Should This Professor Be Fired?

[deep]

Wow, I don't know why I didn't bother to read this yesterday;

could it be

ah, because of the poster?

 

[speedracer]

Oh, and just so nobody gets the wrong idea:

There's already plenty of politics, both of the personal/social and the ideological varieties, that goes on when faculties at colleges and universities convene behind closed doors to decide who they should hire.

The academy isn't a perfect bastion of meritocracy, and probably never was.

 

[joyfulgirl]

could it be

ah, because of the poster?

Certainly not, you trouble-maker you.

 

[Klink]

I think that you are talking out one side that opinions cannot be silenced and that there must be diversity but on the other you claim it as a fact, undisputed, that 9/11 and terrorism in general is caused by US government intervention. This is the almost unanimous opinion of the left and it represents a dangerous level of group think. Do you not consider the religious factors involved? The US has meddles in every country and screws over many but not all of those produce terrorism. Is it so inconcievable that religion and believe is a tool for indoctrination of a totalitarian political system and that much of the terrorism in the world today is a spread off effect of this. Do we consider the role reversal in the victim mentality ~ the attacker becomes the poor defenseless victim of America's actions in the world and is driven to murder thousands of innocents (yes innocent, the people in the towers did not all go about murdering children or running wars). Do we not question what we are told about Islam by organisations such as CAIR or do we wallow in sweet PC ignorance about the various factions involved - there are definitely moderate peaceful Muslims out there but it does them a disservice to ignore their suffering so that we can host terror supporting bastards as pillars of the Moderate community.

There is a level of blame for terrorism on the US ~ things that it has done in the past or could have done may have made tragedy inevitable but to only blame the US and totally ignore the decades of Islamic Terrorism around the world ~ from the Middle East to the Subcontinent all the way to Indonesia and the Phillipines ~ is wrong.

Nobody is absolving Islamic terrorists of blame for their actions and I certainly don't ignore the effects of religion on these people. I would not forget this. But our own concrete belief in our morals and values (much of which is based in belief or faith) are no less tools of indoctrination to manipulate public opinion about the war here than religion is there. This is an ideological war amongst the powerful as much as an economic one. Have we forgotten the numerous US interventions that have led to the implementation of right wing totalitarian politcal systems at the expense of democracy?

But yes, the public, including victims in the WTC towers are partly responsible for the wars of the government that they elected. Therin lies the path of responsibility. None of that justifies indiscriminate killing as a reprisal, of course, but it's an irrefutable relationship of reciprocation. This relationship of terror is not only common sensical, but also supported by the CIA, an institution of the same gov't waging this war (see following article).


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7460-2005Jan13.html

Iraq New Terror Breeding Ground

War Created Haven, CIA Advisers Report

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 14, 2005; Page A01

Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank.

Iraq provides terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills," said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. "There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries."

Low's comments came during a rare briefing by the council on its new report on long-term global trends. It took a year to produce and includes the analysis of 1,000 U.S. and foreign experts. Within the 119-page report is an evaluation of Iraq's new role as a breeding ground for Islamic terrorists.

President Bush has frequently described the Iraq war as an integral part of U.S. efforts to combat terrorism. But the council's report suggests the conflict has also helped terrorists by creating a haven for them in the chaos of war.

"At the moment," NIC Chairman Robert L. Hutchings said, Iraq "is a magnet for international terrorist activity."

Before the U.S. invasion, the CIA said Saddam Hussein had only circumstantial ties with several al Qaeda members. Osama bin Laden rejected the idea of forming an alliance with Hussein and viewed him as an enemy of the jihadist movement because the Iraqi leader rejected radical Islamic ideals and ran a secular government.

Bush described the war in Iraq as a means to promote democracy in the Middle East. "A free Iraq can be a source of hope for all the Middle East," he said one month before the invasion. "Instead of threatening its neighbors and harboring terrorists, Iraq can be an example of progress and prosperity in a region that needs both."

But as instability in Iraq grew after the toppling of Hussein, and resentment toward the United States intensified in the Muslim world, hundreds of foreign terrorists flooded into Iraq across its unguarded borders. They found tons of unprotected weapons caches that, military officials say, they are now using against U.S. troops. Foreign terrorists are believed to make up a large portion of today's suicide bombers, and U.S. intelligence officials say these foreigners are forming tactical, ever-changing alliances with former Baathist fighters and other insurgents.

"The al-Qa'ida membership that was distinguished by having trained in Afghanistan will gradually dissipate, to be replaced in part by the dispersion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq," the report says.

According to the NIC report, Iraq has joined the list of conflicts -- including the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate, and independence movements in Chechnya, Kashmir, Mindanao in the Philippines, and southern Thailand -- that have deepened solidarity among Muslims and helped spread radical Islamic ideology.

At the same time, the report says that by 2020, al Qaeda "will be superseded" by other Islamic extremist groups that will merge with local separatist movements. Most terrorism experts say this is already well underway. The NIC says this kind of ever-morphing decentralized movement is much more difficult to uncover and defeat.

Terrorists are able to easily communicate, train and recruit through the Internet, and their threat will become "an eclectic array of groups, cells and individuals that do not need a stationary headquarters," the council's report says. "Training materials, targeting guidance, weapons know-how, and fund-raising will become virtual (i.e. online)."

The report, titled "Mapping the Global Future," highlights the effects of globalization and other economic and social trends. But NIC officials said their greatest concern remains the possibility that terrorists may acquire biological weapons and, although less likely, a nuclear device.

The council is tasked with midterm and strategic analysis, and advises the CIA director. "The NIC's goal," one NIC publication states, "is to provide policymakers with the best, unvarnished, and unbiased information -- regardless of whether analytic judgments conform to U.S. policy."

Other than reports and studies, the council produces classified National Intelligence Estimates, which represent the consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies on specific issues.

