Afghanistan. Iraq. Now Eye-ran. You might have they'd have learned something by now, but then again...
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
Your own flesh recoils against itself. Please die now.
Posted by Samuelnorton (Member # 48) on :
Get your head back up your arse now Benno, there's a good chap.
Riiight. Back to the topic of the thread.
The American position on Iran will start with showing an "united front" with an emphasis on "diplomacy" - but the united front will soon become unilateral action and the diplomacy will no doubt turn into yet another appeal by Bush for the so-called enemy to "bring it on".
If the ante does get upped by the Washington hawks, will Blair throw his weight behind it?
Posted by damo (Member # 722) on :
f u c k o f f a n d d i e y o u f u c k i n g t w a t.
c a n y o u n o t d o u s a l l a f av o u r a n d i n g e s t y o u r o w n h e a d?
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
So is anything Norton writes going to meet with this response? If a few more people had joined in with that stupid and repulsive slur that I was a paedophile, I suppose I could be subject to the same pariah status -- lucky escape. I don't think making vicious personal comments to an individual regardless of his contributions reflects very well on this community at all.
Posted by sabian (Member # 6) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: So is anything Norton writes going to meet with this response?
I was thinking the same thing and was just about to quote what I wrote in your peado thread about Norton being attacked for merely being... But, it appears that thread has been trashed
Anyway, on topic, we all knew that the US would flex its 'muscles' over Iran/Syria... It really is a question of when, not if it would happen...
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
An irony is that it was Norton who recently posted up some ludicrous theories about how my research interest in Carroll combined with my praise for Emma "Hermione" Watson indicated that I should go to a shrink for my perversion towards kids.
So I am not writing from a position up his ass here by any means.
When people post whose contributions I have found stupid and offensive, such as Dervish, I don't respond with such personal hatred and death-wishes. If someone like Norton isn't allowed to say anything on TMO, that isn't a discussion board but a one-party monologue.
Posted by Darryn.R (Member # 1) on :
It's perfectly on plan though..
It's not like you couldn't see it coming.
Whatever next ?
All I have to say on the matter is I find it hard to believe how seriously fucking ugly that Condoleezza Rice is....
Posted by squeegy (Member # 136) on :
quote:Originally posted by Darryn.R: All I have to say on the matter is I find it hard to believe how seriously fucking ugly that Condoleezza Rice is....
She reminds me of that woman in The Devils Advocate. Charlize Theron is in the change room and as one of the women puts on a dress her face distorts into a demon (daemon?) which looks remarkably like 'Leezza.
Coincidence?
Posted by damo (Member # 722) on :
i was drunk.
and i've done this before where i've seen a rick post. jumped on him because, like a monkey seeing a snake i find his persona repulsive, then thought a little later "oh". and then apologised. but. the problem is i can see where this is going to go, it'll start off with a "USA vs IRAN" then it'll talk about the US global position, oil will get mentioned then it'll be the fucking jews. or words to that effect. and i thought i'd save the time and effort and just get to the point earlier.
but! yes the iran thing has been on the cards for a bit. however there are no more bodies on the ground to be doing the multiwarfare position. and there isn't enough "money in the bank" regarding voters etc for bush to spend his mandate from the people.
did you know rumsfeld offered his own head up twice? and still no one did the trump thing "you're fired"?
[ 05.02.2005, 11:28: Message edited by: damo ]
Posted by Samuelnorton (Member # 48) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: An irony is that it was Norton who recently posted up some ludicrous theories about how my research interest in Carroll combined with my praise for Emma "Hermione" Watson indicated that I should go to a shrink for my perversion towards kids.
It wasn't just your interest in Carroll and Hermoine, m8. Don't you recall your rather close to the bone remark about little girls' vulvas?
Damo - I've had it with talking about Jews, to be honest. I am however interested in what people think of the current US position towards Iran, and whether Blair might follow if the US ups the ante.
Posted by dervish (Member # 727) on :
The sheer bloody predictability of it is increasingly a drag.
Maybe no-one else wants to hear it anymore.
Maybe we should all shut the fuck up each time one or the other of us tries to start up one of the old, old party-lines.
Posted by ally (Member # 600) on :
As it happens, it is the utterly repellant views expressed by kovacs (the genitalia of a prepubescent female child are lickable ??? ) and samuel norton (holocaust denier) that are the two main reasons I'm spending a lot less time on TMO than I used to. Whether you gentlemen intend to be provocative or whether you actually believe what you say is irrelevant. Your posts are odious beyond belief.
Posted by sabian (Member # 6) on :
quote:Originally posted by ally: As it happens, it is the utterly repellant views expressed by kovacs (the genitalia of a prepubescent female child are lickable ??? ) and samuel norton (holocaust denier) that are the two main reasons I'm spending a lot less time on TMO than I used to. Whether you gentlemen intend to be provocative or whether you actually believe what you say is irrelevant. Your posts are odious beyond belief.
Thank you for your opinion, now, what do you think of the topic at hand?
Posted by kovacs (Member # 28) on :
I'm sure Ally phoned me up asking for my professional advice after reading the thread in which I suggested, repulsively I'm sure, that we could conceivably see naked children as aesthetically attractive. Needs must I suppose!
Anyway, there is of course a massive difference. I'm not any kind of paedophile, but Norton is unashamed of his holocaust denial. I don't find children sexually appealing; he devotes much of his spare time to disproving the existence of gas chambers and rounding down the total of Jewish dead. He couldn't argue that he isn't fascinated with the SS and resentful of Jewish "whinging" if he wanted to; to repeatedly slur me as a nonce, on the other hand, would probably get somebody in legal trouble if this was real life.
quote:Don't you recall your rather close to the bone remark about little girls' vulvas?
No.
[ 06.02.2005, 14:23: Message edited by: kovacs ]
Posted by Gail (Member # 21) on :
quote:Originally posted by Kovacs: Norton is unashamed of his holocaust denial. ...he devotes much of his spare time to disproving the existence of gas chambers and rounding down the total of Jewish dead.
What really pisses me off is that I've never been able to find out what exactly it is that Rick believes about the Holocaust.
Other than a vague memory of him disputing numbers on account of how they weren't technically possible, I don't remember him ever making a definitive statement of his beliefs.
It's probably too late now, perhaps it happened before I turned up or when I wasn't paying attention, it's not like I haven't asked him myself, but you know how he manages to miss the point or not even acknowledge the most pertinent part of a post. I'm not suggesting Kovacs, or Ben, or whoever else is lying when they make statements about Rick's beliefs, I just wish he'd state them, plainly and simply, once and for all.
RICK, WHAT ARE YOUR BELIEFS RE THE JEWISH HOLOCAUST IN NAZI GERMANY 1933-45?
(and don't come back pointing out i got the dates wrong, you twat)
ETA (or that technically, a lot of it didn't happen in germany anyway)
[ 06.02.2005, 19:37: Message edited by: Gail ]
Posted by Samuelnorton (Member # 48) on :
quote:Originally posted by Gail: RICK, WHAT ARE YOUR BELIEFS RE THE JEWISH HOLOCAUST IN NAZI GERMANY 1933-45?
I said I am not talking about this any more. There have been too many threads on here about it, and frankly I have had enough of trying to conduct reasonable debate with people who are simply unreasonable.
This is not a getout on my part, more resignation after my being banned from Handbag for the most ridiculous reason they could unearth. If you want to get some idea of what I think about the Holocaust story, you can have a look at the thread on Handbag; as far as I am aware it is still there, all forty pages of it.
My purpose in posting this thread was to ask what people thought about the US turning towards Iran; I would rather the thread follow the topic than turn into yet another tedious thread on the Holocaust story.
Thanks, and goodnight.
Posted by damo (Member # 722) on :
in the words of jeremy paxman answer the fucking question.
although i think we've done this before and the fucker got away last time. milhouse.
i may or may not have been drinking but still answer the fucking question Posted by Vogon Poetess (Member # 164) on :
I realise the instant jumping on the Norton after he posted a topical and succinct political debate-opener (in the right forum) looks playground-ish, but, like damo said, it is kind of cutting to the chase.
I suspect a lot of people have reached something called the Steelgate Impasse with regards to Snorty. This is the equivalent to two people standing either side of the Grand Canyon and shouting at each other. Then they try and use semaphore but one of them is blind and the other has no arms.
Essentially, debating with him is like wading through setting tar; tiring, pointless and smelly. Once you input certain keywords into the Robo-Snort, and the mechanism is wound up, it whirs away predictably, spitting out set phrases at certain points in a Stephen Hawking monotone.
The US' position re Iran is interesting and worth debating. But what's the point of debating it with the Robo-Snort? Why the righteous anti-war stance? Does he really care about poor brown people getting bombed?
Re The Robo-Snort view of the "Holocau$t"; I seem to recall he proved the gas chambers didn't exist by consulting a GCSE Chemistry textbook and triumphantly revealing that the constituents of Zyklon B couldn't have worked in such a confined space. Or something.
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
quote:Originally posted by Gail: Other than a vague memory of him disputing numbers on account of how they weren't technically possible, I don't remember him ever making a definitive statement of his beliefs.
His 'beliefs' are a pose meant to mark him out as a daring provocateur. He is clearly aware that a definitive statement along the lines of saying that 'the Final Solution as it's commonly understood is a myth concocted by the Jews and maintained by millions of people - including the governments of every country remotely involved, from 1945 to the present day - who have some vague interest in perpetuating this myth' would leave him (even more) open to ridicule, so he prefers to "leave people to draw their own conclusions" having dealt out his latest batch of motheaten, plagiarised sophistry.
Demanding honesty or straightforwardness from Rick is like expecting an incontinent whippet to use the toilet, wipe after going, freshen itself with the bidet and round this all off by washing its paws with soap and water.
[ 07.02.2005, 04:04: Message edited by: ben ]
Posted by Ringo (Member # 47) on :
quote:Originally posted by kovacs: An irony is that it was Norton who recently posted up some ludicrous theories about how my research interest in Carroll combined with my praise for Emma "Hermione" Watson indicated that I should go to a shrink for my perversion towards kids.
You seem to be mentioning this rather a lot for someone who claims to want to put this all behind you and forget about it. I don't think you can make a provocative statement, whine when people pull you up on it, and then mention it every time you want to seem like you're unfairly put upon. I can think of many reasons why you get treated unfairly, most of which you haven't actually brought upon yourself, so why you keep dragging this up, I'm not sure.
I do realise I may seem rather hypocritical here, but I do like to think I have the decency simply to admit when I've said something wrong, and not to bring it up again after claiming I wanted to forget about it.
Posted by Dr. Benway (Member # 20) on :
I suppose that the problem being faced by Rick is that people are offended by him personally, regardless of what he says, because there is a fundamental flaw within his sense of morality. Regardless of how sophisticated he may appear in his arguments on matters of international relations and socio-political theory(although, it should be remembered that his constant use of hackneyed language and tired cliches also betrays his innately inelastic imagination and powers of reasoning), we know that his belief systems, world views and attitudes are rooted in a weird kind of retarded megalomania that twists everything beyond logic or sense. An obsession with torture, brutality and bullying; Proclaimed anti-semitism, the desire to re-write history. This is not a balanced, normal person, and it is dangerous to make comparison between your own opinion and those of such a warped mind. We all saw what happened when the policeman tried to 'get in' to the mind of the killer in Mann's stylish and not over-rated thriler 'Manhunter'. I'm happy to listen to Rick, but there's no point in assuming that you can have a gainful exchange with him.
I'm not saying that Rick is some kind of monster, or inhuman - honestly. You can't go bestowing or removing degrees of humanity on or from other humans. Those of us who haven't suffered the kind of damage that Rick has have the ability to rationalise and control emotion, express and display compassion, and feel empathy for the suffering of others. We should employ these when dealing with somebody like him, as really, he just needs the right kind of love. The kind that he has probably always been denied.
