Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,alt.politics.white-power
Subject: [Repost] How to Be a Revisionist Scholar

Author: Michael Philips 
First-Published: January 3, 1996 (alt.revisionism)
                                
     Hey lurkers!  After browsing through alt.revisionism posts for
awhile, you may already have figured out how to become a Holocaust
revisionist. It's easy.  For those of you considering such a move,
be assured that it requires no preparation or scholarly research. 
Simply follow the guidelines below, as the revisionists on this
newsgroup have done, and you'll quickly be on the road to deluding
yourself that someone out there takes you seriously, and that you
are valiantly fighting the evil forces of some undefined,
implausible conspiracy.
 
1.  Creamed Mush with Fog Sauce -- Never provide evidence for your
assertions.  In fact, respond to demands for evidence the way
Dracula responds to crucifixes.  Do anything you can to avoid it. 
Throw insults.  Change the subject.  Obfuscate.  Laugh derisively. 
Claim you already gave the evidence or that someone else did.  But
never provide any evidence yourself (unless you provide an
incomplete or incomprehensible citation along with it).
 
2.  Heads-I-Win-Tails-You-Lose -- Demand that all evidence for the
Holocaust be proved genuine (dodging any discussion of what that
proof would consist of), and also demand that all your
unsubstantiated assertions be proved false.  That way, you never
bear any burden of proof. (originally posted by Mike Stein) 
 
3.  Hello, I'm a Cremation Expert -- Claim that the 52 Auschwitz
furnaces could not have had the capacity to burn 4,756 corpses per
day because modern commercial crematoriums don't have such a
capacity.  When its pointed out to you that there's no comparison
between ordinary commercial crematoriums and those built in the
camps, for a variety of reasons -- e.g. coffins were not used, one
can cremate more than one corpse in a single retort, etc. -- ignore
this and repeat the claim.
 
4.  And I'm a Chemist too! -- Express a series of doubts and claims
about the properties of Zyklon-B, the gas used to kill people in
Auschwitz gas chambers.  For example, claim that Zyklon-B is not an
ideal agent for mass gassing, and therefore the Nazis shouldn't
have used it and thus they *didn't* use it.  
 
Even better, claim that they *couldn't* have used it because the
gas lingering in the chamber after the murders would have killed
anyone trying to enter the chambers to remove the corpses.  When
someone explains to you (countless times) that some of the gas
chambers had powerful ventilation systems to remove the gas and in
other cases people entering wore gas masks, argue that despite the
ventilation there would still somehow be enough residual gas in the
chambers to kill people.  
 
Keep waving a DuPont brochure around in an attempt to ward off
those who know more about chemistry than you do.  Also claim that
ventilating the gas would cause problems to individuals downwind. 
When someone explains to you that the gas is lighter than air, just
quietly go away for awhile or change the subject or complain about
a mean word they may have used.
 
5.  Sticks and Stones -- If you're being wiped out with evidence
and reasoning you cannot refute, you can always take refuge in
complaining about the language being used by your adversaries.  For
example, if they say, "I've already explained that it takes less
gas to kill people than lice, and therefore there are fewer cyanide
residues remaining on the gas chamber walls than on the delousing
chamber walls, you moron,"  you can respond by complaining about
their use of the word "moron."
 
You can actually evade quite a bit of serious discussion by
spending a lot of time condescendingly lecturing the newsgroup
about their use of trashy language.  But this approach doesn't work
very well in building credibility.  You may view yourself as an
arbiter of social discourse but you'll actually come off like a
den-mother scurrying around excoriating the little Cub Scouts to
behave themselves.  
 
6.  Oh Sorry, I Ate the Last One -- Claim that Jews and other
prisoners were not intentionally starved, that they were victims of
food shortages just like everybody else.  When it is pointed out
that neither the camp guards nor people living in the vicinity of
the camps starved to death, just claim that this does not prove
there was an intentional starvation policy, and that if there is no
piece of paper with a written order to starve people, then no
starvation occurred.
 
7. The "What's It Mean?" Spiral of Infinity --  Try to keep your
opponents off balance by constantly shifting or questioning the
definitions of words.  For example, if your opponent states that
historians generally agree that 1 million Jews were killed in gas
chambers at Auschwitz during the Holocaust, you can ask, what do
you mean by "historian" or what do you mean by "Jew" or what do you
mean by "agree?"
 
Alternatively, when confronted with the evidence that Himmler
called for the "ausrotten" of the Jews, argue that ausrotten
doesn't really mean extermination.  When proof of that definition
is provided by German dictionaries and German speakers on the
newsgroup, just ignore it.
 
8.  Now You See It, Now You Don't -- Argue that the gas chambers
never existed because they are not still standing.  Of course, by
this logic, the Mayflower, Carthage, Jimmy Hoffa, and large
portions of the Great Wall never existed.  When this is pointed out
to you, ignore it.
 