Yesterday, Hutchings, former assistant dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, said the NIC report tried to avoid analyzing the effect of U.S. policy on global trends to avoid being drawn into partisan politics.

Among the report's major findings is that the likelihood of "great power conflict escalating into total war . . . is lower than at any time in the past century." However, "at no time since the formation of the Western alliance system in 1949 have the shape and nature of international alignments been in such a state of flux as they have in the past decade."

The report also says the emergence of China and India as new global economic powerhouses "will be the most challenging of all" Washington's regional relationships. It also says that in the competition with Asia over technological advances, the United States "may lose its edge" in some sectors.

Staff writer Bradley Graham and researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

I think the position (as opposed to opinion) of the "left" on this issue is well documented and established.

Jon

 

[deep]

Certainly not, you trouble-maker you.

winky winky back at you.

his garb and appearance does seem designed to suggests American Indian

and some writings seem all caught up in AI injustices




is it time for dna testing

 

[Klink]

Churchill has a right to say these things. He doesn't necessarily have a right to get paid to say these things.

This is similar to censorship and I find quite contrary to academic integrity. It advantages those who agree with the popular opinion.

I said that Churchill's writings were morally reprehensible and intellectually dubious. I don't think that all leftists have to act this way.

They don't but if it's the truth, why shouldn't they speak it?

Adolf Eichmann was one of the chief architects of the Nazi extermination schemes. Churchill is trying to draw a comparision between WTC workers and Eichmann. And make no mistake, Churchill applauded the attacks and said that the WTC victims got what they deserved. (The quote that Dreadsox posted was taken from Churchill's book "The Justice of Roosting Chickens", if I'm not mistaken.)

Okay, so let's look at his analysis:

1. The US military commits atrocities in other countries.
2. The US military is "enslaved" to America's "global financial empire".
3. Therefore, America's global financial empire is complicit in these atrocities.
4. The WTC victims are intelligent people who should understand point (3), yet willingly choose to work for the large banks and firms that constitute America's global financial empire.
5. Therefore, the WTC victims are complicit in US military atrocities.
6. Therefore, the WTC victims deserve death.

Let's see...I'd say that points (1) and (2) are sufficiently vague and controversial that it's morally acceptable not to agree with point (3). Hence points (4) and (5) are invalid, and the argument breaks down.

I'm familiar with Eichmann. If I agreed with your interpretation of the argument I would agree, but I think it's a straw man. Here's mine:

1)American's elect a government.
2)The government is responsible of setting a foreign policy and deploying the armed forces.
3)The US gov't and military has killed or helped to kill, maim or kidnap millions of innocent civilians since WWII.
4)When the US government deploys the military which commits attrocities for the benefit of the United States, the public bears SOME responsibility because it has elected the government that has deployed the military which has committed attrocities.

I think these statements are incontrovertible:

Do (1) American's not elect their government?
Is (2) the government not responsible for deploying the military?
Does the military
Have (3) the gov't and military not killed, maimed and kidnapped millions since WWII?

EDIT: The US gov't is directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of (a "conservative estimate") 8,000,000 people, mostly civilians since WWII.

Sorry, but when you elect your government, you are at least partly responsible for its actions (not deserving of death, though). I find this logic incontrovertible, although I would never fire an academic for disagreeing.

Or instead of analyzing the argument point-by-point, we can argue by reductio ad absurdum: Churchill's analysis could be extended to imply that secretaries in the WTC, people who use credit cards, people who drink coffee, and George Soros all deserve death.

I think you misunderstand what "reductio ad absurdum" is. It's a poor form of reasoning, a fallacy, in fact. Arguments that reply upon 'reductio ad absurdum' are immanently flawed because they attempt to prove something by contending that the opposite would be too unbelievable to accept. You can't argue using this technique because you're ignoring that reality could be equally absurd.

I wouldn't take his argument that far at all. I would say that all attacks are unjusitfied, but those citizens are partly responsible for the acts of the govt they elected. That doesn't mean that the justifiable reprisal is terrorism, though.

Or even better: Churchill is an employee of the University of Colorado, a large research university that does military research and receives funds from the DoD for a wide variety of other projects. Hence Churchill deserves death.

That's why I think Churchill's work is intellectually dubious. And claiming that people deserve to die based on such work is morally reprehensible.

In your first paragraph, you're allowing the subjugation of education to political and economic will, sacrificing its integrity and breeding ignorance.

They don't deserve to die any more than any Iraqi, Chilean or Afghani children. That's the point he's making. But it's intellectually dubious to claim anybody deserves to die. I don't think he's doing that at all. I think he's exaggerating with an analogy to make his point, which is the only thing intellectually doubtful thing that he's doing.


Jon

 

[speedracer]

They don't but if it's the truth, why shouldn't they speak it?

I do not know what the antecedent to the pronoun "it" in the sentence above is. If "it" refers to "morally reprehensible and intellectually dubious arguments", I should think that the answer to your question would be obvious.

I'm familiar with Eichmann. If I agreed with your interpretation of the argument I would agree, but I think it's a straw man. Here's mine:

I'm reading exactly what Churchill wrote, not what you think he should have written.

1)American's elect a government.
2)The government is responsible of setting a foreign policy and deploying the armed forces.
3)The US gov't and military has killed or helped to kill, maim or kidnap millions of innocent civilians since WWII.
4)When the US government deploys the military which commits attrocities for the benefit of the United States, the public bears SOME responsibility because it has elected the government that has deployed the military which has committed attrocities.

I think these statements are incontrovertible:

Do (1) American's not elect their government?
Is (2) the government not responsible for deploying the military?
Does the military
Have (3) the gov't and military not killed, maimed and kidnapped millions since WWII?

EDIT: The US gov't is directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of (a "conservative estimate") 8,000,000 people, mostly civilians since WWII.

