from Xerox. But...


  And do you think that every car company in the world independently came up with the idea of how cars are designed?  4 wheels, driver operating to the side (as opposed to the center, which was the norm for wagons), turn signal indicator on the left side of the steering wheel.  Or TV sets, which almost universally had the controls on the right side of the screen.




Of course not. While most cars have similar characteristics (an engine, wheels, a body, brakes, etc.), similarities don't amount to plagiarism. Plagiarism does not have anything to do with this whatsoever. Patents would cover any proprietary design on automobiles, and have a 20 year life. Even though most US cars have the driver seated on the left, if anyone had patented the idea 80 or 90 years ago, the patent has long since expired.


But of course there is also cases where things are clearly plagerized.  Look at how many times "The Seven Samuri" has been made into a film.  Everything from The Magnificent Seven and The Bad Pack and A Bug's Life is just a retelling of that movie.  But none of the other movies claimed to be original.  They all freely admitted that they stole the original idea.



Unless a fair amount of script was used unacknowledged or without permission from The Seven Samuri in the latter movies, it's not plagiarism.

Most horror films have similar themes: a person walking into a dark room and not turning on the lights, etc. Those don't amount to plagiarism either. Uncreative, yes.


Everything made is simply an improvement on something that came before.  However, very few people try and claim that an idea was entirely their own.


In a sense, yes. Guns had been around long before Maxim made them fully automatic. BMW's AutoPark is just another car (an expensive one at that), that happens to help you to parallel park it. Siemen's version is fully automatic. Electric heating is hardly a new idea, yet the first person to put heating coils inside a small box and call it a toaster had made something new. TV is not a new idea, but Sony's new paper thin TV is hardly a plagiarism of the old 300lb floor models of the 70s. Aside from displaying a picture, they are radically different in every other respect.

before.

In short, he is morally bankrupt, and has a 30+ year pattern of lying to suit his purposes.  Even his Doctorate is of an honorary nature, which means that his even being a tenured professor is not legitimate.



This would fall back on the University for giving him tenure in the first place.  His tenure is legitimate because the college saw what his credentials were and allowed him tenure.  I know a couple of people who had to go through the tenure process and it can be excruciating, depending on if they really intend to give you the honor or not. It is the colleges disgrace, but a disgrace that they have to live with.

How is his teaching? I don't think what he said has any bearing on his job. If he is fired, it should be because of his job performance. That pesky little thing called the First Amendment does get in the way, doesn't it?



Cat

How is his teaching? I don't think what he said has any bearing on his job. If he is fired, it should be because of his job performance. That pesky little thing called the First Amendment does get in the way, doesn't it?



Cat


I agree.  The university hired him.  It should be up to them to fire him.  Not Bill Orally!

It is the colleges disgrace, but a disgrace that they have to live with.



I agree.  The university hired him.  It should be up to them to fire him.  Not Bill Orally!


Actually, the College is trying to fire him on ethics charges, completely unrelated to anything he might have said.  He is being fired because:

1.  He lied in reguards to his credentials.
2.  He plagarized and falsified papers.

And I simply can't buy "The College hired him, they have to live with it".  What if he was a doctor?  If his Medical License is found to be fraudulent, he is removed.  If a Lawyer is found to have submitted fraudulent data to take the Bar exam, he still looses his license, even if he passed the exam.

The only thing this has to do with his statements is that by his opening his big mouth, he drew a lot of attention to himself.  And upon looking into the "evidence" that supported his views, it was discovered that he himself made up that evidence (and published it under another name to hide that fact).  And a lot of people who he claims as sources in fact wrote something totally different. 

He has my Grandmother's Tribe very angry at him (The Potawatime Nation) because one of his papers was nothing but a reprint of one of their researchers, with his own name used as the original author.  And he did not even give credit to the original author as a source, claiming it was all original work.  And that charge has been going on for over 8 years now.

Actually, the College is trying to fire him on ethics charges, completely unrelated to anything he might have said.  He is being fired because:

1.  He lied in reguards to his credentials.
2.  He plagarized and falsified papers.

And I simply can't buy "The College hired him, they have to live with it".  What if he was a doctor?  If his Medical License is found to be fraudulent, he is removed.  If a Lawyer is found to have submitted fraudulent data to take the Bar exam, he still looses his license, even if he passed the exam.

The only thing this has to do with his statements is that by his opening his big mouth, he drew a lot of attention to himself.  And upon looking into the "evidence" that supported his views, it was discovered that he himself made up that evidence (and published it under another name to hide that fact).  And a lot of people who he claims as sources in fact wrote something totally different. 

He has my Grandmother's Tribe very angry at him (The Potawatime Nation) because one of his papers was nothing but a reprint of one of their researchers, with his own name used as the original author.  And he did not even give credit to the original author as a source, claiming it was all original work.  And that charge has been going on for over 8 years now.


This is very different from a doctor who is killing or maiming people, or a lawyer who represents clients and let them get sent to the chair.  I can understand them letting him go for the plagiarism charge if the plagiarism occured after he was given tenure.  If he got his position through false credentials then shame on them for not checking the sources for such an important position.  I have known people who have gone through the tenure process, successfully and not. There is a different standard for college professors given the consequences for mistakes made by doctors and lawyers, and well there should be.

This is very different from a doctor who is killing or maiming people, or a lawyer who represents clients and let them get sent to the chair. 


So a fraudulent doctor or lawyer who is successful should not be removed?

Ward Churchill has a long history of being a liar.  It goes back well over 20 years.  It does not matter if it is discovered during the tenure process or 20 years afterwards.  If it is discovered he submitted fraudulent information, then he should be dealt with.  The same with fraudulent research.

Fraudulent Research alone should be enough to get him terminated.  Even if he had not lied about his credentials, there is no excuse for lying in research.  Especially if that material is then used as an instructional aid.  That does nothing but make a mockery of the education process.

7 years ago when I was at Boeing, our department head was discovered to have bought his Bachelor's Degree from a diploma mill.  He was gone l;ess then a week later.  It did not matter that he had run his department well for over 3 years, he lied about his background and was terminated.

So a fraudulent doctor or lawyer who is successful should not be removed?

Ward Churchill has a long history of being a liar.  It goes back well over 20 years.  It does not matter if it is discovered during the tenure process or 20 years afterwards.  If it is discovered he submitted fraudulent information, then he should be dealt with.  The same with fraudulent research.

Fraudulent Research alone should be enough to get him terminated.  Even if he had not lied about his credentials, there is no excuse for lying in research.  Especially if that material is then used as an instructional aid.  That does nothing but make a mockery of the education process.

7 years ago when I was at Boeing, our department head was discovered to have bought his Bachelor's Degree from a diploma mill.  He was gone l;ess then a week later.  It did not matter that he had run his department well for over 3 years, he lied about his background and was terminated.


Nooooo, a fraudulent doctor or lawyer should be removed, but the standard for a college professor should not be the standard for someone who holds your life in their hands..  They just fired a woman from MIT, in a non teaching position, who had done her work well, very well, for 12 years.  I think that was just plain stupid.  After 12 years her work was her credentials, same for your department head, if he was doing the job and doing it well there could have been another way of resolving the situation.  The sad part is people are obviously being asked for certain qualifications that are not needed in the positions they are in.  If those qualifications were necessary they would not have lasted in those positions for the length of time they performed them.  When someone has been able to hold a position successfully that long I would question the motives behind their terminations.  The woman at MIT after 12 years is particularly troubling.

Nooooo, a fraudulent doctor or lawyer should be removed, but the standard for a college professor should not be the standard for someone who holds your life in their hands.. 


No, they only hold the education of our youth in their hands.

And while we are at it, let's let Dr. Hwang Woo-Suk return to his research.  Who cares that it was fraudulent and he coerced his own stuents and aides into donating eggs for use in tests.  He did not kill anybody after all, so he should not be punished.

And while we're at it, return Oscar Ayala-Cornejo to the Milwauke Police Department.  Who cares that he is an illegal alien who was useing an assumed identity (that of his dead cousin).  After all, why does a cop have to follow the law?

I guess I just hold people in positions of authority to a higher standard. 

This would fall back on the University for giving him tenure in the first place.  His tenure is legitimate because the college saw what his credentials were and allowed him tenure.  I know a couple of people who had to go through the tenure process and it can be excruciating, depending on if they really intend to give you the honor or not. It is the colleges disgrace, but a disgrace that they have to live with.


So tenure is a shield to hide behind??  It would be the universities fault for not completing a thorough enough investigation into his credentials before granting tenure so it's the colleges shame and their fault??  Really??

What would prevent a certain percentage of teachers and professors "walking the line" until tenure was granted and then having a complete disregard for their teachings or conduct??  Would that be the colleges fault as well??  How could the college or school in question defend themselves or prepare themselves for an occurance as that??

What if it is discovered that the professor is caught downloading something like child pornography off the web after he's tenured??  Blame it on the school for not investigating him thoroghly enough to begin with??  I can see the ACLU screaming bloody hell over the background investigations that a policy like this would produce.....

What if it is discovered that the professor is caught downloading something like child pornography off the web after he's tenured?? 

Well, I suppose he could conduct his courses via the internet from his prison cell!


Jeeeez, you guys...I wonder sometimes!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/07/nut.gif

No, they only hold the education of our youth in their hands.

And while we are at it, let's let Dr. Hwang Woo-Suk return to his research.  Who cares that it was fraudulent and he coerced his own stuents and aides into donating eggs for use in tests.  He did not kill anybody after all, so he should not be punished.

And while we're at it, return Oscar Ayala-Cornejo to the Milwauke Police Department.  Who cares that he is an illegal alien who was useing an assumed identity (that of his dead cousin).  After all, why does a cop have to follow the law?

I guess I just hold people in positions of authority to a higher standard. 


This is college, not junior high, and in my experience college students encounter many diverse opinions in the course of their college life.  It is in college when views are challenged, explained, changed, solidified.  Ward Churchill got himself into trouble for his speech, his fraudulent credentials weren't an issue until his political views were not unacceptable.  There are reasons to lose tenure, in this case the issue was voicing unpopular views.

Just like lawyers and doctors police should be held to a higher standard, but in reality being what Ayala-Cornejo did is extremely minor compared to what goes on in police departments everyday by our own homegrown, I am sure that is undisputable.  If they are going to bounce Ayala-Cornejo for that I would hope that they are just as diligent with their other officers.

Well, it seems that Ward has finally had his day in court.

He won his case, claiming that he was fired inappropriately.

And the jury awarded him damages.  $1.

Maybe he can now take his award and get a cup of coffee.  And crawl back under the rock he came from.

Well, it seems that Ward has finally had his day in court.

He won his case, claiming that he was fired inappropriately.

And the jury awarded him damages.  $1.

Maybe he can now take his award and get a cup of coffee.  And crawl back under the rock he came from.


;D

I heard Churchill was trying to get his old job back.  Come on, Ward, just let it go.  Forget about it.  You're done.  The jury a-ward-ing him one dollar is a bigger F.U. than if they'd a-ward-ed him nothing at all!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/03/countdown.gif

BTW, I don't think you can get a cup of coffee for a buck anywhere in Boulder.  A grande latte will run you $3.89 and you're looking upwards of $6.00 if you want biscotti with it!

I'm sure Ward can get another book deal, another lecture tour, and another Alternative Tentacles release.  He'll be all set.

you can say what you want about WC, and he does seem to be a bit of a douche, but there's a decent argument to be made that the WTC was a legitimate military target by the same rules that the clinton administration used to bomb radio stations and the like in kosovo. weren't there CIA and FBI offices in WTC? not that al qaeda cared about these rules anyway. but the problem's more with the rules than the people who worked there, of course.

you can say what you want about WC, and he does seem to be a bit of a douche, but there's a decent argument to be made that the WTC was a legitimate military target by the same rules that the clinton administration used to bomb radio stations and the like in kosovo. weren't there CIA and FBI offices in WTC? not that al qaeda cared about these rules anyway. but the problem's more with the rules than the people who worked there, of course.


Uh-oh, here we go again!
::)

well, the pentagon definitely was a legitimate target, right?

weren't there CIA and FBI offices in WTC?


There was a CIA office in #7 World Trade Center.  And that was destroyed, but because of fire and structural damage from the collapse of #1 & 2 WTC.

However, this was a "secret office", and this was not released until December 2001, after they finished recovering or destroying all records that were in the office at the time.  The office was an administrative one, which actually processed domestic terrorism intelligence.

I have not heard of any office of the FBI in any of the WTC buildings.

Of course, he claimed a lot of things that were patently false.  Ward never seemed to let things like facts stand in the way of his teachings.

