History On Trial

Last month I made a post on the connection between the approach of Holocaust Deniers and 9/11 Deniers, based off of reading Deborah Lipstadt's book, Denying the Holocaust. It must have struck a nerve because it immediately drew the wrath of some of the extremists who post here, and currently has nearly 200 comments. Among the comments, Professor Lipstadt was kind enough to post here and recommended that I read her next book, History on Trial: My Day in Court With David Irving.

So with my interest in this subject, and history in general (I was a Russian Studies major in college after all) I set off to do just that. In many ways, by being more focused, I found this book a more interesting refutation of the denier theories than the previous one, and found it as a whole fascinating. History on Trial, in short, covers the episode where British historian David Irving, using the rather ridiculous British standards for libel, sues Professor Lipstadt for libel, for documenting in her previous book that he was a Holocaust denier who employed dubious historical standards. Of course Irving is hampered in his court case by the that fact that he is.

This subject bears more than just a passing connection to the 9/11 deniers. After all, it was David Irving who Kevin Barrett was referring to when he said:

As a rational person who is not a specialist in the subject of WWII, but who has studied the history of Zionist Big Lies vis-a-vis Palestine, I cannot possibly dismiss the arguments of people like Green, Irving, and even Zundel.

And when Christopher Bollyn wrote an e-mail to Steven Jones defending himself against accusations of anti-Semitism, his claims of hundreds of thousands of deaths were most likely based on Irving's book, "The Destruction of Dresden", where Irving first greatly exaggerated the casualty toll in an attempt at moral equivalence with the Holocaust. It should be noted though, that Bollyn exaggerates even beyond Irving's lie. It should be no suprise though, that these people continue to cite the arguments of Irving, even years after they have been proven false.

But the ties are not merely ideological, among a few fringe members, but lead into the tactical. By suing Lipstadt, Irving was trying to get her to withdraw her book from the market, and to silence further criticism of his work. Ironically, he then tried to claim that in fact he was the victim of a campaign to silence him and suppress his freedom of speech, much like the 911 conspiracy movement is constantly claiming that they are being censored, merely because others disagree with their work. This has moved beyond theoretical, because the 911 conspiracy movement is also using the courtroom against their ideological opponents, most famously with Kevin Ryan's failed lawsuit against Underwriters Laboratory, but also with attempts by Morgan Reynolds and others to get NIST to alter their findings. This issue is more than just theoretical for me, because even I have been threatened with a libel suit in the British courts, merely for blogging about the Leo Wanta nuttiness. How long before one of the 9/11 Deniers also resorts to this tactic to silence their opponents?

As I pointed out in my previous post, the tactics employed by the Holocaust Deniers and 9/11 deniers mirror each other, and this book makes it even clearer. The author's lawyers, clearly lay out the pattern of abuse of history that Irving is guilty of, including quote mining (calling Dylan Avery), mistranslating documents, and outright lying. Irving continuously defends himself claiming that he like anyone else makes mistake, in which case the defense points out quite rightly, that random mistakes should even out in the end, coming down 50% in favor of, and 50% against one's argument, but Irving's "mistakes" were exclusively to the benefit of making Hitler and the Nazis look better. One can find the same "mistakes" in just about every 9/11 denier webpage, book, or movie (calling Dylan Avery) ever made.

Professor Lipstadt also makes some interesting comments regarding the nature of historiography in general. Irving tries to prove his case by arguing minutiae, be it the nature of the elevator doors at Auschwitz, a single instance of coats being distributed at a concentration camp, or, more grotesquely, the amount of coal needed to incinerate a corpse, all while ignoring the big picture, which overwhelmingly indicated the nature of the Holocaust. As Lipstadt points out, history is not done this way, through taking minor points and reaching big conclusions, it is done through the preponderance of evidence. Keep this in mind the next time you are arguing about the exact altitude cell phones work at.

