I don't think he's out for political gain, I think he's just trying to cash in. He's a tenured professor (granted he just resigned his department chair and dropped about $20k in salary) but still pulls in a good buck and is active as a speaker. And he doesn't do that for free. There's a contact point at the link below where you can find out his speaking fee. Note that he promotes himself as a member of the Keetoowah Band Cherokee. This contrasts greatly with that 1993 letter.
I don't know about labeling him a traitor or enemy, I'd call him more of an academic "Howard Stern." That's what keeps him in the news and those speaking fees rolling in.
A form of "opportunity dominance," if you will.
found at: http://www.speakersandartists.org/People/WardChurchill.html
Ward Churchill
From a Native Son: Conquest and Colonization in the Americas
Ward Churchill (Keetoowah Band Cherokee) is one of the most outspoken of Native American activists and scholars in North America and a leading analyst of indigenous issues. He is a Professor of Ethnic Studies and Coordinator of American Indian Studies at the University of Colorado. Churchill serves as Associate Director of the Center for Studies of Ethnicity and Race in America at the institution. He is also co-director of the Colorado chapter of the American Indian Movement and vice chair of the American Indian Anti-Defamation Council.
Churchill’s many books include Marxism and Native Americans, Fantasies of the Master Race, Struggle for the Land, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, From A Native Son, Critical Issues in Native North America, The COINTELPRO Papers, Indians R Us?, Agents of Repression, Since Predator Came, and A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas.
In his lectures and numerous published works, Churchill explores the themes of genocide in the Americas, racism, historical and legal (re)interpretation of conquest and colonization, environmental destruction of Indian lands, government repression of political movements, literary and cinematic criticism, and indigenist alternatives to the status quo.
Churchill is also a past national spokesperson for the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, has served as a delegate to the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations (as a Justice/Rapporteur for the for the 1993 International People's Tribunal on the Rights of Indigenous Hawaiians), and as an advocate/prosecutor of the First Nations International Tribunal for the Chiefs of Ontario.
Topics
Media
Multiculturalism
Native Americans
Police Brutality, Abuses
Political Prisoners
Covert Operations, CIA, FBI
Racism
Environment
U.S. History
Film & Video
History of the Americas
Human Rights
Engagements
Eastern Washington University, Cheney, WA Apr. 5, 2005
And a current message from AIM:
found at: http://www.aimovement.org/moipr/churchill05.html
AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT GRAND GOVERNING COUNCIL
MINISTRY FOR INFORMATION
P.O. Box 13521
Minneapolis MN 55414
612/ 721-3914 . fax 612/ 721-7826
Email: aimggc@worldnet.att.net
Web Address: www.aimovement.org
He was to get $3,000 for speaking at Eastern Washington University (since cancelled, see link below). Plus whatever he'd get from book and cd sales at the event (he's got plenty of those). I'm getting more and more convinced that he's about the money.
found at: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20Speaker%20Canceled