Hoffman on Spielberg

Subject: Re: Once again, Stein is Caught in Ever More Lies, Paranoia and Hypocrisy
From: [email protected] (Michael P. Stein)
Date: 1997/03/02
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,soc.history,alt.conspiracy

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] (Michael A. Hoffman II) wrote:
>”Michael P. Stein” <[email protected]> WROTE:
>
>In article <[email protected]>,
>Michael A. Hoffman II <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>Meanwhile I’d like to thank everyone who contacted us with congratulations
>>on Mr. Critichley’s article proving that the only authentic Talmud passage
>>referred to by Steven Spielberg praises only the saving of Jewish lives.
>
>STEIN: Mr. Hoffman has evaded answering my question about how Spielberg is
>blamed since he filmed what Thomas Keneally wrote. Why did Mr. Hoffman
>not blame Mr. Keneally for presenting the Talmud fraudulently?
>————————————————————
>Michael A. Hoffman II responds: If a film based on a book is a fraud I
>would not say that calling the film a fraud exculpates the book, would
>you?

Once again Mr. Hoffman evades the question. Mr. Hoffman concentrated
all his criticism on Spielberg regarding the Talmud quotation and made
none of Keneally on that point. Furthermore, Spielberg made some changes
and omitted some things from the book in making the film, and Mr. Hoffman
has complained about some of these points. Therefore he _could_ make a
complaint about the film without complaining about the book.

>Mr. Stein is a practiced liar. He pretends that I have not criticized
>Keneally. The documentary record will show that of Keneally I have stated
>that he was a hack writer who filtered the truth.

Of course, this is a bit of “shell game” on Mr. Hoffman’s part – I was
talking about the specific charge of falsifying the Talmud, and here he is
bringing up something else which I frankly didn’t remember reading. When
I read this, I went searching to see if I could find the reference. I
must admit that Mr. Hoffman did say this – back in October, 1994! I had
simply forgotten the one line about filtering the truth in among the many,
many lines of criticism of Spielberg, often in subject headers. As for
his other charges against Keneally – error and hack writing – I consider
it far more serious to charge someone with fraud (as Hoffman does
repeatedly with Spielberg). Error is an intellectual failing; fraud is a
moral failing.

As it turns out, it is of course Michael Hoffman who is not only
filtering the truth here, but is a practiced liar. The latter was proved
beyond a shadow of a doubt during his last sojourn on alt.revisionism,
when after repeated challenges to back up a criticism he had made of me,
Mr. Hoffman claimed as his reason a comment I had not made until nearly
three weeks after I had delivered my criticism.

Mr. Hoffman repeats his story about Amon Goeth being arrested not
merely for corruption, but for the murder of inmates supposedly based on
Keneally, Ainsztein, and the affidavits of Morgen and Mittelstadt. It was
only on this point that he accused Keneally of filtering the truth; this
is the _only_ moral failing I have seen him charge Keneally with (and only
after searching the October, 1994 archives to refresh my memory). But it
turns out that it was Hoffman himself who was and is the one filtering the
truth on _precisely_ the point on which he accused Keneally!

We also went through this the last time Mr. Hoffman was on
alt.revisionism. Keneally and Ainsztein only mention corruption, no
murder charge. The two affidavits were far too ambiguous – they gave a
list of people arrested, and a separate list of charges which were laid,
but nothing linked any specific charge to any specific person on the first
list. Karl Koch was one of the people on the list, and there is clear
evidence he was indeed arrested for murder as well as corruption. But
pretending that the murder charge must have applied to _every other_
person arrested is ludicrous.

It is as if I said “The men in Lorton prison have been arrested for
murder, rape, armed robbery, and drug dealing. John Doe, Richard Roe, and
Bob Smith are in Lorton. Therefore one may legitimately assume that
Richard Roe was arrested for murder, rape, armed robbery, and drug
dealing.”

Mr. Hoffman was told all this over two years ago. Thus his repetition
at the very least is a wilful lie by omission, not just an error. While
it _may_ be true that Goeth was arrested for murder – Hoffman has not
cited Goeth’s arrest warrant, but then neither have I found it – at this
point, Hoffman has produced no valid evidence that any charge other than
corruption was laid against Goeth. Yet he continues to pretend that he
does, even after his gross misreading of the evidence was explained to him
in lavish detail.

>Observe the tedious tactics of mental midgets like Stein, Ken McVay,
>Bebbington and the rest of the motley crew. They seldom if ever have any
>argument of substance. Almost their entire schtick is based on mustering
>lies, nonsense and trivia and then presenting the resulting farrago, with
>blustering chutzpah, to their naive audience as evidence of scholarly
>rejoinder and sustained inquiry.

Of course I also presented documented material on the Talmud, such as
the refutation of Mr. Hoffman’s attempt to use an out-of-context literal
translation of an idiom to insinuate that the Talmud condoned sex with
infant girls. Yet Mr. Hoffman continues to carry that deception about
Ketuboth 11b on his website, and compounds that lie with another lie that
I do not make arguments of substance.

>In fact they are playing a carnival con and as soon as someone exposes one
>shell game, these characters concede nothing, they simply retreat to a
>different pea shell and rotate it around the alt.revisionist table.

Mr. Hoffman simply tries to cover his exposure as a liar and hypocrite
with bluster and namecalling.