Most disturbingly, I was struck by the fact that many defended Irving on the grounds of free speech, just as people defend 9/11 deniers saying that they have the right to their version of history. This is especially absurd, because Irving was the one trying to silence the opposition. Yes, historical revisionist have the right to spout their lies, but they also have the right for others to correct them, and to call them what they are.

The Continuing Idiocy of Kevin Barrett

Looks like he's digging in about his Holocaust Denial; he's having a prominent Holocaust Denier on his show this Saturday, and he's published an open letter to Andrea (sic) Merkel on his blog admitting his own "skepticism" that six million Jews died in the concentration camps.

But seriously, Ms. Merkel, you may ask why I side with Hilberg's estimate of 5.1 [million] Holocaust deaths rather than the well-known figure of six million. My answer is that Thomas Dalton, in his book Debating the Holocaust, presents evidence that the figure of six million European Jewish victims threatened with destruction repeatedly occurs long before anyone could possibly have known the real figure. For example, the February 23rd, 1938 New York Times describes six million European Jews as "slowly dying of starvation, all hope gone." Yet at that time the Holocaust, much less its precise body count, was still several years away. A few decades earlier, the May 7, 1920 New York Times cited "Jewish war sufferers in Central and Eastern Europe, where six millions face horrifying conditions of famine, disease and death..."

Barrett goes on to mention the Auschwitz Gambit, which has been debunked for years. Oddly after all this nuttiness, Barrett arrives at a number for the Holocaust:

After reading three books on the issue--Lipstadt's Denying the Holocaust, Shermer's Denying History, and Dalton's Debating the Holocaust--I am now prepared to state that I find pre-eminent Holocaust scholar Raul Hilberg's estimate of 5.1 million Jewish Holocaust victims a more reasonable estimate.

Oddly, because that's not an unreasonable number. Nobody, despite the claims of Holocaust Deniers, says that six million is set in stone. Indeed, in the famed lawsuit between David Irving and Deborah Lipstadt, the definition of the Holocaust was:

Evans argued that the term is generally understood to denote "the attempt by Nazi Germany, led by Hitler, to exterminate the Jewish population in Europe, which attempt succeeded to the extent of murdering between 5 and 6 million Jews in a variety of ways, including mass gassings in camps built for the purpose".

(Bolding added for emphasis).

I'm not sure where Barrett is going with his claims that the NY Times published stories about 6 million Jews dying much earlier than that figure could have been known or even contemplated; I suspect his argument amounts to "they kept claiming 6 million Jews perished after WWI and eventually the world accepted it about WWII." It's certainly a stupid argument, kind of like arguing that since Wonder Woman crashed her plane into the World Trade Center in a mid-1980s comic book, nobody could later have crashed a plane into the Twin Towers.


Incidentally, while we're on the subject of Holocaust Denying, 9-11 kooks, Bishop Williamson was fined 10,000 euros for his Holocaust Denial.

Hat Tip: JREF Forum Member Nick Terry. Good find!

Uncle Fetzer Signs On With Holocaust Deniers?

Note the question mark at the end there. Fetzer's name is included as among the signers of a letter posted at Indy Media protesting the proposed deportation from England of Dr Fredrick Tobin, an Austrian Holocaust denier, to Germany to face charges over his nuttery.

Now you know how it is; I personally don't think kooks should face charges over their fruitcake theories. But the letter goes well beyond that, praising Tobin and other no-Holocaust nutjobs. Consider this part:

Rev. Ted Pike, a major American pro-First Amendment activist, states in “Toben Grabbed: International Hate Laws Bite Down”1 that “Every American, especially Christians, should protest this outrageous attack on freedom of speech. Although most Americans do not think like Dr. Toben, his arrest is just a taste of what will come—for Americans like you and your family—if we do not defend freedom now.”

