How to Understand And Confront Holocaust Denial

[American Dream]

AD, as you're the resident expert on RI, I'd be grateful if you could give me your thoughts as to why anti-semetism still exists so virulently.
I'm more interested in cause than effect.

I really don't feel expert in the history at all- am somewhat more conversant in contemporary realities. I have composed a thumbnail sketch of my thoughts and am starting a thread dedicated to this topic.

[Searcher08]

The above article (from Liverpool AF) shows the poor focus of our own anti-fascists. Going on about the BNP's output at this stage shows that they haven't moved on since the BNP's heydey (approx 4 years ago), and probably never will. They really need to focus on the more shadowy adherents of American white Nationalism, which is where the core lies.

It's understandable that those on the international scene will not appreciate these more local issues, especially with the utterly careless smörgåsbord presented in these threads. if I was attempting to sow confusion and distraction, this is the sort of thing I'd do.

From this whole thread, the only inspiring, useful, practical thing I got on, you know, the subject of "Understanding and Confronting Holocaust Denial" came from the post you did, which was a repost of a Truly *Epic* Fact-Based Takedown. Practical point by point tools, not page after page of ideological leftist deconstructions of power analysis differentials in conspiracy culture.

AD and Solace complained, dissembled and argued *against* advocacy for fact-based sites like Nizkor, which I thought was truly dumber than a sack of spanners, but then these ARE people who cant tell the difference between John Michael Greer and St0rmfr3nt.

[American Dream]

This whole piece is worth thoughtful engagement- and serious review:



How to Understand And Confront Holocaust Denial

The idea of this leaflet is to present a general overview of the phenomenon of Holocaust denial and to help groups and individuals who want to be active against Holocaust denial in their communities to recognize the argumentations and tactics of the deniers.

The Holocaust is the term that generally describes the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, six million Jews were systematically murdered by the Nazis and their allies. Holocaust is unique in terms of its extraordinary scale and intensity. In regards to other groups which were persecuted and killed by the Nazis (e.g. Roma, Soviet soldiers and communists, disabled people, gays, Jehovah's Witnesses), some scholars include them in the definition of the Holocaust, but some others define it only as a genocide of Jews. The phenomenon of Holocaust denial is mainly associated with the Jewish Holocaust.

Holocaust denial (or "negationism") is the most extreme form of so-called "historical revisionism" as regards World War II. Soon after the War there were the first attempts to deny the fact of the Holocaust. The phenomenon of Holocaust denial won some popularity especially among former supporters and participants of the Nazi regime and European collaborationist movements who refused to accept responsibility for the crimes of genocide by denying them. Holocaust denial was as a set of historical claims presenting the Nazi regime in a favourable light. It was created as a result of certain political needs of neo-Nazi movements.

Nevertheless, Holocaust denial as a phenomenon has developed and received much more attention since the 1990s when it become more widespread and sophisticated. Arguably, two aspects are crucial here. One is the gradual disappearance of the generation of witnesses of Nazi crimes. Second one is the collapse of the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe and the international tendency to re-write those parts of history that were previously suppressed or manipulated by them. Some Holocaust deniers use this context in order to pose as 'independent' researchers who uncover some hitherto hidden aspects of history.

The general aim of the Holocaust denial is to challenge and ridicule the history of Jewish suffering during the war. The deniers want to rehabilitate fascism by denying its past. Holocaust denial is the most extreme form of antisemitism and it shows how the system of antisemitic thought functions. Holocaust denial is therefore a result of classical antisemitism. As Ken Stern writes in his book Antisemitism Today, "Holocaust denial is about Jews, not about Holocaust" (2006).


CONTENTS

1. WHAT ARE THE MAIN CLAIMS OF HOLOCAUST DENIAL?

2. WHO ARE THE MAIN EXPONENTS OF HOLOCAUST DENIAL?

3. INTERNATIONALIZATION OF HOLOCAUST DENIAL:
THE CASE OF EASTERN EUROPE

4. LEGAL AND ACADEMIC RESPONSES TO HOLOCAUST DENIAL

5. RELEVANT CONTACTS AND USEFUL WEBSITES

6. AN INITIATIVE OF UNITED AGAINST RIGHT-WING EXTREMISM




1. WHAT ARE THE MAIN CLAIMS OF HOLOCAUST DENIAL?
The international movement of Holocaust denial uses several strategies and lines of argumentation. They use a range of tactics, from outright denial of facts of the Nazi genocide to various forms of minimalization and trivialization of the Nazi crimes.

