LUNCH AND ARIEL SHARON

The car is still in the shop so when my wife got back from church and woke me up from my first nap of the day we walked up to the Boulevard and around the corner to a café where they serve chicken. They don’t serve anything else. Rice and beans. It was dark and cold on the street, while inside the café it was dark and cold.

We sat near the side wall that is entirely glass. Outside there is a passageway about three feet wide, then a seven-foot concrete block wall painted with hills and fields and flowering plants. Over head the passageway is covered with chicken wire, and down in the dirt there are white pigeons, a dove or two, and a couple rabbits, one brown and the other black and white.

We ordered chicken, of course, and while we ate and I listened to my wife talk about our daughter I watched the black and white rabbit, which is the smaller one, lick and clean the brown one like a mother cat cleans its kitten. I’d never seen that before.

After awhile a fat Mexican came in with his wife, I suppose, and sat at a table near us. I was struck by how closely the Mexican resembled Ariel Sharon, the Butcher of Beirut. The nose, the mouth, the stomach, the haircut. Everything. If I had been in some other venue, I would have felt a moment of anxiety.

Thought recalled that this morning on a CNN “Breaking News” segment it was reported that Sharon had suffered a stroke and was in hospital. When I first heard the news I thought, well, let’s hope for the worst. The guy’s been nothing but trouble for as long as I can remember. Then it occurred to me that waiting in line to govern Israel is Bibi Netanyahu. My enthusiasm felt compromised. What kind of choice is that? Bibi and George W?

Look out Iran!

AN OVER-NIGHT TRIP TO AMERICA

PART ONE

Yesterday evening I was to attend a memorial service for David McCalden, the conceptual founder of the Institute for Historical Review. McCalden was a beloved, cranky, intelligent, womanizing, engaging, odd individual. We had our bad times, but I remember him with real affection and admiration.

The get-together, not really a “service,” would be held in Manhattan Beach at a Chinese bar, where all our four-times-a-year get-togethers happen. In order to be certain that I would be there on time, 6pm, I would have to drive north to the border and cross into California by 12 noon. Here in La Gloria my car was in the shop with a busted steering wheel and an electrical short that my mechanic could not locate.

So I would have to get a bus to Tijuana, a taxi to the frontier, walk across the bridge, wait in line with the other terrorists to cross over, catch a streetcar to Chula Vista, then another taxi to Budget Rent a Car where I had reserved the least expensive automobile they rent. It all went pretty well. I arrived at Budget at 12.30pm.

While I’m waiting at the front desk two Chinese men enter. They are each well over six feet tall, in their mid-thirties, slim and well-built, good-looking, and in good humor. My first reaction on seeing them there is to note how tall they are—and then suddenly thought has me back in Korea in 1951, more than half a century before. I had nothing to do with it. Thought was on its own, living out its own existence.

It was probably a February morning, and the day was just breaking. We were one platoon of infantry lying in a couple snow-covered rice paddies in a small, narrow valley. A road ran north/south through the length of the valley and the Chinese were coming south at us. We were to hold where we were. We had no support. Even the company machinegun squad was with another platoon. We had our M-1 rifles, a few grenades, and that was it.

I was glad to see day breaking. Sometimes when the Chinese came there were a lot of them and when they came at night it could be a real bother. Now that a winter light was seeping through the clouds we could relax a bit. We could heat coffee. We could talk, horse around a bit. And then one of the guys gave a yell and we dove on our faces. There was some shouting back and forth. I didn’t get it.

And then I saw that straight ahead, maybe sixty yards, there was the head and shoulders of a Chinese soldier, his arms raised as if he were surrendering. He was close enough that he could have shot a few of us before we would have known what was happening. None of us stood up. A couple of the guys yelled at him. Get up or get shot. The Chinese stood up, his arms above his head. He started walking toward us. A couple of our guys went out to meet him and shake him down.

In another couple minutes he was standing there in full quilted uniform, with the fur cap, in the center of a dozen American soldiers and everyone was laughing. It was remarkable. We could have been killing each other, but we were laughing.