There was a CIA office in #7 World Trade Center.  And that was destroyed, but because of fire and structural damage from the collapse of #1 & 2 WTC.
Uh-oh, here we go again!  Might as well dig up the old 9/11 threads and cut-and-paste!
:D


Of course, he claimed a lot of things that were patently false.  Ward never seemed to let things like facts stand in the way of his teachings.


I just thought it was hysterical and abusive for WC to refer to the people who worked in those buildings as "Little Eichmanns."  That's a way to preach to the choir of all those who automatically hate anybody who works in an office, but no way to "win friends and influence people."  Heck, it wasn't even like everybody who worked in the Towers was some kind of venture capitalist.  A lot of them were file clerks and janitors.  I mean, everybody needs a job.  Any one of us could just as well have been working in those buildings on that terrible morning.  Are we "Little Eichmanns" too?
::)

i take the position that a lot of people work to support things they hate because they gotta make a living somehow. churchill's little eichmann thing smacks of entitlement; here he is in a privileged oposition talking to a bunch of college kids who haven't necessarily HAD to go out and make a living yet.

still, there is kinda a devil's-side argument to be made about the pentagon and WTC as targets. ironically, defining the attacks as an act of war rather than a crime against humanity leaves one open to these kinds of objections. if you say 911 was actually the attack that started the war then it's no more legitimate than pearl harbor. but folks are always saying we've been at war with the terrorists since at least the 90s. so...

I just thought it was hysterical and abusive for WC to refer to the people who worked in those buildings as "Little Eichmanns."  That's a way to preach to the choir of all those who automatically hate anybody who works in an office, but no way to "win friends and influence people."  Heck, it wasn't even like everybody who worked in the Towers was some kind of venture capitalist.  A lot of them were file clerks and janitors.  I mean, everybody needs a job.  Any one of us could just as well have been working in those buildings on that terrible morning.  Are we "Little Eichmanns" too?


I could very well have been one of them myself.  I had a job interview in 1998 in the WTC.  I was given an offer, but turned it down so I could return to LA.  If I had taken it, I would have been working on the 50-something floor.

In the last few months, I have been doing more and more reading about Ward, and this guy most of the time takes little bits and pieces of history, and puts them together in ways to fit his own beliefs.

Right before I came got on the plane to come to Qatar, I got a Small Pox innoculation.  And out of my usual curiosity, I did some browsing on Wikipedia about both the disease and the innoculation.

For some reason, Ward (and a lot of others) keep spreading the rumor that the US Army passed around disease infected blankets to American Indians during the 1800's.  Ward is one of the biggest believers and spreaders of this lie.

In reality, it was 1763, and it was the British Army that did this.

In fact, one of the very first Innoculation programs in the US was started in 1832.  It was aimed solely at eliminating the disease among the Native Americans.  It was not until 1843 that states (Mass was the first) started requiring innoculation.

It's funny how lies like his take on a life of their own.  And since the US is so evil, they must be true, right?  ::)

I could very well have been one of them myself.  I had a job interview in 1998 in the WTC.  I was given an offer, but turned it down so I could return to LA.  If I had taken it, I would have been working on the 50-something floor.

In the last few months, I have been doing more and more reading about Ward, and this guy most of the time takes little bits and pieces of history, and puts them together in ways to fit his own beliefs.

Right before I came got on the plane to come to Qatar, I got a Small Pox innoculation.  And out of my usual curiosity, I did some browsing on Wikipedia about both the disease and the innoculation.

For some reason, Ward (and a lot of others) keep spreading the rumor that the US Army passed around disease infected blankets to American Indians during the 1800's.  Ward is one of the biggest believers and spreaders of this lie.

In reality, it was 1763, and it was the British Army that did this.

In fact, one of the very first Innoculation programs in the US was started in 1832.  It was aimed solely at eliminating the disease among the Native Americans.  It was not until 1843 that states (Mass was the first) started requiring innoculation.

It's funny how lies like his take on a life of their own.  And since the US is so evil, they must be true, right?   ::)


It is troubling that he would reach so far back when he could have just called upon the the ghost of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.  The hands of the US is far from clean.

It is troubling that he would reach so far back when he could have just called upon the the ghost of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.  The hands of the US is far from clean.


The Tuskegee Experiments were an abomination, which had started with good intentions.  While their beginning was of questionable merit (1932-1947), any data collected after 1947 is morally bankrupt.  That is because prior to 1947, there was no effective treatment for syphilis.  But once penicillin was announced as a cure, there is no moral excuse to continue.

Of course, things like that have happened since, and still do to this day.  Ted DeVita comes to mind.  Also the increasing cases of cancer and other health issues of people undergoing experimental stem cell injections.

i take the position that a lot of people work to support things they hate because they gotta make a living somehow. churchill's little eichmann thing smacks of entitlement; here he is in a privileged oposition talking to a bunch of college kids who haven't necessarily HAD to go out and make a living yet.

First you take wide-eyed undergrads and introduce them to the atrocities they don't teach in high school, then you can start every argument with the following assumption: White man bad, Indian good.  By the time you get to calling the 9/11 victims "Little Eichmanns," dissenters have either dropped the course or are too intimidated to speak up.  This is not history, it's emotional blackmail.  I don't like it anymore than I would like a David Horowitz Patriotic Education curriculum!
::)

still, there is kinda a devil's-side argument to be made about the pentagon and WTC as targets. ironically, defining the attacks as an act of war rather than a crime against humanity leaves one open to these kinds of objections. if you say 911 was actually the attack that started the war then it's no more legitimate than pearl harbor. but folks are always saying we've been at war with the terrorists since at least the 90s. so...

Good point.  Agreed.

In reality, it was 1763, and it was the British Army that did this.

In fact, one of the very first Innoculation programs in the US was started in 1832.  It was aimed solely at eliminating the disease among the Native Americans.  It was not until 1843 that states (Mass was the first) started requiring innoculation.

Smallpox blankets? Yes, Lord Jeffrey Amherst, the namesake of my town, was one of the practitioners.  Now and again protesters make a scene about it, but it's not like they can change the name of Amherst and Amherst College.  So they cry for a change to Lord Jeffrey Manor or Jeffrey Lane.  Town meeting dawdles on it for a while and it goes away for another ten years!
::)
The tiny town of Amherst, NH, had a protest movement by the high school students for the same reason to change the name of the town back to its founding name, "Souhegan."  That didn't get anywhere either.

The point for Ward Churchill is the smallpox blankets were something the white man did to the Native American.  Whether it was the British army or the colonists who did it is a distinction without a difference to Ward. 


The Tuskegee Experiments were an abomination, which had started with good intentions.  While their beginning was of questionable merit (1932-1947), any data collected after 1947 is morally bankrupt.  That is because prior to 1947, there was no effective treatment for syphilis.

Good intention to infect a test population with an incurable disease?  Why not choose a group of white pilots?

Good intention to infect a test population with an incurable disease?  Why not choose a group of white pilots?


They did not infect people with the disease.  They simply tracked them to see what effect it would have on them over time.

And remember, when the program started a cure was still 15 years away.  The "cures" available at the time were basically symptamatic treatments, and did nothing to actually cure the disease.  The closest thing to a cure was the Kettering hypertherm, or "Fever Chamber". 

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,788023,00.html
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/101/6/789

This was not a guaranteed cure.  It was dangerous, and very uncomfortable.  The patient was basically locked in a box, shot full of narcotics, and the temperature was raised until the patient had a fever of approximately 106+ degrees for 3-5 hours.  This was done several times over several days.  About 50% of the time, this let the body fight off the disease.  The other 50%, the patient simply went through agony (and potential brain damage or death) with no effect on the disease.

It was not until 1947 that a true "cure" was available.  After the advent of penacillin as a VD cure, there was no excuse for not ending the program.

Of course, things like that have happened since, and still do to this day.  Ted DeVita comes to mind.  Also the increasing cases of cancer and other health issues of people undergoing experimental stem cell injections.




In these cases there was at the very least consent from the patient, or parents.  Not so in the case of the children used by MIT who were given radiation in their cereal, without their, or their parents, knowledge or consent.  It only came to light in 1993 with the declassification of information, to my knowledge, not one of the adults ever came forward in all those years to blow the whistle for those dealing with the after effects.  This does go on, it is naive to think this stuff isn't going on as we speak.

They did not infect people with the disease.  They simply tracked them to see what effect it would have on them over time.



D'oh! That's right.  My mistake.

Churchill has the right to say whatever he wants, but his management has the right to fire him if what he says angers most of the people of Colorado.

Churchill has the right to say whatever he wants, but his management has the right to fire him if what he says angers most of the people of Colorado.



Not really, as long as the management is bound to the practice of tenure they do not have the right to fire him.  That is why tenure was instituted,  to prevent firings based on the opposing views...first amendment and all that.  Since he did ultimately win the suit, he will now be able to sue for reinstatement.  It is the fault of the tenure committee that Ward is there with the powerful tool of tenure.  They could have denied tenure, but they didn't(I would ask why), now to paraphrase...the chicken has come home to roost.

Not really, as long as the management is bound to the practice of tenure they do not have the right to fire him.  That is why tenure was instituted,  to prevent firings based on the opposing views...first amendment and all that.  Since he did ultimately win the suit, he will now be able to sue for reinstatement.  It is the fault of the tenure committee that Ward is there with the powerful tool of tenure.  They could have denied tenure, but they didn't(I would ask why), now to paraphrase...the chicken has come home to roost.


Well, tenure is BS.

The people of Colorado should hold a referendum as to whether or not to oust him.  The First Amendment only applies to your right to say whatever you want.  It doesn't cover keeping your job no matter what you say.

I'd like to see Churchill reinstated just to watch Bill Orally hit the roof!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/03/diablotin.gif

Well, tenure is BS.

i totally believe in the tenure system. when i went to college i wanted to have professors who challenged my beliefs, said outrageous things, and didn't have to worry about what the flavor of the month was in terms of what ideas are acceptable or no. that's the churchill dilemma. if he wants to say the wtc victims were little eichmanns, i should be able to attend his class, hear that, and argue that he's right or wrong. i had a professor of ethical philosophy in undergrad make an argument that child pornography is acceptable. and it was a good argument, it was hard to refute. he made it to demonstrate that rhetoric is separate from kneejerk emotional reaction, no matter how sure you are that your emotional reaction is legitimate. if child pornography is wrong, he said, then you need to come up with an objective argument why it is, not just howl like monkeys and shriek moral outrage. you have to trust reason.

and then, after making us all squirm and shuffle, he actually did refute his own argument logically. to this day i remember that and think it was brilliant professoring, but if Fox News were making that guy's curriculum decisions for him, he never would have been able to do it, and in fact he probably would have been thrown in jail because the knuckle-draggers at Fox can't see an inch beyond the literal and would have assumed he was a peedo because he dared momentarily to stipulate to the legitimacy of such impulses, even if only to make a larger point.

the question with churchill is, are these accusations really about academic misconduct -- plagiarism and so forth? or are they an attempt to control the expressed opinions of a tenured professor? because if a college administration does the latter, in the long run it will only undermine that administration's legitimacy. most folks in the university system understand how the tenure system works and will not be impressed to join the witchhunt to burn churchill for expressing unpopular opinions, if that's what's really going on here. and it will ultimately work to the detriment not of churchill but of the school. if on the other hand other university types determine he actually was a plagiarist and the scrutiny attracted by his comments merely brought that to light, that will ultimately out too. these guys aren't dumb -- well, some of them are, but enough of them aren't -- and plagiarism is the ultimate crime in higher education. i don't think they'll sweep it under the rug. ultimately i think the judgment on churchill will end up being fairly clear.

and there. i guess i'm showing that i believe in the university system, warts and all, much the way mushroom believes in the institution of the military. kinda interesting, that.

Nothing makes me believe more in the tenure system than its detractors.

i totally believe in the tenure system. when i went to college i wanted to have professors who challenged my beliefs, said outrageous things, and didn't have to worry about what the flavor of the month was in terms of what ideas are acceptable or no. that's the churchill dilemma. if he wants to say the wtc victims were little eichmanns, i should be able to attend his class, hear that, and argue that he's right or wrong. i had a professor of ethical philosophy in undergrad make an argument that child pornography is acceptable. and it was a good argument, it was hard to refute. he made it to demonstrate that rhetoric is separate from kneejerk emotional reaction, no matter how sure you are that your emotional reaction is legitimate. if child pornography is wrong, he said, then you need to come up with an objective argument why it is, not just howl like monkeys and shriek moral outrage. you have to trust reason.