The first, most extreme, strategy is explicitly denying the facts of the genocide of the Jewish people, which according to the deniers simply never took place and is a wholly fabricated story, which in their opinion was invented in the interests of the state of Israel and the international Jewish conspiracy. In particular, all evidence of killing people in gas chambers is disputed by the deniers. Of course, such extreme claims of the Holocaust deniers are easily defeated, simply by quoting the numerous testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust. For this reason, the revisionists pay some attention to challenging the survivors' accounts, accusing them all of being motivated by self-interest or falsified. Similarly, a number of Holocaust deniers invested some energy into claiming the famous diary of Anne Frank is false and it was allegedly written after the war.

When they cannot refuse to admit that Jews and other victims of Nazism did die during World War II, the revisionists argue that the number of people killed was in fact much smaller than generally thought. Reports of atrocities and mass killing are considered exaggerated. They attempt to minimize the amount of suffering and destruction which resulted from Nazi policies in Europe, claiming the causalities were simply results of armed conflict and diseases, and not of an intentional policy of genocide conducted by Hitler and his allies.

Finally, in order to trivialise and relativize the Nazi crimes, the revisionists try to give them a kind of justification by claiming that Nazi brutality was not worse than alleged atrocities committed by the other side during World War II, the Allied bombing of Germany, especially of Dresden, being mainly exploited for this purpose (members of regional parliament of the rightwing extremist National Democratic Party of Germany even applied the term "bombing holocaust" when referring to the Allied bombing of Dresden).

The revisionists like to cite examples of other events in world history to show that brutality is "normal" throughout ages and the Nazis should not be blamed for using harsh methods. They often mention the crimes of communism and argue that the crimes of fascism were not unique and in some ways Hitler's war could be seen as defence of European values against communism.

Holocaust denial comes in a variety of forms, however it is often more implicit than explicit. Subtle forms of Holocaust denial can also appear through discursive methods such as quotation marks, usage of the words 'claim', 'allege' etc. Today when outright denial is hardly credible, subtle means become more common practice.




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.

The Holocaust deniers are generally excluded and condemned by the mainstream historians and the general scholar community. That includes David Irving who used to be the most 'respectable' of the revisionists. He lost a widely-reported court case against his critic in London and was arrested and convicted for offending the Holocaust victims' memory in Austria.

Nevertheless, Holocaust denial occasionally appears to be influential outside the small circle associated with the above mentioned individuals. A series of speeches and statements of the president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who repeatedly endorsed the claims of Holocaust deniers are the most significant examples. He simultaneously questioned the historical fact of the Holocaust and called for the destruction of the Jewish state. An international conference of Holocaust deniers took place in Teheran in December 2006. It further illustrated the official interest of the Iranian government in the issue of Holocaust denial.

Holocaust denial appears in a 'scientific' form in order to be taken seriously. First of all Holocaust deniers try to portray the fact of the Holocaust as debated and discussed. Then they try to pose themselves as respectable conservative historians and try to show that they possess academic qualifications and scientific knowledge (for example, as the Institute for Historical Review does in California). For Holocaust deniers the most important goal is to be recognized as credible and reasonable historians.

The texts of many Holocaust deniers often include a large number of footnotes and scientific vocabulary in order to appear respectable. In this way the Holocaust denial tries to enter academic discourse. Academic titles are used by Holocaust deniers whenever it possible. Even though they are not in the field of history (for example, a leading denier Arthur Butz is a professor of Electrical Engineering and Robert Faurisson is a retired professor of literature). The largest Holocaust denial pseudo-academic institution is Institute for Historical Review based in United States. It paid a special attention to the quasi-academic form of its publications and conferences. The private Ukrainian university Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (MAUP) is another quasi-academic institution which has promoted Holocaust denial.




