Chuckie Watch 97: Chuckie's gone teach us about Bush's wars

Oh, this is gonna be good, y'all! Ole Chuckie done gone and got thematic on us. Nashville's wannabe guru of political correction, Chuckie "the only good terrorist is a dead terrorists and I ain't no pantywaist" Daniels is startin' him a whole series at this Soabox column (First Day April 5, 2005 04/18/05). (I had a little Freudian slip there: "guru of political correction," when obvious I meant "Patriotic Correctness.")

For the next few weeks I will be writing a series of articles chronologically documenting our trip to Southwest Asia to entertain the American military forces fighting the war on terror.

It is my wish that the articles will serve to inform and enlighten and hopefully fill in some in the wide and intentional gaps in the American media's coverage of the war and the men and women who fight it.

Ah tell y'all what, we gone git the real story now! And ah don't wanna hear none of them wimp pantywaist Democrat types criticizing ole Chuckie's dates. Just 'cause he's startin' April 5 on April 18, that's okay. I just missed a date on Confederate "Heritage" Month my own self. And besides, Chuckie's been doin' important work, witnessin' for Jesus at the NRA convention.

We flew from Nashville, aboard a C40 jet (courtesy of the Washington, DC National Guard) with refueling stops at Andrews Air Force base and Shannon Ireland and arrived at the American Air Force base at Manas Airport in Kyrgyzstan about 2:30 local time, many hours and many time zones away from where we had started.

Man, it's good to know that our tax dollars are going to pay for Chuckie to propagandize our troops with ChuckieThought, like:

The Vietnam war, the one our troops fought in political handcuffs should be a testimony to the folly of letting politicians control the fighting of a war. Only the men and women who stand in harm's way know what needs to be done at any given time and they should be able to carry on their job without interference from self-serving politicians making their uninformed criticisms from the safety of an easy chair in the nation's capitol.

Thanks to the maniacal rantings of Jane Fonda,the poisonous rumblings of John Kerry and the sheepfold mentality of stoned out hippies these brave men who fought the war in Vietnam were called baby killers and spit on by people who didn't even deserve to stand on the same street with them.

Yeah, we sure cain't have our soldiers thankin' they need to be worryin' about all this here civilian-control-of-the-military crap that American-hatin' wusses keep bragin' up.

And thank God and Preznit Bush that we ain't got no Democrats in the armed forces: "I feel that the Democratic party, at least in appearances has been hijacked by people so far to the left that it's a wonder they don't fall off the face of the earth ..."

And we have to make sure all our troops know that real men gun wounded prisoners to death:

How dare you pompous media know-it-alls judge this brave young man from the safety of your high-rise offices. How dare you try to hang him for what was a simple act of war where split-second judgment and instant action are required.

What would you have done? I suppose you would have taken it to the United Nations or take out your Geneva Convention handbook. ...

This was not the corner druggist this Marine killed. He is a member of a religious sect who believe in cutting off innocent people's heads in front of the whole world, who strap dynamite to their bodies and blow themselves up.

I don't know your name, son, but let me tell you something and I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

You did what you had to do and no matter what the canned hams in the media say you did the right thing and I want to thank you for wearing that uniform, for volunteering to fight for this nation so the pansies in the media can sit back and take pot shots at you every chance they get.

No matter what they say you are a United States Marine and there are millions of people who would love to shake your hand and tell you how very much they appreciate you. Without you and young people like you there would be no United States of America.

I know that the Marine Corps will continue their tradition of taking care of their own, and tell the media to go stuff it. You've got nothing to be ashamed of young man.

Except that real people are often traumatized for the rest of their lives from knowing that they've killed someone, even when it was a totally necessary kill. Much less when they know that people around the world saw them on film shooting a wounded for no good reason at all.

But I'm sure Dick Cheney and Jesus are happy to know that our troops can git direct instruction from an expert on patriotism during taxpayer-paid trips to not pay no attention to this here wimp Geneva Convention or laws-of-war nonsense or rules-of-engagement sissy stuff.

And Chuckie always teaches a Christian respect for others' opinions. Like that ole Ward Churchill Holocaust-denier type that Chuckie for some reason thanks is some kinda leftwinger:

Let me pose a hypothetical question to Churchill's apologists.

What if someone took a high powered rifle, stood at a distance and shot Churchill between the eyes while he was making one of his speeches on the premise that they disagreed with him politically.

And what if a lot of people in this country said that Churchill got what he deserved. How would you feel about that?

Yes, advice like this from a blowhard white-guy who managed to sit out the Vietnam War - probably cause he had "other priorities" like Dick Cheney - is just what our reservists headed out to Iraq for their second year of combat duty need to hear. I'm sure they feel honored to have such solid advice.

