TMoran:
If one is a Holocaust revisionist and denies being a denier that's falling into the trap set by the Holocaust community.
I agree. The "holospeak" matter and how to beat it by turning it against the propagandists that peddle it, has always interested me. I will repost here some previous ideas on the subject that I have frequently mentioned elsewhere.
I disagree with the idea that the label "Holocaust denier" is a negative one that should be avoided. I believe, on the contrary, that it is a fortunate one, since it gives one an opportunity to bring the dogmatic, unscientific character of the "Holocaust" into focus. What should at all times be driven home is the fact that what we, like everybody else, call the "Holocaust", is a precise set of alleged events that in fact can be shown to rest on no historical grounds. Any attempt to avoid the clear (and indeed well-known!) boundaries of the "Holocaust" should be refused. The "Arno Meyer gambit" should be left for the Arno Meyers of this world. The goal should be to expose the historical lie, not to help it survive and thrive.
Allow me to explain what I mean by quoting a letter of mine posted to David Irving's site:
"Many people would say that they take the "Holocaust", at least in part, to be "a fact", and that it would take quite a lot of persuading for them to believe that "the whole thing" is a fiction. Indeed even David Irving himself, as far as I know, rejects the plain and simple label of "Holocaust denier". This is quite understandable, but what exactly are we talking about when we use the word? Can a word be accepted as "a fact", even a "partial fact", regardless of previous definition?
"Obviously, we can construe complex sets of events into "single historical facts" and maintain an epistemological validity to our discourse if a clear definition of our meaning exists. Historical narrative would be a desert of intractable minutiae if we didn't do just that. Thus, the Second World War might well be called a fact, much like the fact that I'm writing you a letter, or any other simple empirical truth. This is because, in spite of the great complexity of the historical events, we establish definitions and understand them: a "war" is a state of belligerence between states, a "world war" is a war of global world significance, and "the Second World War" is the particular world war that took place between 1939 and 1945.
"Similarly, if we are to take the "Holocaust" as "a historical fact", rather than a vague set of religious-like beliefs, we should define our meaning. For instance, biblical "holocausts" were simply sacrifices consumed by fire, and "ill-will towards the Jews", "persecution of the Jews", "the shooting of one's Jewish grandfather in Russia" or "some mass killings of Jews" are not "The Holocaust", the one historians are talking about when they capitalise the noun. I presume every reasonable person would agree that it is impossible to debate the supposedly historical "Holocaust" fact if -- alone among historical facts -- it is allowed to remain an open concept devoid of meaning and form.
"Now, the "Holocaust" concept, the factuality of which we are talking about, is assumed -- by both the faithful and the deniers -- to be a relatively precise set of events (true or false, according to each of the positions) involving an attempted extermination of the Jews, resulting in approximately 6 million of them being murdered, mainly in German homicidal gas chambers, during the Second World War. I believe anyone who has been around for the last half century, living anywhere but in the deepest Amazonian jungle, is familiar with this.
"In this sense then, we are perfectly entitled to defend the position that the "whole thing is a fiction", since the impressive corpus of revisionist findings -- little-known due to censorship and persecution, but wide-ranging in its implications -- does establish that all the above claims are false: no extermination (real or attempted); no 6 million victims (not even approximately); and no homicidal gas chambers (not even in the supposed "extermination camp" of Auschwitz-Birkenau where, by far, the largest part of the presumed homicidal industrial gassings is supposed to have taken place).
"Of course, if we choose to define the "Holocaust" in a different manner, say as proto-religious teaching based on vague war propaganda, claiming that undefined -- formless but terrible -- events, many of them miraculous, happened to Jews in such a manner that they are collectively entitled to financial compensation and exemption from the basic standards of civilised behaviour, then the "existence of the Holocaust", might indeed be considered "a fact" -- though the "Holocaust" itself would hardly be an appropriate subject for any historical debate.
"But this is not what is usually meant: while the few authorised "Holocaust historians" that concern themselves with factual history insist in the extreme importance of their subject matter, they do not usually subscribe to such a definition, and therefore, a debate on the "Holocaust" as historical fact vs. proto-religious myth, should be in order, precisely for the sake of preserving the evidence and dismounting the legends.
"This, and nothing else, is what most "Holocaust" deniers ask for, and this is why they are censored and persecuted, rather than confronted."
I also entirely agree with Faurisson's claim that such matters as the theft and rape of Palestine are entirely relevant to understand why the "Holocaust" tenets are daily rammed down the whole World's throat.
On the subject of calling the Jewish experience during WWII "the Holocaust", so that we may more easily focus on it as an area of study, etc, here is what I think.
The word "Holocaust" carries meaning and implies context. I don't think there is something to be gained, from the historiographical viewpoint, by calling the entire objective Jewish experience during WWII "the Holocaust", when the meaning of the "Holocaust" is an altogether different and previously well-established one.
The misunderstanding comes from the idea that people at large are not familiar with the supposedly historical "Holocaust", i.e. an attempted extermination of the Jews, resulting in approximately 6 million of them being murdered, many of them in German homicidal gas chambers. Both the faithful and the deniers know perfectly well this is what the word means, and not any fuzzy sociological sum-total of the Jewish experience during WWII. This is what should always be stated and repeated as frequently as necessary.
The correct designation for the entire Jewish experience during WWII, is quite simply "the Jewish experience during WWII".
This is exactly what you do for any other groups. If you want to go into detail, then you refer to, say, "the persecution", the "deportation", the "mass murder", the "suffering" or whatever you have in mind. No more should be needed, unless one wishes to confuse the general concept of "Jewish experience during WWII", regardless of what that experience may have been, with an attempted extermination of the Jews, resulting in approximately 6 million of them being murdered, many of them in German homicidal gas chambers, a set of alleged events already called the "Holocaust".
I think the "Holocaust" -- as opposed to "the Jewish experience during WWII" -- should be called a lie simply because we should look for the truth and telling it like it is.
Take the "Invasion of the Martians": We call H. G. Wells's "a novel" because that's what it is; similarly for Orson Welles's ("a radio joke"), Spielberg's ("a movie"), my loony neighbour's ("a mental delusion") etc. The equivalent accurate description for the "Holocaust" should be "a propaganda fiction, currently used for power and profit" (I suspect if one happens to be an intelligent Jew, one may well add "and for spiritual self-destruction as well"). It's very simple and entirely truthful, an intellectual bonus for anyone fighting unscrupulous propagandists who resort to all kinds of lies and shadowy tricks. We wouldn't call any of the above Martian invasions exactly "a lie" (Orson Welles's would be the nearest). However, if anyone was trying to force an alleged "invasion of the Martians" on everybody else as a ploy for power and profit, rather than for innocent artistic or recreational purposes, then indeed a hoax and a lie it would become.
One's added vulnerability due to "denying the Holocaust lie" doesn't arise from any wrong rhetorics or untruthful claims, but simply from going to the heart of the dangerous forbidden knowledge. Hitting the nail squarely on the head, if you wish.
As for the "rhetorical box our opponents would like to put us into", forget it. They have other boxes for us, made of stone and with very little room for rhetorics. But if censorship is the only way to avoid the truth forever, then they've got a gigantic problem on their hands. In fact, the "Holocaust" single-word concept is a rhetorical box into which they've put themselves for historical purposes, for it makes it impossible to erase the whole gigantic humbug into easy oblivion. An enormously successful hoax in our present day, but also a lesson for all time, for all mankind. Not a future heritage I would be proud of.
