Denial: It’s Not Just a River in Egypt

Note - I wrote this for PirateBallerina, but I think Jim has more important issues to pursue about Churchill right now, so I'm posting this here, instead.

(I found the title phrase in Tanya Huff’s The Long, Hot Summoning.)

Roughly six months have passed since Ward Churchill thrust into the consciousness of most of the American public. After the initial shock of his “little Eichmanns” essay, a number of people in and out of the blogosphere began to explore Churchill’s writings and biography.

What we found was a farrago of fantasies, plagiarism and lies. For an accessible summary of the main charges (minus Churchill’s Vietnam fraud), consult the Rocky Mountain News' Special Investigation. Pirateballerina.com has patiently collected the long, sorry tale; Churchill’s fraud is exposed, though he is still fighting, and denying all the evidence.

As the months have passed, and Churchill’s fantastic legend revealed itself, I could only think of the sad history of Micah Wright.

For those of you who either never heard of Wright, or have forgotten him, Micah is a cartoonist who, for reasons never adequately explained, chose to represent himself as a former Army Ranger. His eventual explanation was that he was in the ROTC, but, after he blew out his knee, somehow – initially as a joke, then for economic gain and to lend credibility to his anti-Bush stance – began building a legend as a Ranger, now turned anti-war. His exposure, a nine-day-wonder of the blogosphere, dropped from sight as more important issues occupied readers’ attention.

I never heard of Micah Wright prior to reading Michele Catalano’s first post about him: the whole Micah Wright archive by Michele. I initially decided this was in the “ignore” category – until Michele linked Jim Treacher’s post of Micah’s apology.

A fraud is usually created for economic gain; Wright’s fraud brought him economic gain, but his confession included the absolutely fascinating detail that he consistently planted clues that he was making it all up! The story went from ho-hum to riveting. Eventually, I concluded that this story could not be used in fiction; I abandoned Micah.

Then Churchill appeared, compared to whom Micah is a piker.

Early on, www.pirateballerina.com reader zombie located an interview with Churchill, where his fantasies about himself are on florid display. Have a look at the Denver Post’s 1987 Interview.

Churchill’s account of himself is a lie. He served in Vietnam during 1968, yes, but he drove a truck and ran a movie projector. He most certainly was not a Lurp –Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols were not composed of draftees on their first tour. Upon returning home, Churchill claims to have taught weapons-handling and bomb-making to the Weathermen; all this while going to school full-time. This claim makes no sense, since a truck driver would have no call to know anything whatsoever about explosives, and particularly about improvised explosives. Lacking a Combat Infantry Badge, I would seriously doubt Churchill is all that comfortable with firearms. And on, and on, and on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

Churchill has made his “academic” career reviling the only system that has ever increased human freedom – whatever its stumbles, weaknesses, mistakes and atrocities. Yet Churchill’s entire oeuvre consists only of talking about – and fabricating incidences of – those stumbles, mistakes, and atrocities. Churchill thinks violence against corporate employees and the United States government is just dandy, provided someone else does it. He doesn’t advise, “Frag the officers.” He asks the question, “But let me ask you this: Would you render the same support to someone who hadn't conscientiously objected, but rather instead rolled a grenade under their line officer in order to neutralize the combat capacity of their unit?”

I’d love to say it’s hypocrisy. That would be such a simple dismissal, and so satisfying. Given the contempt I have developed for Churchill, I long to do just that.

Instead, let me spend a little time talking about these two men as one who loves fiction. Examine the similarities between Micah Wright and the much more successful, long-running fraud of Ward Churchill. Neither man inspires much sympathy – both, bluntly, are “professional debauchees” (Marquis de Sade, Justine). Both assume an anti-American stance (Churchill more categorically). Since both benefit from the American system, they must have a legend that makes their stances righteous, or, even better, heroic.

Note, please, that I am no psychologist, I don’t play one on TV, and I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. (If you don’t know the source of that weak little joke, I congratulate you on your television-free existence.) I’m not going to pretend anything of the sort, since I’m not Micah or Ward.

Ward and Micah take a normal tendency to a strange and revolting height. We are the heroes of our own stories. But Micah and Ward developed their personal legends for economic gain, to bolster their credibility as “dissenters”, to justify themselves as advocates of smashing the system from which they benefit. See their fantasy personal histories as novels, not as lives.

Then Churchill’s story (young American Indian drafted into the army, realizing one day out in “Indian country” that he’s on the wrong side, and coming home to fight the system that made him a traitor to his core identity) becomes an immensely satisfying narrative. It turns his outrageous hypocrisy and his bush-league academic fraud into a battle waged in the shadows. Ward, in his own mind, goes from an obscure, ineffective bureaucrat at a third-rate university in a made-up field of study to a powerful advocate for the oppressed, dismissed only because he’s “challenging the accepted narrative.”

It’s all nonsense. But it makes a good story.

Had one student not taken public exception to Churchill’s Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens essay, Ward’s fabricated personal history – leaving aside his academic and art fraud and plagiarism! – never would have drawn a second glance. Oh, certain scholars who care about truth and history noticed (Note, in particular, Professor LaVelle). But, honestly, without the firestorm ignited at Hamilton College, who would have noticed? Who would have cared? Most of us have been so conditioned that any statement about the dreadful treatment meted out to the American Indian/Native American/Indigenous Peoples of the Americas/blah, blah, blah is simply accepted with silent shame. More, real scholars ignored Churchill, because his work smelled too much of advocacy to be bothered with.

So Churchill might have gone to his grave with the deep, secret satisfaction of having fooled us all. The fact that nobody cared wouldn’t have changed that. It’s the deep satisfaction we all feel at the dénouement of a novel.

Micah Wright used his legend to become an “authentic” voice of opposition. Unlike, for example, Michael Moore, who never served a day in his life and doesn’t pretend to have, Micah’s pose lent him a gravitas most opponents to the War on Terror couldn’t match. Certainly, his influence and importance were in a very small field, but it was Micah’s chosen field.

The difference between Ward and Micah? Micah wanted to get caught, and he planted clues against himself – and imagine the nasty thrill of waiting to be found out. When exposed, though he wavered, blustered, and tried to blame everyone else, Micah ‘fessed up. He’s still a conscious fraud and a liar, but at least his confession is on record; he may have some hope of recovery.

Ward’s still defending his fantasies in the teeth of the evidence, and will go on fighting to the last redoubt. From the initial dropped stitch, the whole fabric of his life and self-image unravels, and Ward Churchill stands before us in the hilarious picture that adorns pirateballerina’s home page: Not an artist; not a scholar; not a revolutionary: A wannabe.

Ward? Are your feet wet? Can you see the pyramids? Because you’re standing knee-deep in de Nile. (A big thank you for that phrase to Jim Butcher’s newest, Dead Beat.)

Posted by Squishy 06/30/2005 10:06 AM -0700