This is kind of sad.  You guys would have something entirely different to say if Churchill was insulting black people or some other racial minority.  Or how about this...  What if Churchill said that he thought the Jews deserved the Holocaust?  Would you still support his tenure?

What if he gave bad grades to black students because he thought they had inferior minds?

This is kind of sad.  You guys would have something entirely different to say if Churchill was insulting black people or some other racial minority.  Or how about this...  What if Churchill said that he thought the Jews deserved the Holocaust?  Would you still support his tenure?


I said I support the tenure system.  I wasn't referring to WC per se.  Refer back to my opinion on his "Little Eichmanns" statement.  Whether a given professor stays or goes after saying odious things is up to the institution that employs him/her. 



What if he gave bad grades to black students because he thought they had inferior minds?



Yeah...that would be certainly qualify as a problem!
:o

I said I support the tenure system.  I wasn't referring to WC per se.  Refer back to my opinion on his "Little Eichmanns" statement.  Whether a given professor stays or goes after saying odious things is up to the institution that employs him/her. 

The point is...  tenure is an easily abused system.  People should be subject to performance and to the will of the people when it is a tax-funded institution.  We already fall behind enough as it is with education.  We don't need idiots holding our children's futures back.

This is kind of sad.  You guys would have something entirely different to say if Churchill was insulting black people or some other racial minority.  Or how about this...  What if Churchill said that he thought the Jews deserved the Holocaust?  Would you still support his tenure?

What if he gave bad grades to black students because he thought they had inferior minds?

ideally that sort of thing comes out in the tenure process. it isn't easy getting tenure, you have to undergo careful scrutiny among your peers, and it's all on the record. so it would be interesting to see why churchill got tenure; it's hard to imagine that he got it because the system that gave it to him was completely corrupt, because getting tenure is sorta like getting security clearance, only the evaluation takes much longer. genuinely advocating discredited positions like the advocacy of slavery would disqualify you as quickly as selling state secrets would disqualify you in the military.

ideally that sort of thing comes out in the tenure process. it isn't easy getting tenure, you have to undergo careful scrutiny among your peers, and it's all on the record. so it would be interesting to see why churchill got tenure; it's hard to imagine that he got it because the system that gave it to him was completely corrupt, because getting tenure is sorta like getting security clearance, only the evaluation takes much longer. genuinely advocating discredited positions like the advocacy of slavery would disqualify you as quickly as selling state secrets would disqualify you in the military.


Well, I'll put it this way.  I can tell you from personal experience that tenure is corrupt at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

It's corrupt in ways you probably wouldn't expect.  For example, there are a number of black professors there that have the stereotypical militant attitude and clearly favor black students over whites.

If it was the other way around, it would be headline news.

Well, I'll put it this way.  I can tell you from personal experience that tenure is corrupt at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

It's corrupt in ways you probably wouldn't expect.  For example, there are a number of black professors there that have the stereotypical militant attitude and clearly favor black students over whites.

If it was the other way around, it would be headline news.

you'll get some of that, yeah. and i think churchill might ahve done some of that. a lot of folks who subscribe to identity politics do it. it's not enough to throw out the tenure system, it has to be reformed somewhat, though.

you'll get some of that, yeah. and i think churchill might ahve done some of that. a lot of folks who subscribe to identity politics do it. it's not enough to throw out the tenure system, it has to be reformed somewhat, though.


I've just never liked anything that deviates from performance based systems.

Both unions and tenure seem to drag institutions down when it comes to quality.

I've just never liked anything that deviates from performance based systems.

Both unions and tenure seem to drag institutions down when it comes to quality.


Were they ever? ::)

I've just never liked anything that deviates from performance based systems.

Both unions and tenure seem to drag institutions down when it comes to quality.
slavery is extremely high performance. so is child labor.

slavery is extremely high performance. so is child labor.


Touche! Karma.

All teachers should get performance-based pay....as soon as the CEOs do!
::)

This is kind of sad.  You guys would have something entirely different to say if Churchill was insulting black people or some other racial minority.  Or how about this...  What if Churchill said that he thought the Jews deserved the Holocaust?  Would you still support his tenure?

What if he gave bad grades to black students because he thought they had inferior minds?



Those are two totally different issues.

For example, there are a number of black professors there that have the stereotypical militant attitude and clearly favor black students over whites.

If it was the other way around, it would be headline news.



So you are suggesting that there are not white professors who favor whites over blacks?  If you are you are being either naive to the extreme, or disingenuous.

The point is...  tenure is an easily abused system.  People should be subject to performance and to the will of the people when it is a tax-funded institution.  We already fall behind enough as it is with education.  We don't need idiots holding our children's futures back.



We aren't talking about children, we are talking about (hopefully) well educated young adults who are being prepared for a future in which not everything they hear is truth or lie.  They are going to need the tools to be able to argue for or against, with themselves and others.  To only have people in the educational institutions of higher learning who pass a litmus test of values can only be detrimental to all.  I believe the students at the college took his course because it was provocative and it fired them up, sending them to libraries and investigations to solidify their arguments against what he said.  That would be a very good thing.

This is kind of sad.  You guys would have something entirely different to say if Churchill was insulting black people or some other racial minority.  Or how about this...  What if Churchill said that he thought the Jews deserved the Holocaust?  Would you still support his tenure?

What if he gave bad grades to black students because he thought they had inferior minds?

racial discrimination wouldn't be protected by tenure any more than plagiarism. tenure doesn't protect professional misconduct, just the expression of unpopular views.

i'd say in the current academic atmosphere, a professor would be a lot more likely to insult white people than black, at least in the courses I took. and actually that's pretty embarrassing. but that's the point with tenure; you don't just get to hear noncontroversial, conventional views.

slavery is extremely high performance. so is child labor.


Slavery is unwieldy because of the costs of taking care of someone beyond work.  Also, automation renders most production in advanced economies capital intensive rather than labor intensive.

Child labor is very profitable in very poor countries without the capital necessary for automation.  Similarly, slavery is mostly effective for things like the sex trade.  Beyond that, slavery isn't very cost effective, and child labor isn't necessary in a highly industrialized society.


So you are suggesting that there are not white professors who favor whites over blacks?  If you are you are being either naive to the extreme, or disingenuous.


Do 2 wrongs make a right?

Were they ever? ::)


It depends.  Education quality is high in many countries like Canada and much of Western Europe.  While many of these systems have tenure, the reason why quality is kept high is because education is one of the larger parts of the government's budget.

Much of America's infrastructures have suffered due to heavy spending on the military and investments in a highly inefficient Social Security system.  If the distribution of our funds more closely resembled that of a country like Norway, our public amenities would be amazing, but our military would be only moderately powerful.

Essentially, we have traded quality in our public amenities for extreme national security.

The chances of someone conquering us are next to nothing, but the chances of us falling from within have increased over the years due to increased wealth disparity.

Slavery is unwieldy because of the costs of taking care of someone beyond work.  Also, automation renders most production in advanced economies capital intensive rather than labor intensive.

Child labor is very profitable in very poor countries without the capital necessary for automation.  Similarly, slavery is mostly effective for things like the sex trade.  Beyond that, slavery isn't very cost effective, and child labor isn't necessary in a highly industrialized society.
sweatshop and child labor seems to be working pretty good for the chinese, bottom-line-wise. they're highly industrialized. in fact, the idea that we have to compete with them is always touted out whenever someone wants to bust a union or lobby to eliminate the minimum wage and force people to work for less-than-living wages in order to amp up "performance." and, you know, kill them young after a short, miserable life of meaningless toil and subsistence.

the point is, focusing solely on "high performance" in labor is a fast track to creating a desperate, unlivable society for all but a very few. so too is basing higher education on majority rule. it leads to universities merely reinforcing conventional wisdom and becoming vocational diploma mills. the end result is a culture unable to problem-solve its way out of the most basic collective challenges. sorta like if the entire country was made up exclusively of Glenn Beck viewers. i dunno, if we ran things this way we'd probably still think the sun revolved around the earth.

We aren't talking about children, we are talking about (hopefully) well educated young adults who are being prepared for a future in which not everything they hear is truth or lie.  They are going to need the tools to be able to argue for or against, with themselves and others.  To only have people in the educational institutions of higher learning who pass a litmus test of values can only be detrimental to all.  I believe the students at the college took his course because it was provocative and it fired them up, sending them to libraries and investigations to solidify their arguments against what he said.  That would be a very good thing.


I believe you're putting far more faith in the system than is warranted.

Like with corporations, it is most wise to level a critical eye at government run institutions as well.  You can't trust CEO's to follow the interests of the public, and you can't trust universities to remain in touch with mainstream values without having to occasionally check themselves.

It is the responsibility of the public to demand that all professors refrain from extremist views and promote freethinking.

Churchill's dogma is no different from that of a more typical racist.  Just because his view is extreme leftist doesn't make him anymore valid than an extreme rightist.

And like it or not, the views of a professor have a bearing on the learning process that his/her students engage in.  It is most practical to have a professor that is either moderate in composure or wise enough to keep his views to himself.

you can't trust universities to remain in touch with mainstream values without having to occasionally check themselves.this is exactly what you do NOT want universities to do, adhere to "mainstream values." if universities are just supposed to adhere to "mainstream values," why even have universities? we can learn what the "values" of the "mainstream" are by watching TV.

sweatshop and child labor seems to be working pretty good for the chinese, bottom-line-wise. they're highly industrialized.

Compared to the past, yes.   Compared to us, no.   China is still a developing country, not a developed country.  They're doing better than Africa and India, but they still have a long way to go.

in fact, the idea that we have to compete with them is always touted out whenever someone wants to bust a union or lobby to eliminate the minimum wage and force people to work for less-than-living wages in order to amp up "performance." and, you know, kill them young after a short, miserable life of meaningless toil and subsistence.

Comparative advantage requires that low skill labor is performed in poorer countries.  There's really no escaping that.  Unions or not, most low skill jobs simply cannot compete with Chinese production.

the point is, focusing solely on "high performance" in labor is a fast track to creating a desperate, unlivable society for all but a very few. so too is basing higher education on majority rule. it leads to universities merely reinforcing conventional wisdom and becoming vocational diploma mills. the end result is a culture unable to problem-solve its way out of the most basic collective challenges. sorta like if the entire country was made up exclusively of Glenn Beck viewers. i dunno, if we ran things this way we'd probably still think the sun revolved around the earth.


You can promote freethinking without indulging in extremism.  If a student adheres to an extreme view, that is fine.  However, a professor should be expected to be a level-headed and moderate person.

who gets to decide what's extreme? you? me? glenn beck? noam chomsky? do we put it to a majority vote?

this is exactly what you do NOT want universities to do, adhere to "mainstream values." if universities are just supposed to adhere to "mainstream values," why even have universities? we can learn what the "values" of the "mainstream" are by watching TV.


Not everything mainstream is bad.  Suffice to say, if the majority of our country saw 9/11 the same way Churchill did, it would be pretty screwed up.

Mainstream values should be the basis of understanding.  However, if a student chooses to develop an extreme view of his/her own volition that is his/her freedom.

What I'm suggesting is that professors should focus on instruction, not propagandizing.

this is getting me pissed off at jon stewart  :D

who gets to decide what's extreme? you? me? glenn beck? noam chomsky? do we put it to a majority vote?


The majority.

The majority.
yeah. we put that to a vote and decided it's the worst idea ever. sorry.

yeah. worst idea ever. sorry.


As I mentioned in that other thread, I don't hold a very high opinion of the average person, but I realize that a certain amount of majority rule is necessary for societal cohesion.

racial discrimination wouldn't be protected by tenure any more than plagiarism. tenure doesn't protect professional misconduct, just the expression of unpopular views.

i'd say in the current academic atmosphere, a professor would be a lot more likely to insult white people than black, at least in the courses I took. and actually that's pretty embarrassing. but that's the point with tenure; you don't just get to hear noncontroversial, conventional views.


So Churchill's comment wasn't misconduct?  We have a different definition of misconduct then.

Believe it or not, it's not popular to assume black people are inferior either.  You could say it was popular a few decades ago, but times have changed.

The point is, any form of racism should not be tolerated.  It doesn't matter if it's against blacks, whites, or anyone else.

So Churchill's comment wasn't misconduct?  We have a different definition of misconduct then.

Believe it or not, it's not popular to assume black people are inferior either.  You could say it was popular a few decades ago, but times have changed.

