How to Understand And Confront Holocaust Denial

[jakell]

"How to Understand And Confront Holocaust Denial"

and

"Critical consciousness about racism in conspiracy culture is very very important"


are complementary themes...

Yes, they have similarities, but are big enough to have threads of their own. Probably best treated that way too, at least initially

Things that are 'complementary' also lend themselves to being easily confabulated, either accidentally or on purpose.

I agree with this. There is more richness by avoiding mushing it together.
The orginal title of the thread is down to Earth stub your toe in it practical approach we could check whether it has actually been achieved or not.

This makes me think of someone who says you can talk about hamburgers but you must never mention cows...

Mentioning cows it is not the problem, it is the sudden decision that they are an equally important subject...and then deciding that maybe factory farming is an equally important subject, this could go on and on until hamburgers have disappeared over the horizon.

Mentioning is ok, it provides context and perspective. there is no need for a mention to become a juggernaut though.

[Searcher08]

AD, how is it that you agree with her yet treat the approach of Nizkor (which does exactly this!) is characterised by you as as "quibbling about details" and "not the road ahead".

Your responses to me up thread were AGAINST the refutation of deniers by historical factual evidence.

Not exactly what I said, but quibbling over details may sometimes be a necessary evil- especially when made necessary by those who would obscure the forest by fighting over the details of individual trees.

That said, it is still not the road ahead but rather a way of avoiding losing ground.

Let's be EXACT about what each of us said




I said, referring to sets of participants
Quote:
PRESENT DAY CONCERNED DATA BASED FOLKS
Exhaustive research of Holocaust facts done by Nizkor.
Forensic, point by point fact based debunking of the key PRESENT DAY NAZI documents like the Leuchter Report
Generally ignored by HASBARA / ZIONISTS and also by PRESENT DAY NAZIS (who refuse to debate / correspond with)

To which you respnded (my bold):
Suggests that quibbling over all the details of the Nazi mass murder is the road forward. It really is not.

I replied:
** That comment landed with me as frankly, ghastly**
Who are YOU to determine what is 'quibbling over all the details' over a fucking GENOCIDE????
Having a detailed factual evidence base is an extremely powerful means of refutation for people who may have been taken in by the Far Right and are not ideologues.
It is actually dealing with real world documented evidence.
So when you are faced with a real-world evidence based approach (one which you neglect to mention fascists actually RUN AWAY from, and consistently refuse to debate, despite their devious attempts to say they are always 'welcome it') you SHUN it.
WTF does that say about what you regard as evidence??




Can you see what I'm talking about? and why I am so aerated about your framing of it as some sort of teeth gritting process to ensure?

Surely presenting detailed factual evidence is NOT something to be looked on as a necessary evil, but as a foundational starting point. It IS rigour.
And how insulting it actually is to *good* science to do the 'throwing the toys out of the pram, I'm not talking to you number'.

The extremely strong evidence base of the Shoah does not need 'protecting', it needs being confidently brought out and shared, so the junk of stuff like the Leucter report can be shown as that. The facts stand for themselves. Period.

[American Dream]

Isn't that precisely the agenda of most extant Holocaust Denial?

That is, to quibble over details and minimize concerns about racism?

[Searcher08]

This makes me think of someone who says you can talk about hamburgers but you must never mention cows...[/quote]

Mentioning cows it is not the problem, it is the sudden decision that they are an equally important subject...and then deciding that maybe factory farming is an equally important subject, this could go on and on until hamburgers have disappeared over the horizon.

Mentioning is ok, it provides context and perspective. there is no need for a mention to become a juggernaut though.[/quote]


Precisely - this is about what is the focus.

The title of this thread is

How to Understand And Confront Holocaust Denial

which is a well formed statement.
Did the thread address practical "How To's" or not.

You comment AD is like someone who shifts from
1 "How to make a better umbrella for this winter"
to
2 "A class-based analysis of covered walkways in the City of London"

1 will probably keep me dry
2 will probably keep me wet

Determining the focus and outcome thinking is a different type of thinking than critical analysis.

[jakell]

Isn't that precisely the agenda of most extant Holocaust Denial?

That is, to quibble over details and minimize concerns about racism?

I'm pretty sure the original thrust was firmly about confronting 'H' denial, and not about some wider agenda.

But I would say no to the above, in my experience it is about exhonerating the Nazis with a view to repopularising their views, some would say these are racist, but the deniers would laugh at this latter day wordplay and say that their views were/are common sense.

