Webdiary’s ludicrous decision to invoke their ‘editorial rules’ with regard to comment content has forced me to decline from using this forum in any further debate.
The rules are these:
1. Denial of the existence of the holocaust.
2. Allegations that a Western power or powers were behind at the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001
3. "False flag" theories.
To a certain extent I go along with rule number one and I’ll explain why. But first I should point out here and now that I am not a Holocaust denier. I have personally known over the years far too many Holocaust survivors to even begin to doubt it. I have also over the years personally met far too many anti-Semitic Germans (and not just Germans) who supported the extermination of European Jewry and even some that were actually involved in it.
Since Webdiary is an open forum that invites anyone to comment there can be little control over the quality of argument. Argument on such a sensitive issue as Holocaust denial therefore can be very emotive and detracting from the proper search for truth in history as emotions can run high. Rigorous debate within an academic environment is the best place for this particular matter to be argued. There are too many people in open forums who can be easily be misled, misguided or negatively influenced by the polemics of commentators from both sides to make the subject ‘safe’ for open debate.
Not only do I personally believe that debate on this subject should be confined to academia I also believe that, rather than the subject being brushed under the carpet, it should be bought fully out into the open under academic control and, furthermore, done so immediately while it is still within living memory. This way the argument can be resolved for good. If it is not, then in years to come, after it has passed from living memory, there will always be those that will continue to deny. The quicker it is ‘resolved’ once and for all by demonstrating irrefutably to the deniers that they are wrong, the better for all concerned, and it should be Israel itself that leads the debate with academics taking care to remain apolitical and to ensure that the debate and collection of the evidence also remains apolitical. Right-wing Zionists should simply butt out and let the academics get on with it.
Now to the other two ‘no go’ areas. One simply needs to ask ‘Why?’ What are the folk at Webdiary frightened of? Are they frightened of loosing their right-wing commentators who can’t cope with a reality that is alien to their tidy little make-believe world where the government never lies?
Or is there something more sinister than that? Could it be perhaps, that the powerful right-wing Israeli and Zionist lobby in Australia put pressure on Margo Kingston and Hamish Alcorn? Could these be the dark and ‘very powerful people’ that Hamish Alcorn told me were putting pressure on Margo? Or did Margo simply cave in to right-wing Webdiarists like the lunatic Craig Warton and the rabid warmongering foaming at the mouth ignoramus Jay White?
Webdiary may find eventually its own level to work at and be successful at that level. But I’m afraid, at the rate things are going at the moment, the right-wing loons are winning out. I don’t have a problem shoving it up to these truth-denying idiots on the right and arguing my stuff but I do have a problem with those that cave in to them and not allow me to argue that stuff. To me they are far more of danger to democracy and free speech than the likes Warton and White.
As Craig R infers, I’ll do my stuff elsewhere – here! Stay tuned!
Comments invited. Email lataan@iprimus.com.au