The point is, any form of racism should not be tolerated.  It doesn't matter if it's against blacks, whites, or anyone else.
it's not misconduct. it's just stupid. speech isn't "conduct," not in this context. stealing research, slanted grading, trading sex for grades, that's misconduct.

a part of what they teach in universities is that racism is pervasive. it isn't something you can or cannot tolerate, although obviously we shouldn't tolerate it when it's obvious. but racism is often institutional, subconscious, or autonomic.

anyway, am i missing something? i don't think churchill's comments were racist, he was talking smack about the 911 victims but not in a racially insensitive way. the people who preach arguably "anti-white" sentiments in universities are usually saying something to the effect that caucasians in historically white-dominant societies internalize a sense of privilege even when they don't intend to or have the best of intentions. hannah arent said a very controversial thing once about minorities in oppressive societies internalize their inferiority such that for certain metrics they DO become "inferior" -- in terms of education, of problem-solving and life-management abilities, etc. usually when people say things like this they aren't trying to claim any race is INHERENTLY inferior or superior to any other, but cultural biases can create these differences as a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy.

under your regime, i assume we would just live in an imaginary world where race didn't exist and we were never able to talk about it. sorta like how steven colbert doesn't "see" race?

anyway, am i missing something? i don't think churchill's comments were racist, he was talking smack about the 911 victims but not in a racially insensitive way. the people who preach arguably "anti-white" sentiments in universities are usually saying something to the effect that caucasians in historically white-dominant societies internalize a sense of privilege even when they don't intend to or have the best of intentions. hannah arent said a very controversial thing once about minorities in oppressive societies internalize their inferiority such that for certain metrics they DO become "inferior" -- in terms of education, of problem-solving and life-management abilities, etc. usually when people say things like this they aren't trying to claim any race is INHERENTLY inferior or superior to any other, but cultural biases can create these differences as a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy.

Well, my argument is that extremism should not be welcome among professors at public universities.  As a taxpayer, I demand that anyone on my payroll be moderate and levelheaded in their perspective as a teacher.

If Ward was working at a private university, he would have more freedom because only those willing to pay are customers.  As a public employee, we are forced to pay him -- or at least the people of Colorado are.  Therefore, he should reflect what is acceptable to the average Coloradan.

under your regime, i assume we would just live in an imaginary world where race didn't exist and we were never able to talk about it. sorta like how steven colbert doesn't "see" race?


It's one thing to talk about race.  It's quite another to let your bitterness affect your judgment as a professor.  Logic should prevail over any lingering grievances.

Well, my argument is that extremism should not be welcome among professors at public universities.  As a taxpayer, I demand that anyone on my payroll be moderate and levelheaded in their perspective as a teacher.
i think public universities are already sufficiently inferior to their private counterparts, without turning them into echo chambers for conventional wisdoms. obviously majoritarian views have frequently been misguided throughout history -- there was a time we were sure iraq had weapons of mass destruction and i assume under your regime it wouldn't have been allowed to question this. there was a time when we KNEW women were incapable of entering the workplace and weren't as smart or capable as men, we knew people enjoyed being slaves, we knew paranoid schizophrenics were witches, we knew the sun revolved around the earth, and before that we knew the earth was flat. people in universities were instrumental in questioning all these conventional wisdoms, and they were all howled at and derided for it as extremists.

i'm not saying that churchill is anywhere near this caliber but it's worth putting up with him as a minor nuisance in order to make sure that real academics are able to do their work. we'd be living in a much more backward society if it weren't for them. i think you're demanding that if your tax dollars are going to a university, then that university has to suck.

i think public universities are already sufficiently inferior to their private counterparts, without turning them into echo chambers for conventional wisdoms. obviously majoritarian views have frequently been misguided throughout history -- there was a time we were sure iraq had weapons of mass destruction and i assume under your regime it wouldn't have been allowed to question this. there was a time when we KNEW women were incapable of entering the workplace and weren't as smart or capable as men, we knew people enjoyed being slaves, we knew paranoid schizophrenics were witches, we knew the sun revolved around the earth, and before that we knew the earth was flat. people in universities were instrumental in questioning all these conventional wisdoms, and they were all howled at and derided for it as extremists.

Questioning things is different from declaring victims as "little Eichmanns".  I never said questioning things should be disallowed -- only extremism.

i'm not saying that churchill is anywhere near this caliber but it's worth putting up with him as a minor nuisance in order to make sure that real academics are able to do their work. we'd be living in a much more backward society if it weren't for them. i think you're demanding that if your tax dollars are going to a university, then that university has to suck.


Well, there are several arguments in favor of privatizing education, but that's another discussion.  The point is...  Would you be ok with having a professor in a school that promotes white nationalism?  Let's say he doesn't do anything against the rules, but he's vocal in his support for white supremism and the like.  He doesn't come out and say that black people should be killed, but he does blame most problems on blacks and other minorities.

Would you lobby in support of keeping him at the school?

i dont think a white nationalist would get through the tenure process in any but the most disreputable schools. and if he does, you have to question not only him but the review board that gave him tenure. it would end up with the entire university discredited. so i say bring it on, sure. if a university wants to give a white nationalist tenure, that university will soon find its enrollment drying up.

Questioning things is different from declaring victims as "little Eichmanns".  I never said questioning things should be disallowed -- only extremism.
but the word "extremism" has no clear definition. it's inevitable that it will end up creating a stultifying atmosphere in the schools.

there was some chowderhead a few years ago wanted to set a uniform version of history (the pilgrims welcomed the indians, truman bombed hiroshima and nagasaki to end world war ii, reagan ended the cold war, etc.), and require that teachers never deviate from it. of course, this uniformly accepted objective view of history actually had a pronounced conservative and pro-government bias. ideas like this lead to the sort of "education" people get in dictatorial societies.

i dont think a white nationalist would get through the tenure process in any but the most disreputable schools. and if he does, you have to question not only him but the review board that gave him tenure. it would end up with the entire university discredited. so i say bring it on, sure. if a university wants to give a white nationalist tenure, that university will soon find its enrollment drying up.


And why would a tenure board allow a nativist like Churchill to be employed there?

That doesn't speak too highly of the University of Colorado, does it?

but the word "extremism" has no clear definition. it's inevitable that it will end up creating a stultifying atmosphere in the schools.

there was some chowderhead a few years ago wanted to set a uniform version of history (the pilgrims welcomed the indians, truman bombed hiroshima and nagasaki to end world war ii, reagan ended the cold war, etc.), and require that teachers never deviate from it. of course, this uniformly accepted objective view of history actually had a pronounced conservative and pro-government bias. ideas like this lead to the sort of "education" people get in dictatorial societies.


Well, I think that speaks more to the perils of government run education than it does anything else.

And why would a tenure board allow a nativist like Churchill to be employed there?

That doesn't speak too highly of the University of Colorado, does it?
well, i think that's why they wanted to fire him. they were embarrassed they gave him tenure. and no, it doesn't speak well of the university of colorado. see, you keep seeing this as the system not working when i see it as the system working. word gets out they gave this guy tenure and it's embarrassing for the school. that's the incentive to have a careful review process.

well, i think that's why they wanted to fire him. they were embarrassed they gave him tenure. and no, it doesn't speak well of the university of colorado. see, you keep seeing this as the system not working when i see it as the system working. word gets out they gave this guy tenure and it's embarrassing for the school. that's the incentive to have a careful review process.


Right, but why have tenure?  Tenure encourages people to be lazy.  They get comfortable with their position, and they perform less.

I'd rather have a system where performance is the emphasis.

Well, I think that speaks more to the perils of government run education than it does anything else.
i'd distinguish between government funded education and government run curricula. government should fund education so that people dont get disproportionate quality education based on income (to the extent possible). government should never interfere with curricula to promote centralized or "generally accepted" ideas. again, to the extent possible.

it's actually a tricky business because social studies gets less and less emphasis in the schools, partly because DOE doesn't want to be seen as putting forward certain political views. unfortunately the result of this is a generation of kids who know exactly dick about civics. i think the only solution is to allow teachers to teach according to their own political attitudes, within reason, as you say, and punish them if they go off the reservation.

there was a teacher i saw on video talking about how bush is a war criminal and berating any students who disagreed, as though this were fact rather than opinion. that teacher needs to be reprimanded or fired -- not for presenting her opinion, but for confusing opinion and fact. (bear in mind we're talking middle school, now.) up through high school there are certain things you should do to control curriculum so that you dont have kids learning things that are just flat-out wrong, such as incorrect distinctions between fact and opinion. even in university teaching there can be some of this, but not once you get tenure. tenure is explicitly intended to expand the universe of ideas (hence university) as much as possible. good, bad, indifferent ideas.

Right, but why have tenure?  Tenure encourages people to be lazy.  They get comfortable with their position, and they perform less.

I'd rather have a system where performance is the emphasis.
maybe we could have child- and sweatshop-laborers teach.  :D

"Performance" might be measurable in the hard sciences and vocational colleges, but it doesn't make a lot of sense as a metric in social sciences or liberal arts. what's a "high-performance" way to teach Dickens or the civil rights movement? It reminds me of that scene in Dead Poets Society with the silly poetry textbook that proposes plotting poems on two-dimensional graphs where the one axis is "beauty" and the other axis is "truth" or some such.  ;D

there was a teacher i saw on video talking about how bush is a war criminal and berating any students who disagreed, as though this were fact rather than opinion. that teacher needs to be reprimanded or fired -- not for presenting her opinion, but for confusing opinion and fact. (bear in mind we're talking middle school, now.) up through high school there are certain things you should do to control curriculum so that you dont have kids learning things that are just flat-out wrong, such as incorrect distinctions between fact and opinion. even in university teaching there can be some of this, but not once you get tenure. tenure is explicitly intended to expand the universe of ideas (hence university) as much as possible. good, bad, indifferent ideas.


I agree with most of your post, but I'd suggest that encouraging freethinking is more what professors should do rather than expounding on their own ideas.  College is really more about the ideas of the students themselves.  What I'm suggesting is that tenure provides an environment that allows a professor to be more likely to go off the reservation.

If performance is the emphasis, then instruction remains in focus.

maybe we could have child- and sweatshop-laborers teach.  :D

"Performance" might be measurable in the hard sciences and vocational colleges, but it doesn't make a lot of sense as a metric in social sciences or liberal arts. what's a "high-performance" way to teach Dickens or the civil rights movement? It reminds me of that scene in Dead Poets Society with the silly poetry textbook that proposes plotting poems on two-dimensional graphs where the one axis is "beauty" and the other axis is "truth" or some such.  ;D


History isn't hard to measure by performance.  Neither are economics, sociology, or psychology.  There are plenty of central concepts that are necessary to learn in those topics that allow students to come to their own conclusions without having some professor spout off strange tangents.

As for literature and the arts, I suppose there's more room for opinions and unconventional ideas, but Churchill teaches ethnic studies, which is mostly historical and sociological.

This is still enough of an empirical topic to measure in terms of performance.

if you're only teaching memorization of key facts, history teaching performance is easy to measure. but i think on its own, that's a bad way to teach history.

take the A-bombing of hiroshima. there's the mainstream view that the bomb was dropped to end the war. then there's an alternative view that the bomb was dropped to test its effects on a civilian population, and to intimidate the soviets through a demonstration of force. the only way to explore this question is to debate it in class, and that means adopting non-conventional perspectives. a lot of people get offended when you say the a-bomb might have been dropped for cynical reasons, and in an educational system like you propose these alternative viewpoints might not be allowed, i dunno. but i think having that debate in class is the only way to really understand the a-bombing, and there's no "high-performance" way to have that debate; the idea doesn't even make sense.

if you're only teaching memorization of key facts, history teaching performance is easy to measure. but i think on its own, that's a bad way to teach history.

Most of the history courses I took involved writing papers not only for factual purposes but for interpreting the motivations of events.

For example, I wrote a paper about why the Civil War occurred and why Reconstruction mostly failed as a policy.  I was graded on how well I defended my points with facts.

So I would agree that memorization is only part of education, but I would also suggest that critical thinking does not require that a professor harbor radical views.  It only requires the professor is open-minded and interested in challenging his/her students.

take the A-bombing of hiroshima. there's the mainstream view that the bomb was dropped to end the war. then there's an alternative view that the bomb was dropped to test its effects on a civilian population, and to intimidate the soviets through a demonstration of force. the only way to explore this question is to debate it in class, and that means adopting non-conventional perspectives. a lot of people get offended when you say the a-bomb might have been dropped for cynical reasons, and in an educational system like you propose these alternative viewpoints might not be allowed, i dunno. but i think having that debate in class is the only way to really understand the a-bombing, and there's no "high-performance" way to have that debate; the idea doesn't even make sense.


Again, debate is different from being extremist.  A professor should be free to challenge students with alternative views, but if he seriously views things in a radical way, that will influence his ability to teach things in most cases.

