Re: [Marxism] Purging liberals from the academy

["Sayan Bhattacharyya" <ok.president+marxmail@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 9/9/06, Austin, Andrew <austina@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> * * *
>
> Churchill: "I don't believe that there is any reasonable definition by
> which you can consider a food service worker or janitor or even a fireman or
> a random passerby as being a member of a technocratic core. How do you to
> define pushing a broom as being a technical operation? It was rather clearly
> stated who I was talking about."
>
> Sayan, let's follow logic, shall we?  If we can't do that, then can we at
> least listen to what Churchill says?
>
> Churchill: "The reference was to - the thesis on banality of evil that was
> produced by Hannah Arendt a long time ago. ... The people who perform the
> technical functions that results in the impoverishment, immiseration and
> ultimately the deaths of millions in order to maximize profit. and I don't
> believe that there is any reasonable definition by which food service
> workers, firemen, janitors, children, random passerby fit that definition.
> And it is clearly articulated. You just read it. ..



Churchill is lying when he says above that he "clearly articulated" that he
was not referring to food service workers, firemen, etc. in his original
article. He did not.

This is an exact quote of what he had written in his original article:

"The building [Pentagon] and those inside comprised military targets, pure
and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center . . . Well, really. Let's
get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But
innocent? Gimme a break."

He's talking about "those inside", claiming that "those inside" were not
innocent. Nowhere does he pause to remember in his original article that
food service workers, firemen, janitors, etc... were also inside.

I support his right to say what he did, of course, but that doesn't alter
the fact that what he said  was insensitive and grotesque. One can and
should defend the right to say grotesque things, but  one does oneself a
disfavor if one defends the  grotesqueness itself.
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