Hatred of the rich is back in fashion

Ross Clark

06 June 2007

Ross Clark says that the anti-globalisation rioters protesting at the G8 summit in Germany and Labour’s deputy leadership contenders are part of a new and dangerous trend towards wealth-bashing

The rise of violent protest on the Left is not wholly a European phenomenon. Back in 1998, Ward Churchill, Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado, published an influential book, Pacifism as Pathology, in which he castigated the Left for being too weak in its methods, and implored protestors to turn violent. It was at the meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Seattle the following year that the tradition whereby anti-globalisation protestors target international political meetings was born: 50,000 protestors rioted, causing $3 million of damage and elevating Starbucks into an object of hate on the Left.

Since then, Churchill — who claims Native American descent — has moved up a gear. Shortly after 9/11 he published an essay entitled ‘Some People Push Back: on the Justice of Roosting Chickens’, in which he suggested that the ‘Little Eichmanns’ who worked at the World Trade Center were not ‘innocent civilians’ but a legitimate target: ‘True enough they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America’s global empire — the “mighty engine of profits” to which the military dimension of US policy has always been enslaved.’ Although little noticed at the time, Churchill later expanded his essay into a book, which at one point reached 100 on Amazon’s bestseller list — suggesting he has a fair number of fans. Recently, attempts to have him removed from his teaching post at the University of Colorado have been blocked by his supporters citing the First Amendment.