Holocaust Denial Is No Joke

[Fountain79]

On Monday, the Iranian foreign ministry held an international conference. There's nothing unusual in that. Foreign ministries hold conferences, mostly dull ones, all the time. But this one was different. For one thing, the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust dealt with history, not current politics. Instead of the usual suspects—deputy ministers and the like—the invitees seem to have included David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader; Georges Thiel, a Frenchman who has called the Holocaust "an enormous lie"; and Fredrick Töben, a German-born Australian whose specialty is the denial of Nazi gas chambers.

http://www.slate.com/id/2155328/

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. No.

But using it as a propagandistic excuse for starting a war is.

[JeffR]

2. Maybe I'm missing something

Who said it was a joke?

[Texasgal]

3. Did you read the article?

that was the title of it.

[JeffR]

5. Check that. But I still don't see the relevance of the 'no joke' reference

??

[in_cog_ni_to]

13. I think the meaning of the title is "we shouldn't make light of (joke about) what Ahmedinejad is

doing by holding this conference. It's serious and HE'S serious.


<snip>
Of course, Holocaust denial also has broader roots and many more adherents in the Middle East, which may be part of the point: Questioning the reality of the Holocaust has long been another means of questioning the legitimacy of the state of Israel, which was indeed created by the United Nations in response to the Holocaust, and which has indeed incorporated Holocaust history into its national identity. If the Shiite Iranians are looking for friends, particularly among Sunni Arabs, Holocaust denial isn't a bad way to find them.

And yet—this week's event has some new elements, too. This is, after all, an international conference, with foreign participants, formal themes ("How did the Zionists collaborate with Hitler?" for example), and a purpose that goes well beyond a mere denunciation of Israel. Because some former Nazi countries have postwar laws prohibiting Holocaust denial, Iran has declared this "an opportunity for thinkers who cannot express their views freely in Europe about the Holocaust." If the West is going to shelter Iranian dissidents, then Iran will shelter David Duke. If the West is going to pretend to support freedom of speech, then so will Iran. Heckled for the first time in many months by demonstrators at a rally yesterday, Ahmadinejad responded by calling the hecklers paid American agents: "Today, the worst type of dictatorship in the world is the American dictatorship, clothed in human rights." The American dictatorship, clothed in human rights spouting falsified history: It's the kind of argument you can hear quite often nowadays, in Iran as well as Russia and Venezuela, not to mention the United States.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that this particular brand of historical revisionism is no joke,and we shouldn't be tempted to treat it that way. Yes, we think we know this story already; we think we've institutionalized this memory; we think this particular European horror has been put to rest, and it is time to move on. I've sometimes thought that myself. There is so much other history to learn, after all. The 20th century was not lacking in tragedy.

And yet—the near-destruction of the European Jews in a very brief span of time by a sophisticated European nation using the best technology available was, it seems, an event that requires constant re-explanation, not least because it really did shape subsequent European and world history in untold ways. For that reason alone, the archives, the photographs, and the endless rebuttals will go on being necessary, long beyond the lifetime of the last survivor.

[solara]

4. Can someone explain how in the world anyone could deny the

Holocaust happened? There is proof everywhere isn't there? I do not get how this keeps coming up.There are pictures, newsreels, eye witnesses, journals..how are those things explained away? Am I just being naive? :wtf:

[Redstone]

7. Try as you may, you CAN'T understand those people. They're not LIKE us.

They're stark staring delusional lunatics. And have no souls.

Redstone

[NNN0LHI]

12. Germans must not be like us either

They needed to enact a law to prevent the German people from denying the Holocaust happened.

Don

[dflprincess]

16. Germany has also passed laws that bar displays of any Nazi symbols

Odd, that the one country that might want to deny the Holocaust, has owned up to what happened and will not allow history to be rewrtitten. I guess they're not like us.

[NNN0LHI]

24. Funny that Germany felt a need to whoop their citizens into compliance with a law about that though

Not the kind of funny that makes you laugh.