Sorry, but when you elect your government, you are at least partly responsible for its actions (not deserving of death, though). I find this logic incontrovertible, although I would never fire an academic for disagreeing.

Well, you go from "killing innocent civilians" in (3) to "atrocities" in (4), ignoring the fact that not all cases of killing innocent civilians are morally equivalent. But your opinions aren't my primary target here.

I think you misunderstand what "reductio ad absurdum" is. It's a poor form of reasoning, a fallacy, in fact. Arguments that reply upon 'reductio ad absurdum' are immanently flawed because they attempt to prove something by contending that the opposite would be too unbelievable to accept. You can't argue using this technique because you're ignoring that reality could be equally absurd.

Unless you're willing to cut up your credit cards in order to right yourself relative to this absurd reality we inhabit, I can't buy your argument.

I wouldn't take his argument that far at all. I would say that all attacks are unjusitfied, but those citizens are partly responsible for the acts of the govt they elected. That doesn't mean that the justifiable reprisal is terrorism, though.

Again, the aim of my previous post was not to make you look like a fool, it was to make Churchill look like a fool.

In your first paragraph, you're allowing the subjugation of education to political and economic will, sacrificing its integrity and breeding ignorance.

Churchill could have kept the thrust of his argument without making a jackass of himself. It's unfortunate that he chose the alternative.

They don't deserve to die any more than any Iraqi, Chilean or Afghani children. That's the point he's making. But it's intellectually dubious to claim anybody deserves to die. I don't think he's doing that at all. I think he's exaggerating with an analogy to make his point, which is the only thing intellectually doubtful thing that he's doing.

You gotta be kidding me. Read Dreadsox's post again and tell me with a straight face that Churchill wasn't being mean-spirited.

 

[A_Wanderer]

I think that by according weight to Mr. Churchill's salute to "combat teams" of mass murderers wiping out "little Eichmanns" is an example of opinion being transformed into fact. We stand here reading a piece of utter nonsense and then one steps forward defending it on the basis that it is a "different perspective" and a "dissenting point of view" that deserves equal recognition. It is no different than holocaust denial or creationism; they are both of a "different perspective" and they are indeed each a "dissenting point of view" and just like Mr. Churchill's comments they are inflammatory and factually wrong.

Would we be so supportive if children went to a biology class and instead of learning principles of evolutionary biology were taught that the earth was created by God 6000 years ago and that all evidence to the contrary was the work of the devil?

How about if in high school history kids learned the other side to the holocaust; how Jews were responsible for the war and how the death camps didn't exist, that the numbers have been manipulated to furthur their zionist cause. that Hitler was not a bad guy he was simply the victim of a Jewish plot?

We live in a world of fact and it is when people blur the line between fact and opinion by placing them upon equal footing that the quest for knowledge is corrupted and an aversion to facts sinks into the process.

The man shouldn't be fired and nor should he be censored ~ he should just be listened too so that people can see for themselves how sick and twisted those like Mr. Churchill really are.

And for the record I think that Pinochet was a bastard and I think that the United States should be ashamed of it's bastard but I also think that people should stop parading around Pinochet as the be all and end all of dictators in the world. For every US supported dictator like Pinochet or Suharto there were and still are in some cases Soviet backed ones like Fidel Castro's, Idi Amin's and Saddam Hussein's out there. Could scorn be directed at all of these people rather than just one; they were and are all enemies of democracy and the world without them is better for it.

 

[drhark]

Personal attacks like "loser" do not make what he says untrue.

Jon

Jon, I made no comment on his words. The loser comment was referring to his false ancestral claims. that's why I posted the link

 

[Klink]

I do not know what the antecedent to the pronoun "it" in the sentence above is. If "it" refers to "morally reprehensible and intellectually dubious arguments", I should think that the answer to your question would be obvious.

"It" can be whatever you want. I'm arguing that people should have the freedom to say what they conclude, feel etc, without the worry of being fired etc. If your position exists to prmote the existing state (like a whitehouse speech writer, for example), then I find dismissal more understandable. But education is not about a political agenda (or is it?).

I'm reading exactly what Churchill wrote, not what you think he should have written.

And I'm suggesting your literal interpretation fails to read between the lines. Meaning and context can be as important as the expression itself.

Well, you go from "killing innocent civilians" in (3) to "atrocities" in (4), ignoring the fact that not all cases of killing innocent civilians are morally equivalent. But your opinions aren't my primary target here.

I'm not sure why this matters. Killing innocents is considered an atrocity to me. Maybe not the same for you. That's totally understandable. I'm curious if you would consider one instance morally acceptable if you were a relative of one of the victims. i don't think you can ask victims and their families to see these acts in that way.

Unless you're willing to cut up your credit cards in order to right yourself relative to this absurd reality we inhabit, I can't buy your argument.

I'm not sure what you mean here? My argument here was not about cutting up credit cards. I was suggesting that what he saying cannot be discredited simply because it seems too ridiculous to be true. My actions are irrelevant to the point Churchill is making. This style of arguing is called "ad hominem tu quoque" or the "you too" fallacy. What I am saying cannot be discredited by my actions. They are unrelated.

Again, the aim of my previous post was not to make you look like a fool, it was to make Churchill look like a fool.
Churchill could have kept the thrust of his argument without making a jackass of himself. It's unfortunate that he chose the alternative.

You gotta be kidding me. Read Dreadsox's post again and tell me with a straight face that Churchill wasn't being mean-spirited.

I wasn't referring to dreadsox' post, but rather the one above it. I don't agree with everything the guy is saying...don't get me wrong. He was out there with the Eichmann thing, but does that mean that he should be fired? I don't happen to think so. I don't care if his position were the theoretical one A_wanderer posted before. I do think freedom of speech and academic integrity are more important than mean-spiritedness and soft, sticky opinion-based terms like that.