Posted by Tom Boy (Member # 765) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: You might have they'd have learned something by now, but then again...
we might have, they might have, it seems everyone but you and the bush administration might have learned something... As yet though we are all bemused as to what this new pearl of wisdom may be.
Whatever it is, by the looks of it its not to do with leaving the oil/nukes/religious fanatics in countries in the middle east alone, admittedly something needs to be done but what? Shock and Awe? Forgive my skeptasism but it didnt seem the most effective tactic last time it was tried.
Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ringo: You seem to be mentioning this rather a lot for someone who claims to want to put this all behind you and forget about it.
lol. It's true. Now whenever a thread starts and people are talking about something completely different I keep expecting kovacs to wander in and go "For God's sake! I'm not a paedophile, I don't know why everyone keeps bringing it up", and then wandering out again leaving everyone exchanging bemused glances.
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
My favourite thing about that original thread was how Kovacs's initial contributions contained a deliberate provocation ('lickable parts') and a fabricated episode about a shaven-fannied ex of his, and the bounder then spent the next four pages going on about how 'thoughtful' and 'honest' he was being.
Posted by OJ (Member # 752) on :
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis:
quote:Originally posted by Ringo: You seem to be mentioning this rather a lot for someone who claims to want to put this all behind you and forget about it.
lol. It's true. Now whenever a thread starts and people are talking about something completely different I keep expecting kovacs to wander in and go "For God's sake! I'm not a paedophile, I don't know why everyone keeps bringing it up", and then wandering out again leaving everyone exchanging bemused glances.
Quite. And it's becoming quite tedious.
Re: Iran, there is a sense of terrifying inevitability about it. Certainly from the point of view of the US's intentions. I've not read anything that gives a clear idea of President Blair's response to this, but I fear that the UK witholding support would do nothing to stall the juggernaut of American imperialism/intervention/call it what you will.
Posted by Tom Boy (Member # 765) on :
quote:Originally posted by OJ: I've not read anything that gives a clear idea of President Blair's response to this, but I fear that the UK witholding support would do nothing to stall the juggernaut of American imperialism/intervention/call it what you will.
But it would show the world, if not opposition of the americans, at least a lack of participation may be viewed as the US's biggest ally withdrawing support from their hairbrained powerhungry schemes.
Posted by OJ (Member # 752) on :
Perhaps Tom Boy - or it could just attract a new epithet: chip-eating surrender monkeys for example.
But seriously, I don't know how realistic it is that the current British government (let alone any future prospective Tory government) would dare to risk the unholy alliance with the US. I mean special relationship obviously. It seems that Blair has been moving further and further from being pro-Europe throughout Labour's term in office. So where else would a small country look for a strategic alliance in order to punch above its weight?
eta: If the UN's lack of support for recent invasions wasn't enough of a "message", what was? I hate to say it, but surely to the rest of the world the UK is just another compliant component of the US war machine. Would the lack of support mean any more than Hawaii or Alaska withdrawing their support?
[ 07.02.2005, 12:41: Message edited by: OJ ]
Posted by vikram (Member # 98) on :
Where is this Kovacs paedo confession thread? I wanna read!
Posted by Samuelnorton (Member # 48) on :
quote:Originally posted by OJ: ...it could just attract a new epithet: chip-eating surrender monkeys for example.
But seriously, I don't know how realistic it is that the current British government (let alone any future prospective Tory government) would dare to risk the unholy alliance with the US. I mean special relationship obviously. It seems that Blair has been moving further and further from being pro-Europe throughout Labour's term in office. So where else would a small country look for a strategic alliance in order to punch above its weight?
This had crossed my mind. It really comes down to how important Blair's belief in his being a 'world leader' are. With his arm around Bush's waist life is pretty easy, but if he were to have an attack of common sense his (sense of) prestige across the Atlantic may well plummet.
quote:Would the lack of support mean any more than Hawaii or Alaska withdrawing their support?
Or the pacific powerhouse of Palau - don't forget them.
-------
Off-topic:
Benway: interesting read, but you are no doctor, pal. Only in your vivid imagination.
Ben: please fuck off, for you are just as tiresome as you would suggest I am. This thread was posted up with honest and reasonable intent, and your comeback was both childish and pathetic. You need to have your nappy changed.
Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
I liked Benway's post.
Rick mentions arses, nappies and shit quite a lot, doesn't he?
Posted by Samuelnorton (Member # 48) on :
If you read through the thread BM you'll see that Benno appears to have an obsession with my apparent incontinence. Hence the nappy remark.
Posted by New Way Of Decay (Member # 106) on :
quote:Originally posted by Black Mask: Rick mentions arses, nappies and shit quite a lot, doesn't he?
You need to be careful with that. People might think that you're a paedscheisseophile.
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: your comeback was both childish and pathetic. You need to have your nappy changed.
The sheer witlessness of the above couplet beggars commentary. Aside from which, I was responding to Gail's post not yours.
Posted by New Way Of Decay (Member # 106) on :
quote:Originally posted by Louche: Ben, you're next post is going to have to really fucking rock. I hope you've been working on it for years. Honing, refining, delicately chipping away and polishing prose designed to make us all weep.
Because if you of all people waste a 6,000th post with a smilie or a lollol I shall sob.
Fo Fucking Sheez!!
quote:Originally posted by ben: The sheer witlessness of the above couplet beggars commentary. Aside from which, I was responding to Gail's post not yours.
FFS Posted by Samuelnorton (Member # 48) on :
Congratulations on your 6000th post, Benno. Twat.
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
quote:Originally posted by New Way Of Decay: FFS
Posted by New Way Of Decay (Member # 106) on :
Happy 6000th poppa bear. Posted by Samuelnorton (Member # 48) on :
quote:Originally posted by ben: The sheer witlessness...
And yet your rather mean-spirited opening gambit right at the top of the thread was:
quote:Your own flesh recoils against itself. Please die now.
The fact is, m8 - if you don't want to converse with me in any way, then for pity's sake don't. Spoiling any thread I might post on any topic with one of your moronic backhand remarks is childish in the extreme. It might go down well with some of your little mates on here, but any outsider could very easily conclude that you are some sort of failed classroom clown; the suggestion that any of my remarks are 'witless' is a pretty obvious case of the pot calling the kettle a negro.
Posted by Physic (Member # 195) on :
"He was looking at t' wife funny alright!"
Happy 6000 dude!
Posted by Samuelnorton (Member # 48) on :
Fucking hell.
If my thread being hijacked by Ben's fuckwittery were not enough, it now appears to have been turned into a right royal Benfest. So i'll leave you all to enjoy the celebrations.
I really do hope you changed that nappy, m8.
Posted by New Way Of Decay (Member # 106) on :
ding....dong, the witch is dead....etc
[ 07.02.2005, 17:21: Message edited by: New Way Of Decay ]
Posted by damo (Member # 722) on :
Posted by New Way Of Decay (Member # 106) on :
It was six million dude.
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: The fact is, m8 - if you don't want to converse with me in any way, then for pity's sake don't. Spoiling any thread I might post on any topic with one of your moronic backhand remarks is childish in the extreme. It might go down well with some of your little mates on here, but any outsider could very easily conclude that you are some sort of failed classroom clown; the suggestion that any of my remarks are 'witless' is a pretty obvious case of the pot calling the kettle a negro.
Well - it was two-thirty in the morning. I guess I must have been drunk or something; in all honesty I have no recollection of seeing the thread prior to yesterday morning. At any rate, while I don't think much to a feeble two-liner as a way of dealing with you, I can certainly understand what drove my drunker self to react in that way.
A week of watching you peddle slime on another forum keyed me up for it, I suppose - second-hand, shop-worn, years-old slime at that. Having refuted much of it myself on this forum over a period of years, I was pretty outraged (though not, ultimately, surprised) to see you simply wheel your stall across to a forum where - by their own admission - 'fluffy' is the prevailing mood and few are likely to be willing or able to take apart the tissue of half-truth and distortion you've devoted so much energy to creating (or at least appropriating from other deniers).
As for 'childishness' and 'pathetic insults': tmo has a long and colourful tradition of mean, offensive and lavatorial humour being deployed in combat - something you have steadfastly refused to contribute anything remotely original or amusing to. "Bum! Poo! Bum! Poo" may be your idea of devastating wit, but an image of a Rick-faced whippet abluting its rear end over a tinkling bidet at least tries to say something novel about your merits as a poster or lack thereof.
[ 08.02.2005, 03:32: Message edited by: ben ]
Posted by Samuelnorton (Member # 48) on :
quote:Originally posted by ben: Well - it was two-thirty in the morning. I guess I must have been drunk or something; in all honesty I have no recollection of seeing the thread prior to yesterday morning. At any rate, while I don't think much to a feeble two-liner as a way of dealing with you, I can certainly understand what drove my drunker self to react in that way.
This is rather weak, but I'll take it as you say it. We all say things we really mean at such times, but I did think that your interjection was completely at odds with the spirit of the bulletin board, TMO or otherwise.
quote:A week of watching you peddle slime on another forum keyed me up for it, I suppose - second-hand, shop-worn, years-old slime at that. Having refuted much of it myself on this forum over a period of years...
In truth I don't think you 'refuted' much as I didn't actually say that much. It was pretty much the same with the thread on Handbag - I voiced what were essentially a series of doubts, and had some moron throw swathe after swathe of copied and pasted text at me. This heavy-handed methodology clearly lacked your sense of manufactured wit, but was not really that different in substance. In any case if I remember correctly your 'refutation' consisted mainly of barbed insults completely unrelated to whatever topic we might have been discussing.
Still, I consider all of that to be water under the bridge; we both have our ideas about where we both stand and there's no point ploughing through the same sullied earth again.
quote:I was pretty outraged (though not, ultimately, surprised) to see you simply wheel your stall across to a forum where - by their own admission - 'fluffy' is the prevailing mood and few are likely to be willing or able to take apart the tissue of half-truth and distortion you've devoted so much energy to creating (or at least appropriating from other deniers).
Your sense of outrage is misplaced. The people on the News forum pretty much stand out from the rest of Handbag (in particular the rabble that congregate in General Chat) and the atmosphere was far from 'fluffy'. Had it been a matter of my posting simply for the viewing pleasure of fluffy types, the thread would never had become such a talking point; indeed it would have fizzled out pretty quickly.
quote:As for 'childishness' and 'pathetic insults': tmo has a long and colourful tradition of mean, offensive and lavatorial humour being deployed in combat...
Fair point in itself, but I'd hope you you'd agree that jumping in on a thread with an uncalled for insult is not exactly in the spirit of bulletin board posting. It was a fresh thread, and I asked a fairly reasonable question; it's hardly what I would have called a 'combat' situation. Unless, of course, you were out to start a war. But then you say that you cannot remember posting it anyway, so let's just forget it eh?
quote:...something you have steadfastly refused to contribute anything remotely original or amusing to. "Bum! Poo! Bum! Poo" may be your idea of devastating wit...
It's not intended to be witty; it's just a simple matter of seeing things how they are and saying such. And frankly, I do think you have your head somewhere else most of the time, particularly when it comes to seeing my name on a post. Some might be more polite and call it red mist.
The truth is that while lame comedy may be your way of conveying some sort of message, I would consider it a waste of energy. There's nothing novel in it, and is as funny as watching a leper pick at his scabs with his teeth.
[ 08.02.2005, 04:58: Message edited by: Samuelnorton ]
Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
Long thought impossible, Snorton makes leprosy unfunny.
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: In truth I don't think you 'refuted' much as I didn't actually say that much. [...] In any case if I remember correctly your 'refutation' consisted mainly of barbed insults completely unrelated to whatever topic we might have been discussing.
You don't remember 'correctly', actually. Either that or you're being dishonest.