Don

[Warren DeMontague]

48. Maybe they felt that the memory of 6 million men, women and children deserved that level

of solemnity and respect.

Hey- I don't necessarily agree; I'm something of a free speech absolutist, and that includes the freedom to be a flaming ass. But I'm not German, either.

[Posteritatis]

75. Almost as if their past leaders getting their country razed influenced them, somehow.. (n/t)

[Dorian Gray]

36. And to bar Scientology!

Those Germans like to pass laws! :)

Seriously, though... Ahmadinejad is a sick puppy, as are all those involved in this "conference." The quotes don't need to be explained, do they?

[geek tragedy]

67. Do the words "never again" mean anything to you?

What happened under Nazi Germany was so awful, that Germans will do anything to make sure that movement never rises again.

[solara]

21. Lordy... I thought the pendulum was finally swinging to side of reason

I remember hearing that same rumor back in the 70's.. are those radical assholes just trying to push buttons? ( figuratively and literally?) This 'theory' has been coming up for years...like a bad freakin' clam..... I think they have ALL lost their minds.. from the West down to the East....

Did every single war mongering world 'leader' take that damn brown acid ( obscure reference to Woodstock) in some sort of international fraternal 'skull & bones' type ritual 35 years ago?

Sorry for the tin foil crap

:grr: :banghead: :grr:

[bananas]

35. I've met people who thought the moon landings were a hoax - I thought they were joking

but they were serious.

[Up2Late]

15. I think I can, and don't get me wrong, most of my Fathers side of the family...

...were murdered by the Nazis during WW2.

For Iranians, it's probably like the American Extermination of the Native People in this country. Up until a few years ago, American school children had always been taught in American Schools that the Native People (Indians) were Blood Thirsty Savages, who wanted nothing more that to Rape and kill our Wives and Children and to deny Brave American Settlers their "Manifest Destiny."

Or how we here in American schools are taught almost nothing about the proud peoples of Central and South America or the Chilean coup d'etat in 1973 and how the United States Government not only supported Augusto Pinochet, but we actually helped him do what he did.

For Iranians, I can see it easily being in the myth category, but for A-holes like David Duke and his like from Australian and France, those people I don't get really.

[ikojo]

20. I can't remember what station I was watching but people are

denying that the Rwandan genocide happened and that was only 12 years ago. I know it was a news report about a Tutsi woman and how she and her family were hidden in the small bathroom in the home of a minister, who was a Hutu. During the course of the interview this woman said that there are folks who deny the genocide took place.

Oy vey! First people want to do away with those deemed "other" and then they want to wipe out the memory of that destruction...perhaps to do it again?

[Wonk]

27. 60 minutes

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/30/60minutes/main2218371.shtml

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

40. There are still people who believe the world is flat.

Some people... are just retards.

[alarimer]

45. They are just like creationists in the sense that no amount

of evidence will dissuade them from their fantasies. But they are much more evil than creationists (who are simply ignorant of science and what constitutes proof).

You are a rational human being (living in the reality-based community), whereas these people are not. In addition to being delusional, Holocaust deniers are out and out evil, racist to the core.

[INDIA]

49. Ask the MIHOPers!

Heyooooooooo!

[geek tragedy]

55. They want to rehabilitate the historical legacy

of the Third Reich and legitimize state-sanctioned hatred of Jews.

The truth doesn't matter to a single of the beasts attending that conference.

[Lurking Dem]

56. You might find this interesting:

(even though it's New York Daily News :) )

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/479547p-403476c.html

[geek tragedy]

57. Well, rabid Judenhass and Holocaust denial are mainstream

positions in the Arab and Muslim world, so that doesn't surprise me.

[sweetheart]

72. the same way most americans deny the viet nam holocaust

Holocaust denial is rife, just depends on the holocaust. Viet Nam had millions of dead, but
many americans will say its only 58,000... "holocaust denial"

Iraq has at least 700,000 civilian dead, but people dispute that to 3000 -- holocaust denial.