By the way, I'm not saying that believing the nuclear attacks in Japan were done to intimidate the Soviets is an extremist view.  I would agree with that interpretation myself, as would many historians.  That's not exactly an unconventional view among the educated.

This all goes back to one thing.  Dogma is the enemy of learning.  Some people are dogmatic about mainstream views, but others are dogmatic about extremist views.  Churchill strikes me as a dogmatic extremist.

Either way, dogma should be removed from education, and dogma is found more often among radicals than it is among moderates.

Do 2 wrongs make a right?




Absolutely not.  But you claim, basically, that there would be hell to pay if a white professor did what you claim black professors are doing.  I am stating that they do do it and always have without becoming "headline news" and for you to state that some black professors can away with what some white professors can't, shows a sorry lack of knowledge of what actually goes on out here in the real world.

Right, but why have tenure?  Tenure encourages people to be lazy.  They get comfortable with their position, and they perform less.


Sounds like Alan Greenspan.  Gotta keep those workers lean and nervous!
::)

Absolutely not.  But you claim, basically, that there would be hell to pay if a white professor did what you claim black professors are doing.  I am stating that they do do it and always have without becoming "headline news" and for you to state that some black professors can away with what some white professors can't, shows a sorry lack of knowledge of what actually goes on out here in the real world.


Come to UNCG.  You'll feel differently.  Your version of reality seems to reflect a very dated interpretation.  This isn't the 60s or 70s.

Sounds like Alan Greenspan.  Gotta keep those workers lean and nervous!
::)


Greenspan's performance was a bit lacking but for other reasons.

Still, I generally support the principle of "out with the old, in with the new."  For the most part, the old feed off of the young like parasites in this country, and it's partially because of things like tenure.

Greenspan's performance was a bit lacking but for other reasons.

Still, I generally support the principle of "out with the old, in with the new."  For the most part, the old feed off of the young like parasites in this country, and it's partially because of things like tenure.



That's why we need to get rid of medicare; put an end to this "aging" business.  You get old and start to limp, then you can't keep up with the herd, and it's time for the crocodiles to take you.  That's the way o' nature!
:D

That's why we need to get rid of medicare; put an end to this "aging" business.  You get old and start to limp, then you can't keep up with the herd, and it's time for the crocodiles to take you.  That's the way o' nature!
:D


Well, at least cut the amount I have to pay into SS.  I'll never get to use it anyway. By the time I'm 60 something, it'll be bankrupt.

i dont think a white nationalist would get through the tenure process in any but the most disreputable schools. and if he does, you have to question not only him but the review board that gave him tenure. it would end up with the entire university discredited. so i say bring it on, sure. if a university wants to give a white nationalist tenure, that university will soon find its enrollment drying up.


How about all the Conservatives that have been denied tenure?  Like it or not, tenure is often politically motivated.  If you do not have the right beliefs, you won't get it.

Don't agree with "Global Warming"?  No tenure.  You believe in "Intelligent Design" (or heaven forbid, "Creationism"), no tenure.  You believe in Capitolism over Socialism?  No tenure.  You take public stances against Abortion, no tenure for you.

If Ward had been saying that everything wrong with the world was the fault of Minorities, or that Manifiest Destiny was a correct philosophy, he would never have even been considered for tenure.  But because his nutcase beliefs and writings are on the far Left, they are considered "radically shiek", and tenure is handed to him.

And now that they are thought of as "Nutcase Left", he is an embarasment.  And they want him out.

Come to UNCG.  You'll feel differently.  Your version of reality seems to reflect a very dated interpretation.  This isn't the 60s or 70s.



 
It wasn't that long ago that a school principal in Alabama was threatening to cancel a prom because there would be interracial couples planning to attend. A student pointed out that she was biracial and asked where she would fit in in the ban.  He told her she was a mistake.  He got a resounding show of support and was able to retain his position.  How egregious, how telling.  So, yes it does work both ways.


UNCG is not the world.  It is a teeny tiny speck. The problem is that both sides, black/white, liberal/conservative, female/male, etc. get away with that form of bullying and for you to believe that favoritism is shown on either side just makes it appear that you haven't enough experience outside of UNCG, or the confines of the social economic circle you travel in, realize that.

How about all the Conservatives that have been denied tenure?  Like it or not, tenure is often politically motivated.  If you do not have the right beliefs, you won't get it.

Don't agree with "Global Warming"?  No tenure.  You believe in "Intelligent Design" (or heaven forbid, "Creationism"), no tenure.  You believe in Capitolism over Socialism?  No tenure.  You take public stances against Abortion, no tenure for you.

If Ward had been saying that everything wrong with the world was the fault of Minorities, or that Manifiest Destiny was a correct philosophy, he would never have even been considered for tenure.  But because his nutcase beliefs and writings are on the far Left, they are considered "radically shiek", and tenure is handed to him.

And now that they are thought of as "Nutcase Left", he is an embarasment.  And they want him out.
well, you know what? there probably IS a left-bias in the universities. there's at least a couple of ways you can go with that. one is that, look, you'll never get rich as a university professor, it pays okay but not so great. and conservatives as a rule tend to put more of a premium on big earnings. (i know, i know, you don't make that much. but i'm saying, in general.)

another, though, is, i gotta be honest... conservatives just dont seem to be that big on facts. (i know, i know, YOU'RE big on facts. but i mean in general.) right now i'm hearing endless doggerel from Fox about how the defense dept budget's getting cut (which it's not), obama wants to raise your taxes (which is only true if you're making 250 thousand a year or more), plus endless tripe about how he's a muslim, his birth certificate is fake, he's gonna take everybody's guns, blah blah blah. i mean, if there was any kind of fact-checking apparatus in the culture of the right wouldn't this stuff be getting caught before it went public? and that's the thing. by and large, universities? pretty big on getting your facts straight, at least. if you wanna make sheesh up, join a PR firm and make three times as much. which is what a lot of conservatives end up doing.

and that's also why you're not going to get tenure talking about how global warming is a fraud or "intelligent design" is as valid as evolution. just like youre not going to get tenure talking about how the world is flat or concocting theories about the lost continent of atlantis. there's a place for fanciful stuff like that -- conspiracy theory mags and right-wing opinion columns, sure -- but universities ain't it.

How about all the Conservatives that have been denied tenure?  Like it or not, tenure is often politically motivated.  If you do not have the right beliefs, you won't get it.

Don't agree with "Global Warming"?  No tenure.  You believe in "Intelligent Design" (or heaven forbid, "Creationism"), no tenure.  You believe in Capitolism over Socialism?  No tenure.  You take public stances against Abortion, no tenure for you.
You believe the moon is made out of green cheese?  No tenure for you!
Hey, you know all those profs at the school of management?  A bunch of Marxist guerrillas!

I've seen a leftward bias in the arts and humanities.  No doubt it's there, but I think it's a quite oversold by the David Horowitz yankee doodles. 


well, you know what? there probably IS a left-bias in the universities. there's at least a couple of ways you can go with that. one is that, look, you'll never get rich as a university professor, it pays okay but not so great.

Tenured professors makes some good money.  I wouldn't sneeze at it; however, it is a loooong way to the tenure track and requires not just kissing ass but figuring out which asses to kiss and when. 

Now like everything else since Ronnie Reagan, universities want to run like businesses; therefore, they want to make the customer happy.  Ward Churchill made a big name for himself with his strident views and the university, it seems, believed he would attract a lot of customers (students) out there in Colorado.  They were right.  Ward got fast track tenure, which turns out to be a mistake on the university's part. 
::)

 
It wasn't that long ago that a school principal in Alabama was threatening to cancel a prom because there would be interracial couples planning to attend. A student pointed out that she was biracial and asked where she would fit in in the ban.  He told her she was a mistake.  He got a resounding show of support and was able to retain his position.  How egregious, how telling.  So, yes it does work both ways.

Then let me ask you this.  You would support firing that principal, right?  Then why not support firing professors that are racist in the other direction?

UNCG is not the world.  It is a teeny tiny speck. The problem is that both sides, black/white, liberal/conservative, female/male, etc. get away with that form of bullying and for you to believe that favoritism is shown on either side just makes it appear that you haven't enough experience outside of UNCG, or the confines of the social economic circle you travel in, realize that.


And the fact that you always harp on one side of the problem shows that you have a bias as well.  Why don't we just agree that racism in either direction should be expelled from schools and leave it at that?

and that's also why you're not going to get tenure talking about how global warming is a fraud or "intelligent design" is as valid as evolution. just like youre not going to get tenure talking about how the world is flat or concocting theories about the lost continent of atlantis. there's a place for fanciful stuff like that -- conspiracy theory mags and right-wing opinion columns, sure -- but universities ain't it.


By the same token, militant nativism doesn't belong in universities either.

By the same token, militant nativism doesn't belong in universities either.
well, again, i think you're confusing something nebulous with something concrete. different people will have different opinions regarding what "militant nativism" means, but espousing things that are just factually wrong, like creationism, in schools is a different class of animal entirely. if we're going to start teaching fantasy as fact, we might as well board up all the schools and admit we've failed at education.

well, again, i think you're confusing something nebulous with something concrete. different people will have different opinions regarding what "militant nativism" means, but espousing things that are just factually wrong, like creationism, in schools is a different class of animal entirely. if we're going to start teaching fantasy as fact, we might as well board up all the schools and admit we've failed at education.


Here are some concrete examples of Ward getting his facts wrong.

"There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center . . .

    Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire – the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved – and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to "ignorance" – a derivative, after all, of the word "ignore" – counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in – and in many cases excelling at – it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it."

First of all, while he might be correct that those working in the WTC were connected to a technocracy responsible for starving some areas of the world, to suggest that destroying the towers was a justified punishment ignores the relatives of these victims who weren't connected to this problem.  He clearly wasn't thinking of the children of these victims in particular.

So seriously...  if anyone can be blasted for not getting their facts straight, Ward can be easily included among that group.

Here are some concrete examples of Ward getting his facts wrong.
First of all, while he might be correct that those working in the WTC were connected to a technocracy responsible for starving some areas of the world, to suggest that destroying the towers was a justified punishment ignores the relatives of these victims who weren't connected to this problem.  He clearly wasn't thinking of the children of these victims in particular.

So seriously...  if anyone can be blasted for not getting their facts straight, Ward can be easily included among that group.

the relatives thing is never in play when talking about military targets. fudging hitler had relatives, man. does that mean he wasn't a legitimate military target?

i feel like you're not trying. that's a nonstarter.

the relatives thing is never in play when talking about military targets. fudging hitler had relatives, man. does that mean he wasn't a legitimate military target?

i feel like you're not trying. that's a nonstarter.


So if you had kids but you were part of a big corporation like say...  Bechtel, and you didn't personally have anything to do with what they tried to pull in Bolivia, and I blew up their headquarters while you were in it....  I didn't wrongfully orphan your children?

So if you had kids but you were part of a big corporation like say...  Bechtel, and you didn't personally have anything to do with what they tried to pull in Bolivia, and I blew up their headquarters while you were in it....   I didn't wrongfully orphan your children?
you might have wrongfully orphaned my children, but that has no bearing on whether the target was a legitimate military target. that's a very specific designation and is a necessary but not sufficient condition for justifying whether a specific attack is just. a target can be legitimate militarally but if the war is largely unjust then you're not justified in attacking it.

the situation you're talking about sounds like it's not even a war at all. it's a terrorist or guerrilla action. so the question of military targets isn't even relevant. that's actually more apropos of 911. i think of 911 as a crime against humanity, not a military attack. but if you DO think of it as a military attack, you can make a strong case that the WTC was a legitimate military target. with the pentagon there's no question; it's DEFINITELY a legitimate military target.

you might have wrongfully orphaned my children, but that has no bearing on whether the target was a legitimate military target. that's a very specific designation and is a necessary but not sufficient condition for justifying whether a specific attack is just. a target can be legitimate militarally but if the war is largely unjust then you're not justified in attacking it.

Tell me what makes the WTC a military target.

Tell me what makes the WTC a military target.
see churchill's argument. it's not airtight, which is why i say it's arguable. but we bomb power plants and radio stations, which is even harder to justify than attacking WTC under those rules.

the pentagon is airtight; definitely it's a legitimate military target.

see churchill's argument. it's not airtight, which is why i say it's arguable. but we bomb power plants and radio stations, which is even harder to justify than attacking WTC under those rules.

the pentagon is airtight; definitely it's a legitimate military target.


Well, by that logic, what Tim McVeigh did was justified.

