Posted on 02/06/2005 5:26:49 PM PST by ken21
[An Phoblacht/Republican News]
The limits of pacificism
Pacifism as Pathology By Ward Churchill Published by Arbeiter Ring (e mail: arbeiter@tao.ca)
I would recommend to republicans a new book entitled ``Pacifism as Pathology: Reflections on the Role of Armed Struggle in North America.'' It is a re-introduction of an essay written by Ward Churchill in 1984. This version includes a supplementary essay by Canadian anti-imperialist Mike Ryan, and an introduction by recently-released American anti-imperialist POW Ed Mead. I think it could be a valuable resource for republicans and their allies.
Ward Churchill, who is of American Indian descent, served for a short time as an Army Ranger in Vietnam. After a short time he realised that he was doing to the Vietnamese what had been done to his people by the US government. He refused to go out anymore, and was soon sent back home.
Immediately after his plane landed in Chicago, he called Students for a Democratic Society, and became an organiser with them. He lived in Peoria, Illinois and had a room-mate who was a Black Panther, named Mark Clark.
In December 1969, when Chicago Police killed Black Panther Fred Hampton in a shoot-to-kill operation, they also killed Clark.
Churchill also became a member of the American Indian Movement at the time that it was engaged in armed conflict with the Federal government in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. He spent some time as a national spokesperson for the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee. Despite not having a PhD, Ward's incredible intellect and writing ability has earned him a top place in the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of Colorado in Boulder. I can hardly think of an issue he hasn't written about, but along with his work in American Indian Studies, he has also co-authored the standard works on the FBI's ``internal security'' campaigns (such as against the Black Panthers, labour, etc).
The book's main thrust is to analyze and tear apart the ideology of pacifism, explaining how it is, in many ways (as it is usually but not always practiced), a counter-revolutionary ideology. How in many cases pacifism allows people to pose as revolutionaries while ensuring that they are not in harm's way. Churchill argues that pacifism leads to liberalism and limits the ability of popular movements to create real change.
It is also argued that European-American pacifists, intentionally or not, ensure that the burden of violence is on non-European-American and Third World communities who are the most vulnerable to state violence and often have no real choice other than to use physical force in defence and in altering their situation.
Ward concentrates extensively on the Jewish Holocaust, pointing out that the overwhelming response of Jews was non-violence, but that when they did use violence they succeeded in destroying one entire camp, and one of the furnaces at Auschwitz.
Churchill does not advocate a shift from pacifism (especially if practiced in the purest form) to some kind of ``culture of violence.'' He is merely suggesting that left-wing and/or anti-imperialist movements should feel free to keep all options open, from rallies and petitions to armed self-defence to armed struggle and that this should be accepted by those who are not directly involved but who support the oppressed.
Mike Ryan quotes Martin Luther King, Jr. as saying: ``Whether they read Ghandi or Frantz Fanon, all radicals understand the need for action - direct, self-transforming and structure-transforming action.'' The point is that opposing repression and poverty and dismantling the structures which perpetuate them is more important than keeping ourselves out of harm's way.
As Ed Mead puts it, ``the question is not whether to use violence in the global class struggle to end the rule of international imperialism, but only when to use it.''
By Tom Shelley
Half the problem is that he and his writing, along with the rest of his fellow traveller ilk HAVE been ignored, and allowed to fester, for over 20 years.
. . .apparently, like most Liberals; he is more than a bit pathological when it comes to the truth.
Despite his claims; the Indians insist. . .he is NO Indian; the truth appears to be that he cannot honestlyclaim his 1/16th desired heritage.
This is not a liberal, at least not in the sense of the word as I use it.
Communists are not liberals. They hate liberals.
Ward Churchill's goal is to destroy democracy, not to make it work for Indian people. He says he wants this country wiped off the face of the earth.
He hates liberalism because it leads to oportunities for the development of Indians and to their success.
He wants Indians to be poor, backward and miserable so he can use them.
Whatever his bloodlines, no Indian nation would want to be associated with a guy who praised 9-11 and claimed he was Indian. Are you kidding?
that's right.
it's mind-boggling.
and it's EVIL.
Well why doesn't someone intimidate him back; a straight right to start would seem to be in order, and a query would you care for more?
You are elevating someone with the mental capacity of a rhesus monkey and elevating him to a Noam Chomsky. He is a flea who seems above all to enjoy saying the dumbest things imaginable to garner attention. Please let's ignore the former and deny him the latter.
Liberal by 'classic definition' no. Liberal by our now colloquial definition; yes. . .though calling him Liberal was a almost a quick kindness.
Communists are 'anti-democratic/anti-democracy/anti-individual/anti-freedom and by all our current definitions; the Liberal/socialist/communist, all share the same root as planted by Karl Marx. . and personalized by Lenin and Stalin. . .
First, it is wrong to attack people.
Second, do you think punching Bin Laden would have stopped Al Qaeda? You have to get people with the law. This process insures that justice is done.
Ward Churchill has some scary friends. He has AIM security, according to an Indian Country Today article.
I think these may be the Lakota Dog Soldiers. These are really terrorists.
Listen, Ward Churchill is not just some dopey professor.
He is a lot more than that.
I think people are probably afraid to report on these Dog Soldiers.
Ward Churchill is the Dem left personified; where have you been? DU mainlines this rhetoric; Teddy is wishing his brain could wax as coherent, Pelosi/Boxer are ashamed that they did not reach as far as Ward. My take; more rope, coming at ya!!!!, need some help??, have some more rope!
Why do you think so? He is a flea on a rat's ass. He is a nobody. He is no more dangerous than the Lyndon LaRouche retards yelling on a NYC street.
Kidding about what? Of course they do not want to be associated with him; but more to the point being made; his claims to be enough Indian to make him 'legally Indian'; are bogus. . .like many of his idiological kind. . .this Professor relies on the 'lie' for his claim for professional legitimacy. . .
Yes. Well I have made that point when I started a number of post on Ward Churchill and/or AIM.
Good. . .I have not seen any of them. . .and it surely is worth of mention. . .or 're-mention' so to speak . . .
Go to the American Indian Movement website, http://www.aimovement.org for the true story on Ward Churchill, as told by REAL Indians!
"Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master"- Demosthenes.
The anti-dote for war. . .is Freedom. . .and often, one has to first, fight 'bad people/bad ideas' to have that freedom.
Liberalism/Socialism/Communism are bad ideas.
Do you own a firearm? Are you comfortable handling that firearm? Answer no to any of the first two questions then they are coming to take you away he he ha ha ho ho to the funny farm...where Jimmy Carter lives in a grande malaise.
I've had a few, who'd a thought.
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