The threads in question may have been a couple of years ago but I'm pretty certain you'd remember the level of detail I went into in my responses to what you were saying - parsing elements of conflation or elision and providing quotes and links to supporting evidence where appropriate. If you're willing to write that all off as 'mainly barbed insults' - when it's probably the closest to serious debate of your views you're ever likely to get - it doesn't seem to me that you're capable of honesty even with yourself.
It would be perfectly possible for me to produce a sample ginormo-post from that period, but I trust those who took the time to trawl through those exchanges probably recall them a little more 'correctly' than you do yourself.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Had it been a matter of my posting simply for the viewing pleasure of fluffy types, the thread would never had become such a talking point; indeed it would have fizzled out pretty quickly.
A 'talking point' is a bit different from an actual debate, though. I mean: you succeeded in stirring up controversy, but was there much in the way of actual debate? Essentially you traded your habitual 'positions' for a heap of cut & paste plus some baffled bagger admissions that they didn't know enough to be able to address your 'arguments' in sufficient detail. I suppose Kovacs made some interesting points but many of them have been aired over here in the past.
This really comes down to the disagreement between myself and him about why you do what you do. Your evident satisfaction with having become a 'talking point' - as opposed to having your views challenged by someone with a good knowledge of the period - supports my explanation rather than his, I think.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: The truth is that while lame comedy may be your way of conveying some sort of message, I would consider it a waste of energy. There's nothing novel in it, and is as funny as watching a leper pick at his scabs with his teeth.
Mask's right: there's entertainment value in that image, but it requires serious under-the-hood tinkering to get it there.
Posted by Samuelnorton (Member # 48) on :
quote:Originally posted by ben: You don't remember 'correctly', actually. Either that or you're being dishonest.
It was a while ago, and I do remember getting involved in a rather circular argument with you that ended in the usual mud-slinging. I am being honest with you when I say that the points I offered covered but a fraction of the topic; I'll admit that I might have been slightly unfair in judging what you may have responded with back then, but I do recall pretty well your complete inability to acknowledge any of the points I offered.
Of course, the logical result was that the debate went nowhere. The balance of power was also rather unfair: there was one of me and many of you, and every source I offered was ignored, denounced as 'anti-Semitic', or met with a set of stock responses I couldn't respond further to satisfactorily on my own. This was of course seen in extremis on the Handbag thread. I am not being critical when I say this, for I would have probably adopted the same tactics. What I would say is that if you are ever up for a challenge one day, you should head onto the Revisionist Forum and ask as many questions as you want. You won't get insulted as this is in violation of the strict rules there, but you'll get some idea of how it feels to be swimming against a rather strong current.
quote:The threads in question may have been a couple of years ago but I'm pretty certain you'd remember the level of detail I went into in my responses to what you were saying - parsing elements of conflation or elision and providing quotes and links to supporting evidence where appropriate.
At the beginning, maybe. It would be intesting to see these old threads in their entirety, of course.
quote:It would be perfectly possible for me to produce a sample ginormo-post from that period, but I trust those who took the time to trawl through those exchanges probably recall them a little more 'correctly' than you do yourself.
I'd rather you produce a ginormo-post, as memory can play very funny tricks on people, and lead them into making the oddest of conclusions by putting a name here and a place there.
quote:A 'talking point' is a bit different from an actual debate, though. I mean: you succeeded in stirring up controversy, but was there much in the way of actual debate?
I'd admit that there was a debate in the early stages, but once the likes of Brown Mouse got themselves involved it was always likely to descend into farce. It was not an attempt to stir up controversy, and never has been. It's up to you if you choose to believe that.
In the end it became a talking point - and yes, a controversy. Accordingly, those with their finger on the pulse couldn't care less what was actually being said and instead chose to wield their authoritative powers on the basis of a few complaints. The very fact that someone (the cutter and paster SueDeNimm, I believe) actually suggested that I had previously insulted 'Brown Mouse' on TMO is pretty solid proof of the fact that people were ever so quick to take two and two and make five. (I am unaware of who this Brown Mouse character actually is, and even less aware of whether or not they might have posted or post on here).
quote:Essentially you traded your habitual 'positions' for a heap of cut & paste plus some baffled bagger admissions that they didn't know enough to be able to address your 'arguments' in sufficient detail. I suppose Kovacs made some interesting points but many of them have been aired over here in the past.
The 'habitual positions' of which you speak are probably the most basic questions that anyone who has read some of the core texts might ask; it would have been appreciated if I had got to see an answer to them. Then we might have got somewhere.
I agree Kovacs did make some interesting points, and the degree of civility and the specific nature of the counterpoints was refreshing. After all the copy and paste bullshit, I did think a proper debate could be had. Alas, it was all cut short before it really got going.
quote:Your evident satisfaction with having become a 'talking point' - as opposed to having your views challenged by someone with a good knowledge of the period - supports my explanation rather than his, I think.
This is all hearsay now of course, for things might have been very different had the thread been allowed to continue and if I had been able to respond to Kovacs' counterpoints. As I said, the thread became more of a talking point - i.e. a controversy - and less of a debate once certain parties started playing the 'anti-Semite' card and complaining to the moderators for no other reason than their feelings were mortally wounded. Or something.
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: I'll admit that I might have been slightly unfair in judging what you may have responded with back then, but I do recall pretty well your complete inability to acknowledge any of the points I offered.
There's a difference between an 'inability to acknowledge' and an unwillingness on the grounds of your points being wrong. Conceding a point is not a question of courtesy, it is a question of whether or not a person is talking rubbish.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: The balance of power was also rather unfair: there was one of me and many of you.
You can't be unaware that your views are maintained by only a cranky minority, given disproportionate exposure only because of their unceasing efforts at self-publicity. For all the sound and fury generated around such crank views, you can't act surprised when your numbers are still pitifully small.
Aside from that, there aren't really that many people on the forum willing to engage in long-running exchanges with you. Quite often I've had people chiding me for giving you the 'oxygen of publicity' by even addressing your posts, the implication being that if I didn't, no one else would bother.
At any rate, the concept of 'unfairness' is pretty ridiculous in this context. If a person's arguments are strong enough, they will stand well above mere weight of numbers of the opposing viewpoint. A forum isn't like being in a room of raised voices - a weak argument is self-evidently a weak argument, just as a strong one is very obviously strong.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: every source I offered was ignored, denounced as 'anti-Semitic', or met with a set of stock responses I couldn't respond further to satisfactorily on my own.
This is nonsense. Much of the 'evidence' you offer comes from respectable sources but has only been quoted partially or completely out of context - or been given disproportionate weight in contrast with other, more compelling evidence. If you 'only' quoted material from revisionist websites (though the fact you rely on them heavily hardly does anything for your credibility) it would be a simple matter to dismiss your act.
You're presenting a caricature of how forites have responded to your posts, but people just aren't that easily taken in.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: What I would say is that if you are ever up for a challenge one day, you should head onto the Revisionist Forum and ask as many questions as you want. You won't get insulted as this is in violation of the strict rules there, but you'll get some idea of how it feels to be swimming against a rather strong current.
Why would I waste my time arguing with people who have decided upon their outlook and crowbar all evidence they come across to fit in with that outlook. A repellent outlook at that, it has to be said.
As I've said before, I don't even think that you really believe in half of that crap - it's just a corner you've now painted yourself into that would require, should you ever step out of it, an admission that you've pissed ten years of your life up a dead end.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: At the beginning, maybe. It would be intesting to see these old threads in their entirety, of course.
I'm fine with that too: they generally show an excess of restraint in addressing a series of feints, wriggles and shifts in position that never announce themselves as such ('At the beginning, maybe' indeed).
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: I'd rather you produce a ginormo-post, as memory can play very funny tricks on people, and lead them into making the oddest of conclusions by putting a name here and a place there.
You see: that sort of statement thinks it's clever, thinks it's made some sort of insinuation without having to go to the trouble of providing anything so burdensome as 'proof'. In actual fact, it's rather desperate and stupid. If you have something to say, say it explicitly and with evidence; gnomic utterances further undermine your credibility.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: In the end it became a talking point - and yes, a controversy. Accordingly, those with their finger on the pulse couldn't care less what was actually being said and instead chose to wield their authoritative powers on the basis of a few complaints. The very fact that someone (the cutter and paster SueDeNimm, I believe) actually suggested that I had previously insulted 'Brown Mouse' on TMO is pretty solid proof of the fact that people were ever so quick to take two and two and make five.
You express offensive views in frequently offensive terms, to play the stunned old maid when people take offence and jump to not-unreasonable conclusions (ie. even supposedly 'respectable' Holocaust Deniers like David Irving are blatant Jew-hating cranks) is a bit feeble, really.
I don't even know why you're going through this charade here - a board upon which you've expressed yourself in baldly anti-semitic terms, even if the people on Handbag jumped to the same (as it happens, accurate) conclusion.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: The 'habitual positions' of which you speak are probably the most basic questions that anyone who has read some of the core texts might ask; it would have been appreciated if I had got to see an answer to them. Then we might have got somewhere.
'Habitual positions' = complaining about the common currency of the 'Jews into soap' rumour when the only people who ever mention this are Holocaust deniers themselves; complaining about the 'ubiquity' of programmes and stories about the Final Solution when you delve into websites chock full of them (eg Irving's) on what's probably a daily basis; whining about the "ill treatment" of trained killers of the SS and being haughtily dismissive of the suffering of anyone else; telling outright lies about volume, diversity and richness of historical evidence and study from/of the period.
You've pulled all the same stunts in the past three or four years numerous times on tmo/seethru. To jolt into the same routine on a completely different website - on a thread about Prince Harry, ffs - can neutrally be described as 'habitual'. There are lots of more derogatory, though not necessarily less accurate, terms.
[ 08.02.2005, 08:56: Message edited by: ben ]
Posted by damo (Member # 722) on :
now can i say "ingest your head"?
I REMEMBER THE LONG EXCHANGES from seethru/tmo 1.1 and i remember how this goes, each of you quoting back smaller and smaller sections of text. ben trying to nail jelly to the wall and rick sliding around like a shit in a bottle.
Posted by jonesy999 (Member # 5) on :
I assumed Brown Mouse was the result of putting Black Mask through the Hilaroengine.
Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
What's a Brown Mouse? It sounds dirty.
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
Like a Dutch Mouse but with - you know - excrement. Posted by jonesy999 (Member # 5) on :
x
IMG TOO POOEY FOR TMO.
[ 08.02.2005, 10:18: Message edited by: jonesy999 ]
Posted by Samuelnorton (Member # 48) on :
quote:Originally posted by ben: There's a difference between an 'inability to acknowledge' and an unwillingness on the grounds of your points being wrong. Conceding a point is not a question of courtesy, it is a question of whether or not a person is talking rubbish.
An easy get-out, this.
quote:You can't be unaware that your views are maintained by only a cranky minority, given disproportionate exposure only because of their unceasing efforts at self-publicity. For all the sound and fury generated around such crank views, you can't act surprised when your numbers are still pitifully small.
It should be noted that the 'sound and fury' is generated not because one might be wrong, but that one is offending certain sensibilities - an observation Kovacs actually made on the Handbag thread.
quote:At any rate, the concept of 'unfairness' is pretty ridiculous in this context. If a person's arguments are strong enough, they will stand well above mere weight of numbers of the opposing viewpoint. A forum isn't like being in a room of raised voices - a weak argument is self-evidently a weak argument, just as a strong one is very obviously strong.
I cannot disagree with this statement in itself, but the Holocaust is a completely different animal. Even highlighting the most obvious mathematical errors and glaring contradictions generate feelings that transcend traditional forms of discussion and debate. Look at the reasons I got banned on Handbag; it had nothing to do with whether my argument was weak or strong, but plenty to do with the fact that many found the need to complain because it hurt their feelings.
quote:This is nonsense. Much of the 'evidence' you offer comes from respectable sources but has only been quoted partially or completely out of context - or been given disproportionate weight in contrast with other, more compelling evidence.