Well, by that logic, what Tim McVeigh did was justified.
OKC was not a war by any legal definition. we're going in circles.

OKC was not a war by any legal definition. we're going in circles.


Yes, but it was a guerilla attack.

9/11 sparked a war, but it wasn't part of a war.

Also, Eric Rudolph made guerilla attacks as well.  You could argue he was doing it to save lives as well (in the long run).

Yes, but it was a guerilla attack.

9/11 sparked a war, but it wasn't part of a war.

Also, Eric Rudolph made guerilla attacks as well.  You could argue he was doing it to save lives as well (in the long run).
actually, i agree with all this. (except eric rudolph, just because i forget who he is.) the problem arises when people try to define 9/11 as an act of war. if you think of it as a international crime/terrorist attack none of this applies.

actually, i agree with all this. (except eric rudolph, just because i forget who he is.) the problem arises when people try to define 9/11 as an act of war. if you think of it as a international crime/terrorist attack none of this applies.


Rudolph bombed abortion clinics.

I don't see how you can define 9/11 as an act of war, because no conventional force was behind it.  If an attack is made without the approval of an official government, that's terrorism.

I don't see how you can define 9/11 as an act of war, because no conventional force was behind it.  If an attack is made without the approval of an official government, that's terrorism.
again, i totally agree. you'd have to take that up with the politicians from bush on down who were gung-ho and quite specific on saying it was an act of war. and the point of that was pretty clear -- they wanted to use it to justify attacking iraq. if you called it an international crime it would give the impression you just had to catch or destroy al qaeda and justice would be served. but claiming it was an act of war gave the impression it was provoked by, basically, everyone in the middle east.

i dunno, if mushroom comes back here he might be able to explain why 9/11 is an act of war. i'm not going to be very good at it because every argument i've seen that 9/11 is an act of war pretty much sucks.

again, i totally agree. you'd have to take that up with the politicians from bush on down who were gung-ho and quite specific on saying it was an act of war. and the point of that was pretty clear -- they wanted to use it to justify attacking iraq. if you called it an international crime it would give the impression you just had to catch or destroy al qaeda and justice would be served. but claiming it was an act of war gave the impression it was provoked by, basically, everyone in the middle east.

i dunno, if mushroom comes back here he might be able to explain why 9/11 is an act of war. i'm not going to be very good at it because every argument i've seen that 9/11 is an act of war pretty much sucks.


Right...  I'm glad we agree on that.

Still, Ward seems to be defining it as such by mentioning WTC as a military target.  He basically weasels his way around the facts of the situation in order to support his crazed conclusion.

So to me...  Churchill is no better than a creationist or a Holocaust denier.

i can get with that. i'm not trying to defend churchill, i think he's an ass. i'm trying to defend the tenure system. someone with views as retarded as his should never have gotten tenure in the first place, but once he did the damage was done and he shouldn't be fired for his views. the university claimed to be firing him for plagiarism but apparently the jury didn't buy it.

i can get with that. i'm not trying to defend churchill, i think he's an ass. i'm trying to defend the tenure system. someone with views as retarded as his should never have gotten tenure in the first place, but once he did the damage was done and he shouldn't be fired for his views. the university claimed to be firing him for plagiarism but apparently the jury didn't buy it.


Well that's the thing though.  You've previously shown support for not giving people with extreme views tenure (like the white nationalist example).  Why support tenure for someone just because they got past the screening?  Like anything, tenure isn't a perfect system, so if you're going to keep it, you have to be able to stomach occasionally firing someone for being radical because of the negative influence they can have on a campus.

Then let me ask you this.  You would support firing that principal, right?  Then why not support firing professors that are racist in the other direction?

And the fact that you always harp on one side of the problem shows that you have a bias as well.  Why don't we just agree that racism in either direction should be expelled from schools and leave it at that?


I would not support the high school principal because what he did amounted to a personal attack on a student.  There is a difference between espousing ideologies on the college level and personal attacks on high school students.  I am sure you can see the difference.

I am not saying one side is right or wrong. You stated that black professors get away with what white professors can't, I say that is absolutely wrong.   I am saying both sides are open to condemnation.  You continually misinterpret the point I am trying to make.

Referring to an earlier post,  I would not call either Timothy McVeigh or Eric Rudolph "guerrilla" fighters.  They were terrorists.

Guerrilla fighters?  Them? 

either one r or two. either is acceptable.  :D

I would not support the high school principal because what he did amounted to a personal attack on a student.  There is a difference between espousing ideologies on the college level and personal attacks on high school students.  I am sure you can see the difference.

So you'd be ok with a white nationalist professor working at your local state college?

I am not saying one side is right or wrong. You stated that black professors get away with what white professors can't, I say that is absolutely wrong.   I am saying both sides are open to condemnation.  You continually misinterpret the point I am trying to make.


Fair enough.  But the central point I'm making is that professors aren't hired to promote ideologies.  They're hired to teach.

Referring to an earlier post,  I would not call either Timothy McVeigh or Eric Rudolph "guerrilla" fighters.  They were terrorists.

i agree, i might have called mcveigh a guerrilla at one point and that's wrong. the word "terrorist" is kinda vague and gets used for poltiically expedient reasons a lot, but for mcveigh and rudolph (also the unabomber, characters like that) , it definitely applies.

Referring to an earlier post,  I would not call either Timothy McVeigh or Eric Rudolph "guerrilla" fighters.  They were terrorists.



And neither were the 9/11 hijackers.

I used the term guerilla because that fit the context of what Tia said.

So you'd be ok with a white nationalist professor working at your local state college?

Fair enough.  But the central point I'm making is that professors aren't hired to promote ideologies.  They're hired to teach.


State or private makes no difference, and it wouldn't be a surprise to me if there were white nationalists working in many of the colleges around here.  I believe the Boston area has more institutes of "higher learning" than anywhere in the world.  I would not like a white nationalist professor anymore anymore than I would like a black nationalist professor.  In my everyday life I am opposed to both.  I don't like a lot of things, but they are there whether we like them or not. It is better for them to be out and open to discussion, debate.  The majority of the students, I think would come away better for exposure to the extremes, there will always be the few that may goosestep, but they would have anyway no matter where they got their information.

this debate is showing remarkable endurance.  :o

State or private makes no difference, and it wouldn't be a surprise to me if there were white nationalists working in many of the colleges around here.  I believe the Boston area has more institutes of "higher learning" than anywhere in the world.  I would not like a white nationalist professor anymore anymore than I would like a black nationalist professor.  In my everyday life I am opposed to both.  I don't like a lot of things, but they are there whether we like them or not. It is better for them to be out and open to discussion, debate.  The majority of the students, I think would come away better for exposure to the extremes, there will always be the few that may goosestep, but they would have anyway no matter where they got their information.


Wow...   Alrighty then.  Well, I'll just put it this way.  Some people will agree with you and others will agree with me.  This is why funding of public education is always going to be a very tumultuous issue.

I personally believe that radicalism of all kinds needs to be weeded out of instruction, so that teaching can be a greater focus.  I also don't want my tax dollars funding the salary of an extremist.

i hereby grant this thread tenure.

well, you know what? there probably IS a left-bias in the universities. there's at least a couple of ways you can go with that. one is that, look, you'll never get rich as a university professor, it pays okay but not so great. and conservatives as a rule tend to put more of a premium on big earnings. (i know, i know, you don't make that much. but i'm saying, in general.)


Yes, unlike those Liberals, like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Larry Ellison, Charles Koch, and David Koch.  ::)  They only make up 1/2 of the 10 richest people in America (1, 2, 3, and 2 tied for 9).

And honestly, tell me somebody that does not try to put a premium on earnings?  When picking stock for 401k, do you look at "this company is Green", or do you look at "which company will make me the most return for my investment?"

I think the biggest difference is that a lot of Liberals have demonized money, even while they secretly covet it.  Kind of like the minister who rages against sin, all the while keeping a mistress.


another, though, is, i gotta be honest... conservatives just dont seem to be that big on facts. (i know, i know, YOU'RE big on facts. but i mean in general.) right now i'm hearing endless doggerel from Fox about how the defense dept budget's getting cut (which it's not), obama wants to raise your taxes (which is only true if you're making 250 thousand a year or more), plus endless tripe about how he's a muslim, his birth certificate is fake, he's gonna take everybody's guns, blah blah blah.


And this is different from Democrats how?

"Ronald Regan is going to make your parents eat dog food."  "George Bush is going into Kuwait for oil."  "George Bush hates muslims and wants to turn the US into a concentration camp."  "Republicans want to take all of your money and give it to the rich."

Well, you get the idea.  You seem to act shocked when people attack your candidate.  And you seem bewildered when it happens.  But it seems OK to do such mindless attacks when the president is not of your beliefs.  As an old saying goes, "you reap what you sow".


and that's also why you're not going to get tenure talking about how global warming is a fraud or "intelligent design" is as valid as evolution. just like youre not going to get tenure talking about how the world is flat or concocting theories about the lost continent of atlantis. there's a place for fanciful stuff like that -- conspiracy theory mags and right-wing opinion columns, sure -- but universities ain't it.


But is not a University a place for debate and exploration?

This is what irritates a lot of people like me.  Contrary to what a lot of people want to believe, Global Warming is a theory.  It is not a fact.  And the more and more I see debate and research into other theories, the more I am comming to think of it as a newer version of "The Big Lie".

As a philosopher 75 years ago described The Big Lie:

... in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie.

Global Warming is a nice theory, that ignores several hundred million years of Earth's geologic history.  It ignores climate history over the last 40,000 years also, in trying to make an aberational cold period out to be the "global norm".

However, that does not mean that most of us do not believe that things should be different.  The root word of Conservative is "Conserve".  It is our duty to try and conserve our environment as much as possible.

And Conspiracy Theory?  Like the one about JFK, or RFK, or MLK?  Or the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy"?  Or even the kind that Mr. Ward was preaching?

I guess those are all acceptable, since it is a well proven fact that Conservatives are nutcases and evil.

:D

PS:  I would like to challenge anybody to read Tia's message, and try not to see stereotyping and bigotry in it.  Replace "Conservative" and "Republican" with any other group, and it pretty much comes out like a pretty nasty message.

see churchill's argument. it's not airtight, which is why i say it's arguable. but we bomb power plants and radio stations, which is even harder to justify than attacking WTC under those rules.


Actually those are highly justifiable military targets.

In modern warefare, there are basically 3 ways to win.  One, you degrade the enemies will to fight.  That may be through attririon, propaganda, dialog, or a combination of the 3.

Second, you destroy their infrastructure.  Water delivery, power, transportation, and communications.  This makes it harder for their military to right.  A division stuck in BFE is not there to fight your division when it crosses the border.  And when an artillary unit is unable to get firing directions, it might as well not exist.

Third, you destroy the enemy.  That is pretty straight forward.

Now most of the time, the US tries to do a combination of all 3.  "Shock & Awe" relies on this combination to work.  You tell the people over and over "do not resist and you will not be harmed, we are only after your leaders".  Then you disrupt communications and infrastructure.  That way the only communications going out are your own.  Then you choose your battles, bypassing ones that would leave you with high casualties, and smashing opposition where you can.  You then publicize this as widely as you can.

In the long run, this makes for a much lower death toll, both for military and civilian.

Power Plants and Communications have been military targets since time began.  A lot of the Civil War worked on this strategy, as did every war from then to now.

i dunno, if mushroom comes back here he might be able to explain why 9/11 is an act of war. i'm not going to be very good at it because every argument i've seen that 9/11 is an act of war pretty much sucks.


It is actually amazingly simple actually.

In 2001, there was essentially a Civil War in Afganistan.  The 2 major factions were the Northern Alliance, and the Taliban.  And at that time, the Taliban had effective control of around 75% of the country.  They also controlled the nations capitol of Kabul.  They were also recognized as the legitimate government by many nations, one of them was Pakistan.

Al-Queda was an independent group that worked hand and hand with the Taliban.  They cooperated in many operations, working together.  This includes things like training, funding, intelligence gathering, espionage, and assassination.  The Al-Queda training camps in Afganistan had Taliban approval, and trained Taliban operatives as well.  Most intelligence studies of the era considered Al-Queda to be the intelligence arm of the Taliban.  Kind of an independent KGB-GRU.

Don't forget, 9/11 was not just the attack on the US.  On 9 September, Ahmad Shah Massoud was assasinated by Al-Queda operatives.  This was on the eve of a massave attack by the Taliban on a large Northern Alliance stronghold.

It is not hard to find the connections between Taliban and Al-Queda.  And most people accept that in 2001, the Taliban was the closest thing to a "legitimate government" in Afganistan.

