Sean Hannity, Ward Churchill, "On the Justice of Roosting Chickens"

April 10, 2006:

On a recent Hannity and Colmes, Sean Hannity pontificated - the man seldom does anything else - that the federal government should stifle free speech by cutting off any federal funding received by the individual or those who employee him. Hannity, who is four or five clicks to the political right of Attila the Hun (not, of course, to imply that he, himself, would actually physically fight for anything much less go to war), so argued a couple of nights ago. In demagogue's fashion only he could duplicate, Hannity had been engaged earlier in a verbal exchange also typical of intellectual wannabees like himself, pretending to debate while interrupting and shouting down the "guest," Professor Ward Churchill. From the safety of very long distance, he was as insulting verbally as his limited wits could muster.

Churchill, the reader will recall, is the Colorado professor, writer, and civil activist who skewered the United States and its government in an essay entitled, "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens." The essay, while questioning the innocence of many people killed in the World Trade Center attacks and labeling them "technocrats" and "little Eichmanns," also quotes - as I have here - U.S. Marine Major General Smedley Butler, who in a 1935 speech likewise skewered the U.S. and its already smugly contrite public with the a lance made of historically incontrovertible facts. Churchill fires his own machinegun burst historical facts, a list too long to reprise here, but General Butler made Churchill's point quite well enough, thank you.

"I spent 33 years and 4 months in active service as a member of our country’s most agile military force – the Marine Corps... And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect money in. I helped in the raping of a half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street... I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped get Honduras “right” for American fruit companies in 1903. I helped get Honduras “right” for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was operate in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents."

It would be a lot of fun - wouldn't it? - to hear the bloviating Hannity - a war hawk who "did not serve" - hurl his middle finger salute from a car passing at high speed verbal thunderbolts at a two-time Medal of Honor winner like General Butler. The trouble with Butler's speech, and with Ward Churchill's essay, is not language like "technocrats" and "little Eichmanns." The trouble is that the point the professor was making is the truth. Now, confronted with incontrovertible and ineluctable truth, the alligator mouth with a robin's ass type like Hannity always repairs to the same smoke-and-mirrors devices. Foremost among these is the tactic whereby the moral coward finds anything in the context of what his adversary has said to criticize, thusly ignoring, and diverting attention from, the rest. He will then seek to blow - that's what I meant by "bloviating" - the words he's chosen as far out of proportion as he can. Anyone who listened to FoxNews and the rest of the White House and federal apologists in the aftermath of Churchill's essay heard the classic example. The same can be heard repeatedly on almost any issue of that particular organ of the White House.

Ward Churchill is a fifty-eight year old professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado, and author of more than twenty books. He has, in short, been researching and discussing his topic and point of view for a long time. His point is that U.S. foreign policy, economic and otherwise, provoked the attacks of September 11, 2001. There isn't any way around that. It's as true as it is obvious - to the rest of the world, anyway. The world knows that the United States engages in brutal colonialism. That's on the record of history.

The United States engages in murder. Murder? Don't bother with the knee-jerk indignation - I'm one of those whom the "Nation of Laws" trained to do it.

The United States engages in torture. We've not only been caught at it again and again, we are now debating the morality of what we've done, and, obviously, intend to do publicly.

The United States engages in terrorism. Terrorism? Well, you tell me what dropping bombs and firing missiles armed with 2,000-pound warheads into little Pakistani villages, on the off chance of killing a single enemy - however declared and deserving he might be - is.

The United States engages in oppression and economic slavery. Slavery. The U.S. has long, by means of self-serving and vicious monetary and economic policy, exploited and enslaved for capital gain vast numbers of the human race. That the public of a nation who engages in this kind of foreign "policy" is responsible has long been held by civilization, a fact argued, agreed, and promulgated again and again at Nuremburg. If the public bears no responsibility for the actions of its government, how do you explain Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The fire-bombing of Dresden? How about Wounded Knee, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera?

I've spoken of Nuremburg. Remember "the German excuse?" When the concentration camps had been found, there could nevertheless be found no one in Germany who know anything about them. The Nazi party seemed to have had no members. "Ich habe nichts davon gewusst," was the litany. "I didn't know anything about it." At Nuremburg, the world turned a deaf ear. A public IS responsible for the actions of its government, and "On the Justice or Roosting Chickens" tells it like it is.

Yeah, you bet your sweet life it's infuriating. It's the truth, and Ward Churchill is right. Until we take responsibility for murder, for terrorism, and for economic slavery perpetrated in our name, and until we stop it, we can’t escape responsibility for the terrorism returned to us. We ARE little Eichmanns. Indeed, those people who live in “the seething, bleeding psychic wastelands spawned by the unspeakable arrogance of US imperial pretension” will continue to feel the need to push back to the extent that Americans -- all of us -- continue to wallow in delusions of 'innocence' and exceptionalism. Standing as 'moral witnesses' to these crimes, so long as they continue, is not enough."

That's truth into the teeth of brutal power, by the way. I've been there, done that, and I know the price the government can exact with the certainty of one who has paid it. It takes cojones, balls as big as cannonballs, to defy a vicious monster like the government of the United States of America, and to hear a sycophant moral coward like Sean Hannity hurl verbal abuse at a kindred spirit makes me wish I could get him on the mat. This will have to do, I suppose.

One further point, one I've tried to make again and again. Men and women of honor answer their opposition with facts, not insult, invective, and back-stabbing like FoxNews efforts to use economic and political pressure to cost their adversary his job or livelihood. Nations with honor, moreover, do not silence their opposition by depriving that opposition of federal subsidy. That's tax money, you know, some of which was paid by the people who would be deprived of it.

Oh, that's federal tactics, all right. As I say, I've been there, done that. IRS first seizes everything, then invites you to sue for its return. Of course, that requires the money just taken from you. Cute. And dishonorable, like attacking someone with his hands tied, or stabbing him in his sleep. The Justice of Roosting Chickens may also be that of domestic chickens, something I warned of repeatedly all these years ago. One day, the domestic version of U.S. terrorism - things like Ruby Ridge, Waco, and a hundred more - will bring retribution. The man who fights a monster will become a monster. It's time for more Ward Churchills - and, if I may, Hal Luebberts. Otherwise, you will continue to get what you're begging for, what you so sanctimoniously call "terror."

A few days ago, a writer typical in his nation and society's oblivious arrogance replied to my blog remarks with the comment that it was fortunate that I didn't have the power to overthrow the government. He means that government and majorities have always had the brute force power to crush their victims. But that was then, sir, this is now.

Your nation is a whale, beached on its own gluttonous need for oil. Any day now, the world will shut down the pumps - and make you eat what you've been handing out. And then there's the cavalier way you treat your own, like Randy Weaver, like the Branch Davidians, and a hundred more. Like New Orleans and the other victrims of Katrina and Rita. Like you treated me. You're pretty sure I can't do anything about that.

Are you that certain? Your government isn't.