The laos and cambodia bombings, laos and that whole mess is another holocaust denail.

Most americans celibrate thanksgiving, unknowingly celibrating a holiday that is directly
linked to the american indian holocaust...--- holocaust denial.

Our culture is hooked on holocaust denial... We have holidays for it.

[Redstone]

6. The people who run Iran are just as much fucking idiots as the people who run the USA.

What the FUCK is wrong with them?

Redstone

[La Lioness Priyanka]

9. religious fanaticism and power. same as the bushies.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

61. Technically true, but misleading.

Ahmadinejad and the Council of Guardians are far, far worse than Bush and the wildest excesses of the Republican party.

"Just as bad" is technically true, but so is "incomparably worse", and the latter is more informative, I think.

[Gwerlain]

8. Does no one here...

see the parallels between this behavior of Ahmadinejad, and the behavior of * and Co.? Global warming denial anyone? How about a little creationism? Have a scoop of anti-abortionism with that, with a stem cell on top.

[Redstone]

10. I see it. Read my post above. They're all insane.

Redstone

[Gwerlain]

18. Thanks...

it's good to know I'm not going :freak:

[solara]

23. You are not alone n/t

[Puregonzo1188]

11. After going to the Holocaust Mueseum today,

as part of Comparitive Religions class I just can't even begin to fathom how anyone can deny the Holocaust. Not that I ever could.

[Mika]

14. Typically Rovian warmongering.

Rovian tactic: Paint the object of aggression with the most negative trait of your own candidate(s) (party).

Max Cleland = Osama sympathizer

John Kerry = war coward

Amedenijhad = Nazi

[cali]

17. This has nothing to do with Rove

or a push toward war, or even demonizing Ahmadinejad. Rove didn't arrange the Holocaust denial conference in Iran. Ahmadinejad did. This is his thing, and he's rightly being condemned for it.

[Dorian Gray]

38. Exactly, Cali!

As he should be! It's disgusting. (And I don't want to go to war with Iran, either.)

[Redstone]

19. The fuck does ROVE have to do with Amedenijhad acting JUST LIKE a Nazi?

I doubt very much that Amedenijhad takes ANY orders from Rove.

Redstone

[Warren DeMontague]

25. Wow. How did Karl Rove convince Amedenijhad to host the Holocaust denial conference?

PRETTY FUCKIN' CRAFTY, KARL!!!

[Raskolnik]

32. Or perhaps, just perhaps, there is a world outside the United States

made up of good and bad people doing good and bad things regardless of what we might think here in the United States.

Sometimes things do happen without orders from the U.S. government.

[nadinbrzezinski]

50. So exaclly what was Rove's function in the

holocaust Denial meeting that was held today in Iran?

you kow Rove does not have his dirty paws in everthing, nor is he the ONLY bad actor out there

[Posteritatis]

74. If Rove was half as omnipotent as some DUers think...

We'd all be completely fucked and in the camps or the reeducation furnaces or whatever already.

The world does not revolve around that man, nor does it revolve on his command. There is more than one influential Bad Person on this planet.

[rinsd]

76. Classic apologism from Mika

Who has to paint anything?

The man has come out and said the holocaust is a myth and is holding a conference on whther it happened.

[geek tragedy]

82. Some people will support any bigot who hates the United

States.

[geek tragedy]

81. Amazing that a so-called progressive would

circle the wagon around a bigoted lunatic.

Tell me, Mika, do you support Ahmadinejad and bend the truth to defend him because he hates the USA, or because he hates Israel?

[Gwerlain]

22. IMHO, this thread BEGAN with Godwin's Law. n/t

[cali]

28. LOL.

It's a thread about Holocaust denial. How on earth is one supposed to avoid references to nazis, when those are the people that committed it?

[Gwerlain]

46. You understood me perfectly.

:D

[angstlessk]

26. Crap, when I was a kid in the 50's. and went to the movies..they still showed

news reels about the internment camps in Germany and all those skeletons walking abound with smiles on their faces because they were being rescued. That was in the 50's maybe 5-10 years after the war...I was born in 1949..so do the math!

