The Anti-American Academy: Robert Jensen ( he says Ward Churchill is right about 9/11 )

Little Green Footballs ^ | monday, february 14, 2005

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The Anti-American Academy: Robert Jensen

Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He says the United States is a depraved criminal nation bent on dominating the world, and Ward Churchill is right.

Ward Churchill is right about 9/11.

I state that bluntly, even though I disagree with some aspects of the University of Colorado professor’s now-infamous essay, because so many (including some on the left) have defended his First Amendment rights while either remaining silent about, or condemning, the article’s analysis.

So, for the record: The main thesis Churchill put forward in “’Some People Push Back’: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens” is an accurate account of the depravity of U.S. foreign policy and its relationship to terrorism. Later I’ll return to my disagreements, but at a moment when right-wing forces have targeted not only Churchill but academic freedom and the left in general, it is more important than ever to stand firm on that point.

Malcolm X was correct, and it was appropriate for Churchill to quote him: Chickens do, indeed, come home to roost. And whether U.S. citizens want to acknowledge it or not, there likely will be chickens heading our way for years to come.

I take Churchill’s central thesis to be that (1) U.S. crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes around the world — from the genocidal campaigns against indigenous people on which this country was founded, through the post-World War II assaults (both by the U.S. military and through proxy forces) on the people of the Third World — are crimes, in legal and moral terms; (2) while contemporary non-state terrorism is a complex phenomenon, U.S. policies aimed at domination and control around the world are one of several key factors in spawning such terrorism; and (3) we must study that history and those connections if we want to prevent further crimes, whether committed by the United States or against U.S. citizens.

I also take a core assertion of Churchill’s essay to be that we citizens of the U.S. empire bear some collective responsibility for those crimes, depending on our level of power and privilege, and our capacity for resistance. As Churchill explained recently, he includes himself in that category, not as a perpetrator but as a member of movements that have failed to stop the crimes (just as I would include myself). Further, those people at the top of the power pyramid must accept their responsibility for those crimes, even if they are not directly involved in the planning and execution of specific criminal acts. The technocrats “at the very heart of America’s global financial empire” which U.S. policy serves, he wrote, are not innocent. (More later on how to understand the boundaries of that category.)

In case you missed it, he is a journalism professor. This is how he feels about the country that has provided him with a privileged, comfortable lifestyle, and this is what he’s teaching college-level journalism students.

He says Ward Churchill was showing his love when he called the murdered victims of 9/11 “little Eichmanns.”

For me, left politics — resistance to unjust impositions of authority and the struggle for a sustainable world that balances a deep yearning for individual freedom and a deep sense of responsibility for each other — is fueled by anger at the world as it exists, along with a love for people and an appreciation for the beauty of the non-human world. That righteous anger is powerful, as long as it does not slip into self-righteousness and stays in balance with that love. We can be glib about that struggle, but in reality the tension — inside of each of us and inside our movements — is not always easy to cope with. I wrestle with it every day.

Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker Movement was fond of quoting a line from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov: “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.” In the essay he wrote on 9/11, I believe Churchill was facing those harsh and dreadful realities, and I believe that essay was his attempt on that day to take love out of the realm of dreams and make it real in the world, in action.

02:08 PM PST | link: 477 comments |

link only
last comment: RebTex 5:54:24 pm 2/14/05
email this article

[MEG33]

All I had to do is be exposed to Jensen after 911 and never again..I am ashamed that he is a Texas professor.

[toddlintown]

Robert Jensen: Your trans-Atlantic flight is waiting.

[Ken522]

Where do universities dig up these jackasses? Do these dip-sticks know where their paychecks come from?

[Buck W.]

Robert Jensen: Your ONE WAY trans-Atlantic flight is waiting.

[satchmodog9]

Will I get in trouble for calling him a douche on this forum?

[Doctor Raoul]

Jensen's expertise is "Pornography From A Feminist Perspective". I'm NOT kidding.

This "Hate America" thing I think is just a hobby.

[Buck W.]

"Do these dip-sticks know where their paychecks come from?"

Tenured professors don't care.

