The "Nutty" Professor

Remember King's The Stand, and Frannie's observation about the pre-plague guy she'd been dating? How he always positioned himself -- posing -- gazing into the distance, so that he would appear to be in deep thought, comtemplating weighty matters that were far beyond the capabilities of everyone else. Got the image? Hold on to it.

I'm sure by now you've heard of Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado Professor and (now former) Chair of the school's Ethnic Studies Department. You also know by now, I'm sure, on September 11, 2001, Churchill wrote an essay in which he blames the victims in the Twin Towers for their own deaths. As a matter of fact, in it Churchill blames everyone except the terrorists themselves.

Not really everyone, just the U.S. going back to LBJ and to some extent the Jooz because of their "dispossession/displacement of Palestinians during the 1960s." Except Churchill didn't quite finish his "stream-of-consciousness interpretive reaction" so he added an addendum. It wasn't just the "combatants" who flew those planes on September 11. Quite possibly they were assisted by the ghosts of Koreans, Japanese, Cherokee who died on the Trail of Tears, and everyone else the United States has ever oppressed, killed, pissed off, or didn't buy cotton candy for when they were at the fair.

In a January 31 statement, Churchill says:

In 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.

Churchill then goes on to clarify his statement and in doing so, not only digs himself in even deeper but squeeze in mention of his book with the same title as his "essay."

Is this guy a schiester or a 1960s loon who must have done too much hash and peyote back then, fried his brain, and is stuck back there and can't get out? I think he's both.

This is the photograph of him I've seen most frequently:

Notice the distant gaze, the way-cool shades, and the suggestion of a turtle-neck to add to his I'm-a-with-it-kinda-guy appearance.

The guy I saw quoting Charles Manson in an interview was a much older wreck, a cross between Basil Rathbone and John Lennon on a had-hair day. I'd almost guarantee that the tweedy-jacket he wore had patches on its elbows.

This picture is closer . . .

Wade Churchill

. . . except his hair is much shorter here, and washed. I wonder what deep thought he's thinking deeply about this time? I'll bet he was drawing connections between the United States and Nazi Germany in the use by sports teams of Native American names, images and symbols.

Ward ('Che') Churchill

I want the state gone: transform the situation to U.S. out of North America. U.S. off the planet. Out of existence altogether. - Satya Magazine

All of my adult life, I've been an activist. I've been an activist full time one way or another. Every aspect of what I do is [connected] to that central task, and that central task of activism is to clarify and organize around the clarification. In the course of that activist adulthood, I have encountered and agreed with and participated in movements that aspired to certain slogans. When I started out it was "U.S. out of Vietnam," and then that was changed and it became "U.S. out of Indochina," and then it became "U.S. out of Southern Africa," and it was "U.S. out of the Caribbean and Central America," and then it became "U.S. out of the Persian Gulf." I agreed with every one of those, but ultimately there's only one way that any of them will be possible and that is: US out of North America, U.S. off the planet, and take Canada with you when you go! [Emp. ed] - 15th annual Under the Volcano: Festival of Art and Social Change, Celebrating Peoples Resistance to War, Occupation and Empire, Vancouver, British Columbia

I'm sure Wade Churchill is making all of these appearances out of the goodness of his heart. A man of conviction, he wouldn't lower himself by accepting money, or relying on any of the other symbols of the establishment he wants destroyed, things like airplanes, hotels, the internet, publicists . . .