[American Dream]

Maybe time to revisit the original post:

How to Understand And Confront Holocaust Denial


2. WHO ARE THE MAIN EXPONENTS OF HOLOCAUST DENIAL?
The first Holocaust deniers were Nazis themselves. Today Holocaust denial is promoted by a small but internationally connected group of amateur historians and political activists. The international Holocaust denial movement has some leading figures such as David Irving in Great Britain, David Duke and Arthur Butz in the United States, Robert Faurisson in France, Ernst Zündel in Canada. They differ in the focus of their revisionist agenda, but what they share is a clear antisemitic political outlook, based on the desire to rehabilitate fascism and to promote the fight against a 'global Jewish conspiracy'.

Holocaust denial is strongly linked with antisemitism. As there is no universally agreed definition of antisemitism, it is appropriate to present here the definition, which will fit to our understanding of the term in the context of the Holocaust denial phenomenon:

Antisemitism is hatred toward Jews and is directed toward the Jewish religion, Jews as a people, or, more recently, the Jewish state. Antisemitism frequently charges Jews with conspiring to harm non-Jews and is often used to give an explanation for why things go wrong. It is expressed in speech, writing, visual forms, and action, and regularly employs stereotypes.
source: Stern, Kenneth. 2006. Antisemitism Today: How It Is the Same, How It Is Different, and How to Fight it: American Jewish Committee

The majority of known Holocaust deniers have strong connections with political movements whose agendas are antidemocratic. A leading example is David Irving who has been described by a British court as a "Holocaust denier who associates with rightwing extremists promoting neo-Nazism". Other examples of known Holocaust deniers linked with political organizations include Nick Griffin, the leader of the extreme-right British National Party as well as David Duke, a former leader of the Ku-Klux-Klan. It is clear that Holocaust denial here is just an element of a much broader political programme directed against minorities and against democracy as such.

Not all Holocaust deniers are rightwing extremists. Some, like French philosopher Roger Garaudy used to be connected with the far left but gradually adopted an antisemitic conspiracy-obsessed outlook.



http://www.unitedagainstracism.org/pages/thema02.htm

[Searcher08]

Isn't that precisely the agenda of most extant Holocaust Denial?

That is, to quibble over details and minimize concerns about racism?

Isnt that the agenda of most right wing Hasbara / Zionists?
Framing the genuine importance of establishing the facts and evidence as 'quibbling over details'
or something to endure as a last resort necessary evil
and minimizing concerns over the seniority of objectivity and clear evidence over interpretation and intent as being 'anti-Semitism'

Surely, real Justice is blind and is about the primacy of facts and physical evidence over ascribing motive and belief?

[American Dream]

Isn't that precisely the agenda of most extant Holocaust Denial?

That is, to quibble over details and minimize concerns about racism?

Isnt that the agenda of most right wing Hasbara / Zionists?

In a certain sense yes, but two wrongs still don't make a right- so what purpose does your comment serve other than to distract and confuse?

[jakell]

Isn't that precisely the agenda of most extant Holocaust Denial?

That is, to quibble over details and minimize concerns about racism?

Isnt that the agenda of most right wing Hasbara / Zionists?
Framing the genuine importance of establishing the facts and evidence as 'quibbling over details'
or something to endure as a last resort necessary evil
and minimizing concerns over the seniority of objectivity and clear evidence over interpretation and intent as being 'anti-Semitism'

Surely, real Justice is blind and is about the primacy of facts and physical evidence over ascribing motive and belief?

Yet again, we see how both extremes play a similar game. this is not surpising to me though as they are actually both belief systems.

It is unfortunately true that more and more people see rigour as boring dull hard work, and would rather make leaps when the fancy takes them (without the will to reverse that leap at a future time). it is this rigour though that will send these guys back to their bunkers.

[jakell]

Isn't that precisely the agenda of most extant Holocaust Denial?

That is, to quibble over details and minimize concerns about racism?

Isnt that the agenda of most right wing Hasbara / Zionists?

In a certain sense yes, but two wrongs still don't make a right- so what purpose does your comment serve other than to distract and confuse?

As I pointed out above, it suggests that a route in betwen the two extremes ( ie to stick to established facts), is probably the more fruiful one.

[Searcher08]

Isn't that precisely the agenda of most extant Holocaust Denial?

That is, to quibble over details and minimize concerns about racism?

Isnt that the agenda of most right wing Hasbara / Zionists?

In a certain sense yes, but two wrongs never make a right, so what purpose does your comment serve other than to distract and confuse?

You are avoiding a clear issue - the Hasbara / Zionist line is actually about
shutting down questioning,
minimising the importance of evidence
treating facts as secondary to ideology.

