Holocaust denial
oracknows | August 2, 2006I had seriously considered jumping all over this story when I first saw it early Monday morning. After all, look at the headline:
Jewish groups call for hate-crime probe on Mel Gibson
A more truly ominous thing to be calling for based on a drunken anti-Semitic tirade I have a hard time imagining. As you may remember from my previous discussions of, for example, the David Irving trial, I am very much against hate speech laws. What I don't recall if I've ever mentioned before is that I'm also very skeptical of hate crime laws. I can see using racial or religious bigotry as an aggravating…
oracknows | July 30, 2006I've written before about Hutton Gibson (Mel Gibson's father) and serious crank, conspiracy theorist and proud Holocaust denier. I even speculated, based on Mel's cagey answers to direct questions about the Holocaust, speculating about whether he shares some of Hutton's beliefs. I ended up guessing that Mel just didn't want to criticize his father, no matter what a loon he is. I've also pointed out Mel's anti-evolution beliefs.
Well, during an arrest for drunk driving, Mel gave some evidence that perhaps the apple didn't fall too far from the tree after all. During an arrest for drunk driving…
oracknows | July 26, 2006Enjoy, as blog comrade and fellow traveler in the fight against Holocaust denial Andrew Mathis shows us how it's done when Holocaust denier Michael Collins Piper writes to threaten to sue him for libel.
Andrew asks: Michael Collins Piper: Filthy Jew-hater or twisted anti-Semite? You be the judge!
Can I pick "both of the above"?
oracknows | July 7, 2006On Wednesday, in response to really bad analogy attacking the NAACP and the Black and Hispanic Congressional Caucuses, I wrote a rather lengthy post that attempted to educate the rather clueless blogger by the name of LaShawn Barber who had produced the rant about how the white nationalist teen singing duo Prussian Blue (who, according to LaShawn, are only expressing "white pride") got their name from a technique of Holocaust denial.
Well, it turns out I've been trolled. LaShawn has posted an update that's basically one big gloat:
A belated "Happy Independence Day" to all the left-leaning (…
oracknows | July 5, 2006Almost as if by design, after my post earlier today about LaShawn Barber's really bad analogy comparing the white nationalist teenage singing duo Prussian Blue's invocation of "white pride" to minority groups like the NAACP, I came across this post over on David Neiwert's blog showing what real white nationalists look like.
Almost as if by design...
oracknows | July 5, 2006Hoo boy.
Via The Poorman Institute and an anti-Holocaust denial mailing list that I belong to, I've learned of an analogy so breathtakingly bad that I have a hard time not blogging about it, mainly because it relates to a topic that I'm very interested in (Holocaust denial) and a related topic that I've written about before, namely the white supremacist, Hitler-admiring, Holocaust-denying pop tarts that make up the white nationalist singing duo Prussian Blue. Oddly enough, it comes in the form of a complaint about "racialist double standards" from conservative blogger LaShawn Barber, in which…
oracknows | June 23, 2006Holocaust deniers sometimes refer to the Holocaust as the "Holohoax," as if the whole thing were one huge hoax perpetrated on the world by Jews. Indeed, if you have the stomach to dive into the deepest, darkest, most disgusting parts of the Internet, where Holocaust deniers freely spew their lies, you will even find explicit assertions that the Holocaust is nothing but a hoax that the Jews used to justify the formation of the State of Israel and to collect reparation money. Indeed, do a Google search for the term "Holohoax" and you will find well over 43,000 entries. That the Holocaust was a…
oracknows | June 7, 2006First, the good news: Holocaust-denying, white nationalist, atheist nutjob Larry Darby lost the Democratic primary for Attorney General in Alabama.
Now the bad news: He somehow managed to garner 43.53% of the vote. His opponent got 56.47%. It wasn't close, but it was a hell of a lot closer than I thought it would be. I once expressed amazement that such a crank could get 12% support in an opinion poll; now in the primary he somehow managed to get over 40% of the actual vote.
I guess that it just goes to show that in some places in this country, a bit of white nationalism and anti-Semitism can…
oracknows | May 30, 2006Watch how a Holocaust denier (in this case, the President of Iran) dances around the question "Did the Holocaust happen?" You can see the very same techniques when a denier like David Irving or Ernst Zundel is questioned about the Holocaust:
SPIEGEL: It concerned your remarks about the Holocaust. It was inevitable that the Iranian president's denial of the systematic murder of the Jews by the Germans would trigger outrage.
Ahmadinejad: I don't exactly understand the connection.
SPIEGEL: First you make your remarks about the Holocaust. Then comes the news that you may travel to Germany -- this…
oracknows | May 22, 2006Geez, who could have seen this one coming?
Straight from the Discovery Institute's blog regarding atheist and Holocaust denier Larry Darby in reference to his activities against ID in Alabama, Casey Luskin bloviates:
An outspoken opponent of the bill has been activist Larry Darby. Mr. Darby's vehement opposition to the Alabama Academic Freedom Bill was on full display at a House Education hearing back on April 29, 2004. According to reports I have received, committee chair, Rep. Yvonne Kennedy (D), did not allow citizens to testify for the bill. But for some reason she let Mr. Darby alone…
oracknows | May 19, 2006I've written a lot before about the current President of Iran and his anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, as well as the religious fanaticism of the regime he leads. Here's more evidence of where theocracy can lead:
While the Iranian economy appears to be heading for recession, one sector may have some reason for optimism. That sector is the garment industry and the reason for hopefulness is a law passed by the Islamic Majlis (parliament) on Monday.