[Darkwolf377]

I don't know about anyone else but I've reached saturation point on Ward Churchill. Which usually means the libs are just getting started on him.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I think this calls for the book info:

*****************************************************

Unholy Alliance
by David Horowitz
Regnery Publishing, Inc.; ISBN: 089526076X
Hardcover - 256 pages (September 2004)

In this tour de force on the most important issue of our time, David Horowitz, confronts the paradox of how so many Americans, including the leadership of the Democratic Party, could turn against the War on Terror. He finds an answer in a political Left that shares a view of America as the “Great Satan” with America’s radical Islamic enemies. This Left, which once made common cause with Communists, has now joined forces with radical Islam in attacking America’s defenses at home and its policies abroad. From their positions of influence in the university and media culture, leftists have defined America as the “root cause” of the attacks against it. In a remarkable exploration of the “Mind of the Left,” Horowitz traces the evolution of American radicalism from its Communist past to its “anti-war” present. He then shows how this Left was able to turn the Democratic Party presidential campaign around and reshape its views on the War on Terror.

Horowitz’s Unholy Alliance, writes John Haynes, the noted historian of American Communism, “is an insightful, brilliant examination of the mental world of the radical left. Horowitz shows how today’s radicals, unwilling to reflect on the internal flaws that destroyed Marxism-Leninism from within, have embraced an all-consuming nihilism in its place. This has led them to a hatred of American institutions and a solidarity with Islamic terrorists that makes the radical left more properly regarded as dangerous than loony.”

Unholy Alliance is an eye-opening book that should unsettle conventional assumptions and reveals why intellectuals and political leaders who applaud Michael Moore are no laughing matter. As Harvey Klehr, author of Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, writes, “The world Communist movement may be moribund, but its habits of mind and ideological fantasies have not disappeared. This is a fascinating and depressing account.”

Price: $19.01 - Click here to order:

[skip_intro]

You'll notice that he's a journalism professor, in case there's any question as to why the journalism "profession" has sunk so low.

[pissant]

Every major university is filled with Churchill-like vermin. When we are thru busting up the 5th column MSM, we must train our sites on the quislings in academia.

[Buck W.]

This guy is a frequent talk show guest. He probably made the statement to get another week of TV exposure.

That, and the fact that he is a US-hating slime weasel.

[satchmodog9]

I hear the Enquirer pays well.

[Unam Sanctam]

I guess this Jensen fellow and Chomsky agree that everyone that worked in the WTC was a Nazi who deserved to die. These people are sick, sick, sick!

[ChicagoRighty]

>> That, and the fact that he is a US-hating slime weasel. <<

You left out ... arrogant.

[Emmett McCarthy]

Jensen poses the same ethical dilemna that Churchill does: What do you do with someone who ain't worth living and ain't worth killing?

[dighton]

Robert Jensen: Your ONE WAY trans-Atlantic flight is waiting.

Half-way should do.

[clintonh8r]

"Journalism" is no longer a profession. It's more like an affliction.

[SuzyQue]

Yeah, this guy's a real piece of work. As an Austinite, I'm embarassed.

[skip_intro]

I hear the Enquirer pays well.

True. Maybe the great, unemployed journalist Eason Jordan should apply.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Damn, now watching H & C with Bob Beckel defending Eason from the Lynch Mob of the Bloggers who shoot first and ask questions later.....

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

One thing good, they are starting to expose themselves....

[BobL]

The thing for everyone to keep in mind is that there are some very SICK people in this country. They were born here, they have American names, they are white and privileged. Yet they HATE America. And some, like this clown, even live in Red states.

Robert Jensen is at the top of the list. Just a week after 9-11, he wrote a piece essentially saying that we deserved it.

One can only wonder who's side he would have been on after Pearl Harbor (and how much 'tolerance' the rest of the country would have had for his sick mind back then).

[bvw]

"I believe Churchill was facing those harsh and dreadful realities," ... similarly to the way Charles Guiteau did.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Fine with me, seems right to me.

[satchmodog9]

He is more like "Globe" material.

[carlr]

I sure hope more and more of these lunatics surface.
There has to be some,who have leaned dem over the years,become so appalled at what has taken over their party that they turn away from the dems for good.