>The point of their attacks is never enlightenment, mutual disciovery or
>even debate. They are tar-babies without credibility; non-entities who
>derive their sustenance and their very identity from those they prey upon.
>To paraphrase my immortal mentor, the towering Breton genius L.F. Céline,
>people like Stein, Bebbington and McVay are tapeworms who emerge from
>their master’s rectum and presume to attack him.
>
>Stein would have played his brazen and dreary, paranoid shell game about
>”Why isn’t Hoffman criticizing Keneally the non-Jew instead of Spielberg
>the Jew, when it’s Keneally who wrote the book,” forever, or until I chose
>to acknowledge this flea and point out (yawn), that Stein is quite aware
>of my criticisms of Keneally, but has concealed them from his readers.

I confess that I forgot the line from October 1994 about Keneally
“filtering” the truth. All other criticisms – errors and being a hack –
are merely intellectual failings. It was Spielberg that Mr. Hoffman
repeatedly charges with fraud, a moral failing. I find that relevant even
if Mr. Hoffman does not.

> It is not “evasion” that has kept me of late from replying to Stein’s
>familiar drivel, it is boredom.
>
>In reply to the fact that Stein knows very well that I have criticized
>Keneally, I’ll bet dollars to donuts that Stein will shift to his next pea
>shell, will refuse to apology for his lie about my actual attitude toward
>Keneally; for his pretense that I have rendered Keneally immune and
>Spielberg scapegoat.

I openly admit that I failed to recall Mr. Hoffman’s one _moral_
criticism of Keneally from October, 1994, among his repeated harping on
Spielberg both then and now. (Indeed, even that one accusation of
filtering was contained in the same sentence as another slam on
Spielberg.) Though we were discussing the Talmud quotation _specifically_
– and Hoffman has _never_ criticized Keneally for that in anything I have
seen – I will apologize for forgetting that Hoffman did make one
(unfounded) complaint about Keneally’s honesty (quite hypocritically, as
it turns out). But I did not lie, even by omission. I simply forgot the
exchange from over two years ago.

Nevertheless, Hoffman is playing a little shell game of his own – he
knows full well that his criticism of Spielberg has been much, much
louder, sharper, more extensive, and more frequent than his complaints
about Keneally.

Now, will Mr. Hoffman apologize for his concealment from his readers
of the truth about the Morgen and Mittelstadt affidavits: that they do not
provide any legitimate grounds for claiming that Goeth was arrested for
the murder of inmates?

>That’s why arguing with these guys is about as interesting as watching
>paint dry.
>
>Here’s Stein quoting me again:
>
>Hoffman:>and his recent response to Critchley’s
>>rejoinder was self-indicting. (His paranoid notion that Critchley
>>referred to Bebbington’s authority as the unknown writer because he didn’t
>>really believe he existed is typical. Gosh how does one refer to someone
>>who Mr. Bebbington himself chose not to name, except by calling the person
>>unknown or anonymous?).
>>Bebbington is one of the many alt.revisionist tar babies who are
>>intellectually challenged but who seek to gain some credibility and
>>recognition from concocting nonsensical trivia which they then inflate
>>into some alleged major defeat of someone else’s material. (Because
>>Bebbington’s baloney was posted at Bradley Smith’s website we asked Mr.
>>Critchley to take time out from his busy schedule to respond to it).
>>Critichley’s rejoinder is a significant addition to Talmud scholarship and
>>clearly proves beyond doubt that THE ORIGINAL AND AUTHENTIC TALMUD does
>>not say what Spielberg claims it says.
>
>
>STEIN: Mr. Hoffman ought to know that Spielberg made no claims about what
>the Talmud says. Rather, Spielberg accurately portrayed what the writer
>Thomas Keneally accurately wrote about what one of the people Schindler
>saved claimed the Talmud said. If anyone in that chain is guilty of
>fraud, it is the person who fashioned the ring – and only if he had one of
>the uncensored copies of the Talmud.
>——————————
>Michael A. Hoffman II replies: The old double-standard rears its head here
>for another (yawn) appearance.
>
>Imagine if this was a German book and movie under discussion. Imagine if
>the ring inscription had been some falsification of a dictum of Wagner.
>Now imagine a pro-German author and a pro-German movie director both
>parroting the ring’s falsification in their work.
>
>Stein would be the first to howl his indignation: The Germans are
>disseminating another of their Big Lies!

Note that Michael Hoffman cannot point to any documented evidence of
hypocrisy on my part. He is forced to “imagine” a scenario, then resort
to asserting without evidence that I _would be_ hypocritical in that
situation. This is the first time that I have ever heard someone appeal
to their imagination for use as evidence. Credit where credit is due –
Mr. Hoffman’s use of this technique shows he has more imagination than I
do!

I note also that Mr. Hoffman has carefully cut out all discussion
of his stupid error in posting the same text in about twenty separate
postings (thus tripping the cancelbot) and then falsely complaining that he
was being censored, when in fact his rebuke was for electronic littering.
I am however glad to see that he has finally learned to crosspost. I will
politely refrain from asking him who taught him how to do that.

[remainder of Hoffman’s bloated bombast deleted]

Posted/emailed.

Mike Stein The above represents the Absolute Truth.
POB 10420 Therefore it cannot possibly be the official
Arlington, VA 22210 position of my employer.