Reverend Ted Pike? Yeah, he's a major American pro-First Amendment activist. He's also an anti-Semitic nutjob. I won't link his site, but among the useful bits of information he provides are these nuggets:

23 Oct 08 - Pedophilia: Thriving in Judaism's Right
ACLU Top Heavy with Jews
The Jews Behind Da Vinci Code

Note that he's not even hiding behind the usual "I'm talking about Zionists, not Jews" formulation that most anti-Semites use.

The letter also touts Toben's support for Captain Eric May's particular brand of lunacy:

Dr. Toben is a free thinker who has fearlessly explored other important issues besides Holocaust revisionism. He ran one of the first web sites to archive works by Capt. Eric May that exposed 9/11 as a likely CIA-Mossad inside job. May also suggested that petro-chemical explosions in the greater Houston area could be part of a dress rehearsal pattern for a repeated “9/11” terror event designed to justify war against Iran and domestic martial law.

May is crazy even by the standards of the Troofers; check out this bit of his numerology:

"A Beautiful Mind" was filmed before 911, in early 2001, but it was released after 911 - did the Hollywood Jews who made the movie know about 911 in advance, then brainwash us out of figuring it out? Come to think of it, was the whole attack a number game, in which the feds had spent years preparing us to call Big Brother in a national "911 call" in response to a "911 attack?” Is Hollywood part of a psychological operation?

The film was released on a very special date (and we've already seen how well dates can code): December 21st 2001. OK, try the number-code tricks I taught you above (see link, ed) and find the numeric sequence 12/21/21! The "Jewish" number 12, then 12 reversed - twice! It's all 12 permutations! Well, it's plenty tricky, but this has been a tricky infowar - at least to those of us (like Ghost Troop) with beautiful minds!

Or this:

Ninth paragraph:

"Since Nov. 1, wildfires have consumed more than 380,000 acres, destroyed 220 homes and businesses and killed two people."

This decodes to 111, then 11, then 22, then 2. Connect 22 with 2 and get 222; then reduce the 222 to 111. Now connect the date 111 with the acres 11 with the (modified) destroyed homes/people 111 to get 11111111.

11111111!

More from the letter:

The latest news on Dr. Toben’s case can be found at Lady Michele Renouf’s web site. Another hearing will likely be held Nov. 11. This gives us additional time to mobilize global protest against this international outrage.

Lady Michele Renouf? Yep, yet another Holocaust Denier:

Renouf has become increasingly known in recent years for her support of prominent Holocaust deniers. Her interest in World War II and the Holocaust began in 2000, when she read a newspaper article on David Irving's libel case against historian Deborah Lipstadt. She attended the hearing and became impressed with Irving's case, saying "I found on Irving's side of the courtroom a solitary person representing himself, backed up by enormous forensic research and tremendously capable debate based on substance and fact... On the other side of the courtroom I saw 21-25 people with laptops connected it seems to the Israeli government."

Reclaiming History

As a conspiracy-theory-ologist I have been meaning to read Vincent Bugliosi's book Reclaiming History, on the JFK conspiracy theories, for some time, but haven't had the time myself. Thus I was rather glad to pick up a copy on audio CD, even at 15 CDs, seriously abridged from the 1600+ pages of the written version.

I must say I was not disappointed. Bugliosi lays out the errors, misrepresentations and outright lies of the JFK conspiracy theorists in much the same way as Deborah Lipstadt does to the Holocaust deniers. As I have long maintained, conspiracy theorists all operate in much the same way, the only difference is the subject that they choose to discuss.

There is even an overlap there though, in that Bugliosi selects out for a well-deserved mocking, none other than 9/11 conspiracy guru Jim Fetzer, for his idiotic "Fake Zapruder Film" theories, showing that the no-plane theories are not the first wild leaps of logic for our side-burned friend. In many ways though he points out that the JFK conspiracy theorists managed to succeed well beyond their 9/11 counterparts, with at least a majority of Americans tacitly accepting their viewpoints. Also they actually managed to bring at least one of their theories to trial, with the ill-fated Jim Garrison prosecution, memorialized in the Oliver Stone movie JFK, which essentially ended up being Loose Change with a budget and directorial talent.