I could say the same about many 'establishment' interpretations. It is perfectly reasonable for those working within the accepted boundaries to interpret the documents any way they please, but it is somehow a crime for anyone to consider an interpretation that might fall outside this rubric. The plans concerning the building of the Auschwitz Krema and their sometime 'conversion' into homicidal gas chambers is a case in point.
quote:Why would I waste my time arguing with people who have decided upon their outlook and crowbar all evidence they come across to fit in with that outlook. A repellent outlook at that, it has to be said.
Yes, why would you?
quote:As I've said before, I don't even think that you really believe in half of that crap - it's just a corner you've now painted yourself into that would require, should you ever step out of it, an admission that you've pissed ten years of your life up a dead end.
But what is 'that crap'? You know next to nothing about what I think on the matter as I have for the most part stuck to the basic questions. There are plenty of things written by revisionists that I happen to disagree with, but we never quite got around to discussing such trifles.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: I'm fine with that too: they generally show an excess of restraint in addressing a series of feints, wriggles and shifts in position that never announce themselves as such ('At the beginning, maybe' indeed).
Let's see them, then. Or a link to them. If only for interest's sake.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: You see: that sort of statement thinks it's clever, thinks it's made some sort of insinuation without having to go to the trouble of providing anything so burdensome as 'proof'. In actual fact, it's rather desperate and stupid. If you have something to say, say it explicitly and with evidence; gnomic utterances further undermine your credibility.
It was not meant to be vague; I simply led myself to understand that you had read the Handbag thread, and might have noticed the vivid 'memories' of some of the participants. Among the whoppers to be found were:
- I knew Brown Mouse from TMO. - I knew that she/he was Jewish and was therefore being doubly mean (and, naturally, 'anti-semitic') when I made (snide, admittedly) reference to her/his username. - I had been banned from TMO.
I found the last 'memory' particularly hilarious; even you would balked at that one.
quote:You express offensive views in frequently offensive terms, to play the stunned old maid when people take offence and jump to not-unreasonable conclusions...
I think most of those who contributed to the thread in question qould agree that I never said anything that could be construed as blatantly offensive; the fact that they used my (in hindsight rather feeble) joke about Brown Mouse's username as a pretext to ban me says much about the entire story.
quote:'Habitual positions' = complaining about the common currency of the 'Jews into soap' rumour when the only people who ever mention this are Holocaust deniers themselves;
One of the Handbaggers mentioned this first, which provided some sort of evidence that the story is still floating around. I simply felt compelled to say something about it.
quote:...complaining about the 'ubiquity' of programmes and stories about the Final Solution when you delve into websites chock full of them (eg Irving's) on what's probably a daily basis
Would you not say that all of the browbeating surrounding January 27th was rather ubiquitous?
quote:...whining about the "ill treatment" of trained killers of the SS and being haughtily dismissive of the suffering of anyone else
Here we go again. 'Trained killers of the SS'. What is this supposed to mean? You make it sound as if I am responsible for eulogising the likes of concentration camp guards, when my focus has always been entirely on those who fought in combat. The soldiers of the Waffen-SS were trained killers, yes; they were soldiers. The same description could be applied to any soldier in any professional fighting force.
As for my being dismissive of others' suffering, I have never done that - at least not deliberately. However if I feel that something needs to be questioned I will do just that. History is about establishing the truth, not skirting around it simply because someone might get a little upset.
Posted by Samuelnorton (Member # 48) on :
quote:Originally posted by ben: Like a Dutch Mouse but with - you know - excrement.
Given that we all now know that Brown Mouse is Jewish (well, according to some at least) the above statement could well be interpreted as 'anti-semitic'.
Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
ben "that nazi guy"
Posted by MiscellaneousFiles (Member # 60) on :
quote: An
I admire you for opening with such a short yet bold word. Not quite as short or bold as "a" would have been, but considering your following word, I'd have to credit you with making a pretty good decision here.
quote: easy
I can't understand how you might have been misguided enough to think that using the word "easy" was going to win an argument with me, Rick. This just isn't good enough and I don't see the point in crediting it with any further response.
quote: get-out,
I like your use of hyphenation here, but I'm not entirely sure that it fits with the general tone of the sentence. Perhaps you'll take the time to think a bit harder before posting like this in future?
quote: this.
Hmm...
Et cetera ad infinitum
[ 08.02.2005, 12:49: Message edited by: MiscellaneousFiles ]
Posted by My Name Is Joe (Member # 530) on :
quote:Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles:
Et cetera ad infinitum
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: An easy get-out, this.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Yes, why would you?
While an established part of your repertoire, this type of one-line response is completely inadequate as a contribution. On the one hand, they atomise the discussion so any third party will struggle to follow what's going on - on the other, they are often so gnomic as to be practically meaningless.
I mean: 'Yes, why would you?' - exactly what tone of voice is that said in? Wry, bitter, scornful, triumphant or regretful? The register of your posts tends to swing wildly between enraged and wounded - nuance really isn't your strong point. That being the case, please respond properly or not at all. I made a fairly reasonable point about the pointlessness of going through the pantomime of 'arguing' with bigots only interested in what reinforces their existing positions - you respond with a (sarcastic? disappointed? leering?) echo.
Similarly, the comment I made in the post above about why I don't 'acknowledge' that you 'may have some points' - namely, that I find your entire approach so warped that 'reasonable points' tend only to be thrown in to try and make the 'unreasonable' (ie. wrong) ones somehow more valid or believable - is both internally consistent and has been reflected in my approach to dealing with your claims. Simply to squawk 'an easy get-out, this' without troubling yourself to explain why it's an untenable position is laziness or arrogance on your part. Laziness - because you can't be bothered to argue your case properly; arrogance, because you seem to think the sheer force or sparkle of your rhetoric will carry you through.
The ease with which Misc and others send up your 'one-line-quote-one-line-response' antistyle indicates that you are wholly deficient in the force and sparkle stakes.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: It should be noted that the 'sound and fury' is generated not because one might be wrong, but that one is offending certain sensibilities - an observation Kovacs actually made on the Handbag thread.
It's not the case of 'either or' - it's the case you're both wrong and offensive. The above implies that you consider the offence you cause almost as a kind of validation of your position - which I suppose is pretty handy if your position is weak.
This underlines the point I made about how Holocaust deniers busy themselves with creating a stir (offering $10,000 'prizes' for 'incontrovertible proof' and similar stunts) as a means of attracting unwarranted attention to their efforts - and it seems that such upset is perfectly acceptable to them, given that any sort of mainstream acceptance is likely to remain elusive.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: I cannot disagree with this statement in itself, but the Holocaust is a completely different animal. Even highlighting the most obvious mathematical errors and glaring contradictions generate feelings that transcend traditional forms of discussion and debate.
In fairness, you're shifting your ground again. Your initial complaint was that, on the tmo threads, you were 'one against many'. Now you're saying the problem was the nature of the feelings 'generated' on Handbag. Changing your horse halfway through an exchange is deceitful and confusing - and makes you look like you yourself have become confused by what you're going on about. This occurs again, below.
As an aside, your complaint about 'mathematical errors' and 'contradictions' is made against the same old set of things you pull out again and again and again. You seem incapable of engaging with recent, scholarly research and circle round and around a handful of texts or celebrities that hardly constitute the current field of historical study - a rich, varied field with lively debates.
You of course will dismiss all that out of hand (perish the thought of you breaking into a sweat by reading or engaging with something published anytime recently) but I'd direct the couple of people still reading this thread to: Christopher Browning or Michael Burleigh for compelling syntheses of where research currently stands so far as, respectively, the Final Solution and the Nazi period in general are concerned.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: I could say the same about many 'establishment' interpretations. It is perfectly reasonable for those working within the accepted boundaries to interpret the documents any way they please, but it is somehow a crime for anyone to consider an interpretation that might fall outside this rubric.
Interesting that you make no attempt to deny the accusation of distortion or suppression made against yourself and other deniers. Stack this beside your admission that you would adopt tactics of ignoring, denouncing or drowning out an opponent...
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: every source I offered was ignored, denounced as 'anti-Semitic', or met with a set of stock responses I couldn't respond further to satisfactorily on my own. This was of course seen in extremis on the Handbag thread. I am not being critical when I say this, for I would have probably adopted the same tactics.
...and your commitment to anything approaching a serious debate, conducted with a degree of integrity on either side, pretty much disappears in a puff of smoke. Any tactic, so long as you 'win' right?
Also: your claims that 'only a fraction' of 'the matter' has been discussed over the past four years smack of desperation. To hint, this far into the exchange, that you have a mass of other compelling material stashed away somewhere rings pretty hollow when you keep on trotting out the same stuff as ever ("Wiesenthal ...Wilkomerski... soap etc etc etc") - and it was pretty stale the first time around.
Also (2): the "You don't know me! You don't know anything about me!" retort is one of the most basic and feeble gambits in the discussion forum armoury. Having waded through tens of thousands of your words, looked at your internet sites and observed how you interact - or not - with others over a period of years, I think I have a reasonable handle on who you are and what drives you. Maybe you have as good an understanding of me, though the arid nature of your retorts ("Head up arse... Benny Boy... Benfest" etc etc) don't provide much evidence of this.
I won't say I yield to no one in my diagnosis of your pathology - in fact, I yield pretty willingly to Dr Benway, who infuses his analyses with a patience and mercy that, in your case, I'm quite beyond.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: It was not meant to be vague; I simply led myself to understand that you had read the Handbag thread, and might have noticed the vivid 'memories' of some of the participants. Among the whoppers to be found were:
- I knew Brown Mouse from TMO. - I knew that she/he was Jewish and was therefore being doubly mean (and, naturally, 'anti-semitic') when I made (snide, admittedly) reference to her/his username. - I had been banned from TMO.
I found the last 'memory' particularly hilarious; even you would balked at that one.
Careful now. Your own memory is playing tricks on you. Your original jibe was referring to the discussions on tmo from several years ago - I complained that that jibe was gnomic and made a bunch of unsupported insinuations - you now "respond" to that complaint by pretending that you were going on about last week's Handbag thread all along. Are you trying to confuse, or are you yourself confused?
Let's have a look at that 'memory' jibe again:
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: I'd rather you produce a ginormo-post, as memory can play very funny tricks on people, and lead them into making the oddest of conclusions by putting a name here and a place there.
This is clearly referring to the tmo exchange and yet, above, you draw on Handbag to support your position - a thread to which I didn't even contribute.
If this is an example of your scrupulous, sceptical 'approach', I think people can draw their own conclusions about the worth of what it might yield when applied to historical events rather that online exchanges.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: One of the Handbaggers mentioned this [Jews into soap rumour] first, which provided some sort of evidence that the story is still floating around. I simply felt compelled to say something about it.
Strictly speaking, SueDeNimm made a vague comment about the Nazis 'making use' of Jewish bodies - it was you that cawwed triumphantly about this being evidence that the 'Jewish soap' story continuing to endure. Your repeated references would, I guess, contribute a lot more to ensuring any sort of afterlife for the story than a vague mention that doesn't even use the word 'soap'
I doubt anyone either on Handbag or on tmo had even heard about lurid, untrue stories about electrocution or boiling as methods of mass slaughter until you (repeatedly) brought them up.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Would you not say that all of the browbeating surrounding January 27th was rather ubiquitous?
If you consider a couple of weeks of media coverage 'browbeating', well gosh, you must be a sensitive soul. I fear for your sanity in the face of the impending Charles/Camilla-fest.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Here we go again. 'Trained killers of the SS'. What is this supposed to mean? You make it sound as if I am responsible for eulogising the likes of concentration camp guards, when my focus has always been entirely on those who fought in combat. The soldiers of the Waffen-SS were trained killers, yes; they were soldiers. The same description could be applied to any soldier in any professional fighting force.