The law mandates the government to make sure that all Iranians wear "standard Islamic garments" designed to remove ethnic and class distinctions…
oracknows | May 15, 2006The other day, I mentioned an atheist named Larry Darby who happened to be an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier. I was perturbed because this clown was coming far too close to my neck of the woods for comfort, and the stench of his vileness offended me. Because Darby is an atheist, not surprisingly fellow ScienceBloggers PZ and Ed both noticed his making news lately, although Razib had the far more interesting take on this clown when he pointed out that the racialist radical right actually has more atheists in it than one might expect. He's quite correct. Having waded into the cesspools that…
oracknows | May 13, 2006Here's an unfortunate story that shows that loonies come in all varieties:
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Democratic Party leaders are wondering what to do about a candidate for attorney general who denies the Holocaust occurred and wants to "reawaken white racial awareness."
Larry Darby, the founder of the Atheist Law Center, made an abortive bid for the AG job as a Libertarian in 2002, but only recently have his views on race and the Holocaust come to light.
He has no money for campaign advertising and has made only a few campaign speeches, but garnered 12 percent support in the June 6 primary in a…
oracknows | May 10, 2006My blog buddy Andrew has a bit of fun turning a favorite Holocaust denier question back at them. In reaction to laws against Holocaust denial in some European nations, deniers like to ask: "What kind of truth needs protection?" They were particularly loud about this during the recent trial of David Irving.
Now, Andrew notes the case of Iranian scholar Ramin Jahanbegloo, who was detained in Tehran for publishing an article critical of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial.
His point:
So the worm turns. The hero state of the deniers (Iran), which they have (wrongly) called a…
oracknows | April 30, 2006Today is Führerstodestag or "Death of the Führer Day," I join my friend Andrew in wishing Holocaust deniers out there a very happy Führerstodestag! If there is indeed a hell, Adolf Hitler must surely be rotting in it.
In commemoration of Führerstodestag, I'm resurrecting a blast from the past, my post about this topic from my old blog published one year ago today. It's my way of wishing Holocaust deniers and Hitler-admiring Nazis everywhere a happy Führerstodestag!
60 years ago today: The end of the Führer
Sixty years ago today, the capital of the thousand year Reich, Berlin, was in…
oracknows | April 25, 2006Today, April 25, 2006 is Holocaust Heroes and Martyrs Remembrance Day. In commemoration, here's a list of almost everything I've written regarding the Holocaust, Holocaust denial, and anti-Semitism since the beginning:
60 years ago today: The evacuation of Auschwitz and start of the death march
The 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz: How I discovered Holocaust denial
60 years ago today: The liberation of Buchenwald
Sunday afternoon history lesson
60 years ago today: The liberation of Bergen-Belsen
60 years ago today: The liberation of Dachau
60 years ago today: The end of the…
oracknows | March 24, 2006Speaking of Holocaust denial, opening sentence of a review of a new CD by Be Your Own Pet:
Aside from the deaf or those in a level of denial up there with David Irving's idiot pronouncements on the Holocaust, everyone's aware that we live in great times for music.
Heh.
I'm not sure this sort of reference in the popular media is a good thing or not. On the one hand, it suggests a widespead knowledge that David Irving is a Holocaust denier, otherwise most readers wouldn't understand the reviewer's reference to David Irving. On the other hand, it implies that David Irving is far more well known…
oracknows | March 24, 2006One of the most annoying thing about Holocaust "revisionists" is that they really aren't revisionists at all. Revisionism is a legitimate academic pursuit in history. Indeed, nearly all history is to some extent revisionist, because new historians find new sources that previously may have been lost or otherwise not available and reinterpret history in light of new information, or they bring a different perspective to the existing evidence and try to get closer to the "truth" of history. What Holocaust deniers have done is to appropriate the term "revisionist" in a deceptive manner meant to…
oracknows | March 17, 2006Last week, I reported about arson at the offices of The Holocaust History Project (THHP), posted one update, and was gratified to see how many bloggers responded to my call to link to THHP as a big "screw you!" to whoever did this.
An article about the arson at the Holocaust History Project has appeared in the San Antonio Express News, including an interview with Sara Salzman, who acted as spokesperson for THHP because Harry Mazal was out of town.
It appears that the police and fire department do not believe that this was a hate crime for reasons that I have to question:
But the fire, set in…
oracknows | March 15, 2006Excerpts from an e-mail to Professor Deborah Lipstadt criticizing her for taking Holocaust denier Arthur Butz to task during an interview on FOX News:
Although I am not anti-semitic, your Jewish greed is overbearing and crippling. The world is beginning to see the collective Jewish attempt to control the world economy and world media.
[...]
Another example: the recent killing of the French Jew raises interesting questions. There is no doubt that the world is beginning to feel the oppression of Jewish greed.
Why have attacks on Jews been increasing in Europe and Russia? Why is the Jewish media…