[nealmhughes]

29. There are still a lot of survivers left. Of course, they are getting up there, but Ann Frank

would only be 75 right now were she alive.

[Name removed]

30. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[WernhamHogg]

31. I wonder if Mel Gibson's father was invited

I'm pretty sure I read that Mel Gibson's father is into denying a lot of the facts regarding the Holocaust. The rotten apple doesn't fall far from the rotten tree.

[Harper_is_Bush]

33. Global Warming denial concerns me much more. n/t

[Warren DeMontague]

47. As someone who had relatives in the camps, and someone who wants his grandkids

to have a planet to live on, I would look seriously askew at anyone who lightly pooh-poohs either.

[Wonk]

34. So, Bradley R Smith walks into a bar...

and says "Ow, that hurt! Who put that bar there?"

[cali]

37. Cute. Not. n/t

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

41. Bradley R. Smith never really walked into a bar.

It never actually happened.

[bridgit]

39. no it isn't, my dad was part of the team that liberated Bergen-Belsen...

and he was haunted with nightmares till the day he died http://www.bergen-belsen.de/en someone may try to say there are alternate ways to view it...but it is state sanctioned madness to assert that it did not happen

[Hekate]

42. My in-laws are Holocaust survivors; my husband's childhood included very few relatives

...because most of them had died in the camps before he was born.

What a world.

Those people who want us to "let the dead past bury the dead" and just forget its horrors are trying to tell us one of two things: (1) Don't make me uncomfortable, or (2) Let me make up a lie about what really occured.

Sorry, that just doesn't work for me.

Hekate

[Rex]

43. HA! I said a couple of days ago it would be people like Duke.

The Iranian people should not put up with this nonsense.

[lonestarnot]

44. Whack jobs all around.

[sakabatou]

51. The tattooing was a joke too, huh?

:sarcasm:

[spoony]

52. If anyone has to, or feels the urge to, debate deniers

An excellent resource that exposes and fully counters their "arguments" is www.nizkor.org

Nizkor, as the site explains, is a Hebrew word meaning "We will remember," and has oodles of information directly refuting Holocaust deniers.

[rman]

53. Guilt by association regarding a fringe-issue

Fringe issue because saying there was no holocaust is as dumb as saying the earth is flat - people say the darnest things; it's unworthy of attention.

Guilt by association because the beliefs of people one associates with has little bearing on ones beliefs.
It would be a different matter if you'd quote Iran's foreign minister as saying there was no holocaust.

[Raskolnik]

58. "beliefs of people one associates with has little bearing on ones beliefs"?

I don't think that's accurate at all. If I were to grant the Klan permission to rally on my property, and I mingled with them during cocktails, one would be safe in assuming that I approved of their beliefs.

If Iran hosts quack historians whose only purpose is to dispute the reality of the Holocaust, I think we may safely assume that this belief is shared at least in part by Iran's leadership.

[cali]

59. And it's also news

and not a fringe story, despite the assertions of some DUers.

[rman]

60. By that measure, Nixon and Kissinger were communists

Because they associated with Mao.

[Raskolnik]

62. No dice.

This conference isn't about international relations.

Tell me--if your neighbor hosted a Klan rally on his front lawn, what would you assume about him?

[geek tragedy]

63. And if that neighbor preached hatred towards

the local black homeowners' association.

[rinsd]

77. Guilt by association?

The lengths people go to to defend such disgusting things is beyond me.

:puke:

[GreenZoneLT]

54. Hey, people can be fooled into anything

Lots of people think that 9/11 was a put-up job by the U.S. government. If you can swallow that, then why not believe International Zionists faked the Holocaust?

[Finder]

64. The label "Holocaust Denier" is used the same way....

as "Nazi" is used in rhetorical terms in most cases. The fact that historians cannot even question or attempt to verify aspects of the holocaust without being labeled gives me pause. As mentioned above, it is against the law in Germany.(no idea if it is actually enforced.)