Of course, in the years since 9/11, most of the Taliban have largely turned away from Al-Queda.  They still work together from mutual need, not for any kind of love or respect for each other.  Most higher Taliban leaders feel "used" by Al-Queda, because of their attack bringing the wrath of the world down on them.  They went from almost total control of Afganistan to barely holding the Afganistan-Pakistan border.

Wow...   Alrighty then.  Well, I'll just put it this way.  Some people will agree with you and others will agree with me.  This is why funding of public education is always going to be a very tumultuous issue.

I personally believe that radicalism of all kinds needs to be weeded out of instruction, so that teaching can be a greater focus.  I also don't want my tax dollars funding the salary of an extremist.


I must make myself a bit clearer.  If the likes of David Duke or Louis Farrakhan, or anyone who has consistently espoused views akin to theirs, came into town looking for tenure I would oppose offering them tenure. I do believe, though, that once one has received tenure it is on the institution to uphold the contract.  It isn't the person I defend, it is the process. 

Actually those are highly justifiable military targets.

In modern warefare, there are basically 3 ways to win.  One, you degrade the enemies will to fight.  That may be through attririon, propaganda, dialog, or a combination of the 3.

Second, you destroy their infrastructure.  Water delivery, power, transportation, and communications.  This makes it harder for their military to right.  A division stuck in BFE is not there to fight your division when it crosses the border.  And when an artillary unit is unable to get firing directions, it might as well not exist.

right. and attacking the WTC and the pentagon does just that. hit the economic nerve center, you hit the infrastructure. so you're pretty much making my argument for me.

I must make myself a bit clearer.  If the likes of David Duke or Louis Farrakhan, or anyone who has consistently espoused views akin to theirs, came into town looking for tenure I would oppose offering them tenure. I do believe, though, that once one has received tenure it is on the institution to uphold the contract.  It isn't the person I defend, it is the process. 


I guess I place a greater worth on public support than on tenure.  To me, if someone makes it past the screening process that has those views, it clearly shows the people doing the screening screwed up and need to correct their mistake.

Honoring an agreement that was botched in the beginning doesn't make any sense to me.

It's why I'm against tenure to begin with, because it affords an undue immunity to being fired.  Again, performance and moderation should be the focuses here, so extremists must be removed from office.

PS:  I would like to challenge anybody to read Tia's message, and try not to see stereotyping and bigotry in it.  Replace "Conservative" and "Republican" with any other group, and it pretty much comes out like a pretty nasty message.
i'm not talking about "any other group." i'm talking about republicans/neoconservatives. and yes, it's a nasty message without replacing anything because, frankly, i'm accusing republicans and neocons of being something rather nasty. i'm doing it deliberately, and i'm doing it because i think they're guilty as charged. deal.

this is a too easy fallback on the part of the right, i think, it reminds me of the old sean hannity saw that i seem to hear whenever someone talks about institutional racism about "oh well, what if you said 'black people' where reverend wright was talking about 'white people'?" as much as what wright said was somewhat problematic (though not nearly as much as he was put forward to be), the idea that "black" and "white" are interchangeable presumes implicitly that racism doesn't exist, and has never existed. it presupposes a culture of equivalency that's a pipedream at the moment.

and so just about any time you see a post where someone says 'what if the OP wasn't talking about the people he's talking about, but was in fact talking about the people on the other side of the binary from the people he's talking about?' you need to smell a rat. when i talk about the axis powers, what if i was talking about the western allies? when i talk about the south, what if i was talking about the north? when i talk about the romans, what if i was talking about the greeks? it's a silly argument. different political and cultural groups have different and unique characteristics, and we have to be able to talk about them specifically without feeling the need to mush everything up so it's interchangeable.

I guess I place a greater worth on public support than on tenure.  To me, if someone makes it past the screening process that has those views, it clearly shows the people doing the screening screwed up and need to correct their mistake.

Honoring an agreement that was botched in the beginning doesn't make any sense to me.

It's why I'm against tenure to begin with, because it affords an undue immunity to being fired.  Again, performance and moderation should be the focuses here, so extremists must be removed from office.
and, again, what would you do with abolitionists when that was an extreme position? or suffragists? premature antifascists? the point with tenure is sometimes amazingly unpopular opinions turn out in the long run to have been flying against deeply entrenched dogmatic beliefs and only tenure protected the contrarians from being silenced by a misguided majority -- and yet the contrarians ended up being right.

and, again, what would you do with abolitionists when that was an extreme position? or suffragists? premature antifascists? the point with tenure is sometimes amazingly unpopular opinions turn out in the long run to have been flying against deeply entrenched dogmatic beliefs and only tenure protected the contrarians from being silenced by a misguided majority -- and yet the contrarians ended up being right.


So you think that white nationalism will end up being right eventually?

So you think that white nationalism will end up being right eventually?

i think white nationalism had its day in court. they were fairly mainstream for a long time, in fact, up until around the mid-20th century. if their message was going to resonate i think it would have happened by now.

i'm not saying every contrarian is right. i'm saying if we stop listening to contrarians altogether our preconceptions will never change for the better.

*sigh*


I'm just saying...  You cherrypicked examples of radicalism that became the norm later.  That's not exactly a balanced view of radicalism.

If you allow one form of radicalism, you have to allow all, and I think you'll find that most radicalism is negative.

i'm not saying every contrarian is right. i'm saying if we stop listening to contrarians our preconceptions will never change for the better.


Preconceptions are more likely to change outside of college.  Sure, many ideas originate in college, but the biggest social changes we've had started outside of it.

I'm just saying...  You cherrypicked examples of radicalism that became the norm later.  That's not exactly a balanced view of radicalism.

If you allow one form of radicalism, you have to allow all, and I think you'll find that most radicalism is negative.

Preconceptions are more likely to change outside of college.  Sure, many ideas originate in college, but the biggest social changes we've had started outside of it.
well i think there's a good reason why those particular examples of radicalism became the norm later. i actually think it says something encouraging about human nature. certain "radicals" are actually calling attention to conventional wisdoms that are deeply entrenched but are wrongheaded, and over the course of time those radicals tend to get listened to. because deep down, human beings maybe don't totally suck. radicals who don't appeal to our better natures, instead, tend to be marginalized. but without some process to counterbalance the initial pushback of the status quo against the contrarians, the mainstream will never be challenged. socrates will just keep getting choked with hemlock before he can even get a word in edgewise.

by the by, i later edited my OP to revise playing the "sigh" card. i think that's an annoying stunt and i wish i hadn't done it.

well i think there's a good reason why those particular examples of radicalism became the norm later. i actually think it says something encouraging about human nature. certain "radicals" are actually calling attention to conventional wisdoms that are deeply entrenched but are wrongheaded, and over the course of time those radicals tend to get listened to. because deep down, human beings maybe don't totally suck. radicals who don't appeal to our better natures, instead, tend to be marginalized. but without some process to counterbalance the initial pushback of the status quo against the contrarians, the mainstream will never be challenged. socrates will just keep getting choked with hemlock before he can even get a word in edgewise.

by the by, i later edited my OP to revise playing the "sigh" card. i think that's an annoying stunt and i wish i hadn't done it.


I know what you're saying.  I just feel that the only way to be consistent is to either allow all radicals or ban all of them.

I side more with banning them because of people like Churchill.

Plus, think of the practical side of this.  Churchill isn't exactly giving the University positive publicity.  If nothing else, it could become standard practice to just fire people over behavior like his.  If it weren't for tenure, he'd already be fired, which is why I'm against tenure as well.

Education is a business, and if someone is becoming a nuisance to enrollment and PR, they should be let go.

I know what you're saying.  I just feel that the only way to be consistent is to either allow all radicals or ban all of them.

I side more with banning them because of people like Churchill.

Plus, think of the practical side of this.  Churchill isn't exactly giving the University positive publicity.  If nothing else, it could become standard practice to just fire people over behavior like his.  If it weren't for tenure, he'd already be fired, which is why I'm against tenure as well.

Education is a business, and if someone is becoming a nuisance to enrollment and PR, they should be let go.
i have to be honest, when i was in school it seemed to me most professors were dipsheehes in one way or another. and most academic writing tends to be dipsheeshy. and yet on the whole i feel very positive about my time in school and very encouraged and positive about the institution of the university and the effect it's had on society. and the reason why is over my time in school i found people who were also intellectually curious, professors and students alike, and tended to gravitate away from the dogmatists like churchill. (although i mentioned him to a friend of mine who i respect a great deal intellectually, and she's managed to have never heard of churchill's big public imbroglio and yet read something by him that she says she was very impressed by, which makes me think maybe there's something about him getting received wrong in the public sphere. he may have said this "little eichmann" thing in a deliberate way to get people's hackles up, same way that one guy i was talking about did that excellent pedophilia-is-okay argument in moral philosophy class and made the students argue against him. you never know.) but my point is, you have to let people feel free to express ideas in university, even, often, ideas that are wildly unpopular for the moment, and trust the social network, the board review process, and time to ultimately sort it all out.

i disagree vehemently that "education is a business" -- i mean, yes, it is in a way but i wouldn't want to think that the business model should be the sole or even dominant model of what makes an educational institution tick. but i think what might be at work is more like the "agora," the marketplace of ideas... get all the ideas out there and if they ultimately sink, that's because they suck, if they swim, it's because there might be something to them. so let churchill out there and if people don't like what he's selling, ultimately, they won't buy it. (i don't entirely like putting it in such financial terms but i think that might put a bit of a ribbon on it for you...)

i have to be honest, when i was in school it seemed to me most professors were dipsheehes in one way or another. and most academic writing tends to be dipsheeshy. and yet on the whole i feel very positive about my time in school and very encouraged and positive about the institution of the university and the effect it's had on society. and the reason why is over my time in school i found people who were also intellectually curious, professors and students alike, and tended to gravitate away from the dogmatists like churchill. (although i mentioned him to a friend of mine who i respect a great deal intellectually, and she's managed to have never heard of churchill's big public imbroglio and yet read something by him that she says she was very impressed by, which makes me think maybe there's something about him getting received wrong in the public sphere. he may have said this "little eichmann" thing in a deliberate way to get people's hackles up, same way that one guy i was talking about did that excellent pedophilia-is-okay argument in moral philosophy class and made the students argue against him. you never know.) but my point is, you have to let people feel free to express ideas in university, even, often, ideas that are wildly unpopular for the moment, and trust the social network, the board review process, and time to ultimately sort it all out.

I guess the difference for me is that I don't trust the social network.  I tend to distrust anything government-related.  Then again, I distrust corporations as well.

Maybe I'm a bit paranoid and cynical, but I believe it is the public's duty to occassionally demand that a professor step down for certain behaviors, and Churchill fits that description for me.

i disagree vehemently that "education is a business" -- i mean, yes, it is in a way but i wouldn't want to think that the business model should be the sole or even dominant model of what makes an educational institution tick. but i think what might be at work is more like the "agora," the marketplace of ideas... get all the ideas out there and if they ultimately sink, that's because they suck, if they swim, it's because there might be something to them. so let churchill out there and if people don't like what he's selling, ultimately, they won't buy it. (i don't entirely like putting it in such financial terms but i think that might put a bit of a ribbon on it for you...)


I hear ya.  But I guess, for me, an idea sinks when the general public rejects it.

I guess the difference for me is that I don't trust the social network.  I tend to distrust anything government-related.  Then again, I distrust corporations as well.

Maybe I'm a bit paranoid and cynical, but I believe it is the public's duty to occassionally demand that a professor step down for certain behaviors, and Churchill fits that description for me.

I hear ya.  But I guess, for me, an idea sinks when the general public rejects it.
oh i take a backseat to no one in terms of paranoia and cynicism.  :D

i think if the general public rejects an idea, that's definitely a reason to give it some critical scrutiny. if the general public continues to reject it over time, eventually you have to call it dead. but the test of time i think is an essential component.

right. and attacking the WTC and the pentagon does just that. hit the economic nerve center, you hit the infrastructure. so you're pretty much making my argument for me.


The WTC was nothing to Al-Queda but a symbol.  One they attacked 2 seperate times.

And in reality, they were dead wrong.  It was not not built as a symbol of US power.  It was built as an expression of global trade.  A lot of the companies there were not even American.  French, Swedish, Swiss, English, Saudi, Russian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, and more.

Looking at this list will give an idea just how many foreign businesses had offices in WTC 1 & 2:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/tenants1.html

Attacking the WTC was no more a legitimate act of war then attacking the UN, Empire State Building, or the Sears Tower.  It was not an "Economic Nerve Center" for the US.  The closest to that might have been the US Comodities Exchange, which took up a small part of WTC 6.