Anyhow, Chuckie and his band played for some of the troops out yonder in Kyrgyzstan. I wonder if the Pentagon is also going to pay to send Steve Earle or Nanci Griffith over to play the troops. (Little joke there!) Chuckie says:

They kept saying, "Thank you so much for coming over here and doing this," and I felt humbled and more than once I felt my eyes growing misty as I kept thinking, "They're just a bunch of kids" and it gives you an even lower opinion of the media and the politicians in America who belittle the task these young people are about over here.

Uh, Chuckie, I think it's time for a new perscription on your glasses. No, they aren't kids! They are adults, some of them in their 40s and 50s, a long way from their families, many of them lots older than you were during the Vietnam War when you passed up your own chance to go kill some commies for your mommy. Oh, and for Jesus, of course. And they're out there, many of them in Iraq, because blowhard white guys like you who just luvvvv to watch wars on FOX News cheered for war and killing based on lies about Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction."

Makes you proud to be an American, don't it, Chuckie?

Instead, Chuckie, maybe you should try cleaning the [Cheney]ing "mist" out of your eyes and look what actually happens when guys like you who love wars - for other people to fight - git what you want. Cause I think what's in your eyes is "Mist" in the German meaning of the words. Fertilizer, we might call it.

Your taxpayer dollars at work, enabling Chuckie to spread the True Gospel to our soldiers.

Tags: ward churchill

Chuckie Watch 91: How much of a bigot is Chuckie really?

Chuckie is Nashville's wannabe guru of Patriotic Correctness. And Chuckie loves, loves, loves our soldiers and any war Bush the Liberator of Peoples may come up with.

Chuckie also brags about how proud he is to be able to play for the troops in places like Guantanamo and Kosovo. And this year, the folks that run the Super Bowl had him as a pregame act, presumably finding him much more wholesome than Janet Jackson's boob.

But just what sort of wholesome values does Chuckie believe in, this guy who the Army gives credibility and exposure to active duty soldiers as an entertainer, and who had his all-American image burnished by the barons of the Super Bowl? As goofy as he is, Chuckie has fans who takes his political opinions seriously. Check out the letters at his Soapbox Forum for examples. (Since even the e-mail addresses for some of the writers aren't identified, the authenticity of these message is subject to question.)

Well, for one thing, Chuckie has the Bad News (03/11/05)for us that pretty much any media outlets that aren't FOX News or OxyContin radio are pretty much America-hating Commies. Referring to the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN, he says:

Oh and while you’re at it you may as well check The Daily Worker. I think you’d be about as likely to find positive news about Iraq there as any of the other outlets I mentioned.

For those of you who may not spend a lot of spare time reading old John Birch Society pamphlets, the Daily Worker was at one time the newspaper of the US Communist Party. Now, somewhere in the fog of my memory, it seems to me that the name of that paper was changed to the Daily World about, oh, 30 or 40 years ago.

I did a quick search on A9.com and found this entry at Wikipedia that says the Daily Worker published from 1924 to1957. I guess ole Chuckie's a little behind the times. Somebody should clue him in to this whole concept of the "search engine." Thanks to the Internet, any one who wants to check out current Communist Party literature can find the People's Weekly World newspaper and Political Affairs magazine online, as well as the Party's Web site.

Do you get bad marks from Homeland Security for accessing those sites? I mean, Communists are not exactly the same thing as Islamic jihadists, after all. But if the men in black suits show up to ask you about it, just explain to them that you were trying to find extra documentation for Chuckie's claim so that you can help show how the Ministry of Truth (FOX News) is the only reliable source of information for patriotic red-blooded Amurcans.

I'm afraid, though, that anyone not heavily dosed with OxyContin will be able to imagine that an article like this one, Another grim marker reached in Iraq People's Weekly World 03/12/05, actually sounds anything like the typical report on CNN or CBS.

By the way, Chuckie tells us that despite all the Commie media reports that things are going fine in Iraq. Even Hillary Clinton thinks so, he says. I'm sure relieved to hear that. Our troops should be coming home any day now.

I wonder if Chuckie shares sentiments like the following from Nazis (03/04/05) when he's hanging around with active-duty American soldiers?

As we know, Chuckie's been hearin' about this here Ward Churchill feller. And Chuckie don't like it. Chuckie even has an idea about how to deal with him, conceived in an obvious spirit of Christian love:

Let me pose a hypothetical question to Churchill’s apologists.

What if someone took a high powered rifle, stood at a distance and shot Churchill between the eyes while he was making one of his speeches on the premise that they disagreed with him politically.