"I disapprove of what you right to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
- Voltaire [Francois Marie Arouet] (1694 - 1778)

There is an inherent danger in outcasting people for their positions. I do not find the limiting of the spectrum of possibility for the benefit of political or personal agendas at all consistent with societies that wish to to promote themselves as justifiable spreaders of freedom and "moral" values. Wouldn't that be hypocritical? We have these rights for what we perceive to be a good reason and I don't find a valuable argument for labeling and dismissing these people so that our children's minds are formed to fit the current political direction. I know you are not necessarily arguing that, but I can't buy it.


Respectfully,
Jon

 

[Klink]

I think that by according weight to Mr. Churchill's salute to "combat teams" of mass murderers wiping out "little Eichmanns" is an example of opinion being transformed into fact. We stand here reading a piece of utter nonsense and then one steps forward defending it on the basis that it is a "different perspective" and a "dissenting point of view" that deserves equal recognition. It is no different than holocaust denial or creationism; they are both of a "different perspective" and they are indeed each a "dissenting point of view" and just like Mr. Churchill's comments they are inflammatory and factually wrong


Would we be so supportive if children went to a biology class and instead of learning principles of evolutionary biology were taught that the earth was created by God 6000 years ago and that all evidence to the contrary was the work of the devil?

How about if in high school history kids learned the other side to the holocaust; how Jews were responsible for the war and how the death camps didn't exist, that the numbers have been manipulated to furthur their zionist cause. that Hitler was not a bad guy he was simply the victim of a Jewish plot?

We live in a world of fact and it is when people blur the line between fact and opinion by placing them upon equal footing that the quest for knowledge is corrupted and an aversion to facts sinks into the process.

The man shouldn't be fired and nor should he be censored ~ he should just be listened too so that people can see for themselves how sick and twisted those like Mr. Churchill really are.

And for the record I think that Pinochet was a bastard and I think that the United States should be ashamed of it's bastard but I also think that people should stop parading around Pinochet as the be all and end all of dictators in the world. For every US supported dictator like Pinochet or Suharto there were and still are in some cases Soviet backed ones like Fidel Castro's, Idi Amin's and Saddam Hussein's out there. Could scorn be directed at all of these people rather than just one; they were and are all enemies of democracy and the world without them is better for it.

I'm not so sure they are wrong, A_wanderer. You know I agree with you about creationism and certainly the holocaust, but that was not at all my jusitfication. There is plenty of reason to believe that US foreign intervention is the root cause of terrorism...including the CIA report described by the Washington post. In the sense that this particular view is supported by at least one empirical study from the government itself (like the one described above), it is different from denying the holocaust and promoting creationism and I find it hard, in light of the last 50 years of history, to simply deny.

I'm very careful when using the word "fact". I happen to see evolutionary arguments and evidence of the holocaust as factual. Again, that his statements are backed up by empirical history and the above report (among many other things) does suggest to me that this is different from teaching creationism in biology, for which there is no evidence. His position cannot be thrown out on the same grounds. Even the CIA (countrary to their agenda) is admitting that. Biology and physics are on much firmer ground than sociology or psychology, which is what we're dealing with here. Your interpretation of what is factual will always be questionable in sociology. We have been unable to establish any social facts as fo yet, except perhaps relativism by what appearw to be default. (I'm a sociologist by training.) I happen to think the lines between fact and interpretation are thin and often ignored for convenience' sake in social analysis. Many are quick to jump on the self righteous, moral absolutist's bandwagon, and use those soft words like "appropriate" and "politically correct", as if somehow those are objective and self-justifying criteria.

I am not simply supporting a dissenting opinion because it's a dissenting opinion. But there is considerable evidence to suggest that his position may have some merit and is thus not to be quickly rlegated to the dustbin. In light of what we have all seen and what is becoming more evident, I completely reject the claim that his position is simply unfactual....especially because arguments can be made for the inaccuracy of other hypothetical situations created simply in order to dismiss this one. Those other positions are red herrings...they are not the issue at hand. His statements, like all, live and die by their own merit.

What lacks merit is the war in Iraq. Nobody is making an argument for communism or totalitarianism here. But the means by which and the reasons for which we engage in actions can turn out to make the difference between success and failure in forign intervetion. The USSR was a brutal regime in its own right, but I don't see any support for it here. For many Iraqis, Chileans, Guatemalens (or whatever) etc, the world would be better place without the US interventions, but this is not a question of comparison, but what can be justified and what connot be justified in its own right. Both obviously deserve criticism and you have me pegged wrong if you think I harbour ciritcism for only one side. However, the majority of people responding are not denying that there is blame to be laid on the "terrorists". They are denying their own agency and complicity in the events of 9/11 and around the world. The natural result is that these are the focus of my criticism.

I agree with letting people hear what he has to say. Let them judge for themselves, without the help of moral absolutists and the thought police.


Take it easy guys. I think I've had all I can handle for a while. Got a busy week ahead. Thanks for the discussion.

Jon

 

[AvsGirl41]

Or even better: Churchill is an employee of the University of Colorado, a large research university that does military research and receives funds from the DoD for a wide variety of other projects. Hence Churchill deserves death.

That's why I think Churchill's work is intellectually dubious. And claiming that people deserve to die based on such work is morally reprehensible.

Ah, you beat me to it--and said it better than I could.

Churchill's statements lose credibility for me when he's quite happily ensconced in a school not only receiving military and government funds, but a ridiculous amount of tuition from his hated "little Eichmanns."

If he truly believes in what he writes, let him teach at a different college, one like mine--working class, adult, and ethnically diverse. Or better yet, work on the reservations and help improve the lives of the Native Americans he so readily claims blood ties to. And yet, where is he? At the most white bread, preppie-filled, sports and party oriented college in the state.