9.  Kafka Was Here --  Argue that the gas chambers never existed
because there are no photos or drawings of them.  When you are
presented with photos and drawings, state that they could not
possibly be actual photos/drawings of gas chambers because the gas
chambers never existed because there are no photos/drawings of them
because they never existed because . . .
 
10.  Fun With Math -- Charge the anti-revisionists with playing
numbers games while engaging in them yourself.  For example, argue
that the "holohoaxers" have changed the estimated number of Jews
killed at Auschwitz from 4 million to 1 million.  When it's pointed
out to you that the 4 million figure was supplied by the Soviets
and refers to the total number of victims, not just Jews, and has
always been considered ridiculously inflated by non-Soviet
historians who have never varied from the 1 million figure for
Jews, just repeat that the holohaoxers have changed the number of
Jews killed at Auschwitz from 4 million to 1 million and that the
Holocaust is therefore a hoax.  
 
The point of this tactic, of course, is to try to make ALL the
death figures questionable.  If 4 million is unreliable, then 1
million is likewise unreliable, and you just keep revising the
numbers downward until you reach zero, and then - poof! - no
Holocaust!
 
11.  The Great Leap -- This tactic goes like this: If one piece of
testimony about the Holocaust seems unreliable, then ALL testimony
about the Holocaust is unreliable.  If one Holocaust witness may
have recanted something on the stand, then all other Holocaust
witnesses are liars.  If some camp prisoners did not starve to
death, then NONE of them starved to death. etc.  But be careful. 
This is a double-edged sword -- someone may use the well-documented
lies of other revisionists to conclude that YOU are a liar as well.
 
12.  But I'm Not Anti-Semitic -- Try to find examples of misdeeds
by an individual Jewish person, then imply that this makes all Jews
look bad.  When you are asked why you think one Jew represents all
Jews but that one Christian doesn't represent all Christians,
ignore the question.
 
13.  Grab Bag of Idiocy -- Here are a few quick claims you can
easily make, although be forewarned that they will immediately make
you look like an imbecile:  a) Claim that "the Jews" declared war
on Hitler (whatever that means), and that anything he did to them
was an act of self-defense; b)  With absolutely zero supporting
evidence, claim that the corpses in the Auschwitz furnaces would
have exploded, damaging the furnaces and thereby bringing the
corpse cremation figures into question; c) Argue that because the
Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC has a small model of a
gas chamber and not a full-scale model, this somehow proves that
gas chambers did not exist during WWII; d) Argue that the existence
of a brothel in Auschwitz means there could not have been gas
chambers there.
 
14.  If you don't want to look like a total buffoon, there's always
the pseudo-academic, above-the-fray approach.  With a huge dose of
arrogance and superiority, explain that you are neither a
revisionist nor any other "label", merely someone with a healthy
skepticism about everything, including Holocaust history (ALL of
it), and that you are conducting your own research to determine for
yourself whether certain Holocaust incidents actually took place. 
Pretend to be totally impartial (despite the avalanche of Holocaust
evidence you would encounter the minute you actually began any
legitimate research), but in your posts only question the Holocaust
historians' statements, not revisionists' statements.
 
15.  Alternatively claim that: a) the Jews in the camps died as a
result of allied bombing; b) the Jews weren't killed in the camps
but were sent to Russia; and c) the Jews never even went to the
camps because the railroad capacity was insufficient.  When someone
points out that these are mutually exclusive, and that it would be
a neat trick for allied bombs in 1944 to result in the deaths of
Jews in 1942, ignore it.
 
16.  As for the motive behind the Holocaust "hoax", claim that the
Holocaust was invented near the end of WWII by people who foresaw
the establishment of the state of Israel, and also foresaw that
Israel would face years of conflict with its neighbors, and also
foresaw the consequent need for U.S. military and financial aid to
Israel, and also foresaw possible public opposition to such aid,
and so they invented a huge hoax with thousands of phony witnesses
and documents so that those who might oppose the aid to Israel
would feel sorry for Jews and wouldn't oppose the aid.  When
someone points out to you that this is sheer idiocy and that acts
of genocide do not automatically turn on the aid spigot to the
victims, ignore them.
 
17.  Although all of your arguments will be consistently blown to
smithereens, just wait a few days or weeks and then re-post them. 
 
18.  Remember that the revisionist community is peopled mainly by
racists, white-supremacists, Israel-bashers, and Nazis.  This means
that everyone except these kinds of people will dismiss you.  But
don't let that stop you.  Don't let your Fellini-esque, internally
inconsistent, un-researched, hypocritical distortions and lies
prevent you from continuing to post.  After all, you're fighting
for the truth (as you'd like it to be).
 
--Michael Philips

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