Not many 'professional fighting forces' have fought to impose the will of such a murderous and noxious regime over so many other peoples. Few 'professional fighting forces' have been so involved in a self-styled 'war of annihilation' and provided direct and indirect support for a programme of continent-wide racial slaughter.
The disgusting piece of propaganda masquerading as a 'reappraisal' on your adulatory Waffen-SS website demonstrates your blindness to 'mathematical errors' and 'glaring contradictions' when it suits you. Describing the mass execution of as Jewish civilians as 'antipartisan actions' and 'executing Communist agitators and bandits' is grotesque and insupportable. Not only does copious evidence exist of the activities of these killing squads, but the figures eagerly reported back to Berlin mitigate wholly against 'partisans' being the victims - as we have seen in Iraq, 'partisans' are rarely apprehended by the thousand... they're hardly ever apprehended by the dozen. What those 'tarnished warriors' were doing was butchering entire villages.
For you to adopt the code language ('antipartisan activities') the Nazis themselves used indicates the degree of reliability that can be expected from your 'studies'.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: History is about establishing the truth, not skirting around it simply because someone might get a little upset.
As indicated above, 'skirting round' the truth is the one thing to which you are wholly devoted.
Posted by MiscellaneousFiles (Member # 60) on :
quote:Originally posted by ben: The ease with which Misc and others send up your 'one-line-quote-one-line-response' antistyle indicates that you are wholly deficient in the force and sparkle stakes.
Actually, the send-up wasn't targeted solely at Rick.
Posted by dervish (Member # 727) on :
Does anybody actually read every word of what ben and snorton say to each other any more, or do you just pretend to?
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
quote:Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles: Actually, the send-up wasn't targeted solely at Rick.
Fair enough. *shrug* I do make an effort to keep my posts - and hopefully the exchange as a whole - comprehensible to others on the forum, rather than descending into obscure, unglossed references, foreign terms or asides intended to signal 'expertise'.
Maybe I'm kidding myself. Maybe no one else gives a fuck.
Posted by dervish (Member # 727) on :
quote:Originally posted by ben:
quote:Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles: Actually, the send-up wasn't targeted solely at Rick.
Maybe no one else gives a fuck.
Don't know how much you would appreciate a reply from me - but...
I think we give a fuck. But I don't think we think it will change snorton's viewpoint.
As for the rest of it and what we think; we already know what we think of his views. I think we already agree, by and large, with you.
Posted by MiscellaneousFiles (Member # 60) on :
quote:Originally posted by dervish: As for the rest of it and what we think; we already know what we think of his views. I think we already agree, by and large, with you.
The argument seems pointless because Rick isn't going to let you change his mind, or (obviously) vice versa.
Posted by dervish (Member # 727) on :
Would we want snorton to change our minds? Do we share the same antipathy towards ben's views?
Perhaps I shouldn't speak for everyone but if you drew a line between the two, I know which side of that line I would stand on.
Posted by damo (Member # 722) on :
wow ben, he's made yo go from defender of the realm to self doubting knight.
"am i right?" "does nobody else give a fuck?"
you're the only one willing to engage and attempt to show what a proper arguement is. the rest of us chimps point and fling shit like we're looking at a snake. i'm saying, that as unappetizing to observe the shit flinging chimp impressions, its the best way to respond. you can show your side of the arguement, provide links, all those good aspects of discussion on discussion forums. but. all thats going to happen is an interaction with a sub par turing maching.
anyway. he's not going to change my mind, you're not going to change his. i'm not going to suddenly wake up one morning and think "you know, the waffen ss got a bum deal. i'm going to read some sven hassel as a starting point and then stab a jew"
nor is norton going to wake up and say "all this, all this defence of the nazis and hatred of jews and blackes its all wrong. why look at me. i'm browne myself. why couldn't i see that i would be thrown in the chambers had i been around my beloved hitler. no wonder nobody liked me when essentially i was projecting self loathing and anger"
tea anyone?
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
Thing is, I haven't been responding to Rick in order to change his mind - as you and Misc say, that would be a waste of time. He's aware of most of the facts but has chosen to set his mind against them in order to construct a 'parallel world' version of history.
The point, I suppose, of my posts is to try and show how he's done this and what the implications are of such a pattern of distortion.
Perhaps I really oughtn't to bother myself about such things but Rick's standard pose - here or on Handbag - is to set himself up as some sort of 'expert', dispensing impromptu 'history lessons' and spiking posts on even the most vaguely connected subjects with comments relating to his hobby-horse.
Maybe seasoned hands are used to his schtick and just scroll past it, I just worry that people encountering his act for the first time might be dazzled by the apparent mastery of 'facts' and get hooked in, or at least be left with the vague feeling that 'maybe he has a point - there are always two sides to every story'.
Shit-flinging, while perfectly understandable, simply slides off Rick and - if anything - adds to his personal myth that he's some sort of hyperintelligent maverick surrounded on all sides by hordes of 'the traditional enemy'. Dragging his views out into the light and exposing them as the hybrid of plagiarism, distortion and propaganda that they are is surely likely to cause this self-proclaimed 'historian' much more distress. Even if it's unlikely to lead to an improvement in his behaviour.
Posted by dervish (Member # 727) on :
It's true that long-standing tmo posters scroll past most of it and like me feel exasperated that it keeps coming around. It is a bit reptitive to say the least. But maybe in the context of the 42% increase in attacks on Jews in the UK last year, it doesn't hurt too much to have the logical, as opposed to visceral arguments against snorton's stance repeated, even though it is unlikely than any tmo posters would actually agree with him.
Posted by Samuelnorton (Member # 48) on :
quote:Originally posted by ben: a vague mention that doesn't even use the word 'soap'
If you care to read that thread, you'll see that the poster SueDeNimm opened the worm can by writing:
quote:Their gold teeth were extracted for currency, their hair was used for stuffing pillows, their body fat was used to manufacture soap.
Sounds pretty straightforward and clear to me; if you weren't reading closely enough you could have missed it, indeed. I obviously picked on this because in spite of the academics at Yad Vashem accepting that the story is false, it still manages to get to the surface. Of course, matters are not helped by stories like this.
As for the tales of steaming and electrocution, these stories were submitted and accepted at Nuremberg, only to be replaced by the just as believable tale concerning homicidal gas chambers. Of course you haven't heard much about these claims, but if you read the testimonies and the court submissions, they are there - often in full, lurid detail. My point is that these tales are qualitative no different from the ever-changing homicidal gas chamber story, particularly concerning the three 'Reinhard' camps.
Anyway, I have things to do as I have just got back from the continent; I'll no doubt reply to your points in time, I can see no real rush.
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: If you care to read that thread, you'll see that the poster SueDeNimm opened the worm can by writing:
Apologies if I missed this - which page was this?
The point, surely of the Haaretz piece is that the experts have been swift to rebut the story. The existence of the gas chambers is well established by testimony, stacks of documentary evidence and the admission of the Nazis themselves; mentioning ridiculous, marginal stories can only be an attempt to muddy the waters and a rather sorry one at that.
Posted by Samuelnorton (Member # 48) on :
--> Page 8.
I know what you are saying about the soap story - and yes, it bores me too. But as far as I see it there are two strands to this issue - the academic debate and the matter of public perception. Yes, the soap myth has been cleaned up by the bookworms; however, as SueDeNimm's apparent knowledge of its 'occurrence' proves, it is still floating about.
As for the testimony for the gas chambers, I am more than aware of what has been presented.
- You mention testimony, but then I can argue with some justification that what we are offered is qualitatively no different from the now disused tales that were submitted at Nuremberg.
- You mention documents. Yes, there are documents. But what exactly do they say, and how have they been interpreted? And of the the hundreds of thousands of documents available, isn't is a bit odd how the number of key pieces of documentary evidence - use of euphemistic 'codewords' notwithstanding - is few and far between? The story is a complete mess, moving from stories of pre-planned gas chamber facilities, things saying one thing but really meaning something else, and then onto ad hoc installations and morgue conversions. The documents can be interpreted in any number of ways, but if you offer an interpretation that falls outside the accepted version, then you are instantly dismissed as an anti-semite, a crank, or both.
- Admissions of the Nazis - again, where do we look? Many of these so-called 'admissions' are fatally flawed, yet when needs must they are used time and again, albeit in truncated or cut and pasted form. The Gerstein Report - I'll bang on about this one more time, as it remains in the minds of many Holocaust historians as the only eye-witness account from the Nazi side on the 'Reinhard' camps - is full of holes, misnomers and outright clangers, yet it is still being used. The same for both the postwar confession and autobiography of Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Hoess, which was even used by the makers of currently-running documentary series on Auschwitz.
Many of the Nazi confessions used today are from low-ranking personnel and others who feel the need to contribute to the story because they feel it is somehow the right thing to do. Take for example the story of British Auschwitz prisoner Charlie Evans - after all, who better to tell the story to British people than one of their own. Now I really don't want to insult this clearly gentle, mild-mannered elderly gentleman but his story, when placed alongside the facts, simply doesn't fit.
Evans claims to have witnessed the arrival of cattle cars, bewildered children, and the sending of these miserable souls to to the 'gas chambers'; he then claims to have seen bodies being taken away from said installations by horse-drawn carts.
This is all extremely odd when we read that British PoWs were taken to the industrial annex camp at Monowitz; Evans was mining coal, yet claimed to witness the trains coming in laden with men, women and children - now as far as I know these trains never went to Monowitz, which was a slave labour complex - but to Birkenau, more than four miles away on the other side of the town of Oswiecim - they were hardly separated by a little fence. Also, I have never heard any story about coal mines sitting 'on the other side of a fence' from the homicidal 'gas chambers'.
While one has no reason to doubt that Charlie Evans might have been severly beaten by the guards during his imprisonment at Auschwitz, there is no logic to his claims. Indeed one can argue with some justification that Mr Evans must have either had really powerful eyesight, is slightly senile, or is simply telling porkies. You might well dismiss this as my picking on one particular easy-target eye-witness, but the fact remains that this man's story is still passed off as truth.
[ 15.02.2005, 13:12: Message edited by: Samuelnorton ]
Posted by H1ppychick (Member # 529) on :
Quick Q for Mr Norton, not really related to the thread discussions above but prompted by them.
How do you reconcile your Conservative beliefs and party affiliation, the current leadership of the Conservative Party and your beliefs regarding high-level Zionist control and vested interest in maintaining or promoting Holocaust statistics and histories that you contend are inaccurate?
I'm not trying to get at you here, I genuinely was wondering whether your party loyalties had been at all affected by having a Jewish Leader?
Posted by Samuelnorton (Member # 48) on :
Hippy:
I have lost faith in the Conservatives generally, and this has nothing to do with the current leadership. However, I have been more than irritated by Howard's jumping on the 'holocaust' bandwagon, and his statements to that effect. Some of them have been quite absurd, including an interview with the Mail in which he claimed that one of his aunts had been 'taken to the gas chamber twice,' and that 'on one occasion they ran out of gas and so she survived. On the other there was some malfunction.'
That said, he did refuse to sign this country up to the sort of crazy 'holocaust denial' legislation that has been firmly entrenched in Europe, which is something that Bleurgh and his minions would not have done.
ETA:
Seeing as it is related to this issue, it appears that it is not only individuals who run the risk of offending certain whingers, but scenic winter resorts as well. Pathetic, truly pathetic.
[ 15.02.2005, 18:57: Message edited by: Samuelnorton ]
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: You mention testimony, but then I can argue with some justification that what we are offered is qualitatively no different from the now disused tales that were submitted at Nuremberg.