As for academia,they are on their way to becoming a skit on SNL.
If colleges sense a loss of revenue because of some of the nitwits they have been sheltering,they will clean up the mess quickly.

The MSM has been put on notice by the "blogosphere",colleges should be alert as well.Craziness or deception will no longer be acceptable as academic freedom.You better be accurate and be willing to defend your rantings,not cower behind a classroom door and claim to be off limits when you make statements of extremism.

[Dog Gone]

Jensen is as big an America-hater as Ward Churchill. The funny thing is that if America were nearly as bad as either of them claimed, we would have silenced them with a bullet a long time ago.

Their freedom to speak garbage wouldn't be tolerated in any of the countries they claim we're oppressing.

Utter morons.

[marktwain]

Thanks for posting Horowitz' exposure of why the Left is so insane about blaming America for everything. It does an excellent job.

I was thinking of Horowitz' writing while reading this post. He really does explain this weird mindset, and where it comes from, very well.

[ichabod1]

We need to get rid of that one right after Churchill.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

What's the chances of seeing some review of this guys position like Colorado is doing? Have the Governor make a public appearance in how bad this makes the State of Texas appear to the rest of the nation.

We have been accused ( tonight by Bob Beckel on H & C ) of being a Lynch Mob, for putting heat on Easton at CNN.. We might as well get after another one...What you think!

[ichabod1]

So many communists, so little time.

[ichabod1]

I think he's jealous that Churchill is getting all the pub.

[GW and Twins Pawpaw]

My tax money helps to pay this moron. I want a refund!!!

[CyberAnt]

"a depraved criminal nation"

THEN WHY IN THE HELL IS HE BEING ALLOWED TO TEACH IN A UNIVERSITY - ARE THEY NUTS!!

And .. if America is so repugnant to this guy - give him a one-way ticket to any 3rd world country and he'll find out how depraved and criminal we are - but it will be too late.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The Universities are full of these kind of people.

See Post #10.

[Dog Gone]

I don't know if there's been any uproar even on the UT campus about Jensen's antics. I certainly haven't heard it.

The truth is that the people here at FR are far more familiar with Robert Jensen than most residents of Texas.

His columns are printed a few times a year in the Houston Chronicle, but I don't think many people notice. Most people don't read the newspaper, and if they do, they skip the op-ed columns. This is even true among my highly-educated, politically active, conservative coworkers.

If Robert Jensen wants to become a topic of conversation among Texans who are either not Freepers or members of the far left intelligentsia, he's going to have to something else besides write hate-America stuff.

[Malleus Dei]

This makes me ashamed to be a UT alum. No money from me for you, UT Austin, until this guy is gone.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Lots of Shepple in the ole USA I guess!

[Common Sense 101]

"Chickens do, indeed, come home to roost."

Is there anybody else out there of the opinion that this whole "chickens coming home to roost" thingy applies equally to psychotic, anti-American, self-loathing liberals, or am I being unrealistic here?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Well , like Dog Gone said above, most of the people in the USA are oblivious to this even happening.

Even many who are conservative.

[CyberAnt]

Yes, I know that.

[Joann37]

This guy keeps showing up on Joe Scarborough's show, but I've never seen him anywhere else. He is as anti-American as anyone I've ever seen.

[The_Media_never_lie]

U.S. policies aimed at domination and control around the world are one of several key factors in spawning such terrorism

Why come to grips with the fact that totalitarian Islam is just plain evil, when it's so easy to blame America first. /sarcasm>

[indcons]

He was here in a venue in my town for a discussion on the media's role(?) in the run up to the liberation of Iraq. I got into an argument with him and called him a liar after he abused Pres. Bush. He is a known scumb@g.

BTW, he appears quite often on H&C and Scarbrough.

[Emmett McCarthy]

"Shoot first and ask questions later"? - and the problem is?

Beckel's such a transparent cartoon. Hearing him go on about his deep religious faith after the defeat of Kerry was one of the more hilarious moments in modern political history.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Ann Coulter knows how to get all inflamed....big time!

[Valin]

Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He says the United States is a depraved criminal nation bent on dominating the world,

"Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid."
Heinrich Heine