>By the way, since you're here - why did you write that piece? What
>was the point of fact-checking Churchill at a moment when he's under
>attack - and when any discrediting of his specific genocide claims
>will be used by the right to discredit any assertion that Indians
>were victims of genocide at all? Did you care about how your paper
>might be used, or just about getting The Facts straight?
The essay was written a year or two ago as a first draft addressed
to myself, to eventually be revised into a piece of a long-term project
on ethnic nationalist movements in the US. I thought it might be a
piece to effectively demonstrate how such movements rewrite history
to fit their contemporary political aims. To give you an idea of the
context: Another piece of that chapter analyzes the recent use of
Lost Cause revisionism by neo-Confederate southern nationalists.
I made the essay public now as a gift to the left, so that it would
not be necessary to line up behind Churchill on the free speech
issue. Keep in mind that Churchill came onto the radar screen
recently not so much for his political analysis, but for insulting
the dead. That is not worth going to bat for. Let Churchill go down
on the issue of dishonesty, as he deserves to do. Hope for a more
deserving and attractive champion to support on free speech.
Supporting Churchill is a big loser for the left, a bonehead
strategy. It only makes the left look bad.
I don't understand why anyone would object to outing a bogus
claim of genocide. The fable of the Boy Who Cried Wolf comes
to mind here. Overblown accusations of historical genocides that
cannot be supported by The Facts will deflate people's response
to future genocides. Think ahead!
I find incredible the implications that the blame for Ann Coulter-style
genocide denials somehow lies with me instead of Churchill.
Churchill is the one who gave her the ammunition, and it was only
a matter of time until the right got wind of it. The left should never
attempt to keep skeletons like Churchill in the closet. Instead, the
left should keep its own house clean and always tell the truth.
Wojtek wrote:
>So you had an ax to grind with Mr. Churchill and took an advantage of the
>witch hunting to settle the score. I think that undermines your
>credibility
>quite substantially. If being taken seriously were your main concern, you
>should have remained silent. Wisdom is knowing when to speak and when to
>remain silent.
More uninformed ad hominem.
Charles Brown wrote:
>I'm a leftist, and in my opinion your characterization of Churchill as
>"irredentist , ethnic nationalist " is racist, i.e. you need to be
>factually
>and ideologically checked on it. You are new to the list, and I hate to
>sharply criticize your argument so soon, but you really leave me no choice.
No need to hold back.
>It is shockingly racist for you to use a term like "irredentist" to refer
>to
>a Native American liberationist. It is equivalent to Holocaust denial in
>Europe. "Irredentist" is used , for example, to refer to WWI-WWII era
>,imperialist Germans starting world wars to "recover" territory. Churchill
>is a Native American activist raising the legitimate protests of Indians
>against the world-historic genocidal usurpation of the Western Hemisphere
>by
>Europeans. In other words, he is the absolute opposite of an "irredentist".
>You seem to have no sense of the distinction between oppressed and
>oppressor
>nations, a critical left concept. "Irredentist" is a totally wrong concept
>to apply to the leaders of oppressed nations who are protesting imperialist
>usurpation of their land !
I use the word in its dictionary meaning. If you want to load some
cherry-picked racial connotations onto it, that's your doing, not mine. I get
the impression that folks on this list are not very familiar with AIM politics
and ideology, which is so founded on racist essentialism that I suspect
you would be shocked and appalled if you knew what your jerking knees
were supporting.
>We would be giving the left a bad name if we didn't criticize you
>for lining up with the imperialists and racists.
This is precisely what I mean by boneheaded strategy--choosing
sides on the basis of shared enemies rather than shared values.
Did you know that Churchill traveled to Nicaragua to support the
Contra side, that he traveled to Libya to seek funding from Gadaffi
during the 80s, when Gadaffi was also supporting the guys shooting
down passenger planes, and that there have been contacts between
AIM and various other terrorist organizations around the world?
It seems to me that an intelligent left would learn to support Palestinian
rights without coddling goons like Arafat, to support Irish Catholic
rights without enabling IRA bombers, and to support Indian treaty rights
without lining up behind the aging gangsters and posers that run AIM.
Just because someone hates my enemies does not mean that I am
going to get in bed with him.
>I guess you mean well. Get a grip, comrade.
Thank you, but while I have found Marx's class theory useful,
I am not a Marxist in the political sense. Perhaps I'm too moderate
for this list.
John Thornton wrote:
>Irredentist ethnic nationalist? How do Churchills works fit into the
>category of irrendenta
>claims? When I think of irrendentist claims Cuban exiles in FL come to mind
>but not Native
>American claims. In Rogers Brubakers book "Nationalism Reframed" he gives a
>good definition
>of irredenta conflict as follows:
>
>"Irredenta conflict is a conflict between three parties: a nationalizing
>state, a national
>movement representing an ethnic minority within that state, and an external
>national homeland,
>to which that minority is construed as ethnically belonging. Brubaker's
>triadic nexus is a visual
>representation of this, granting each party a corner of the triangle. The
>implication is that the
>national minority is caught between the nationalizing state within whose
>borders it exists, and
>the external homeland to which it is seen as belonging."
For now, I prefer the simpler dictionary definition. Brubaker's more elaborated
conceptualization doesn't completely take in the issues of internal colonialism
as a motive for ethnic nationalism. Much of AIM's ideology would fit
his model of irredentism, but not all.
>Your characterization of Churchill as "closer to Milosevic than anyone else
>I can name off the
>top of my head" demonstrates a paucity of names at your disposal rather
>than identifying any
>commonality between the two.
No, on second thought, it is an excellent comparison. I could elaborate
at length on the commonalities, and might even do so in the book version,
but for now Doug wants this thread to die.
Thanks everybody for your thoughts. Not the ad hominem bozos, but the
legitimate critiques. I appreciate them more than you might imagine, even
when I disagree. Some of the implications about my timing verge on conspiracy
theory, and I am disappointed to see so much support for a charlatan that is
based on superficial impressions and shared enemies rather than informed
affinity. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by that, but you hope for more.
Thomas