These completely play into the thinking of many Holocaust Deniers, because they can just point to these proto-fascist behaviours and look virtuous

My thesis is that by:
a) Encouraging questioning
b) Emphasizing the importance of detailed verified evidence
c) Treating facts as primary, not ideology

that
a) Questions will get answered
b) Transparency of evidence is the direction society is heading
c) Sensory based facts make a bigger impact than abstraction, because they help change perceptions

My concern is that in regard to Holocaust Denial, you are not behind a) b) or c) and are thus (unintentionally) encouraging the persistance of Holocaust Denial!

[Searcher08]

Isn't that precisely the agenda of most extant Holocaust Denial?

That is, to quibble over details and minimize concerns about racism?

Isnt that the agenda of most right wing Hasbara / Zionists?
Framing the genuine importance of establishing the facts and evidence as 'quibbling over details'
or something to endure as a last resort necessary evil
and minimizing concerns over the seniority of objectivity and clear evidence over interpretation and intent as being 'anti-Semitism'

Surely, real Justice is blind and is about the primacy of facts and physical evidence over ascribing motive and belief?

Yet again, we see how both extremes play a similar game. this is not surpising to me though as they are actually both belief systems.

It is unfortunately true that more and more people see rigour as boring dull hard work, and would rather make leaps when the fancy takes them (without the will to reverse that leap at a future time). it is this rigour though that will send these guys back to their bunkers.

I think this is a very important point, because it is verifiable!

This actually happens in the real world when ideologues face physical, documented evidence arguments with transparency of evidence procedures.

This is where Suttons work is very important, because he was tediously ball-breakingly rigourous - and points to a *much* bigger role in the Shoah of Wall Street - both in corporate, and finance capital aspects.

[American Dream]

Isn't that precisely the agenda of most extant Holocaust Denial?

That is, to quibble over details and minimize concerns about racism?

Isnt that the agenda of most right wing Hasbara / Zionists?

In a certain sense yes, but two wrongs never make a right, so what purpose does your comment serve other than to distract and confuse?

You are avoiding a clear issue - the Hasbara / Zionist line is actually about
shutting down questioning,
minimising the importance of evidence
treating facts as secondary to ideology.

These completely play into the thinking of many Holocaust Deniers, because they can just point to these proto-fascist behaviours and look virtuous

My thesis is that by:
a) Encouraging questioning
b) Emphasizing the importance of detailed verified evidence
c) Treating facts as primary, not ideology

that
a) Questions will get answered
b) Transparency of evidence is the direction society is heading
c) Sensory based facts make a bigger impact than abstraction, because they help change perceptions

My concern is that in regard to Holocaust Denial, you are not behind a) b) or c) and are thus (unintentionally) encouraging the persistance of Holocaust Denial!

No, I'm not avoiding a "clear issue" at all. Your comments here have only a tenuous link to your previous (vague) allusions to something concerning "Hasbara / Zionists".

Quibbling over details is one of the big M.O.'s of some of the more notorious denier types. Is that all you've got?

Because I'm imagining that if you had anything more earthshaking, more revelatory- directly about the ultimate validity of Holocaust Denial or something like that- you would have said it by now.

[slimmouse]

.AD rather appropriately wrote.

Quibbling over details is one of the big M.O.'s of some of the more notorious denier types. Is that all you've got?

Does that stretch to requiring a kind of contract being drawn up in order that we establish how to treat each other around here with civiility?

Hows that contract coming along?

I notice yoiu havent responded to either my questions here, regarding "alibi Jews", or my polite request on the TPV thread for reaching a more amicable, responsble understanding.

Oversight, no doubt.

[American Dream]

I find the notion of anyone hiding the inherent antisemitism of their nature by supporting a group of Jewish people who oppose the illegal occupation of Palestine to be ,quite frankly plain fucking stupid.

Because to me, it's counter-intuitve.

But Im open to persuasion.

Who are these alibi seekers? Any on here do you think?

Why do they choose this particular group for an alibi?

You can really help the discussion here AD.

I'm thinking of the kind of people who support the racist discourse of Israel Shamir, Ken O'Keefe, Gilad Atzmon, Jeff Rense, and others of that ilk. Friends of the Palestinians they would all claim to be, even though they are mostly unwanted by those they claim to make common cause with.

Somehow- and I think you already know this full well- amongst these so-called "friends of Palestine" are those who tend to appropriate the words and images of the Neteurei Karta ultraorthodox sect as symbols of Jewish dissent from the Israeli Right's agenda. Never mind that the NK Jews are pretty marginal in regards to the established Palestinian solidarity movement and have really questionable politics- they have achieved the status of poster child for some of these people and I'm not entirely sure why...