Like I said--subpar professor, academic and activist. I love an inflammatory historian like Howard Zinn, but this guy is a joke. It's a shame that probably more people have now read Churchill's crap than Zinn's excellent work.

 

[speedracer]

"It" can be whatever you want. I'm arguing that people should have the freedom to say what they conclude, feel etc, without the worry of being fired etc. If your position exists to prmote the existing state (like a whitehouse speech writer, for example), then I find dismissal more understandable. But education is not about a political agenda (or is it?).

Just to be clear -- I don't think Churchill should be fired. CU would have an even bigger mess on their hands if they fired him, because tenured contracts probably have very specific protections written in them.

But if Churchill's case for tenure were to come up right now, he wouldn't stand a chance in hell of making it. His work is about as scholarly as the pamphlets those Lyndon LaRouche supporters try to give me when I step out of the subway station.

And I'm suggesting your literal interpretation fails to read between the lines. Meaning and context can be as important as the expression itself.

The paragraph in question sounds very cold, calculated and sober to me, not facetious or hysterical. I don't see any other way of reading it other than to mean that he thinks that the WTC victims got what they deserved.

I'm not sure why this matters. Killing innocents is considered an atrocity to me. Maybe not the same for you. That's totally understandable. I'm curious if you would consider one instance morally acceptable if you were a relative of one of the victims. i don't think you can ask victims and their families to see these acts in that way.

Well, motive and intent matter a lot, but that's a matter for another thread.

I'm not sure what you mean here? My argument here was not about cutting up credit cards. I was suggesting that what he saying cannot be discredited simply because it seems too ridiculous to be true. My actions are irrelevant to the point Churchill is making. This style of arguing is called "ad hominem tu quoque" or the "you too" fallacy. What I am saying cannot be discredited by my actions. They are unrelated.

You said that the reduction ad absurdum argument is weak because the conclusions may not be so absurd relative to the conditions that create them.

If you really think the absurdum part of my argument is invalid, then it is a moral imperative not to trade stocks, drink coffee or use credit cards. The reason I singled you out is because you're the one claiming that my argument is invalid, not because I have a vendetta against you. If you don't think it's a moral imperative to cut up credit cards, then I don't think you can claim my argument is invalid.

I think Wal-Mart treats its employees terribly, but I don't think it's a moral imperative not to shop there.

I wasn't referring to dreadsox' post, but rather the one above it. I don't agree with everything the guy is saying...don't get me wrong. He was out there with the Eichmann thing, but does that mean that he should be fired? I don't happen to think so. I don't care if his position were the theoretical one A_wanderer posted before. I do think freedom of speech and academic integrity are more important than mean-spiritedness and soft, sticky opinion-based terms like that.

Well, his Eichmann screed has been published in his book and is therefore part of his scholarly portfolio.

Churchill's tried to issue a "clarification" backing away from it, but it sounds weaselly and insincere. Nothing coming close to a disavowal of those comments.

"I disapprove of what you right to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
- Voltaire [Francois Marie Arouet] (1694 - 1778)

There is an inherent danger in outcasting people for their positions. I do not find the limiting of the spectrum of possibility for the benefit of political or personal agendas at all consistent with societies that wish to to promote themselves as justifiable spreaders of freedom and "moral" values. Wouldn't that be hypocritical? We have these rights for what we perceive to be a good reason and I don't find a valuable argument for labeling and dismissing these people so that our children's minds are formed to fit the current political direction. I know you are not necessarily arguing that, but I can't buy it.

Respectfully,
Jon

What I am arguing is that if you're say that certain people deserve to be murdered, you better have a pretty darn good argument for it.

Again, I think Churchill should stay. Not on First Amendment grounds, but on contractual grounds. He's lost all credibility among mainstream America; let him live with it. In the meantime, CU should search for a strong professor who can counter his views.

I'm sure you must have read the works of Chomsky and Zinn. Neither of them would publicly claim that the WTC victims got what they deserved.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Here is the part of his writing that makes me want to puke:

I agree

Oh the irony of a professor calling other people self important

 

[verte76]

We once had a governor who was so klutzy that we joked that he'd gone to college and majored in football. The guy had indeed been a football star at Auburn, and as governor he drove us all crazy meddling in education. I am embarrassed to have to admit that I'm distantly related to this joker. While I do not approve of the professor's comments, I resent politicians, of all people, sticking their noses in education matters. Let the people at the university decide if they want to dump someone who's making such dumbass remarks.

 

[speedracer]

We once had a governor who was so klutzy that we joked that he'd gone to college and majored in football. The guy had indeed been a football star at Auburn, and as governor he drove us all crazy meddling in education. I am embarrassed to have to admit that I'm distantly related to this joker. While I do not approve of the professor's comments, I resent politicians, of all people, sticking their noses in education matters. Let the people at the university decide if they want to dump someone who's making such dumbass remarks.

Just wait a few years until Charles Barkley becomes governor.

 

[melon]

Ignoring the politics, professors like Churchill annoy the hell out of me. They all try to be so "postmodernist" by being "shocking." Jean Baudrillard was great at that, but the difference between Baudrillard and Churchill is that Baudrillard could be "shocking" without being "offensive." Churchill is probably trying to outdo the postmodernist "greats," but he just plain sucks at it.

Part of me hopes that Churchill is fired, not because of the stupid politicians, but because the university reviewed his work and discovered it to be the crap that it is.

Melon

 

[yolland]

Or even better: Churchill is an employee of the University of Colorado, a large research university that does military research and receives funds from the DoD for a wide variety of other projects. Hence Churchill deserves death.

From what I've read of his work, Churchill would in fact be quick to accept this 'absurdium.' He doesn't exclude himself from culpability for the global consequences of US economic and political imperialism. And just because he believes that a kind of karmic 'justice' is served by 'blowback' like 9/11 doesn't mean he passively accepts such events as inevitable, or as cause for rejoicing. (It's hard to imagine him 'rejoicing' over much of anything, anyway--in everything I've read, his tone is almost unremittingly cynical, fatalistic, and misanthropic.)

