Nazis in the WTC, 9/11, Ward Churchill and Responding to Eegah
I would have just replied, but I'm selfish and this topic is important enough to me to say something here...
I will never forget watching the World Trade Center burn from the roof of my building, or seeing forty foot flames shooting out of my office window the first time I saw a report from ground zero. I thought to myself in shock, "Whoa, I didn't think my desk would burn quite so well" since I had considered torching it several times after the bubble burst. I left the city for a few days after 9/11, thankful for having been late for work that day, but will never forget the feeling when I saw the thousands of "Missing" posters with photos of people just like me, with whom I rode the subway to work every day. I also remember that the two weeks after 9/11 were the best two weeks I ever lived in NYC. Total strangers came together like old friends and people showed respect for each other at a level I never thought I'd see.
Ward Churchill is a fool. Making arguments where you compare working people, many of whom were Jewish, to Nazis is stupid for reasons that anyone intelligent who reads this should already understand. Churchill is also an aging hippie college professor who lives in Boulder, Colorado. So, the Nazi comparison smacks not only of blatant ignorance, but of a personal dislike for people who work in corporate America - the WTC being one of it's prime symbols. Finally, if the point Churchill is trying to make is that America's enemies see people in the WTC being as evil as the Nazis, he's done a poor job of setting the record straight on what could be a valid point (though again, Nazi comparisons are cliche and inappropriate professor, use your f--ing brain).
My slightly-more-informed-opinon-than-Ward-Churchill's on the character of the people who died in the Trade Center is simple. Personally, I think most people are a-holes anyway, especially all my fellow pushy New Yorkers I traded elbows with on the subway every day. But being an a-hole doesn't make you a Nazi or even evil. Even if every one of those people was a greedy, cash-hoarding, conniving stock trader (which most weren't) they wouldn't deserve to die like that and have their names tarnished by some blowhard who doesn't think before he self-promotes.
Churchill's is an example of the kind of ivory tower, ex-hippie liberalism that makes swing voters go to the Right. Us libertarians should throw him a blanket party and shut him up so he can't do any more damage. I'll bring the lead pipe.
I will never forget watching the World Trade Center burn from the roof of my building, or seeing forty foot flames shooting out of my office window the first time I saw a report from ground zero. I thought to myself in shock, "Whoa, I didn't think my desk would burn quite so well" since I had considered torching it several times after the bubble burst. I left the city for a few days after 9/11, thankful for having been late for work that day, but will never forget the feeling when I saw the thousands of "Missing" posters with photos of people just like me, with whom I rode the subway to work every day. I also remember that the two weeks after 9/11 were the best two weeks I ever lived in NYC. Total strangers came together like old friends and people showed respect for each other at a level I never thought I'd see.
Ward Churchill is a fool. Making arguments where you compare working people, many of whom were Jewish, to Nazis is stupid for reasons that anyone intelligent who reads this should already understand. Churchill is also an aging hippie college professor who lives in Boulder, Colorado. So, the Nazi comparison smacks not only of blatant ignorance, but of a personal dislike for people who work in corporate America - the WTC being one of it's prime symbols. Finally, if the point Churchill is trying to make is that America's enemies see people in the WTC being as evil as the Nazis, he's done a poor job of setting the record straight on what could be a valid point (though again, Nazi comparisons are cliche and inappropriate professor, use your f--ing brain).
My slightly-more-informed-opinon-than-Ward-Churchill's on the character of the people who died in the Trade Center is simple. Personally, I think most people are a-holes anyway, especially all my fellow pushy New Yorkers I traded elbows with on the subway every day. But being an a-hole doesn't make you a Nazi or even evil. Even if every one of those people was a greedy, cash-hoarding, conniving stock trader (which most weren't) they wouldn't deserve to die like that and have their names tarnished by some blowhard who doesn't think before he self-promotes.
Churchill's is an example of the kind of ivory tower, ex-hippie liberalism that makes swing voters go to the Right. Us libertarians should throw him a blanket party and shut him up so he can't do any more damage. I'll bring the lead pipe.
posted by Edward at 7:28 AM
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