People go against what’s in their best interests, sacrifice everything that is intrinsically valuable and blindly adhere to the status quo in an attempt to get that extra crumb from authorities that puts them one step ahead of the next person.
This was the message spread Thursday night by controversial social and environmental activist Ward Churchill in a speech before a crowd of nearly 600 people on campus.
Churchill made national news after Sept. 11 when he called some terrorist-attack victims “little Eichmanns,” a reference to Nazi chief Adolf Eichmann, who was responsible for ordering the extermination of three million Jews during the Holocaust.
On Tuesday, a report was featured in The New York Times and Los Angeles Times that stated Churchill committed plagiarism and other academic misconduct at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he teaches ethnic studies. He may lose his job or be suspended for the accusations from the university’s board of regents.
In his speech, Churchill, a recently registered Republican, talked about the difference between a claim and reality, highlighting the propaganda of what he called the alleged freest country in the world despite a cloud cover of lies that are masked as “order.”
He often asks his students, “What is it you do free of regulation?”
“You are free in this country,” Churchill said. “Absolutely free in this country. Free to do absolutely what you’re told.”
From sleeping to bodily functions, he said, there are rules for every activity a person can engage in.
He told the audience to try sleeping in a park.
“Try sleeping out there tonight; see if there’s not rules,” he said.
He added that he tells his students, “stand up there and take a dump on the floor. There are rules for (that), too.”
Repression by the state and educational institutions reinforce each other in maintaining that “order,” he said.
At institutions of higher education and even down through the public school ranks, he said, there are teachers “jumping through the hoops” and sacrificing their own integrity to maintain a favorable and nonconflicting view in the eyes of those they have to please just to receive a salary that barely pays for a month’s living expenses.
“Even after tenure you’re not off the treadmill; you still have to please the Satan hacks in order to get the funding to get the promotion to get the salary that will actually cover the cost of a month’s living (expenses),” he said.
Students, too, are manufactured as a product, Churchill said later.
Churchill said “not everybody is trapped in a box” and stuck believing “the order” that has become a mantra for maintaining the imagined importance and sense of entitlement for the elite.
There are still some intellectuals and some activists – and a rare combination of both – who are willing to go to jail for the prospect of change, he said.
“They’re going to convince you that there’s no alternative, and that’s the function of the education system,” he said.
About 15 members of the University’s College Republicans protested outside the EMU Fishbowl starting a half hour before Churchill’s arrival. Many held U.S. flags, while others had signs with messages such as “Ward Churchill: President of the Osama bin Laden fan club” and “We support our troops, Churchill supports terrorists.”
After he arrived inside the EMU Ballroom, Churchill, who served in the military, responded .
“News flash children: I am the fucking troops,” he said to an explosion of laughter from the crowd of students and community members.
Lane Community College student Sean Hoffman said he views everything he sees with a critical eye, “whether it’s the people outside telling me I’m insane or whether it’s Churchill trying to offer me an alternative view of our educational system.”
He said it’s good to hear about issues that aren’t discussed in his classrooms or in the media.
“It’s nice being exposed to a perspective that most of the white people would never grasp,” he said, referring to Churchill’s Native American ethnicity.
Eugene resident Okon Udosenata said he enjoyed hearing the professor break down the perceived freedoms of the U.S.
“I feel he was right on,” Udosenata said. “I’m 27 now and it seems like as each year passes there’s more and more sets of rules.”
People need credit, but they need money to get it, he said. They also need insurance, but they need a good driving record to get it affordably.
“The list goes on and on,” he added. “So I think what he had to say resonated with me: the realities of the land of the free.”