If you really want to know the context of his references to Nuremberg, Nazism, and the analogies he argues they present to US policy abroad, the best essay to read is probably an older one called 'Bringing the Law Home' from his 1994 book 'Indians Are Us?'. Although not the first essay in which he makes such an argument, this one is the clearest articulation of it I've seen. (Though I certainly can't claim to be an expert on his work or themes.)

The argument is NOT easy to summarize, but in a nutshell: In the post-WWII Nuremberg Trials, the US took a leading role in formulating sweeping new definitions of 'crimes against humanity,' which were then applied--ex post facto, again with US support--to such 'nonviolent' Nazi criminals as Eichmann and propagandist Julius Streicher, both of whom got the death penalty. Yet the US refused for 40 years to sign the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, which derived from these Nuremberg precedents--and when it did sign, it was only with the notorious qualification of the 'Lugar-Helms-Hatch Sovereignty Package' ("We'll abide by it, except where we think it conflicts with our interests" ), rendering the signing meaningless as anything other than a symbolic gesture. While there were multiple reasons for this foot-dragging, the Congressional debate records clearly show that fear of the Convention's potential usefulness to Native or African Americans for mounting 'reparations' cases (or treaty enforcement demands!) against the US government was a major factor. As well as the humiliating possibility of cases being filed against the US by other countries within its 'sphere of influence'...

So, for Churchill, the unfulfilled promise of Nuremberg makes an apt metaphor for US hypocrisy in vigorously defending its own right to hold other countries responsible for their sins, while refusing to acknowledge responsibility for the destructive consequences of its own political, economic, and military actions. Moreover, because the US is a democracy--and because its citizens profit from the consequences of said actions--the weight of that responsibility extends to anyone who can vote. (Though it's fair to say that Churchill sees those who profit the most as being most responsible.) Thus, in his view, acts of 'revenge' like 9/11, committed by groups acting on behalf of the US's 'victims,' do indeed serve a kind of justice (the hardnosed, eye-for-an-eye type, not the romantic Platonic sort).

As for whether or not Churchill is a 'real' Native American, well...the politics of 'who is a Native American' are even more fractious and murky than those of 'who is a Jew.' Churchill has certainly held prominent positions in several national Native American organizations, including the American Indian Movement, the American Indian Anti-Defamation Council, and the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee. None of which proves him to be an 'authentic' anything, but at the very least, he's not a Carlos Castaneda-style fakir.

 

[Klink]

What I am arguing is that if you're say that certain people deserve to be murdered, you better have a pretty darn good argument for it.

Re your absurdum argument; It's not simply weak. It's considered a reasoning fallacy by the standards of formal logic. It is immanently flawed because it seeks to eliminate conclusions solely by claiming that they are too absurd to be believable, not because they are false. What is 'absurd' is subjective, and arguments are often labeled as absurd out of self interest rather than in the spirit of truth. This appeal to ridicule constitutes its own fallacy in that arguments are not false simply because you ridicule them. Absurdity can still be truth.

Again, simply put, my actions are irrelevant to the truth of these arguments as well. Nothing can change that. Ad hominem tu quoque arguments are flawed. You, in fact, actually help demonstrate my point with your Wal-Mart example. Your shopping at Wal Mart cannot be construed to say that you support Wal-Mart's treatment of their employees because, as you said, morally you don't....even though your actions suggest otherwise. I think that demonstrates more that social relationships can be irrational and actually absurd, not that we are violating moral imperatives.


I have yet to hear a good reason for the US interventions that have murdered millions of innocents in the last 50 years. That said, it is possible to contend that the Western public is complicit in these murders without arguing that they deserve to die. That is, in fact, what I'm doing. I'm not a proponent of the death penalty.

I can see we agree on about 90% of the issue, which is that he should stay and let individuals judge for themselves...except many here have already judged on behalf of society.

Can anybody tell me why there's such a public backlash against sensationalism? Why are people more concerned about the degree to which a position deviates from the mean than they are about whther the position has merit? Sensational claims can be true. Where's the interest in truth?

Jon

 

[Scarletwine]

I don't agree with everything he says, but we do have to be responsible for the actions of our government. His response.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Feb05/Churchill0203.htmLessons Not Learned and the War on Free Speech
by Ward Churchill
www.dissidentvoice.org
February 3, 2005In the last few days there has been widespread and grossly inaccurate media coverage concerning my analysis of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, coverage that has resulted in defamation of my character and threats against my life. What I actually said has been lost, indeed turned into the opposite of itself, and I hope the following facts will be reported at least to the same extent that the fabrications have been.

The piece circulating on the internet was developed into a book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens. Most of the book is a detailed chronology of U.S. military interventions since 1776 and U.S. violations of international law since World War II. My point is that we cannot allow the U.S. government, acting in our name, to engage in massive violations of international law and fundamental human rights and not expect to reap the consequences.

I am not a "defender" of the September 11 attacks, but simply pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned. I have never said that people "should" engage in armed attacks on the United States, but that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable consequence of unlawful U.S. policy. As Martin Luther King, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, said, "Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable."

This is not to say that I advocate violence; as a U.S. soldier in Vietnam I witnessed and participated in more violence than I ever wish to see. What I am saying is that if we want an end to violence, especially that perpetrated against civilians, we must take the responsibility for halting the slaughter perpetrated by the United States around the world. My feelings are reflected in Dr. King's April 1967 Riverside speech, where, when asked about the wave of urban rebellions in U.S. cities, he said, "I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed . . . without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government."