3. INTERNATIONALIZATION OF HOLOCAUST DENIAL: THE CASE OF EASTERN EUROPE
Since the 1990s Holocaust denial has appeared in Eastern Europe, too. In some of the Eastern European countries it especially fell on fertile ground. And, while in the West the deniers of the Holocaust are considered to be marginal figures, in Eastern Europe they sometimes have access to the mainstream public life.

The Eastern European societies are struggling to come to terms with their own past, and to find new expressions of national collective memory. The arguments of Holocaust "revisionism" help them to deal with feelings of guilt for their own role during the Holocaust. As in Michael Verhoeven's film "Nasty Girl", the culture of denial can be dominant, especially in smaller, local communities. Those who want to uncover the inconvenient facts are labelled as "troublemakers".

Deborah Lipstadt describes the post-Communist growth of the Holocaust denial in Eastern Europe as an unavoidable phenomenon brought by the mixture of "extreme nationalism" and "traditional antisemitic populism". She writes, "it is likely that as Eastern Europe is increasingly beset by nationalist and internal rivalries, ethnic and political groups that collaborated in the annihilation of the Jews will fall back on ... strategy of minimization" (Lipstadt, D. 1993. Denying the Holocaust. The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory: The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism). In Eastern Europe the 'revisionist' approaches to the Holocaust seem to be subordinated to the idea of 'nation' and 'nation' itself is imagined to be much closer to the 'ethnic' than to the 'civic' ideal type.

Through eliminating the Holocaust from collective memory the home-grown revisionists want to re-write the national history. It is clear in the example of two neighbouring countries in Eastern Europe, Romania and Moldova, where the culture of the Holocaust denial occupies an influential position in the discourse of academic history and among a certain part of national socio-political elites. To some extent the phenomenon of Holocaust denial replaces the former Communist and Soviet paradigm of national history. A lack of knowledge about the Holocaust among the wider public makes the task of the revisionists easier.

Israeli scholar Michael Shafir defines three forms of the Holocaust denial in Eastern Europe: "outright", "deflective" and "selective" negationism. Outright denying the existence of the Holocaust is rare but not insignificant in Eastern Europe. It is supported by extreme nationalism and antisemitism and, it is expressed mainly by politicians. Usually outright deniers have strong links with Western negationist movement and literature. Most of Holocaust denying literature in Eastern Europe and/or its argument are in fact imported from Western Europe or North America. Holocaust denial is "imported", i.e. copied from the discursive strategies of international deniers rather than an original home-grown phenomenon.

For example, the main Holocaust denial protagonists in Romania Ion Coja and Radu Theodoru are supported by the French Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson. Or, the former leader of Slovak National Unity Party Stanislav Panis in his interview for the Norwegian television in 1992 said that "it would be 'technically impossible' for the Nazis to exterminate six million Jews in camps". This is an exact thought of the French antisemite Robert Faurisson. In Romania, the leader of the Greater Romania Party Tudor Vadim in 1994 said that he was informed that "English and American scientists are contesting the Holocaust itself, providing documentation and logical arguments proving that the Germans could not gas six million Jews, this being technically and physically impossible"
source: Shafir, M. 2002. Between Denial and "Comparative Trivialization".
Holocaust Negationism in Post-Communist East Central Europe:
Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism

While outright denial rejects the existence of the Holocaust, the phenomenon of deflective negationism is focused on the historical enemies or national minorities. Here deniers use strategies such as accusation of others or transfer of the charge to others (it is German responsibility for the Holocaust and extermination of the Jews), defence and positive self-presentation, trivialisation and mitigation of the seriousness of others' negative behaviour and justifications. Deflective negationism is present, for example, in Hungary in the form of 'transforming' the country allied with the Nazis into a victim of Germans.

