Mitchel Cohen posted a statement from Ward Churchill that included this statement:
"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."
Okay , got it. He has been misunderstood.
My problem arsoe when I tried to find out who this guy was. Unlike the rest of LBO I never heard of him until this brouhaha. I found that he wrote a piece called "Pacifism as Pathology." Being Buddhist, I am always fascinated by non-Buddhist takes on pacificsm so I tracked it down.
I found much of it good -- a debunking of Western pacifists as more likely to be bougeois poseurs rather than actually pacifists: "I hate violence because I might get hurt" instead of "I practice pacifism even though it may lead to my death."
But at the end he writes: "Undoubtedly, it seems the highest order of contradiction that, in order to achieve nonviolence, we must first break with it in overcoming its root causes. Therein, however, lies our only hope."
So it seems to me he is trying to eat his cake and have it to. He says that the healthiest desire is the desire for nonviolence, but the only way to achieve this healthy goal is violence.
Then he says in this new piece: "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."
So now the way to nonviolence is through the renunciation of violence?!?! I know we have to defend this guy, but he appears to me (an admitted non-academic) as several sandwiches short of a picnic.
Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister