Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,soc.history,soc.culture.jewish,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Proving the Holocaust: A Not-So-Hidden Agenda (6 of 15)
Summary: Dr. Michael Shermer's article on Holocaust revisionism,
         "Proving the Holocaust: The Refutation of Revisionism & the 
         Restoration of History," _Skeptic_, Vol. 2, No. 4, Altadena, 
         California, June, 1994. Published by the Skeptics Society, 
         2761 N. Marengo Ave., Altadena, CA 91001, (818) 794-3119.
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[Followups directed to alt.revisionism]

Part 6: A Not-So-Hidden Agenda

Running throughout all revisionist literature--books, articles,
editorials, reviews, monographs, guides, pamphlets, and promotional
materials--is the fascination with Jews and everything Jewish. No issue
of the JHR fails to contain something on the Jews. The January/February,
1994 issue, for example, features a cover story on who killed the
Romanovs and drove the Bolsheviks to power. Guess who? Yes, it was the
Jews, as Mark Weber explains (1994c): "Although officially Jews have
never made up more than five percent of the country's total population,
they played a highly disproportionate and probably decisive role in the
infant Bolshevik regime, effectively dominating the Soviet government
during its early years." But Lenin, who ordered the assassination of the
Imperial family, wasn't Jewish. Weber's explanation is revealing: "Lenin
himself was of mostly Russian and Kalmuck ancestry, but he was also one-
quarter Jewish" (p. 7). This is a typical revisionist line of reasoning:
Fact: The Communists killed the Romanovs and instigated the Bolshevik
Revolution. Fact: Some of the leading Communists were Jewish.
Conclusion: The Jews killed the Romanovs and caused the Bolshevik
Revolution. By the same logic: Ted Bundy was Catholic. Ted Bundy was a
serial killer. Catholics are serial killers.

   The Jewish focus is pervasive in the JHR. Here are just a few
examples:

--The Zionist Terror Network: Background and Operation of the Jewish
Defense League and other Criminal Zionist Groups. A Special Report,1985
and 1993.
--"The Mendacity of Zion," by Lewis Brandon, Summer, 1980.
--"Zionism & American Jews," by Alfred Lilienthal, Summer, 1981.
--"Zionism's Vested Interest," by Paul Smith, Spring, 1982.
--"Is the Diary of Anne Frank Genuine?" by Robert Faurisson, Summer,
1982.
--Review of Ernest Volkman's A Legacy of Hate: Anti-Semitism in America,
by L.A. Rollins, Winter, 1982.
--"Karl Marx: Anti-Semite," by James Whisker, Spring, 1984.

   The list goes on and on. Why? David Irving gave this illuminating
explanation (1994):

      I think the Jews are largely to blame for themselves by the knee
      jerk responses.  Every step that they take to try to control
      anti-Semitism produces precisely the opposite effect in my view.
      Goebbels himself said that, in fact.  To understand this you
      have to accept the fact that people operate at two levels: their
      public face and their private face.  The public opinion is the
      one they tell the fellow with the clipboard in the street.
      Their private opinion is what they keep to themselves and they
      don't even tell the cat.  I don't think it is anti-Semitism so
      much as it is xenophobia.  And I think it is built in like the
      hunting instinct or the mating instinct.  It is built into us as
      one of God's little tricks.

   In giving Weber a chance to defend himself I fully expected a clever
rationalization around what seems a pretty obvious bias. I was
surprised, therefore, just how bluntly he expressed the justification
for the IHR's attitude toward Jews (1994):

      We focus on the Jews because just about everyone else is afraid
      to.  Part of the reason we exist, and part of the pleasure is to
      be able to deal with a subject that others are not dealing with
      in a way that we feel helps provide information on what is
      relevant.  I wish that the same considerations were given in our
      society to talking about Germans, or Ukrainians, or Hungarians,
      that are given to talking about the Jews.  At the Simon
      Wiesenthal so-called Museum of Tolerance there are constant
      references to what the Germans did to the Jews in the Second
      World War.  We permit and encourage in our society what would be
      considered vicious stereotypes if applied to other groups, when
      they are applied to the Germans or the Hungarians.  This is a
      double standard, of which the Holocaust campaign is the most
      spectacular manifestation.  We have a museum in Washington D.C.
      to the memorial of non-Americans victimized by other
      non-Americans.  We don't have any comparable museum to the fate
      of American-Indians, the victims of blacks in slavery, the
      victims of communism, etc.  The very existence of this museum
      points up this perverse sensitivity of Jewish concerns in our
      society.  The IHR and those affiliated with us feel a sense of
      liberation in that we say, in effect, we don't give a damn if
      you criticize us or not.  We're going to say it anyway.  We
      don't have a job to lose because this is our job.

   There are no gray areas in this statement. Sensitivity about the Jews
and the Holocaust "campaign" is "perverse," and taking them on provides
"pleasure" and "liberation." The Germans, however, are the victims who
must be treated better. It gets worse.

   Since I began my research on revisionism, I have been inundated by
books, videos, journals, pamphlets, photocopy packages, and letters from
a variety of revisionists, who have been generous to a fault in helping
me understand both their claims and their motives. Revisionists like
Weber, Zuendel, Irving, Cole, and Smith have tried to convince me they
are not racists and have no political agendas, but they have been
contradicted from within their own ranks. Revisionist and self-
proclaimed white separatist Jack Wikoff, for example, publishes Remarks
out of Aurora, New York. The publication is endorsed by Bradley Smith,
and Wikoff reviews books for the JHR. "Talmudic Jewry is at war with
humanity," Wikoff explains. "Revolutionary communism and International
Zionism are twin forces working toward the same goal: a despotic world
government with the capital in Jerusalem." Wikoff also published this
letter from "R.T.K" from California: "Under Hitler and National
Socialism, the German troops were taught White racism and never has this
world seen such magnificent fighters. Our job is re-education with the
facts of genetics and history" (1990, original italics).

   Revisionist author Lew Rollins has been sending me, on a weekly
basis, photocopy packages half an inch thick on revisionist ideas and
publications. The January, 1994, issue of Instauration, for example,
featured an article on "How to cut violent crime in half: An Immodest
Proposal," with no by-line. The author's solution is vintage Nazi:

      There are 30 million blacks in the U.S., half of them male and
      about one-seventh of the males in the 16 to 26 age bracket, the
      violent sector of the black population.  Half of 30 million is
      15 million.  One-seventh of 15 million is a little more than 2
      million.  This tells us that 2 million blacks, not 30 million,
      are committing the crimes.  The Soviet Union had gulag
      populations that ran as high as 10 million at various times
      during the Stalin era.  The U.S.  with much more advanced
      technology should be able to contain and run camps that hold at
      least 20% of that number.  Negroes not on drugs and with no
      criminal record would be released from the camps once
      psychological and genetic tests found no traces of violent
      behavior.  As for most detainees, on their 27th birthday all but
      the most incorrigible 'youths' would be let out, leaving room
      for the new contingent of 16-year-olds that would be replacing
      them.

   As for Rollins, a self-proclaimed revisionist, his satirical
Lucifer's Lexicon (1987) offers these gems:

      Holocaust, the, n.  A smoke screen obscuring the atrocities of
      the Allies and the Israelis.  The insurance fraud of the
      century.  A cheap cinematic trick; a filmflam; the
      Hollywoodcaust; a soap opera.

      Zionist Propaganda, n. Hebrew-National Baloney.

   Weber responded to these statements as follows (1994b): "Why is this
relevant? Rollins used to work for the IHR. Remarks is on the cusp. They
used to be more-or-less revisionist. But he is now getting engaged more
and more into racialist matters. Instauration is racialist." How are
they are associated with revisionism? "I suppose they're affiliated so
far as they agree with some of the things we might put out. But there is
no relationship."

   Contemporary Holocaust revisionists like Weber and Irving are
struggling mightily to extricate themselves from their own restrictive
past. But it often seems to be a case of "the gentleman doth protest too
much." How else can all this be interpreted? Not all revisionists are
the same to be sure, but there is a core of racist and paranoid thinking
that is clearly directed at Jews. It is usually not the crass anti-
Semitism of a Louis Farrakhan and his associates, with gross references
to "Jew York City." It is, in my opinion, a far more subtle and
pervasive form of anti-Semitism (that extends beyond revisionism) that
creeps into the conversation as "Some of my best friends are Jews, but 
.. . . ," or "I'm not anti-Semitic but . . . ," followed by a litany of
all the things "The Jews" are doing. This bias is what drives them to
seek and to find what they are looking for, and to confirm what they
already believe. It is a problem we see in many other fringe groups, who
exhibit remarkably similar methodologies and fallacies.

[Continued in Part 7]

                          Work Cited

   Shermer, Michael. "Proving the Holocaust: The Refutation of
      Revisionism & the Restoration of History," _Skeptic_, Vol. 2,
      No. 4, Altadena, California, June, 1994. Published by the
      Skeptics Society, 2761 N. Marengo Ave., Altadena, CA 91001,
      (818) 794-3119.

_Skeptic_ magazine:
http://www.skeptic.com

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