Given that you've decided that the Final Solution was some sort of myth anyway it's natural to expect you to 'argue with' the mass of testimony that doesn't agree with your outlook. Quite frankly, if it's a question of weighing up the accounts of thousands of people who were alive and present at the time under discussion or the tales told by someone born decades afterwards who has 'a problem with Jews' I know which I'm going to find more convincing.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: You mention documents. Yes, there are documents. But what exactly do they say, and how have they been interpreted? And of the the hundreds of thousands of documents available, isn't is a bit odd how the number of key pieces of documentary evidence - use of euphemistic 'codewords' notwithstanding - is few and far between? .
Your warped outlook skews the very questions you ask. Between 1939-45 the Jews of Europe - especially Eastern Europe - were killed in huge numbers. This is indisputable. Hunting down, imprisonment, torture and slaughter were all state policy of the Nazis - Hitler prophesied he was going to do this and he pretty much did it... with huge amounts of resource, expertise and effort devoted specifically to the task. This is also indisputable.
If you propose that neither of these things took place there's not a lot of point discussing particular pieces of evidence with you because you're basically just a weirdo conspiracy theorist - not far off the flying saucer artists, freemason junkies, blood-drinking lizard nuts and Master Race enthusiasts.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: The documents can be interpreted in any number of ways, but if you offer an interpretation that falls outside the accepted version, then you are instantly dismissed as an anti-semite, a crank, or both.
With good reason. If a memo from one SS official to another (I will edit later to provide a full reference) talks about how, of a group of Serbian Jews, the men have all been shot and the women and children are to be 'processed' using a "delousing van" (the term enclosed in meaningful quote marks) after which process the particular area will have been 'cleared' of Jews, there's really only one interpretation that can be made of that document. To claim that you can interpret it 'any number of ways' is really to admit that you aren't actually interested in interpretation at all - you're dismissing according to prejudice.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: I'll bang on about this one more time, as it remains in the minds of many Holocaust historians as the only eye-witness account from the Nazi side on the 'Reinhard' camps.
'One more time'? Somehow I doubt that very much. The clue to your approach lies in the fact that you devote so much energy to trying to dismiss Nazi accounts (good grief, personal testimony from wartime contains 'inconsistencies' - shock-horror, whatever next?). To you it's clearly axiomatic that Jewish eyewitnesses can be dismissed out of hand because they're all liars.
There are massive 'inconsistencies' in accounts of the Dresden bombing - to the degree that David Irving proposes figures ranging from 35,000 to 135,000 to 250,000 killed, all based on apparently 'compelling' evidence. Never hear any 'revisionsts' complaining about that one, or crowing about the evidently defective arithmatic of Irving - quite the opposite, in fact. All that being the case, maybe we should be putting the Dresden myth to bed, once and for all - especially after all the browbeating about it in the media in recent weeks etc etc
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Many of the Nazi confessions used today are from low-ranking personnel and others who feel the need to contribute to the story because they feel it is somehow the right thing to do.
Oh right. Still, I suppose that 'gets rid' of a whole pile of other evidence, doesn't it?
Anyone wanting to assess the testimony of Nazis or former Nazis for themselves should check out Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: You might well dismiss this as my picking on one particular easy-target eye-witness, but the fact remains that this man's story is still passed off as truth.
Easy targets are your speciality - that and straw men. I suppose more convincing testimony from Jews would simply be written off under your 'no Jews' rule. Laurence Rees's excellent documentary on Auschwitz contained fascinating material from a wide range of eyewitnesses. I doubt anyone who watched it could listen you crank out your nonsense yet again without feeling their stomach turn.
[ 16.02.2005, 09:10: Message edited by: ben ]
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Gerstein [...] the only eye-witness account from the Nazi side on the 'Reinhard' camps
As usual, a little checking up reveals somewhat more than Snorton makes out.
quote:5.4.2.1 The second category of eyewitnesses is comprised of Germans who were stationed at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Twenty-nine such German camp personnel were indicted and brought before German courts in the 1950's and 1960's. They all gave pre-trial depositions. Many claimed that they had had no choice but to carry out the duties that they had been assigned, and many denied that they had committed any harmful or malicious acts beyond routine compliance with their obligatory duties. But none of them denied that the camps were equipped with gas chambers, in which hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed. At least 26 of the 29 had prior experience in the so-called "euthanasia" program, in which German mentally- and physically handicapped were gassed in one of six "institutes" or killing centers in Germany.
5.4.2.2 Of these 29 men, Franz Stangl held the highest rank as commandant of first Sobibor and then Treblinka. Outside of judicial proceedings, he also gave extensive testimony in long interviews with the British journalist, Gitta Sereny, that are easily accessible in her book, Into That Darkness. The testimony of Franz Suchomel, a guard at Treblinka, who was interviewed at length on hidden camera by Claude Lanzmann, can be seen and heard in latter's documentary film Shoah. Among the judicial testimonies of the other 27 camp personnel brought to trial in Germany were those of Alfred Schluch, Hermann Gley, Erich Bauer, and Heinrich Matthes.
Snorton claims to have a good understanding of the subject - he's either lying about how ignorant he is or lying about the richness, variety and consistency of the evidence. Take your pick.
A tremendously useful site - and reviewing the Judgement turns up quite a few of the distorting tactics familiar from our own miniature Irving.
[ 16.02.2005, 09:14: Message edited by: ben ]
Posted by My Name Is Joe (Member # 530) on :
Not entirely relevant, but I read this (somewhat dated) essay yesterday and thought of Rick, especially this part:
quote: Middle-class woman: “Well, no one could call me anti-Semitic, but I do think the way these Jews behave is too absolutely stinking. The way they push their way to the head of queues, and so on. They’re so abominably selfish. I think they’re responsible for a lot of what happens to them.”
Posted by dang65 (Member # 102) on :
quote:Originally posted by My Name Is Joe: this (somewhat dated) essay (February 1945):
quote:There are about 400,000 known Jews in Britain, and in addition some thousands or, at most, scores of thousands of Jewish refugees who have entered the country from 1934 onwards.
quote:Originally posted by ben: Given that you've decided that the Final Solution was some sort of myth anyway it's natural to expect you to 'argue with' the mass of testimony that doesn't agree with your outlook.
In fairness, this 'natural' principle is applied in equal measure by both sides in this debate. If there is an argument to be made, people will usually target the areas that are most at odds with their position.
quote:Quite frankly, if it's a question of weighing up the accounts of thousands of people who were alive and present at the time under discussion or the tales told by someone born decades afterwards who has 'a problem with Jews' I know which I'm going to find more convincing.
This is not a proper argument, Ben. Of course, thousands of people saying one thing will sound far more compelling that a few saying something else. For centuries people believed that the earth was flat.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Your warped outlook skews the very questions you ask. Between 1939-45 the Jews of Europe - especially Eastern Europe - were killed in huge numbers. This is indisputable. Hunting down, imprisonment, torture and slaughter were all state policy of the Nazis - Hitler prophesied he was going to do this and he pretty much did it... with huge amounts of resource, expertise and effort devoted specifically to the task. This is also indisputable.
I have no problem with this statement. 'Hunting down, imprisonment, torture and slaughter' - I have never cast any shred of doubt that these things happened. Likewise with the resources that were employed. My particular focus is and always has been on the aspect of the 'holocaust' story that makes it what it is - the capital-H 'Holocaust' - the story of the homicidal 'gas chambers'.
quote:If you propose that neither of these things took place there's not a lot of point discussing particular pieces of evidence with you because you're basically just a weirdo conspiracy theorist - not far off the flying saucer artists, freemason junkies, blood-drinking lizard nuts and Master Race enthusiasts.
Well as you can see from the above I have proposed otherwise, and unreservedly so.
quote:With good reason. If a memo from one SS official to another (I will edit later to provide a full reference) talks about how, of a group of Serbian Jews, the men have all been shot and the women and children are to be 'processed' using a "delousing van" (the term enclosed in meaningful quote marks) after which process the particular area will have been 'cleared' of Jews, there's really only one interpretation that can be made of that document. To claim that you can interpret it 'any number of ways' is really to admit that you aren't actually interested in interpretation at all - you're dismissing according to prejudice.
The task of any analyst is to study each document aganist a given set of rules and contexts. Fundamental to this analysis are mathematics and logic. In short - if it couldn't happen, then it probably didn't.
In the case above, the first question I would ask is why would one method - shooting - by applied to the men and another method - I assume gassing - be applied to the women and children? It simply doesn't make sense. Anyway, I'll have a look at the document when you post it.
quote:'One more time'? Somehow I doubt that very much.
For the purpose of our current line of discussion, I think I have said all that needs to be said. Unless, of course, we choose to have a specific discussion and appraisal of the evidence for the 'Reinhard' camps, for which this document (PS-1553) is referenced, in part or whole, by most if not all of those who have written about it.
quote:The clue to your approach lies in the fact that you devote so much energy to trying to dismiss Nazi accounts (good grief, personal testimony from wartime contains 'inconsistencies' - shock-horror, whatever next?). To you it's clearly axiomatic that Jewish eyewitnesses can be dismissed out of hand because they're all liars.
Not true. Everything I choose to comment on is based on bringing together the established facts and weighing up each eyewitness account against that. The story of Charlie Evans (referred in my last post) is a case in point; his story sounds compelling enough in the wider context of the 'holocaust' story, but taken by itself and measured up against the facts, it becomes apparent that the story is highly questionable. From this, one could suggest that his memory is simply hazy or that he is - gasp! - a liar.
quote:There are massive 'inconsistencies' in accounts of the Dresden bombing - to the degree that David Irving proposes figures ranging from 35,000 to 135,000 to 250,000 killed, all based on apparently 'compelling' evidence. Never hear any 'revisionsts' complaining about that one, or crowing about the evidently defective arithmatic of Irving - quite the opposite, in fact.
You've never heard 'holocaust' revisionists discuss Dresden because it is not directly related to the 'holocaust' - so you are jabbing at a straw man here. That said, while I do classify the firebombing of Dresden as a war crime, I am of the opinion that Irving's figures are somewhat bloated.
quote:Anyone wanting to assess the testimony of Nazis or former Nazis for themselves should check out Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men.
I have only had a cursory look at this work; it has no relevance to the 'gas chamber' claim, but focuses specifically on the actions carried out the Police Battalion 101.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Easy targets are your speciality - that and straw men. I suppose more convincing testimony from Jews would simply be written off under your 'no Jews' rule.
As I have said many times previously, there two levels to this debate, the academic and the public. It so happens to be that the majority of the 'easy targets' are in the public arena. The same applies to those who target revisionists - the targets are the same: perceived 'anti-Semites', obvious neo-Nazis, long-dead revisionists and the likes of David Irving, who by his own admission isn't even a 'holocaust' historian but little more than a doubting Thomas. There is far more mileage in writing articles on a fairly well-known figure like Irving than getting to grips with the specialist works of the likes of Germar Rudolf, Juergen Graf and Carlo Mattogno.
As for the 'holocaust' academics, they too have decided to target the weak links - they too have found it a lot easier to focus on Irving; as for taking on the specialists from the revisionist school, they'd rather employ the 'non-debate' tactic and throw about the familiar slurs.
quote:Laurence Rees's excellent documentary on Auschwitz contained fascinating material from a wide range of eyewitnesses. I doubt anyone who watched it could listen you crank out your nonsense yet again without feeling their stomach turn.
I agree it was fascinating. And yes, I am sure a lot of people might feel their stomachs turning. But this feeling would have nothing to do with the matter of historical truth, but offended sensibilities.
[ 16.02.2005, 12:00: Message edited by: Samuelnorton ]
Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: In the case above, the first question I would ask is why would one method - shooting - by applied to the men and another method - I assume gassing - be applied to the women and children? It simply doesn't make sense.