In 1996 Madeleine Albright, then Ambassador to the UN and soon to be U.S. Secretary of State, did not dispute that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of economic sanctions, but stated on national television that "we" had decided it was "worth the cost." I mourn the victims of the September 11 attacks, just as I mourn the deaths of those Iraqi children, the more than 3 million people killed in the war in Indochina, those who died in the U.S. invasions of Grenada, Panama and elsewhere in Central America, the victims of the transatlantic slave trade, and the indigenous peoples still subjected to genocidal policies. If we respond with callous disregard to the deaths of others, we can only expect equal callousness to American deaths.

Finally, I have never characterized all the September 11 victims as "Nazis." What I said was that the "technocrats of empire" working in the World Trade Center were the equivalent of "little Eichmanns." Adolf Eichmann was not charged with direct killing but with ensuring the smooth running of the infrastructure that enabled the Nazi genocide. Similarly, German industrialists were legitimately targeted by the Allies.

It is not disputed that the Pentagon was a military target, or that a CIA office was situated in the World Trade Center. Following the logic by which U.S. Defense Department spokespersons have consistently sought to justify target selection in places like Baghdad, this placement of an element of the American "command and control infrastructure" in an ostensibly civilian facility converted the Trade Center itself into a "legitimate" target. Again following U.S. military doctrine, as announced in briefing after briefing, those who did not work for the CIA but were nonetheless killed in the attack amounted to no more than "collateral damage." If the U.S. public is prepared to accept these "standards" when the are routinely applied to other people, they should be not be surprised when the same standards are applied to them.

It should be emphasized that I applied the "little Eichmanns" characterization only to those described as "technicians." Thus, it was obviously not directed to the children, janitors, food service workers, firemen and random passers-by killed in the 9-11 attack. According to Pentagon logic, were simply part of the collateral damage. Ugly? Yes. Hurtful? Yes. And that's my point. It's no less ugly, painful or dehumanizing a description when applied to Iraqis, Palestinians, or anyone else. If we ourselves do not want to be treated in this fashion, we must refuse to allow others to be similarly devalued and dehumanized in our name.

The bottom line of my argument is that the best and perhaps only way to prevent 9-11-style attacks on the U.S. is for American citizens to compel their government to comply with the rule of law. The lesson of Nuremberg is that this is not only our right, but our obligation. To the extent we shirk this responsibility, we, like the "Good Germans" of the 1930s and '40s, are complicit in its actions and have no legitimate basis for complaint when we suffer the consequences. This, of course, includes me, personally, as well as my family, no less than anyone else.

These points are clearly stated and documented in my book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, which recently won Honorary Mention for the Gustavus Myer Human Rights Award. for best writing on human rights. Some people will, of course, disagree with my analysis, but it presents questions that must be addressed in academic and public debate if we are to find a real solution to the violence that pervades today's world. The gross distortions of what I actually said can only be viewed as an attempt to distract the public from the real issues at hand and to further stifle freedom of speech and academic debate in this country.

Ward Churchill is professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is a writer and activist who has authored numerous books on Native-American issues, human rights, US foreign policy and genocide, including On the Justice of Roosting Chickens and Pacifism As Pathology: Reflections On The Role Of Armed Struggle In North America.

 

[Klink]

scarletwine,
Thanks for that.

Even the Eichmann comment now seems more logical and less offensive when put in its proper context.

Not too surprisingly, reading between the lines seems to have paid off.

Jon

 

[speedracer]

Re your absurdum argument; It's not simply weak. It's considered a reasoning fallacy by the standards of formal logic. It is immanently flawed because it seeks to eliminate conclusions solely by claiming that they are too absurd to be believable, not because they are false. What is 'absurd' is subjective, and arguments are often labeled as absurd out of self interest rather than in the spirit of truth. This appeal to ridicule constitutes its own fallacy in that arguments are not false simply because you ridicule them. Absurdity can still be truth.

My point is not so much that a given conclusion is absolutely, undeniably absurd as that the statements "the people in the WTC deserved to die" and "people who use credit cards deserve to die" both follow from Churchill's arguments. The "absurdity" really just points to the flaws in Churchill's arguments: (1) his assessment of industrial complicity in atrocities is too weak to draw any moral imperatives from it, and (2) even if one agreed that we are complicit, it doesn't follow that we deserve to die.

Again, simply put, my actions are irrelevant to the truth of these arguments as well. Nothing can change that. Ad hominem tu quoque arguments are flawed. You, in fact, actually help demonstrate my point with your Wal-Mart example. Your shopping at Wal Mart cannot be construed to say that you support Wal-Mart's treatment of their employees because, as you said, morally you don't....even though your actions suggest otherwise. I think that demonstrates more that social relationships can be irrational and actually absurd, not that we are violating moral imperatives.

Fine, I'll take your word for it that you don't think that we have a moral imperative to wash our hands of any relationship with American financial institutions. But Churchill seems to think otherwise, if what he wrote in "The Justice Of Roosting Chickens" is any indication.

(I actually don't shop at Wal-Mart, not that that matters.)

I have yet to hear a good reason for the US interventions that have murdered millions of innocents in the last 50 years.

Well, it probably pointless for me to explain here why I believe the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were both justified, so I'll spare us all.

That said, it is possible to contend that the Western public is complicit in these murders without arguing that they deserve to die. That is, in fact, what I'm doing. I'm not a proponent of the death penalty.

Fair enuf.

I can see we agree on about 90% of the issue, which is that he should stay and let individuals judge for themselves...except many here have already judged on behalf of society.

Can anybody tell me why there's such a public backlash against sensationalism? Why are people more concerned about the degree to which a position deviates from the mean than they are about whther the position has merit? Sensational claims can be true. Where's the interest in truth?

Jon

Well, I think Melon explained it better than I did: you can be "shocking" without being "unnecessarily offensive". "The Justice Of Roosting Chickens", as far as I can tell, is distinctive not in its critical analysis but in its sensationalism. Hardly a work befitting a tenured academic.