Very often Holocaust deniers transfer the charge to Jews themselves. Thus, for example, Paul Goma, a France-based historian of Basarabian roots, published a book "Red week: 28 June - 3 July 1940, or Jews and Bessarabia" which distorts the Holocaust by manipulating the history of Soviet rule in Basarabia in 1940-41, claiming that the massacres of Jews were 'merely' a reaction to Jewish support for the Soviet regime and to the anti-Nazi partisans during the war. He also tries to prove that the Jews themselves were to blame for their own extermination on the territory of the Romanian protectorates of Basarabia (now Moldova), Bucovina, Transnistria, and the South of Ukraine. The Jews - a "fifth column" - were in fact a mean mercenary tribe - robbers, thieves, criminals, and Soviet agents who turned in Romanian patriots and desecrated churches. He blames the Jews, labelling them as "communists", "spies", partisans" etc.
source: "Moldova" Annual Report 2003/2004, Stephen Roth Inst. for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism & Racism

The third form of Holocaust denial which is spread in Eastern Europe is selective negationism. It does not deny the Holocaust as having taken place elsewhere, but excludes any participation of members of one's own nation. The characteristic example here is justification of crimes of Romanian dictator Antonescu and his army during World War II. For example, Gheorge Buzatu, a nationalistic Romanian scholar says, "there has been no Holocaust in Romania during World War II", with the exception of Hungary-occupied Transylvania
source: Shafir, M. 2002. Between Denial and "Comparative Trivialization"

Dealing with the facts of the killing in Eastern Europe, the deniers resort to distortion of facts and statistics. For example they are using the fact the killing often took place on the spot, the victims were not transported to death camps, the killing was largely 'spontaneous' and therefore there is no archive documentation which can be comparable with the careful archivization of the genocide by the German Nazis in the extermination camps. However, as Elie Wiesel writes "While there were no gas chambers in Transnistria, everything else was there: not one community was spared; all were decimated". According to Wiesel, these were "crimes which, in a sense, were 'more cruel' but more savage for being less structured in their brutality than those of the Germans"
quoted in: Ioanid, Radu. 2000. Holocaust in Romania. Destruction of Jews & Gypsies Under Antonescu Regime, 1940-1944

http://www.unitedagainstracism.org/pages/thema02.htm[/quote]

[Belligerent Savant]

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Help me understand why this is such a crucial exercise, given the myriad grievous ills in the world right now-- certainly there is NO shortage of CALAMITIES occurring RIGHT NOW that would be worth anyone's attention -- why the focus on the crusade to expose or raise awareness of those that are in "denial" of the holocaust?

[Searcher08]

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Help me understand why this is such a crucial exercise, given the myriad grievous ills in the world right now-- certainly there is NO shortage of CALAMITIES occurring RIGHT NOW that would be worth anyone's attention -- why the focus on the crusade to expose or raise awareness of those that are in "denial" of the holocaust?

And *never*

JINSA
AIPAC
Child trafficking in Israel
Hasbara blah blah blah
or even how to engage with Jewish people about Gaza.

Cuda was the only one whose helped with that, with an excellent Finklestein video.

[JackRiddler]

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Help me understand why this is such a crucial exercise, given the myriad grievous ills in the world right now-- certainly there is NO shortage of CALAMITIES occurring RIGHT NOW that would be worth anyone's attention -- why the focus on the crusade to expose or raise awareness of those that are in "denial" of the holocaust?

If it's so unimportant, you need not be provoked to come in and complain about it. Regard it as you would other threads about things irrelevant to you.

Right now Nazi ideology is having a revival. Right-wing nationalist extremists allied with out-and-out jackboot Nazis are actually in the Kiev government, and their ideological brethren (who tend to side with Russian nationalism, however) are on the rise in Greece, France and around Europe. They are a real threat and some of them engage in paramilitary preparation, deep state activities, and the killing of leftists and designated "others" on the street. Even if you want to style them into a minor thing compared to whatever global elite you may think is the sole "real" problem. Although this Nazi revival also exists in hybrids (e.g., hyper pro-Israeli groups using Muslims as the generalized scapegoat-other), this set of ideas is still often glued together by grand Jewish conspiracy theories coupled with denialism of the Nazi holocaust. Golden Dawn in Greece is obsessed with Jews and its literature always styles them into the primary problem even when there are barely any in Greece and GD's main program/pogrom is directed against foreigners and Greek leftists.