There was a Chinese kid in our platoon from Fresno and he began translating. The Chinese was just tired of the fighting. The worst part of it was American air. He had deserted his unit the night before and crawled toward our line in the dark. He knew he was taking a chance, but he somehow felt that if waited for daylight and showed himself the way he had that we would not shoot him. He was right.

He was a tall, well-built man in his early thirties. He was one of the tallest guys there in the paddy, well over six feet. He had an intelligent, good looking face and a winning smile. Everyone took a shine to him. He was very much like the two Chinese who came into the Budget Rent a Car office while I was waiting to pick up my reservation.

Only now it occurs to me to imagine how it might have been if I had had a way to introduce myself to the two Chinese there in the office, tell them the story that thought had just flashed back to, and invite them to have a beer. I would have other stories to tell them about the Chinese in Korea, which might encourage them to recall a couple stories about Americans that they had been told by their fathers and uncles, or that they had witnessed for themselves.

REVISIONISM: A CRIME OF THE MIND

Stephen Smith of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust writes that Holocaust “denial” (that is, free inquiry, skepticism, historical investigation, public debate, intellectual freedom) is a “crime of the mind.” Who benefits? Among others, The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. I suppose the Trust has access to a good amount of money. Follow the money. It is a crime of the mind to do anything that will undermine the influence of those who are getting the money. This is why some revisionists play with the word “holocau$t.”

David Golding of the Israeli Embassy in Dublin wants an apology because Keating’s article questions “our God and our religion.” It is very much like a “crime of the mind” to question what has been written about Golding’s God and his religion. Those who forward the concept of “crimes of the mind” to restrict public discourse are themselves the primary beneficiaries of such charges, and of the “crimes” themselves, which are in turn forwarded as fundraisers to forward the need for laws against crimes of the mind.


Justin Keating on Israel
The Dubliner, November 2005

I have reached the conclusion that the Zionists have absolutely no right in what they call Israel, that they have built their state not beside but on top of the Palestinian people, and that there can be no peace as long as contemporary Israel retains its present form. I hasten to make clear that none of this gives me any pleasure, but in the great scheme of things my personal wishes do not weigh heavily in the scale pans of history. I wish I did not think what I do, I hope I am wrong. My conclusions are based on the answers to five questions.

Read more
http://www.honestreporting.com/a/dublinerarticle.htm


In London, Stephen Smith, chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, said: “Holocaust denial is a crime of the mind. It is designed to insult the dead, humiliate the survivors and to make us disbelieve the scarcely believable.”

Spokesman David Golding of the Israeli Embassy in Dublin requested an apology from the Dubliner, “I found [the article] offensive and hurtful … it questions our God and our religion. I am very angry and disappointed that an eminent Irish historian could produce such revisionist rubbish.”

Read more
http://www.thejewishpress.com/news_article.asp?article=5820

HARRY MAZAL ON DAVID IRVING

A week without posting here. I’ve been distracted, lost really, worrying and thinking and worrying about money, about funding, expenses, bills, debts. For revisionists, the usual.

I did do the Christmas letter for 2005. The primary family story this year is that there is a new baby in the house, so it’s the primary story in the Christmas letter. It’s at the printers now. If you’re not on my USPS list, drop me a note with your address and I’ll send it on to you the middle of next week.

I’ve done some more work with The History News Network, the Web site “by historians for historians.” I am allowed full access to the site, am allowed to post wherever I want. It is all very proper. There is no other such place on the Web. By and large, the professors do not want to get involved. What’s in it for them?

One exchange is interesting for who participated in it, and who quit. It reminds me of the time I was a guest on the Bob Grant show and Simon Wiesenthal was on with me. Simon was willing to talk until he found that there was someone on the air with him who was willing to talk back. He hemmed and hawed, stammered this and that, and then hung up the phone. If you disagree with them, they are in agreement: they will not talk to you. That's how the taboo is maintained.