 

[speedracer]

I am not a "defender" of the September 11 attacks, but simply pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned. I have never said that people "should" engage in armed attacks on the United States, but that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable consequence of unlawful U.S. policy. As Martin Luther King, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, said, "Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable."

[/B]

They did not license themselves to "target innocent civilians."

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.
[/b]

Sorry, but I can't read Churchill's piece, especially the last sentence, as saying anything other than that he thinks the traders and brokers in the WTC deserved to die.

 

[Klink]

My point is not so much that a given conclusion is absolutely, undeniably absurd as that the statements "the people in the WTC deserved to die" and "people who use credit cards deserve to die" both follow from Churchill's arguments. The "absurdity" really just points to the flaws in Churchill's arguments: (1) his assessment of industrial complicity in atrocities is too weak to draw any moral imperatives from it, and (2) even if one agreed that we are complicit, it doesn't follow that we deserve to die.

I think we have to be careful about slippery slopes. That is a slippery slope fallacy. It's like saying that polygamy logically follows from allowing gay marriage. That's not necessarily the case as it is possible that there are intervening variables which can change the logical conclusion.

Your criticism is based on absurd imperatives that you created from a logical argument. In other words, you have critiqued his logical argument using the absurd imperatives that you created as the target.

None of this is to say he can't be criticized, I just don't think he can in that way.


Jon

 

[speedracer]

I think we have to be careful about slippery slopes. That is a slippery slope fallacy. It's like saying that polygamy logically follows from allowing gay marriage. That's not necessarily the case as it is possible that there are intervening variables which can change the logical conclusion.

Well, I'd like to hear what these intervening variables are, because as far as I can tell Churchill argues that anybody who willingly chooses to undertake actions that keeps the American financial markets running deserves to die. If there's some threshold of participation which one must cross before deserving to die, Churchill hasn't explained it.

In Churchill's whitewashing, I mean clarification, of his earlier book, he says that secretaries in the WTC are akin to "collateral" damage because they're not directly involved. Well, even if one accepts his analysis of the "military-industrial complex", there's a pretty long chain of causality going from a secretary's work or a trader's actions to people being killed in Palestine/Iraq/Vietnam/wherever. (ObL's original motive was far less compelling -- it was to force the US to remove troops from Saudi Arabia.) Where does he draw the line between innocence and guilt? Why does a guy who trades orange juice or porkbelly futures deserve to die? Orange juice speculators and credit card users are on a roughly equal level, I'd say.

(Again, a common theme of your rebuttals is to categorically refute certain techniques of argument. I think you'd be better served to explain why my particular arguments are wrong, not why whole classes of arguments are wrong.)

 

[drhark]

It should be emphasized that I applied the "little Eichmanns" characterization only to those described as "technicians." Thus, it was obviously not directed to the children, janitors, food service workers, firemen and random passers-by killed in the 9-11 attack.

I'm glad he clarified his point. It was only the white collar workers that were little Eichmanns and had it coming to them.

 

[seankirkland]

calling for first amendment rights has got to be the most abused thing in America these days. it's not a ticket to say or do whatever you want. if everyone could say or do whatever they want, in the name of first amendment rights, there would be anarchy. but hey, we'd be "free" and not hindering anyone's "expressions."

 

[Irvine511]

he sounds no different than Arundhati Roy and her poetic, slightly insane columns written in the guardian post-9/11.

this is a topic i am very, very torn about. i know someone who died in the WTC, and i know several people who know many people who died. there's obviously no known, understood complicity in the bad things the US government has done since WW2 -- and, gosh, if the US has killed 8m people with it's policies, just how many have the USSR and China killed?

i also feel as if other nations, particularly non-Western nations, see life in more karmic terms, and see some kind of moral equivalency in the deaths of innocents in the WTC -- they are no more, or less, worthy than those who died in Nicaragua, or Grenada, or Iraq, or wherever you'd like to point to a US incursion. while i don't think that complicity should equal a death sentence, i think we're fooling ourselves if we don't think that this equivocation has a rational basis. we may not agree, nor are we as a nation as fatalistic in our view of the course of human events, but to dismiss this view as insane is, well, insane.

however, i am profoundly troubled by this:

"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."

this has the same logic as racism, or anti-semitism. they should have known better, and you toss out a million-and-one self-serving lampoons of real people. could we also not say that they were too busy trying to feed their children, pay their mortgages, take care of their elderly parents, and juggle a 60 hour a week work schedule to concern themselves with the geopolitical/historical consequences of their chosen profession?

i think you vastly underestimate the power the average US citizen has to actually affect the course of action his/her government takes.

 

[melon]

calling for first amendment rights has got to be the most abused thing in America these days. it's not a ticket to say or do whatever you want. if everyone could say or do whatever they want, in the name of first amendment rights, there would be anarchy. but hey, we'd be "free" and not hindering anyone's "expressions."

First off, Churchill is well within his First Amendment rights. It is now a matter as to whether he should be fired for them.

The only consistent limitation placed on free speech is whether that speech is meant to incite a riot/rebellion/war/murder. Supreme Court case precedents are a bit murky on this issue, though. Generally, prosecutions on this issue only happen after the fact; as in, if one's speech actually resulted in a riot.

But I digress. Churchill's writings, no matter how offensive, have certainly not crossed any legal thresholds.

Melon

 

[melon]

As for Churchill's "clarification"? I find myself agreeing with a lot of it. In short: if we consistently dehumanize the enemy and excuse away civilian casualties as "collateral damage" (and let's face it: we did just that during the airstrikes), we shouldn't be surprised if other nations and other cultures have an equally callous attitude towards the United States.

But Churchill could have said that to begin with without having to evoke all that sloppy "Little Eichmanns" crap. Like I said, postmodernist writing can be quite powerful, but, if used incorrectly, can flop terribly. He should have known better.

Melon