Furthermore, jakell's objection is not nearly as clever as imagined. I've seen Nazis and anti-Semites combine denial that the Nazi holocaust ever happened with the wish that it would happen again! Confusionism is about always being in the right against perfectly evil enemies; contradictions don't matter. I've seen them all excited about entirely predictable uncertainties in given numbers (four million or six? how many million non-Jewish civilian non-combatants intentionally killed in the Nazi system? etc.). If more people were systematically murdered by the Nazi regime through its intentionally fostering disease and starvation against captive populations than in gas chambers, there are some who practically want to have a party about it. I daresay someone who wants to say Rothschilds engineered World War II and the Nazi holocaust is denying Nazi crime and trying to confuse victim and perpetrator. (Also, unforgivably stupid and unworthy of defense.) That is holocaust denialism.

This is an elementary point, in fact.

Why don't you people stop being provoked by American Dream all the time? It's fascinating, the emotional outbreaks that his posts inspire. Okay, so he may do copy-pasta that's off topic (more usually tangential) at times. Here's a thread he started on a narrow subject that you could just avoid. And yet some of you feel totally provoked, as if it's about you. Is it?

(The complaints sometimes come from people who would rather have their threads flooded with off-topic KWH stuff. Which is often entertaining, after all.)

[Belligerent Savant]

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I rarely reply to such threads. That said, there seem to always be several similarly-themed threads within the first page of GD, increasing the temptation to type a flippant reply, against my better judgment. I shall ignore moving forward.

JR typed:
Even if you want to style them into a minor thing compared to whatever global elite you may think is the sole "real" problem.

Quite presumptuous to surmise what I may be thinking. And wrong.

So what's the gist here? That denying the holocaust is the 'gateway drug' to becoming a full-fledged nazi sympathizer/right-wing extremist, or that nazi-sympathizers/right-wing extremists are the predominant proponents of holocaust denial?

(or, as a sidebar, WHY are such views becoming increasingly prevalent? Surely other factors are contributing to the increase in these mindsets...)

In either case, what can be done? Raising awareness alone surely won't stamp out this mindset, will it? Anyone's well within their rights to copy/paste articles on any given topic to their heart's content... but then what?

I committed the grave error -- cardinal sin! -- of posting to a thread that I haven't read fully in months and have barely perused of late. So pardons in advance if this was already addressed, but what solutions are being offered to address this issue? How can we stop it?

[JackRiddler]

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I rarely reply to such threads.

Well you did. And so did I, though I rarely do.

So what's the gist here? That denying the holocaust is the 'gateway drug' to becoming a full-fledged nazi sympathizer/right-wing extremist, or that nazi-sympathizers/right-wing extremists are the predominant proponents of holocaust denial?

If you're talking about what I wrote, it's above to read again. This is a largely mistaken, if not outright dense reading.

.

[Belligerent Savant]

So what's the gist here? That denying the holocaust is the 'gateway drug' to becoming a full-fledged nazi sympathizer/right-wing extremist, or that nazi-sympathizers/right-wing extremists are the predominant proponents of holocaust denial?

If you're talking about what I wrote, it's above to read again. This is a largely mistaken, if not outright dense reading.

.

Indeed, a rhetorical over-generalization/over-simplification, to be sure.
(though I'll have to read what you wrote fully at a later time, as I admit to breezing past it during my first perusal.)

My other points remain however.

By all means, AD: carry on. Disregard my interruption. I shall go back to occasional lurker mode.

And good luck in whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish here.

[BrandonD]

Why don't you people stop being provoked by American Dream all the time? It's fascinating, the emotional outbreaks that his posts inspire. Okay, so he may do copy-pasta that's off topic (more usually tangential) at times. Here's a thread he started on a narrow subject that you could just avoid. And yet some of you feel totally provoked, as if it's about you. Is it?

Speaking for myself, I think one reason people might get incensed about posts like these in the same way that people might get angry about a post like "Reverse racism: how it is a danger to whites".

People do not have much sympathy for the problems of racial/religious groups who generally enjoy a comfortable and advantageous social position. Like white people, in western culture Jewish people do not appear to suffer the real-life effects of racism and discrimination, such as being routinely imprisoned or killed by police officers or being forced through a discriminatory system to remain in the poorest neighborhoods.