If I had to off a lot of people I'd probably machine-gun en masse the ones most likely and most able to resist, then you could take your time and use a more cost-effective method on the women and kids. Also, if there should be any popular resistance to your activities and corpses were found you could maybe explain away the women and children's deaths as the result of a disease, if they were bullet-riddled that story wouldn't wash. Machine-gunned men? You were quelling an uprising or shooting escapees.
EDIT: repetition
[ 16.02.2005, 13:03: Message edited by: Black Mask ]
Posted by Samuelnorton (Member # 48) on :
quote:Originally posted by ben: As usual, a little checking up reveals more than Snorton makes out.
Even some 'holocaust' historians agree with me, though. Of the Gerstein Report, Gerald Reitlinger said that it "...contains the only description of the death camps as seen through the eyes of a German official." (Reitlinger, Gerald. The SS: Alibi of a Nation 1922-1945 (1986), p. 285)
quote:The second category of eyewitnesses is comprised of Germans who were stationed at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Twenty-nine such German camp personnel were indicted and brought before German courts in the 1950's and 1960's. They all gave pre-trial depositions. Many claimed that they had had no choice but to carry out the duties that they had been assigned, and many denied that they had committed any harmful or malicious acts beyond routine compliance with their obligatory duties. But none of them denied that the camps were equipped with gas chambers, in which hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed. At least 26 of the 29 had prior experience in the so-called "euthanasia" program, in which German mentally- and physically handicapped were gassed in one of six "institutes" or killing centers in Germany.
This is all well and good, but it hides the fact that when these men were brought before the courts, the trials were conducted on the established basis the the 'gas chambers' existed. Therefore, the logical tactic of the defence would have been to work within this and try as best they could to minimise the risk of a lengthier sentence. As revisionist William Lindsey has argued,
quote:To deny that Jews had been maliciously killed en masse by Germany in a tribunal whose very existence was based upon the intent to establish without doubt that Jews had been killed was as fatal to the defendant in 1946 as it would have been to an accused medieval heretic who before his inquisitors guaranteed his condemnation on whatever charge by throwing in for the hell of it a denial of the existence of the Trinity and the Divinity of Jesus.
(W. B. Lindsey in The Journal of Historical Review, Vol. 4 No. 3 (Institute for Historical Review, Autumn 1983), p. 265
To dispute the premise of 'gas chambers' would have constituted 'obdurate denial', which would have in turn precluded a reduction in the sentence or a pardon from the start. (cf. J. Graf, The Giant with feet of clay, p.92
quote:Of these 29 men, Franz Stangl held the highest rank as commandant of first Sobibor and then Treblinka. Outside of judicial proceedings, he also gave extensive testimony in long interviews with the British journalist, Gitta Sereny, that are easily accessible in her book, Into That Darkness.
There are no transcripts for the conversations held between Sereny and Stangl; the man died shortly after she had finished the interview, and it would have been very easy to put words into the mouth of a dead man, particularly a Nazi war criminal.
quote:The testimony of Franz Suchomel, a guard at Treblinka, who was interviewed at length on hidden camera by Claude Lanzmann, can be seen and heard in latter's documentary film Shoah. Among the judicial testimonies of the other 27 camp personnel brought to trial in Germany were those of Alfred Schluch, Hermann Gley, Erich Bauer, and Heinrich Matthes.
Suchomel, one of Lanzmann's star witnesses, served up this improbable tale previously unheard of in the history of the Holocaust - the story of Germans dragging the corpses because the Jews "didn't want to":
quote:Suchomel: No one wanted to clean it out [the rotting heaps of corpses]. The Jews preferred to be shot rather than work there. [...] So Wirth went there himself with a few Germans and had long belts rigged up that were wrapped around the dead torsos to pull them. [...] they themselves helped with the cleanup. Lanzmann: Which Germans did that? Suchomel: Some of our guards who were assigned up there. Lanzmann: The Germans themselves? Suchomel: They had to. Lanzmann: They were in command! Suchomel: They were in command, but they were also commanded. Lanzmann: I think the Jews did it. Suchomel: In that case, the Germans had to lend a hand.
What a story! Another 'easy target' though, I guess...
As for Suchomel's interaction with the infamous 'gas chambers', he actually claimed that never actually witnessed a 'gassing'.
Faurisson:
quote:He never talks about having been present at a gassing. He says that on the day of his arrival "just at the moment when we were passing by, they were in the process of opening the doors of the gas chamber ... and the people fell out like sacks of potatoes." Therefore, at most he saw some bodies. Nothing would have justified him in claiming that the place was a gas chamber. He had just arrived. At best he was reporting a guess. Besides, everything that he says implies that in this camp there were some Jews, some bodies, perhaps one or more funeral pyres and, probably, some showers and some disinfection gas chambers. He shows a portion of a plan but only very vaguely. What is this plan? He talks authoritatively about gassings at Auschwitz, where he never set foot. He talks with equal authority about the gassings at Treblinka, but never as an eyewitness. He is like those self-taught persons who show off the results of their reading on a given subject, but are confounded by a simple, direct and precise question. But Lanzmann never asks Suchomel that kind of question.
R. Faurisson, "Shoah: a review" (source: VHO website)
[ 16.02.2005, 13:10: Message edited by: Samuelnorton ]
Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: To dispute the premise of 'gas chambers' would have constituted 'obdurate denial', which would have in turn precluded a reduction in the sentence or a pardon from the start.
So, what you're saying is that none of these guys had the courage, honour or dignity to tell the truth? They'd paint themselves, their comrades, their entire generation as butchers in order to scrape a pardon or to get a lighter sentence?
Posted by Samuelnorton (Member # 48) on :
quote:Originally posted by Black Mask: So, what you're saying is that none of these guys had the courage, honour or dignity to tell the truth? They'd paint themselves, their comrades, their entire generation as butchers in order to scrape a pardon or to get a lighter sentence?
In a word, yes. Those who staffed the concentration camps were not soldiers - indeed many of them were sent to work at these places on account of the fact that they severly lacked soldierly qualities. Courage, honour and dignity could have been found in spades among the ranks of their distant compatriots in the Waffen-SS, but among the goons who spent all their time getting pissed and clubbing imates to death when the mood suited them - no chance.
Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Courage, honour and dignity could have been found in spades among the ranks of their distant compatriots in the Waffen-SS,
Spades? In the SS?
Posted by Samuelnorton (Member # 48) on :
lol, indeed. perhaps I should have used 'abundance' instead. Fnar.
Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: In a word, yes.
Okay. So, their are at least two distinct types of soldier operating in Nazi Germany. The Noble SS and the Death-camp Goons. Were the Death-camp Goons actually under anybody's control (you know, officers, administrators, politicians?) or were they coincidentally pursuing a bloody Final Solution that serendipitously mirrored the theoretical schematics proposed by the Nazi elite?
Posted by MiscellaneousFiles (Member # 60) on :
quote:Originally posted by Black Mask: "serendipitously mirrored" by The Death-camp Goons
I think my dad has that on vinyl.
[ 16.02.2005, 16:16: Message edited by: MiscellaneousFiles ]
Posted by My Name Is Joe (Member # 530) on :
.
[ 17.02.2005, 09:26: Message edited by: My Name Is Joe ]
Posted by discodamage (Member # 66) on :
put it back you pussy. ben wont be able to bash away at this for much longer now t'babby's on it's way. we need to start training up a new and equally valiant troop of denial-deniers.
Posted by My Name Is Joe (Member # 530) on :
I decided ages ago to stop helping give this drivel the oxygen of publicity. I just forgot myself for a moment.
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Of the Gerstein Report, Gerald Reitlinger said that it "...contains the only description of the death camps as seen through the eyes of a German official." (Reitlinger, Gerald. The SS: Alibi of a Nation 1922-1945 (1986), p. 285)
The question I posed above was whether you were ignorant of other eyewitness evidence about the Reinhard camps or whether you were being dishonest about it.
A line from a book from twenty years ago doesn't automatically provide you with an alibi for not being honest. First you claim there's 'no other' evidence, then it seems you're actually more than aware that such evidence exists - going through well-rehearsed motions of 'explaining away' one source after another.
It shouldn't need to be pointed out but you're making a total twat of yourself.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: This [ie. evidence provided by camp personnel in post-war trials] is all well and good, but it hides the fact that when these men were brought before the courts, the trials were conducted on the established basis the the 'gas chambers' existed. Therefore, the logical tactic of the defence would have been to work within this and try as best they could to minimise the risk of a lengthier sentence.)
Is this an example of your self-proclaimed 'logic'? Gassing was a lie because the people testifying about it had to lie to hide the fact that it was a lie? Such circular claptrap frees you of making any attempt to weigh up anything like 'evidence', I suppose, but it's doesn't remotely resemble anything that could be described as history - at best, cheap taproom sophistry.
To 'support' your position you quote a revisionist nut. (Not an insult, the 'Institute of Historical Review' is widely recognised as a rabble of revisionist nuts.) If that's the best you can do, I guess you must have given up on being anything other than a mail-order conspiracy nerd.
Aside from anything else, Lindsey's unsubstantiated claim about how denying the holocaust meant 'death' in 1946 is utterly irrelevant, if you re-read the quote above:
quote:The second category of eyewitnesses is comprised of Germans who were stationed at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Twenty-nine such German camp personnel were indicted and brought before German courts in the 1950's and 1960's.
The trials I've read about that took place from the 50's onwards generally resulted in disgracefully lenient sentences - the death penalty was not something these people were afeared of. Your 'logic' is purely circumstantial supposition as opposed to a variety of signed, sworn statements given without coercion.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: There are no transcripts for the conversations held between Sereny and Stangl; the man died shortly after she had finished the interview, and it would have been very easy to put words into the mouth of a dead man, particularly a Nazi war criminal.)
It's a bit rich for you to base arguments on nothing more than unsubstantiated, illogical supposition then demand interview 'transcripts' from a widely-respected journalist and historian such as Sereny.
It isn't standard practice for journalists to publish the notes they make along with or appended to the finished work that results - to make out that not having done so 'proves' that Sereny fabricated the whole thing is more an indictment of your own desperation than of her journalistic integrity.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Suchomel, one of Lanzmann's star witnesses, served up this improbable tale previously unheard of in the history of the Holocaust - the story of Germans dragging the corpses because the Jews "didn't want to" [...] What a story! Another 'easy target' though, I guess....)
Not really - extracted from its context it's hard to assess the circumstances of the fragment you quote, but is it really so inconceivable that Nazi functionaries might have to get their hands dirty from time to time?
Your triumphant 'What a story!' would be far easier to apply to some of the crazy mass delusion/conspiracy of thousands stuff implied by your own position.
Again, that position is undermined rather than strenghtened by resorting to quoting yet another revisionist crackpot (Faurisson) rather than weighing up evidence for yourself then arguing in a convincing way. Such heavy reliance on these cranks would surely not be necessary if you'd ever undertaken anything like the 'personal research' you like to boast about.
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
quote:Originally posted by Black Mask: If I had to off a lot of people I'd probably machine-gun en masse the ones most likely and most able to resist, then you could take your time and use a more cost-effective method on the women and kids. Also, if there should be any popular resistance to your activities and corpses were found you could maybe explain away the women and children's deaths as the result of a disease, if they were bullet-riddled that story wouldn't wash. Machine-gunned men? You were quelling an uprising or shooting escapees.
While they seem to have had few qualms about gunning down thousands of Jewish men, the German army found it understandably distressing to have to shoot women and children (perhaps it offended their sense of 'honour', as breathily eulogised by Snorton's websites). As the Final Solution evolved, the mass killing of women and children was increasingly depersonalised - the ultimate expression of which was the gas chamber.
Anyway - here's a link to the letter I mentioned; originally cited by Christopher Browning in his Bureaucracy and Mass Murder: the German Administrator's Comprehension of the Final Solution.