And what if a lot of people in this country said that Churchill got what he deserved. How would you feel about that? And what would be the difference between their comments about Churchill and Churchill’s comments about the victims of 9-11?

Now, Chuckie's clearly one of many, many blowhard old Southern white guys who bravely fantasize about creative ways to inflict violence and death on others. Not many of them actually act on it.

But this ain't just good-ole-boy rhetoric. It's the kind of violent talk that is becoming more and more respectable among our superpatriots. And you have to really wonder, is this the kind of guy the Army should be giving extra credibility among soldiers and veterans by having him play for American troops? I don't know exactly the financial arrangements in which Chuckie's concerts for the troops take place, or whether he explictly agrees not to talk his Klan-like politics when he's making those appearances. But for what kind of people is this kind of thing Patriotic Correctness?

One fan (with no e-mail address given) writing in to his Soapbox Forum responds:

I wholeheartedly agree with Charlie when he asks Ward's supporters, how would you like it if someone killed Ward and then said that it was OK because he deserved to die? How is that any different? Oh wait, I know how it is different, because Ward is one of those arrogant, "educated" liberal elitists who thinks his defecation doesn't stink, and that he has somehow been given dominion over all the poor, dumb, unwashed masses (ie: anyone who doesn't think like Ward and his liberal cronies, and conservatives in general) and can tell us what to do and what to think. That makes Ward sound more like Adoph Eichmann than anyone in the Towers!! You pompous asses on the left have become SO CONVINCED of your superiority over the rest of us that you don't even have enough sense to know when you are actually wrong about something. And you give undying loyalty and support to people like Ward, no matter what kind of drivel spews from their sewer filled mouths, just because they are on your "side"!! You never even bother to wonder if your "people" might be wrong!! Amazing that you can't even exercise enough wisdom and common sense to know the difference between those who make policies, and those who simply work in the building. If you are angry at Amercia's foreign policy, what does that have to do with all the folks in the Towers who were just going to work on a September day?? Hey Ward, I and many other hardworking members of law abiding society happen to find it disgusting amd morally reprehensible that certain football players and coaches are wrappped up in a big sex scandal there at ole' U of C, so should we just assume that you are part of that and should be brought up on charges and go to jail for rape along with those others? After all, you work there!!! By applying YOUR own brand of convaluted logic to the situation, that makes you a deviant and a rapist and as guilty as anyone else there! People like you make me sick! You have been in academia and out of the real world for so long, and are so out of touch with reality and the inner workings of the average American's mind, that you can't even begin to understand how stupid you sound. You would do well to go back to your books and your Powerpoints and your little office in whatever ivy covered building you work in and keep your stupid mouth shut. Leave the important stuff like thinking to those of us who know how!!

Yep, people not corrupted by them there public schools and colleges and stuff really know how to thank clear, don't they?

Tags: ward churchill

Chuckie Watch 85: Ole Chuckie shore is smarter than them professers

Chuckie's been readin' the Drudge Report or rightie blogs, it seems. Because Chuckie's done come across a Statement of Stupidity 01/31/05 that's been making the rounds in Wingnutville.

And Chuckie don't like it.

The Evil Person in question is Ward Churchill, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado. He's a Native American advocate and apparently likes to be provocative.

Chuckie fans know that one of Chuckie's favorite sayings is, "The only good terrorist is a dead terrorist." This is a takeoff on the American frontier saying, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." So now Chuckie's found hisself an Evil Injun who also says nice things about The Terrorists. Well, sort of.

I'll say more about what supposedly got Chuckie going. But here's what Chuckie has to say about his Evil Injun:

I don’t know whether you’re an acid drop out or just a natural born idiot Mr. Churchill but it makes no difference. In my book you are a ball of pus who doesn’t deserve to enjoy the free speech that Al Qaida so desperately wants to take away from us.

If fact, if I had my way you would be taken to Iraq and dumped into a back alley in Baghdad at midnight. There you would be able to explain your pro terrorist stand to a real live terrorist.

[Various fantasies follow about ways the Evil Injun could be dismembered.]

Do you follow Marx or is it Mao now?

You’re a bottom feeder ward, a scum sucker and an unrealistic fugitive from the Sixties, a pathetic, anti-American pig who lives in La La Land along with others of your ilk who don’t even deserve to breath the same air as the heroes who died on 9-11.

Why don’t you crawl back in your hole with the rest of the vermin and pull the opening in after you.

Can't you just feel the Christian love radiating from ole Chuckie?

So Chuckie's on a roll. In fact, he's on such a roll that he forgot he was supposed to be vague and actually told us who he was talking about! And it at least seems to be a real person.