All in all an excellent book, someday, perhaps when I am retired or on a long vacation, I will have to digest the print version.

Denying the Holocaust and the Reality of 9/11

Based on a recommendation from a reader, I recently picked up and read "Denying the Holocaust" by Emory Religious Studies Professor Deborah Lipstadt. Now we have spoken before on the overlap of Holocaust and 9/11 deniers (no, that does not mean every 9/11 truther is an anti-Semite, but they certainly have their representation) but I was struck by the sheer number of similarities between the two movements. This began even from the first page of the preface where the author mentions that a poll showed 22% of Americans believed it was possible the Holocaust never happened. Kind of puts all of those truther polls in perspective.

The similarities do not end there, the deniers of different sorts share so many techniques and logical fallacies that in many ways they are interchangeable but for the specifics of the subject matter. Some examples:

Ideology

Holocaust deniers, while they may claim to be interested in historical accuracy always have a hidden agenda. It may not always be the same, they range from pure anti-Semites to Germans angry about their countries past, but they have them. How many times have you heard some truther start talking about "faster than the speed of gravity" and before you know it they are ranting about police states and the upcoming invasion of Iran.

A Pretense to Scholarship

The truthers have their Journal of 9/11 Studies, the Holocaust Deniers have the Journal for Historical Review. One minor difference though, the Holocaust Deniers have actually tried to get legitimate historical journals to publish their work. They were unsuccesful of course. The 9/11 quacks, to the best of my knowledge, have never even bothered.

Anomaly Hunting

With their bizarre logic the Holocaust deniers search for any inconsistency in any testimony or evidence as proof that the entire story is false. The troofers... well, just watch Loose Change 1 through 4 for all the examples of that you will need.

Desire for Acceptance

Both groups eagerly try for acceptance and recognition, going by the belief that all publicity is good. The author incidently, although she is a leading scholar in this area, refuses to debate Holocaust Deniers, feeling that giving them a platform and a pretense to legitimacy outweighs the educational benefit. In many ways I would have to agree with her.

Quote Mining and Incestous Claims

This quotation from page 106 of the book, could be made about most truther claims I have seen:

This liberal borrowing was not something out of the ordinary for deniers, who make it a practise to draw on other deniers not only for their sources but for verification. They have long engaged in what has been described as an "incestous merry-go-round [of] cross-fertilizing and compounding [of] falsehood.

"Research" as Publicity

Willis Carto, the guy who is helping sponser the conference that the Loose Change Boys are attending this weekend, once offered $50,000 to anyone who could "Find a Holocaust Victim". Carto actually ended up owing a bunch of money to one of those Holocaust victims (made into a TV movie starring Leonard Nimoy no less) but Jimmy Walter just gave up on his million dollar challenge.

Claims of Censorship

A man named Bradley Smith began running ads in college newspapers questioning the Holocaust, merely to cause a controversy. Whenever he was turned down he would scream that legitimate academic research was being censored. Just go over to 911 Blogger and count the screams of "censorship" just because they are not the lead for that nights episode of the evening news.

Standards of Evidence

Thousands of witnesses don't mean anything because they are Zionist shills. Vague speculation is more proof than that. Need I say more?

Cui Bono?

One of the arguments that Al Qaeda did not carry out 9/11 was that they did not benefit from it. Likewise, Holocaust Deniers have (and I was stunned by this idiocy) claimed that the Nazis would never have murdered millions of Jews, because they did not benefit from it. Their war machine could have used those resources better. Of course both of these are offensive and ignore the ideology behind the respective movements.

On the whole a fascinating book, albeit about a disgusting topic. Anyone who is concerned about the hijacking of our history by self-serving bigots, would be served by reading it.

Denial

Several years ago I posted on Deborah Lipstadt's books Denying the Holocaust and History on Trial, so I am rather excited to see the latter has been made into a movie staring Rachel Weisz. I will be standing in line for this one.