If anything, it was a symbol of global cooperation.  Of free trade, which is a threat to anybody who wants to enforce their idead of things on to the world.

Because in reality, the loss of the WTC was insignificant to the US economy.  Business went on as usual afterwards.  Free trade still happens.  The businesses simply moved their operations to other buildings.

A lot of foreign companies lost a lot more.  And most of all, it is the loss of life that caused the most damage.  People killed for simply getting up and going to work.

Buildings and offices can be replaced.  The people can never be replaced.

oh i take a backseat to no one in terms of paranoia and cynicism.  :D

i think if the general public rejects an idea, that's definitely a reason to give it some critical scrutiny. if the general public continues to reject it over time, eventually you have to call it dead. but the test of time i think is an essential component.


Fair enough.  I'd still love to see someone like Fareed Zakaria slay Churchill in a debate about 9/11 and foreign policy in general.

The WTC was nothing to Al-Queda but a symbol.  One they attacked 2 seperate times.

And in reality, they were dead wrong.  It was not not built as a symbol of US power.  It was built as an expression of global trade.  A lot of the companies there were not even American.  French, Swedish, Swiss, English, Saudi, Russian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, and more.

Looking at this list will give an idea just how many foreign businesses had offices in WTC 1 & 2:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/tenants1.html

Attacking the WTC was no more a legitimate act of war then attacking the UN, Empire State Building, or the Sears Tower.  It was not an "Economic Nerve Center" for the US.  The closest to that might have been the US Comodities Exchange, which took up a small part of WTC 6.

If anything, it was a symbol of global cooperation.  Of free trade, which is a threat to anybody who wants to enforce their idead of things on to the world.

Because in reality, the loss of the WTC was insignificant to the US economy.  Business went on as usual afterwards.  Free trade still happens.  The businesses simply moved their operations to other buildings.

A lot of foreign companies lost a lot more.  And most of all, it is the loss of life that caused the most damage.  People killed for simply getting up and going to work.

Buildings and offices can be replaced.  The people can never be replaced.
well, this is all very emotional and provocative and i agree with you the attacks were a horrible horrible tragedy that can never be undone. but the fact remains that if you want to call this an ongoing war, and it was already underway when when the towers were attacked, then they were a legitimate target. you'd be a fool in waging a war against a country if you don't target their economic nerve centers. we did it in world war ii and in vietnam. to be clear, my beef is with calling the WTC attacks an attack in an ongoing war instead of a crime against humanity, not with anyone who wants to call the WTC attacks monstrous. OF COURSE they were monstrous! the thing is, classifying them as an attack in an ongoing war inadvertently legitimizes them. and actually associates them with attacks the US government has mounted under the cloak of so-called "war" that were similarly nauseating.

all the stuff about the WTC being very international symbolically are very moving and quite true but irrelevant. it's about as relevant as talking about relatives as though no one can ever be a legitimate military target if they have relatives. it's just totally evident to me that if the tables were roughly reversed, and the US were fighting a country that had something equivalent to the WTC, we'd attack it. and then we'd say it was legitimate. so, i mean, what? it's different when it's the USA. it's different when we're demonstrating that we're open to other nations and cultures. i get that. it's very emotionally appealing. but it's not legally binding or meaningful, and if you're going to call 911 an act in an ongoing war in order to justify attacking iraq and doing equally disgusting things to the people who live there -- because that's why people were so insistent on calling 911 an act of war, it was because they wanted to attack iraq -- well, you're gonna have to try and make that make sense from an international law point of view. you can't just say, well, the lives lost in 911 matter, but the lives lost in iraq dont. it doesn't work that way.

The argument that 9/11 occurred in retaliation of other actions we've made in the Middle East does work to an extent, and that by extension, the people in the towers are connected to oppressive actions overseas.

Then again, to an extent, you could argue that black people are proportionately a higher source of crime in America (because a higher proportion of them are in prison and commit crimes) than whites.

A lot of things can be justified with fuzzy logic.

The argument that 9/11 occurred in retaliation of other actions we've made in the Middle East does work to an extent, and that by extension, the people in the towers are connected to oppressive actions overseas.
well, that's a variety of the argument that the 911 attacks were a military act committed in the context of an ongoing war. which i dont believe. but if you do believe it, then you have to follow it to its conclusion, and it's actually pretty easy to come to the conclusion it was justified. IF you say it was an act committed in wartime. in wartime, a lot of things are permissible that wouldn't otherwise be.

well, that's a variety of the argument that the 911 attacks were a military act committed in the context of an ongoing war. which i dont believe. but if you do believe it, then you have to follow it to its conclusion, and it's actually pretty easy to come to the conclusion it was justified. IF you say it was an act committed in wartime. in wartime, a lot of things are permissible that wouldn't otherwise be.


True...  I'm just pointing out that Churchill's logic has the same flaws as David Duke's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo3nY4GcMFk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo3nY4GcMFk


I see where he's coming from, but international law is only as relevant as its ability to be enforced.

America is far more powerful by itself than the U.N. is.  For the most part, the U.N. is useless.

Personally, I had nothing against us acting unilaterally, and when it comes down to it, we weren't actually unilateral.  The Coalition of the Willing did involve multiple nations.  It may not have been as diverse as the U.N. itself, but it pretty much only included nations that actually intervene in the first place.

Given the Oil for Food Scandal, it was not surprising that much of Europe refused to help us invade Iraq.  I think the invasion itself was a mistake, but the fact that it was us leading things was not a mistake in and of itself.

I see where he's coming from, but international law is only as relevant as its ability to be enforced.

America is far more powerful by itself than the U.N. is.  For the most part, the U.N. is useless.

Personally, I had nothing against us acting unilaterally, and when it comes down to it, we weren't actually unilateral.  The Coalition of the Willing did involve multiple nations.  It may not have been as diverse as the U.N. itself, but it pretty much only included nations that actually intervene in the first place.

Given the Oil for Food Scandal, it was not surprising that much of Europe refused to help us invade Iraq.  I think the invasion itself was a mistake, but the fact that it was us leading things was not a mistake in and of itself.
i've got to be honest with you, i didn't know much about the guy except the little eichmann flap. actually listening to the whole thing, which i'm in the process of doing, i actually think what he's saying about native american status and how that's understood and defined institutionally is much more interesting.

i've got to be honest with you, i didn't know much about the guy except the little eichmann flap. actually listening to the whole thing, which i'm in the process of doing, i actually think what he's saying about native american status and how that's understood and defined institutionally is much more interesting.


I'm listening as well, but his pretentiousness really does get in the way of his message.

I can't help but feel like this guy is mostly just an attention whore.

I'm listening as well, but his pretentiousness really does get in the way of his message.

I can't help but feel like this guy is mostly just an attention whore.
well you're commenting on image, not substance.

check out 18:10.

well you're commenting on image, not substance.

check out 18:10.


It is rather ironic for him to level the allegation of propaganda when he's rather propagandist himself.

Admittedly, I'm a bit of a contrarian myself, but I don't spare other contrarians from contrarianism.

It is rather ironic for him to level the allegation of propaganda when he's rather propagandist himself.

Admittedly, I'm a bit of a contrarian myself, but I don't spare other contrarians from contrarianism.
he's a propagandist? how so?

although i'll admit he violates godwin's law rather with impunity. seems to be a part of what got him in this pickle in the first place.

he's a propagandist? how so?

although i'll admit he violates godwin's law rather with impunity. seems to be a part of what got him in this pickle in the first place.


Propagandist is a broad term.  It basically applies to anyone with a clear agenda and presents facts in a very slanted way.

For example, I haven't read or heard anything by him discussing the tribes that weren't so peaceful.  Native Americans massacred villages just like we massacred theirs.

I haven't read or heard anything by him discussing the actions of many extremist groups in the Middle East.  He hasn't gone into much detail about abuses against women due to fanatical Islam.

The point is...  There's always 2 sides to every story.  While it is true that the media in general is corporatist with its own agenda, Churchill is no more objective than they are.

Propagandist is a broad term.  It basically applies to anyone with a clear agenda and presents facts in a very slanted way.

For example, I haven't read or heard anything by him discussing the tribes that weren't so peaceful.  Native Americans massacred villages just like we massacred theirs.

I haven't read or heard anything by him discussing the actions of many extremist groups in the Middle East.  He hasn't gone into much detail about abuses against women due to fanatical Islam.

The point is...  There's always 2 sides to every story.  While it is true that the media in general is corporatist with its own agenda, Churchill is no more objective than they are.
good points and those would be excellent counterexamples to bring up in his class. (and to be brutally fair, if you did, you might get shouted down. i've seen that sort of thing happen if counter-examples aren't done right, particularly where identity politics becomes involved, and that's a sad state of affairs in modern academia.) i mean, you can't get mad at the guy necessarily for having an opinion, and in my dream of dreams i would love to see an environment where he gets to have his schpiel, and then you get to raise your hand, ask what i think are actually really good questions about nonpeaceful native american tribes (and yes, you're right, there were lots) and extremist groups in the middle east (and again, you will never see me carry an ounce of water for the taliban) and see what he says. but revoking his tenure doesn't get you there, and neither does having a doctrinaire environment in the classroom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrtoLSlOUAo&NR=1

i'm sorry man but pwn3ge is involved here. i dont agree on everything but the dude's pretty smart.

good points and those would be excellent counterexamples to bring up in his class. (and to be brutally fair, if you did, you might get shouted down. i've seen that sort of thing happen if counter-examples aren't done right, particularly where identity politics becomes involved, and that's a sad state of affairs in modern academia.) i mean, you can't get mad at the guy necessarily for having an opinion, and in my dream of dreams i would love to see an environment where he gets to have his schpiel, and then you get to raise your hand, ask what i think are actually really good questions about nonpeaceful native american tribes (and yes, you're right, there were lots) and extremist groups in the middle east (and again, you will never see me carry an ounce of water for the taliban) and see what he says. but revoking his tenure doesn't get you there, and neither does having a doctrinaire environment in the classroom.


Good points...  I can't really argue against that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrtoLSlOUAo&NR=1

i'm sorry man but pwn3ge is involved here. i dont agree on everything but the dude's pretty smart.


Something tells me that girl isn't actually Jewish.

A Jew that doesn't know who Eichmann was is either incredibly uneducated or just plain dumb.  Granted, given her responses, the second possibility is quite likely.

Something tells me that girl isn't actually Jewish.

A Jew that doesn't know who Eichmann was is either incredibly uneducated or just plain dumb.  Granted, given her responses, the second possibility is quite likely.
yeah she's a bit of an easy mark, i'll give you that. and both students' objections at the end, asking whether the wtc workers "deserved to die", i would have liked to see him address that. but on the other hand i get what he's saying. eichmann kept the apparatus of nazi germany operating, he was a technician and a bureaucrat, not a general officer in the concentration camps. and if you think the west is participating in an exploitative or inequitable system, they can possibly expect inequity to be visited on them. doesn't make it right but it does make it foreseeable. eichmann himself didn't do anything literally wrong -- he drew up train schedules, as churchill said -- but once he got caught on the losing side he paid the price because "i was just following orders," or, i just got along to get along, wasn't accepted as a defense. if you accept that, for instance, adidas engages in horrendous business practices that encourage sweatshop labor or pharmaceutical companies sell drugs tainted with AIDS to third world companies for profit, well, if you participate in that system and people get pissed and come after you, well, that sucks. but hey.

now i dont really agree with that, though i sorta take his point. but i think al qaeda and the 911 attacks were more taking advantage of people's legitimate grievance to convince them to commit a horrendous act that actually played into bin laden's hand. bin laden and al qaeda top brass could give a rat's ass about the west's inequity to the third world. and they committed an act of nightmarish evil when they attacked the world trade center, just like i think, frankly, that bush committed an act of nightmarish evil when he attacked iraq in response. and the idea is, if you exploit other people, they're likely to exploit you in return. and when you (or I, as i say i've participated) do it, it's reprehensible. and when they do it in return, it's reprehensible. it's almost like gang or mafia warfare reprisals, both sides massacring the weak and innocent on the other side in order to try and damage the reputation or political position of the powerful people on the other side. and then we all turn around and blame the little people on both sides, and absolve the powerful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODU8mSoTrfM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODU8mSoTrfM


Ward up, yo?  Sez video was removed by the user.
???

Ward up, yo?  Sez video was removed by the user.
???
crap. it was very cool.

Ward up, yo?  Sez video was removed by the user.
???
try this. i think he might have pulled it to edit it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiqlI49UnCA

(warning: there's a very gruesome image at the end.)