This is why cries of anti-semitism might sometimes appear to resemble the cries of "reverse racism" by whites, a rhetorical method used to make people in an advantageous social position appear to be persecuted. I am not saying this is what is taking place, but I can certainly see how it might appear that way.

For example, after living for many years in what is today the most racially diverse city in the US, I can personally verify that there is a great deal of "anti-white" sentiment in our culture, largely directed at whites from minorities. And it has only grown since the election of Obama.

So "anti-white-ism" exists, it is real. We could legitimately discuss that subject here, we could discuss this bubbling anti-white attitude and all of its finer points.

But outside of non-whites writing articles or giving speeches, are white people in any real danger? Are we suffering in any real and measurable way from this "anti-white-ism"?

If racism is what we are concerned about, then some people might consider it more sensible to focus on the people who are suffering the most from racism in a real and measurable way: blacks, hispanics, native americans. And yet, we rarely (if ever) see posts specifically showcasing racism against these people.

To some people, it might seem rather hypocritical when people seem to care a LOT about racism when it is directed towards A, but not so much when it is directed towards B.

Am I anti-semitic for daring to write (or think) these things? I don't think I am, I try to love everyone as individuals and without distinction. But it appears that this issue is the hot-button item here, and there is no escaping it. So perhaps that is for a good reason, I'm just going to accept it and this is an attempt to communicate in an honest and straightforward way.

If there is something I'm failing to grasp then I am more than willing to be corrected. My wish would be to end the suffering of people being persecuted by those who occupy positions of power. Does this apply to Jewish people? Are they in genuine danger? Are they suffering all the real-life effects of racism and discrimination that blacks and hispanics and native americans have to face? From the amount of focus in this forum, one would think that Jewish people are actually suffering much more than any of those other racial groups. Is this reflected in reality?

I hope that none of this is coming off as facetious, that is not my intention in any way. These are all 100% genuine questions, I would like to think that I have a sensible appraisal of the situation, but maybe I don't. I'd like to know the consensus view from sensible intellectuals.

[jakell]

The above article (from Liverpool AF) shows the poor focus of our own anti-fascists. Going on about the BNP's output at this stage shows that they haven't moved on since the BNP's heydey (approx 4 years ago), and probably never will. They really need to focus on the more shadowy adherents of American white Nationalism, which is where the core lies.

It's understandable that those on the international scene will not appreciate these more local issues, especially with the utterly careless smörgåsbord presented in these threads. if I was attempting to sow confusion and distraction, this is the sort of thing I'd do.

From this whole thread, the only inspiring, useful, practical thing I got on, you know, the subject of "Understanding and Confronting Holocaust Denial" came from the post you did, which was a repost of a Truly *Epic* Fact-Based Takedown. Practical point by point tools, not page after page of ideological leftist deconstructions of power analysis differentials in conspiracy culture.

AD and Solace complained, dissembled and argued *against* advocacy for fact-based sites like Nizkor, which I thought was truly dumber than a sack of spanners, but then these ARE people who cant tell the difference between John Michael Greer and St0rmfr3nt.

TBH, successfully engaging the more tenacious holocaust deniers was never really my forte. It takes a fair bit of stamina, patience and detailed historical knowledge, even then the vast majority of them will switch tactics when their backs are up against the wall, or simply walk away laughing to try on another occasion.
The thread I linked to earlier contains good examples of the above three qualities, and is a one of the rare examples of deniers being trounced.

It's too easy to assume that you are on a quest for truth when what is really being addressed is a belief system that has similarities with Young Earth Creationism vs evidential science. Anyone who has attempted to debate these folks will be aware of the sinking feeling experienced halfway when you start to suspect that nothing you say really matters and that no resolution can be found

[seemslikeadream]

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I rarely reply to such threads. That said, there seem to always be several similarly-themed threads within the first page of GD, increasing the temptation to type a flippant reply, against my better judgment. I shall ignore moving forward.

JR typed:
Even if you want to style them into a minor thing compared to whatever global elite you may think is the sole "real" problem.

Quite presumptuous to surmise what I may be thinking. And wrong.