Before I describe more about the offender, I should note that the article that Chuckie is frothing at the mouth about came out soon after the 9/11 attacks. That would be 3 years ago, give-or-take. Gee, things must be slow in ChuckieLand and adjacent districts if all they can find to get rip-roaring righteous about is some obscure 3-year-old pamphlet.

What did the professor say?

Since even sweet, gentle Christians like Chuckie are fantazing about horrible deaths for the guy, I should say that I don't have a definitive copy of the article. Here are excerpts from a version of the offending article, from a Web site called Green Anarchy. This article from the Rocky Mountain News was one to which Drudge was linking on Tuesday: CU prof's essay provokes dispute by John Ensslin Rocky Mountain News 01/27/05. Snippets of the article are quoted there:

Churchill's essay argues that the Sept. 11 attacks were in retaliation for the Iraqi children killed in a 1991 U.S. bombing raid and by economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations following the Persian Gulf War.

The essay contends the hijackers who crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11 were "combat teams," not terrorists.

It states: "The most that can honestly be said of those involved on Sept. 11 is that they finally responded in kind to some of what this country has dispensed to their people as a matter of course."

The essay maintains that the people killed inside the Pentagon were "military targets."

"As for those in the World Trade Center," the essay said, "well, really, let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break."

The essay goes on to describe the victims as "little Eichmanns," referring to Adolph Eichmann, who executed Adolph Hitler's plan to exterminate Jews during World War II.

Okay, that's pretty nasty, all right. And the rightwingers, always eager to find other Americans to hate, seem to have a special knack of dredging up questionable comments by academics that most people have never heard of and whose influence on the political debate is effectively nonexistent.

If the Green Anarchy text is the genuine article, then I would say the essay reads like stock radical (rightwing or leftwing) anti-imperialist rhetoric. It seems to be pretty much devoid of actual ideas, meant more to provoke than inform. An article with his byline at Z Magazine caught my eye: Holocaust Denial in Context (undated, but apparently from Dec 1996). The first part reads like a standard review of that dubious field, which he describes in the first sentence as "vicious and factually indefensible."

But by the end, he's arguing like a rightwing anti-Semite. For instance, he writes:

Stripped of the veneer of falsehood and invention with which such propagandists [he means critics of the Holocaust deniers here] have larded it, the experience of the Jewish people under nazism is revealed as being unique only in the sense that all such phenomena exhibit [unique] characteristics. Genocide, as the nazis practiced it, was never something suffered exclusively by Jews, nor were the nazis singularly guilty of its practice." In attempting to make it appear otherwise--and thus to claim the privileged status attending and "unparalleled" victimization peddled as being transcendently their own ("accumulating moral capital," as exclusivist Edward Alexander has unabashedly put it) proponents of uniqueness have engaged in holocaust denial on the grand scale, not only with respect to the Armenians, Ukrainians and Cambodians, but asregards scores of other instances of genocide, both historical and contemporary.

Now, I'm guessing that for most American readers, this passage may sound contorted, but it doesn't just scream out "rightwing Jew-hater." I won't even try to explain the bizarre twists and turns of how he gets to that point, except to say it's based on a very bad interpretation of a set of polemics over the Holocaust in German in the late 1980s known as the Historikerstreit. One thing that emerged from that exchange was a conventional wisdom in German politics that the "uniqueness" of the Holocaust should be acknowledged.

That was so much so that the first conservative (Christian Democratic) candidate in the 1994 presidential election in Germany had to resign as a candidate after he made a public remark that was very similar to Ward Churchill's comment that the Holocaust was "unique only in the sense that all such phenomena exhibit [unique] characteristics." And since his essay shows that he is very familiar with the Historikerstreit, I have to think he knows that he's using the words of those who tried to minimize the crimes of the Nazis in that exchange.

(Yehuda Bauer, one of the leading scholars of the Holocaust and one of those specifically criticized by Ward Churchill, devotes a chapter of his Rethinking the Holocaust [2001] to the "uniqueness" issue. Robert Wistrich also discusses the relevant issues in the final chapter of Hitler and the Holocaust [2001]).

Of course, Chuckie thinks the guy must be a Marxist or a Maoist and also "an unrealistic fugitive from the Sixties." But, since Chuckie wouldn't know a Marxist if one came up and bit him on the leg, I doubt it would be possible to explain to Chuckie that the guy's probably a raving rightwinger. I mean, you would have to explain the whole business about how ethnic-nationalist intellectuals often wind up with with reactionary ideas and ... No, no, that wouldn't process for Chuckie. Anything more than two-syllable words, e.g., "scumbag", would just be too demanding for Chuckie.

Do you think Chuckie knows that a Maoist is a type of Marxist? Oh, the mysteries of Chuckie Thought!

Tags: charlie daniels, ward churchill