The Key to the Gates
New Hope Journal
Personal Essays and Public Opinions since 1979
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(or go to the following links)
American Dream, Part One: The Crucible of Ideas
Larry L. Dill's 2001 essay on 911
February New Hope Journal
Full Index of New Hope Journal Essays,
Poetry and photos: 2004-2005
Book length work in progress:
What did you do in the war, Daddy? Notes of a sort of a conscientious objector
In this issue of the New Hope Journal you will find the most controversial topic I have ever written about: Ward Churchill (the embattled University of Colorado professor of American Indian history) and his charge that 911 was the inevitable consequence of years of American imperialism, genocide and state terror.
Churchill is not the only writer to have made such a charge. I, myself, touched on many of the same issues in an essay in the New Hope Journal, December 1, 2001 entitled "911 and the I and Thou." And the legendary MIT professor, Noam Chomsky, does much the same in his book, “9-11,” published within weeks of the 911 tragedy. Here is a quote from that book.
During the past several hundred years the U.S. annihilated the indigenous population (millions of people), conquered half of Mexico (in fact, the territories of indigenous peoples, but that is another matter), intervened violently in the surrounding region, conquered Hawaii and the Philippines (killing hundreds of thousands of Filipinos), and, in the past half century particularly, extended its resort to force throughout much of the world. The number of victims is colossal. For the first time, the guns have been directed the other way.
But Churchill’s writings and public pronouncements are much more emotional than Chomsky’s and in going beyond Chomsky to look at whether or not there is an analogy between the culpability of ordinary German civilians for the Holocaust and the culpability of ordinary civilians in America for the atrocities of our government, Churchill has raised a firestorm of protest which I chronicle in this essay.
Churchill’s private life and professional career are now under intense scrutiny and his reputation, his livelihood and (because of hundreds of death threats) his very life itself is now at stake. Not since the Viet Nam War and the McCarthy era have the issues of free speech and academic freedom been so threatened in this country. But whether or not Ward Churchill survives the right wing attempts to destroy him, the issues he has raised will have to be answered.
For that reason my essay will seek to connect the dots between the critique of the American Empire by Churchill, Chomsky and others with both the meaning and the cost of the American Dream itself.
Ward Churchill, 911 and the American Dream
Part One: The Crucible of Ideas
Part Two: Ghosts Gathering Thickly Around Us
911 And the I and Thou
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