So what's the gist here? That denying the holocaust is the 'gateway drug' to becoming a full-fledged nazi sympathizer/right-wing extremist, or that nazi-sympathizers/right-wing extremists are the predominant proponents of holocaust denial?

(or, as a sidebar, WHY are such views becoming increasingly prevalent? Surely other factors are contributing to the increase in these mindsets...)

In either case, what can be done? Raising awareness alone surely won't stamp out this mindset, will it? Anyone's well within their rights to copy/paste articles on any given topic to their heart's content... but then what?

I committed the grave error -- cardinal sin! -- of posting to a thread that I haven't read fully in months and have barely perused of late. So pardons in advance if this was already addressed, but what solutions are being offered to address this issue? How can we stop it?

we need to have the RI tone be just right....we need our nannies to maintain it....without them watching over our posts who knows what would become of RI..one would think there are no mods here but the self appointed ones

Netanyahu: Turkish PM's anti-Israel rhetoric 'anti-Semitic' By REUTERS
07/20/2014 21:09

JERUSALEM - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's comparison of Israel's offensive in Hamas-controlled Gaza to the Nazis was "anti-Semitic in tone," Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.

"I heard the things the prime minister of Turkey said, words of the utmost gravity," Netanyahu told reporters. "I told (US Secretary of State) John Kerry, (these are) anti-Semitic statements, they have an anti-Semitic tone."

The Islamist-rooted Erdogan accused Israel on Saturday of having "surpassed Hitler in barbarism through its attacks on the Palestinian territory, but warned Turks against taking out their anger on Jews in the NATO-member state.

[jakell]

The forum below is now open again to the general public, ie, you don't need to register to browse it:

My previous forum is now open for membership again, you will still have to register to view the contents though. I offer up this thread in particular as a magnificent example of this thread topic:

http://www.democracyforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=89723

It's a long one, but one that I may archive as it's full of great examples. For tireless researchers, the first 95 pages consist of the deniers on one hand versus regular forum members on the other, some of whom do a fairly good job.

The real deal though comes with the arrival of a new poster at post #949, who is a fecking Superman in this business. He doesn't chime in again till post #1023, but he then goes on to utterly destroy and dismay the deniers with his depth and breadth of knowledge. It's beautiful.

So, if anyone is interested in the subject matter of this thread, and wants to see a fairly practical demonstration of it, have a look. The thread is long and is a bit of a slow starter, so for those who haven't much time I suggest jumping in about half way through or, alternatively, go the the point I indicated

[8bitagent]

Holocaust denial/revisionism exists because the full horror of that time period is hard for the human psyche to understand. Hell I wish it was all fiction. While yes, governments, especially communist ones in the 20th century
killed more people collectively than the Nazis...and yes, the Cambodian late 70's genocide and the 'Rape of Nanking and other crimes by Japan are unthinkably horrific...the extensive, obsessive nature of the German
agenda to rid world Jewry and other "undesirable" definitely rises to such a cosmic level of wtf evil. I'd want to deny the holocaust happened too, shit's so meta evil.

Here's what I don't get...if you're a neo Nazi type, why would you DENY the holocaust? Wouldn't you be yelling "six million more?"

[jakell]

Holocaust denial/revisionism exists because the full horror of that time period is hard for the human psyche to understand. Hell I wish it was all fiction. While yes, governments, especially communist ones in the 20th century
killed more people collectively than the Nazis...and yes, the Cambodian late 70's genocide and the 'Rape of Nanking and other crimes by Japan are unthinkably horrific...the extensive, obsessive nature of the German
agenda to rid world Jewry and other "undesirable" definitely rises to such a cosmic level of wtf evil. I'd want to deny the holocaust happened too, shit's so meta evil.

Here's what I don't get...if you're a neo Nazi type, why would you DENY the holocaust? Wouldn't you be yelling "six million more?"

There is no consistent reason behind it, it has simply become a tenet of the NS end of White Nationalism and a tenet is usually something to be upheld without much examination.

It's partly about rehabilitating the image of the Nazis in addition to providing a vehicle for a description of the continuing guile of the Jews. The thread I mentioned provides some insight into the mindsets involved as they are operating fairly openly there.