Posted by jnhoj (Member # 286) on :
i read maus, seemed pretty straight forward. there were a load of mice, a lot of them died, the cuties thought they were going to have showers. WRONG.
Why does anyone care about mice? Posted by Samuelnorton (Member # 48) on :
quote:The question I posed above was whether you were ignorant of other eyewitness evidence about the Reinhard camps or whether you were being dishonest about it. A line from a book from twenty years ago doesn't automatically provide you with an alibi for not being honest. First you claim there's 'no other' evidence, then it seems you're actually more than aware that such evidence exists - going through well-rehearsed motions of 'explaining away' one source after another.
You can believe what you like; Gerstein remains probably the most compelling eye-witness for the 'Reinhard' camps for many, hence the continued use of his testimony in spite of the gaping holes and contradictions. In terms of providing an actual description of the 'gassing' process, I don't think there is any other testimony that goes into such dramatic detail.
quote:Is this an example of your self-proclaimed 'logic'? Gassing was a lie because the people testifying about it had to lie to hide the fact that it was a lie? Such circular claptrap frees you of making any attempt to weigh up anything like 'evidence', I suppose, but it's doesn't remotely resemble anything that could be described as history - at best, cheap taproom sophistry.
The tactic of the defence is logical if you bear in mind that they were essentially show trials, given that the central allegation had been taken as an established and undeniable fact.
quote:To 'support' your position you quote a revisionist nut. (Not an insult, the 'Institute of Historical Review' is widely recognised as a rabble of revisionist nuts.) If that's the best you can do, I guess you must have given up on being anything other than a mail-order conspiracy nerd.
I'd rather not get into a game of tit-for-tat about our respective sources, Ben. You are quick to go along with the idea that the IHR are a 'rabble of revisionist nuts', but the source for your justification is none other than Nizkor - whom I could argue are a bunch of Zionist zealots determined to silence dissent on this topic at any cost. I'd like to think that we could go beyond that and see each others' points as they stand; it is simply no good if you adopt the standard line and ignore every argument offered by revisionists simply because they - and not their arguments - have been at the sharp end of criticism by a specialist watchgroup like Nizkor.
quote:It's a bit rich for you to base arguments on nothing more than unsubstantiated, illogical supposition then demand interview 'transcripts' from a widely-respected journalist and historian such as Sereny.
It isn't standard practice for journalists to publish the notes they make along with or appended to the finished work that results - to make out that not having done so 'proves' that Sereny fabricated the whole thing is more an indictment of your own desperation than of her journalistic integrity.
You would have expected a journalist of Sereny's stature to record the conversations, particularly when interviewing such an important subject such as Franz Stangl. Usually, when conducting a long interview - Sereny spoke to Stangl for around 70 hours - one would be expected to record it, transcribe the recordings and from there generate the material for any published work. I am no legal expert, and it would be interesting to see what those in the profession might think of this - essentially, would such an 'interview' be admissible in a court of law as evidence? Stangl died shortly after he was interviewed by Sereny, and we have no way of proving whether what she wrote is wholly truthful or not.
Lubomyr Prytulak (a 'revisionist nut', you would no doubt suggest) wrote this very reasonable letter to Sereny; I am unsure as to whether he received a reply.
quote:Not really - extracted from its context it's hard to assess the circumstances of the fragment you quote, but is it really so inconceivable that Nazi functionaries might have to get their hands dirty from time to time?
Indeed they did get their hands dirty - but only after the liberation of certain camps when they and local townspeople were ordered to by the British. The argument suggested by Suchomel that Jews would rather have been shot than shift the corpses runs completely at odds with all those heroic tales of the many Sonderkommandos who spent years clearing out the 'gas chambers' simply because they wanted to survive. In any case, don't you find it doubtful that the Germans would let the Jews sit by, sigh 'oh well, let's do it then' and start moving the bodies themselves? Of course not - for according to the standard story, they would have shot the dissenters and brought along a new batch, who would have no doubt carried out the task at double pace. Whichever way you look at it, the story is completely ridiculous.
quote:Again, that position is undermined rather than strenghtened by resorting to quoting yet another revisionist crackpot (Faurisson) rather than weighing up evidence for yourself then arguing in a convincing way. Such heavy reliance on these cranks would surely not be necessary if you'd ever undertaken anything like the 'personal research' you like to boast about.
When I weigh up the stories and reach a given conclusion, I am accusing of aping 'revisionist nuts'. When I offer a quote, I am accused of quoting 'revisionist nuts'. I can't win. I might as well suggest that you are always quoting Zionist zealots and have done with all of this; we could cancel each other out and call it a day. I guess that no revisionist argument could ever be 'convincing' to those who maintain a rigid adherence to the accepted story - to the point where people have jumped through hoops to accommodate some of the more suspect claims and testimonies. I get the distinct feeling that even if you were faced with some document or testimony that suggested Josef Mengele sprouted wings and could fly (like a real 'angel of death'), you'd find some way of arguing that it was something other than ridiculous. The likes of Lipstadt would argue it away by suggesting that it was a valuable 'interpretation' of events that actually happened, much like her approach to the hack Wilkomirski. (Yes, him again).
I can only suppose that you have concluded that Faurisson is a 'crackpot' through your reading the works of the likes of Lipstadt or the skewed reports that can be found on sites like Nizkor. Lipstadt is touted by many as the great crusader against the 'insidious revisionists', but her key work doesn't actually address the arguments; indeed, she suggests that no argument should be had. Instead, she focuses on the individuals themselves, pointing out real (and imagined) relationships that exist between them, and throwing about words like 'nut', 'anti-semite', 'crank' and 'crackpot'. I guess it is fairly simple - someone questions the currently accepted 'gas chamber' story, they are a 'holocaust denier' - which naturally leads to the argument that if they are mad or bad enough to deny the 'holocaust' (whatever that might be) they are 'nuts'.
[ 17.02.2005, 15:24: Message edited by: Samuelnorton ]
Posted by New Way Of Decay (Member # 106) on :
I thought you weren't going to mention the jews?
Posted by ben (Member # 13) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: You can believe what you like; Gerstein remains probably the most compelling eye-witness for the 'Reinhard' camps for many, hence the continued use of his testimony in spite of the gaping holes and contradictions. In terms of providing an actual description of the 'gassing' process, I don't think there is any other testimony that goes into such dramatic detail.
This is pretty much the crux of your approach. When you said Gerstein was the 'only' account from the Nazi side on the Reinhard camps you stated that as though it were a fact. Now we're getting the 'probablies' and 'I don't thinks' it's pretty clear that this was, in fact an opinion. The study of history is completely impossible unless people are explict about what can be established as facts (properly referenced) and where exactly their own interpretations of such evidence begin and end.
It's impossible to tell with you what is fact and what opinion - as demonstrated above, things you advance as facts can, upon examination, turn out to be only a partial account. When pressed on such partiality you come out with a bunch of solipsistic arguments for why you feel able to dismiss whole heaps of evidence out of hand - without even having examined it.
Your statement above pretty much shows why. You've clearly made great sport of 'picking holes' in a document with which you're familiar (you're familiar, at any rate, with the tactics of deniers who have made Gerstein their personal hobby) - the idea that you might be presented with other more convincing, consistent evidence is too much for you to bear. You dismiss it out of hand. This isn't the behaviour of someone who wants to establish the truth - it's the behaviour of someone clinging on to a worldview they want to maintain at all costs.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: The tactic of the defence is logical if you bear in mind that they were essentially show trials, given that the central allegation had been taken as an established and undeniable fact.
It's the 'given that' which gives away the instability and tendentiousness of your argument. You're demanding to see 'evidence' that the Final Solution existed while arguing that such evidence must - by its very nature - be fabricated because the Final Solution is a myth... therefore you refuse even to consider it.
This is what Holocaust Deniers call 'debate'.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: You are quick to go along with the idea that the IHR are a 'rabble of revisionist nuts', but the source for your justification is none other than Nizkor - whom I could argue are a bunch of Zionist zealots determined to silence dissent on this topic at any cost.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: I'd like to think that we could go beyond that and see each others' points as they stand; it is simply no good if you adopt the standard line and ignore every argument offered by revisionists simply because
I'm not offering a 'standard line' on anything. I've analysed your tactics and found them deceitful and the best, fullest length scholarly study of a leading denier (ie. Richard Evans's study of how David Irving distorts history) is comprehensive on how perverted an approach even the most 'respecatble' Holocaust deniers take. You seem to be trying to wriggle away from your former hero (too compromised, clearly) but he's still lauded at 'revisionist' conferences worldwide and the more obscure cranks you seem to defer to now have shared a platform with him and other less savoury characters in the past.
It's easy enough for people to check up for themselves on the main pedlars of 'Denial' - you're clearly too far gone, but I'm pretty confident that most people of sound mind would form a pretty poor impression of such characters.
Oh, look...
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Lubomyr Prytulak (a 'revisionist nut', you would no doubt suggest) wrote this very reasonable letter to Sereny; I am unsure as to whether he received a reply.
Why would Sereny waste time replying to mischief-making revisionist? One letter from one side of a correspondence we cannot be sure ever took place is pretty feeble 'evidence' - even for you.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: The argument suggested by Suchomel that Jews would rather have been shot than shift the corpses runs completely at odds with all those heroic tales of the many Sonderkommandos who spent years clearing out the 'gas chambers' simply because they wanted to survive.
But surely you would contend that Sonderkommando testimony was 'false' owing to the fact that they never cleared bodies from gas chambers because gas chambers never existed? So... you're writing off one testimony as 'false' because it doesn't accord with other testimony you believe to be false...
I would invite anyone reading this thread to turn that over in their minds a few times and reflect on the sheer retardedness of the 'argument' here.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: When I weigh up the stories and reach a given conclusion, I am accusing of aping 'revisionist nuts'. When I offer a quote, I am accused of quoting 'revisionist nuts'. I can't win. I might as well suggest that you are always quoting Zionist zealots and have done with all of this; we could cancel each other out and call it a day.
But you did quote revisionist nuts (Lindsey and Faurisson) - you did so above. I provided links to support my contention that they're nuts and other links to material (primary and secondary) I consider supports what I'm saying about the Final Solution. If you were to accuse me of quoting 'Zionist nuts' all you would succeed in doing is looking stupider than you do already
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Wilkomirski. (Yes, him again).
Why don't you just add Wikomirski and the claptrap about electrocution/boiling to your signature file - it would save you the effort of typing the words out again and again and again.
Wilkomirski was exposed nearly seven years ago. Your repeated resort to his discredited case implies you're pretty low on explosive new revelations and underlines the point that denial/revisionism is pretty much one instance of regurgitation after another.
Your confected dismay at my 'unwillingness' to debate with you is a novel twist, I suppose, but wholly unjustified. How can anyone debate with a person unable (or unwilling) to make a distiction between fact and opinion, between evidence and interpretation, between interpretation and rejection according to prejudice, between logic and solipsism?
As I stated explicitly on previous occasions, all I want to do is try to expose the workings of your partial and distorted methods. Whether I've succeeded is for others to judge.
Posted by My Name Is Joe (Member # 530) on :
You succeeded about 4 years ago Ben.
Posted by Black Mask (Member # 185) on :
Let's have a show of hands.
Who believes in the Holocaust?
Posted by Thorn Davis (Member # 65) on :
I'm glad ben is here ridiculing Snorton's debating techniques, so we don't have to. I especially enjoyed ben highlighting the idea of Snorton dismissing one testimony as rubbish, because it's contradicted by something else... which he doesn't believe to be true, anyway. I mean - that is, surely, pretty thick?
Posted by Tom Boy (Member # 765) on :
quote:Originally posted by My Name Is Joe: You succeeded about 4 years ago Ben.
but dont stop this is far more interesting and informative than any history lesson I ever had at school. Snorton? hello?
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