HNN posted a story from the Independent by a Charles Glass titled “David Irving Should be Protected by Free Speech Laws" http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/18799.html. There were a few comments. The one that interests me here is #71990, by Harry Mazal.

Free speech is a two way street (#71990)
by Harry William Mazal on December 4, 2005 at 3:48 PM

[ Harry W. Mazal OBE directs The Holocaust History Project http://www.holocaust-history.org/ ] , a primary resouce for those who want to believe and are outraged by doubt.

[start]

Mr. Glass states:

"But my belief in freedom of expression requires me to defend the right of both to speak. Otherwise, what is this free speech I believe in? The freedom to agree?"

One cannot fault that argument.

Curiously enough though, where were many of the defenders of freedom of expression when David Irving sued Professor Deborah Lipstadt for libel in London? She had written a scholarly book that analyzed Holocaust deniers including, but not principally, David Irving. His failed libel lawsuit was nothing more than an attempt to strip Professor Lipstadt of her fundamental right to express herself.

It is almost poetic justice that he should now be facing a long prison term for expressing himself freely. Several years ago he was responsible for Prof. Lipstadt's virtual incarceration - five plus years of preparation for and attendance in the courts - was probably more stressful and debilitating than the same time spent in a prison cell.

By his failed legal action he also forced Prof. Lipstadt and her admirers to invest millions of Pounds Sterling in her defense. Although he was assigned court costs, he has never paid them and indeed boasts at how he was responsible for this huge loss to whom he refers as the "Traditional Enemy".

To argue that justice prevailed and that Irving lost his lawsuit does not give back the years that Professor Lipstadt lost, the pain and suffering that she endured, nor the massive expenses that were incurred in her defense.

It would be apprpropriate if Mr. Irving were freed, but only after he has had to raise millions of Pounds Sterling in his defense and spent years of preparation and attendance in a foreign courtroom.

Freedom of expression is a two way street.

[end]

Re: Free speech is a two way street. (#72001)
by Bradley Smith on December 4, 2005 at 9:17 PM

You have it dead wrong. Intellectual freedom is either there for everyone, or it's not there. It's either there everywhere, all the time, or it's not there. The issue today is not that Irving brought a flawed libel action against Lipstadt in the past. And it is not a matter of how much money the Holocaust Industry fronted Lipstadt, or how much she has "suffered."

Intellectual freedom is not a two-way street. It's a one-way street. It promises the same thing to those going in your direction that it promises those going in my direction. All this talk about Irving's character, how much money was spent, and Lipstadt's "suffering," is the commonplace routine of those who believe in intellectual freedom for themselves always, and for others sometimes.

David Irving deserves the protection of free speech laws for exactly the reasons that Deborah Lipstadt deserves them, and you deserve them. That's what is implicit in the ideal, and has been for the last 25-plus centuries.

Re: Free speech is a two way street. (#72098)by Bradley Smith on December 6, 2005 at 2:32 PM

[After a couple days passed with no word from Harry. I made the following observation.]

Sartre wrote somewhere that "every word has an echo -- and every silence." When those who believe the gas-chamber stories are confronted over the right to intellectual freedom for those who do not believe, the echo of their silence is everywhere.

[And that was the end of it. That is usually the end of it. Those who front for the Holocaust Industry do not have it in their hearts to freely exchange ideas with those who are not themselves part of the Industry.]

A NOTE ON DANIEL PIPES

Following is a letter regarding the back and forth I engaged in on History News Network, a Web page “For Historians, by Historians.” The specific back and forth can be found here in the "comments" section at http://hnn.us/articles/18197.html . At the end of this letter the author suggests something that I do not want to believe.


Bradley,

The excerpts from your HNN sallies in SR 123 were of interest and tells us a lot about the status of play in the culture wars. You did a great job in keeping the heat on the academic frauds that support suppression of ideas they don’t like.

It’s also a little depressing to read that “some truths are absolute” [the Holocaust being the big one - I’m sure the guy who wrote that would be appalled to think that a religious truth like the divinity of Jesus might fit his test], thus justifying suppression of dissent; or a Ph.D. from Harvard no
less who doesn’t like the criminalization of falsehood but would make an exception here because of the dangers of revisionism.

