yes, it is in a sense correct to criticize the crocodile-tear mourning of the mass media. the mediocrity of the mediaocracy politicized the mourning of 9/11, to the point where anyone who publicly echoed these expressions became, like the media, proxy supporters of the emerging US agenda. the media sought from the very beginning to own and commodify the mourning of 9/11's victims for the purpose of the State, so that anyone else airing their sorrows needed to buy the product to participate.
but this point becomes somewhat lost in churchill's discourse as he wanes abstract in his cynicism on the state of the american populace. And with no objective criteria for doing so, the whole thing derails into demagoguery. whether he's complaining about his fantasies of suburban yuppiedom (e.g. "roll-neck sweaters", "litte 'Tiffany' and 'Ashley'") or retroactively criticizing to Arab stereotypes ("sand n-----s" and "camel jockeys"), he makes no inroads towards an understanding of the complexities of 9/11, apart from the aphorism in the title.
(And, if the "tomb of those killed in the WTC" is really that of "little Eichmanns," how can it be "desecrated" by "staging a veritable pep rally atop the mangled remains of those they profess to honor"?) --adx --- Kevin Robert Dean <Qualiall at adelphia.net> wrote:
> Colo. regents weigh prof's 9/11 comments
> 1/31/2005, 12:14 a.m. ET
> The Associated Press
>
<http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/national/index.ssf?/base/national-38/1107134301139680.xml&storylist=national>
> DENVER (AP) — The University of Colorado's regents
> have scheduled a
> special meeting to consider a professor's essay that
> said victims of the
> Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks deserved to die
> because they were a
> willing part of "the mighty engine of profit."
>
> The essay by Ward Churchill, chairman of the ethnic
> studies department
> and a longtime Indian activist, was written in the
> aftermath of the
> attacks. Its contents became known when he was
> invited to speak at
> Hamilton College in Syracuse, N.Y.
>
> Some relatives of Sept. 11 victims have protested
> the college's decision
> to allow Churchill to speak on Thursday, the same
> day the Colorado
> regents will meet on the university's Fitzsimons
> campus.
>
> CU Provost Phil DiStefano last week said Churchill's
> views do not
> represent the university, but he had a right to
> express them.
>
> A critic, U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez, R-Colo., said that
> because Churchill
> is tenured he apparently is immune from any
> sanctions by the university
> but should apologize. There was no answer at
> Churchill's office phone
> Sunday, and his private phone is not listed.
>
> Following the attacks, Churchill wrote an essay,
> "Some People Push Back:
> On the Justice of Roosting Chickens," that hailed
> the "gallant
> sacrifices" of the "combat teams" that struck
> America.
>
> He said although the victims were civilians they
> were not innocent. He
> went on to describe the World Trade Center victims
> as "little
> Eichmanns," a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who
> organized Nazi leader
> Adolf Hitler's plan to exterminate Europe's Jews.
>
>
>
> --
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