All I know is that if someone states the Holocaust did not happen they are not to be taken seriously. It is documented well. Revisionists on the other hand should at least be given the benefit of the doubt as other historians who question official stories are given. Let their evidence speak for itself. So far I have found most "revisionists" to be whackjobs with an agenda and obvious about it.

Anyone who has studied the US Civil war will understand.

[geek tragedy]

65. Holocaust deniers are Nazis. There is no legitimate

debate over the Holocaust anymore than there is over whether the Earth is flat.

Those who dispute it have bad motives.

You can verify and do research on the Holocaust--you're just now allowed to lie about it in Europe.

[cali]

66. No dice.

The Holocaust is the one of the most, if not the most, studied and documented events in human history. There are literally mountains of evidence and thousands upon thousands of eyewitness reports. It is a complete falsehood to state, as you did, that historians cannot even question or attempt to verify aspects of the holocaust without being labeled. If that were true, it would be sensible to have some trepidation about the field of study. But it absolutely is NOT true.

The folks that are labeled holocaust deniers- like those attending the conference in Tehran, are people who try to demonstrate such things, as there was never a planned final solution, or that Jews really weren't gassed, etc. Those are not legitimate exercises.

And to claim that Revisionists of the Holocaust should be given the benefit of the doubt, is absurd.

[Finder]

78. First of all, there are revisions that are legitimate...

but the historians do not label themselves "revisionists" since that is the label adopted by the deniers...

There is definite trepidition in that field.

[cali]

79. And you know there's trepidation

jon the part of legitimate historians, just how? That's simply an empty assertion. And yes, I know what a revisionist is- I was simply using the language that the poster I responded to used.

[cali]

80. Please list some of

the areas within Holocaust studies that you think are not addressed do to trepidation on the part of historians.

[Finder]

88. There are several issues...

that have been made taboo because of the deniers. I am NOT defending deniers or revisionists and blame them for the problems among the real scholars. That said, unlike any other period or event in history, in order to be accepted as legitimate you must be vetted. It is harder to become a Holocaust scholar than it is to join the CIA.lol

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_n20_v115/ai_21056445

Chomsky was accused of being a denier as well...

http://www.chomsky.info/letters/1989----.htm

I must say that the crap(from deniers/revisionists)I came across while googling has been telling. That is not the group I was referring to as far as giving them the benefit of the doubt...

[geek tragedy]

83. Then you won't have any problem

naming them, and providing links.

Not gonna hold my breath.

[slackmaster]

68. I have to wonder how much the CIA is paying David Duke to attend

His speech refers to people like Ernst Zundel as "gentle".

It's pure Duke. Either he hasn't changed a bit, or the .gov has something big on him and is using him as a sacrificial lamb to make the "conference" look absurd.

If BushCo is behind Duke's performance, I have to give them kudos for it. Maybe they're not so dumb after all.

[Lurking Dem]

69. They need David Duke

to make the conference look absurd? What are you smoking?

[slackmaster]

73. I should have said "as absurd as possible".

Praise "Bob".

[Lurking Dem]

84. Okay.

But I think that might have actually required Mel Gibson.

[slackmaster]

85. Or Peewee Herman

:nuke:

[Lurking Dem]

86. Now now!

Don't be dissin' Peewee! :rofl:

[cali]

70. Hey, maybe

the CIA has something on Ahmadinejad and blackmailed him into holding the conference.

[ftr23532]

87. The far-Rightists have an old alliance with Muslim theocrats

Really hating the decadent West and the Jews http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64385-2002Apr28?language=printer">can forge these kinds of bonds.

[slackmaster]

89. Interesting, thanks for the link

I'm not even slightly surprised.

[KamaAina]

71. Can we have Dukkke declared an enemy combatant? Please?

Louisiana has enough problems right now. Time to ship that one off to Gitmo!