Not one of these guys had a single word of criticism of exactly what was wrong in what revisionists say and as usual the assumption is those who “deny the Holocaust” are akin to folks who deny that the sun rises in the east or claim that nothing bad happened to any Jews during World War II - but they are careful not to actually say THAT because then they might be drawn into an actual debate with the hated revisionists and secretly they know that they would not fare well in that venue.

A simple smear is a much better tactic. I doubt a single one of these people has read Butz, Mattogno or any of the other revisionist scholars. And of course we have one whiz who KNOWS that revisionists are not only unscientific but are motivated by a desire to restart Nazi ideology. He just knows. Bradley, I’ll bet you didn’t even know that those were your own real motives. And oh yes, the dreary charge of “anti-Semitism” when all else fails. It is all quite depressing in such a high-blown site.

The simple question you raised long ago is still the best one to start with these quasi-religious fanatics: what do we mean when we use the term “the Holocaust”? And exactly what do revisionists claim? Let’s discuss it.

I expect that you will be cut off shortly by HNN. Daniel Pipes is one of the bosses.

Albert Doyle

HISTORY NEWS NETWORK

Following is a letter from Paul Grubach. I asked him to go ahead.
History News Network is a Web site sponsored by George Mason University, created "By professors, for professors."

Dear Brad,

I was just looking over your Dec. 2005 newsletter and saw your very interesting debate with the History News Network.
[See: http://hnn.us/articles/18197.html , then go to "comments"]
Those guys you are debating are putting forth a bunch of fallacies. Some examples.

1. Cravatts says: "Some truths are absolute and do not require a fair and balanced measurement against some contradictory body of thought. An entire intellectual 'industry' of Holocaust denial research has many fervent followers...but few sentient school boards would find it palatable or reasonable to have students exposed to the 'theory' that the Holocaust never occurred along with history lessons expressing the verifiable and incontrovertible fact that it did."

Cravatts contradicts himself. On the one hand, he criticizes Intelligent Design as "non- science," and unscientific, and then he goes on to make a very fallacious, unscientific defense of the Holocaust ideology.

First of all, there are no absolute truths in science. All scientific claims must be open to rebuttal, reinvestigation, and reevaluation. What separates a scientific theory from a nonscientific theory is that a scientific theory must be open to empirical falsification at all times.

By claiming that the Holocaust ideology is an "absolute truth" and "does not require a fair and balanced measurement against some contradictory body of thought," he is claiming the Holocaust ideology must be accepted a priori--period!!! Therefore, it can never be open to empirical falsification and it is not a scientific theory. By forcing people to accept it a priori, they make the Holocaust ideology unfalsifiable and self-perpetuting. Exactly what the Holocaust ideologists want.

2. John Beatty wrote: "Why is it a criminal offense? Simple: 'Never Again!' By denying the truth of industrialized genocide it becomes possible again. Personally I don't care if you deny the Earth beneath your feet. But doing that will not enable systematic murder again."

He is saying that if you deny the Holocaust ideology, you make is possible that the Holocaust will happen again. So therefore, "holocaust denial" should be banned.

To show the fallacy in this argument. Suppose group of left-wing historians came forward and said that "Stalin's genocidal crimes are vastly exaggerated and we can prove it."

The historical community would not say: "Oh, you cannot deny or minimize Stalin's crimes, because then they will happen again. So we will not listen to your evidence. You must accept Stalin's crimes as fact and that is it. And all questioning or reevaluation of Stalin's crimes will be banned."

No, the historical community would quietly listen to the arguments and evidence of those who claim that Stalin's crimes of genocide are vastly exaggerated. It is only in the case of the Holocaust ideology do intellectuals come forth with pseudo-intellectual defenses like Beatty's to protect the ideology.

Would you like me to write a short article showing the fallacies in your opponent's arguments, and then you could put this in your next newsletter?