Not so fast, Bill. It isn’t the fact you were against Vietnam that people have a problem with you. Let’s be honest, most academics your age were. And if it was a simple matter of attending a few protests, you may have a point. You didn’t engage in an intelligent and reasoned discussion back then. You blew things up and engaged in terrorism. So, pardon me if I don’t engage in a reasoned and intelligent discussion with you now.

That fact is this, you are trying to whitewash what you did back then to the public what you claim in private to be so proud of when you told your followers to “kill your parents, that’s where it’s at” and that they needed to “smash monogamy.” I’m not sure what killing your parents and fidelity to marital vows has to do with Vietnam. But I am amused that after doing some research that Ward Churchill apparently taught the Weather Underground bomb making.

We don’t care that you were against Vietnam. We do care that tax dollars from the very organization you tried to overthrow in your little “communist revolution” plot is the one paying your paycheck. Thirty years ago you couldn’t be bothered to make a case against Vietnam intelligently, so you resorted to treason and terrorism. Pardon us if we don’t engage you now.

John Bambenek

academic professional