[R-G] And you’ll excuse me this moment of excess

[Anthony Fenton]

http://wardchurchilltrial.wordpress.com/

And you’ll excuse me this moment of excess
April 3, 2009

(Cover the kids’ ears.)

I’ve spent the last four years watching a good man get his name drug  
through the mud for making the eminently reasonable point that you  
ought not be killing other peoples’ kids. And that if you are in the  
business of killing other peoples’ kids, they have the absolute right  
to fight back in any way they can.

I’ve seen the most vicious smear campaign of my lifetime. A horde of  
shiteating columnists and radio shockjocks have made it their life’s  
work to destroy one man. They went after his life, his livelihood, his  
family, and his reputation. There is no level to which they haven’t  
stooped to ruin him.

I’ve watched Denver’s local media crawl like dogs to eat the shit of  
their canine superiors in the rightwing national media. There has not  
been a single article in the Denver media to actually interrogate the  
trumped-up charges of academic misconduct levelled by the hopelessly  
biased CU investigative committee. Not one. Like with their coverage  
of the Iraq war (or for that matter, the preceding sanctions), they  
have gone to incredible lengths to never actually investigate the shit  
they were more than willing to eat out of the paws of their presumed  
betters.

Moreover, in that so-called bastion of higher learning at CU, I can  
count on my fingers and toes those faculty members who were willing to  
actually stand up and point out the absurdity of the smear campaign  
launched against Ward Churchill. Almost to a man or woman, they  
refused to make any kind of stand for the principles they pretended,  
every day, to represent. Nothing has been more disheartening than the  
absolute, unmitigated cowardice of the faculty of my alma mater. I’ve  
met pedophiles and rapists with whom I’d rather share an occupation.

But, I’ve also watched Ward Churchill, with his family, put their  
stake in the ground and refused to back up an inch. That’s what  
courage is, and I’ve been proud as hell just to witness it. In the  
last round of McCarthyism, there were very few to fight back. I think  
of Dashiell Hammett, and I think of Ward Churchill.

So this one’s for CU. And for Bill O’Reilly, Caplis and Silverman,  
Vincent Carroll, and the CU faculty as a whole.

Fuck you.

johnny-cash-finger