In Cohn’s book (date : 1989 and 1995), now on Nizkor, one can
read, (in the first .htm)
“I have tried to find references in the New York Times to Chomsky’s
neo-Nazi involvementes and could find only two items, out of the
over one hundred devoted to him, that allude to this side of his
activities. The story is quite different in France where Le Monde
and other publications regularly refer to Chomsky’s relationship
to the French neo-Nazi propagandist Robert Faurisson.”
Alas for Mr. Cohn, Le Monde’s archives since 1987 are on
Compuserve-France (I don’t know about Compuserve-US).
To test Cohn’s claim, I simply typed “Chomsky” as the
keyword to search for, “Anywhere in the document”.
“Chomsky” appears 43 times in Le Monde since 01.01.1987.
I read all the headers (I have to pay to have the complete
articles so I did not read them all), and read the articles
completely when the headers looked like the header of an article
related to the revisionism.
Four of them are related to the revisionists. I must add that
last year French media wrote *A LOT* about revisionists since
French most popular figure Abbe Pierre was caught in the
storm with his endorsement of the revisionist book of a friend
of his, published by P. Guillaume, the ‘crucial source’ of Cohn,
and the publisher of Faurisson. [For the comparison, despite
the fact that Faurisson has no direct role in the Abbe Pierre
controversy, Faurisson’s name appears 74 times in Le Monde’s
database…] The mere fact that Chomsky’s name appears only
4 times in an article related to the revisionists in Le Monde in the
last 10 years could be enough to conclude Cohn’s claim is yet
another fabrication. (Although I think that Cohn is sincere in his
pathological fabrication, because otherwise he would never
have posted on the Internet or put his text on the Web, since
now all the French readers can read his book – I don’t think it
has been published in France – and can judge how preposterous
his depiction of France is and explain to credulous US readers
why…)
But there is more, because 3 of these 4 times Chomsky’s name
appears in Le Monde are related to… the debunking of
the rumor Cohn is trying to make popular on the Internet !!
One is a letter from a reader of Le Monde in which he
says he had been outraged to hear Chomsky called a
revisionist on a French radio station. The two remaining
ones are a comment about “Manufacturing Consent”
when it was shown at “L’Entrepot” (an anti-fascist
place in Paris, in case you wonder), and a mea-culpa
>from Le Monde because the initial comment contained
the claim that Chomsky had written a preface for
Faurisson, while we all know this is not the case.
The fourth times is the appearance of Chomsky’s name
in a factual biography of Faurisson that Le Monde
published when Faurisson was victim of an attack
by unknowns.
Let’s continue with another archive which is on
Compuserve-France : the last 2 years of L’Express
(it means it includes the archives during the
Abbe Pierre controversy). L’Express has an important
role in the press when it comes to revisionism. The
beginning of the French media hype about revisionist is,
in my opinion, an article from L’Express, an interview
of Darquier de Pellepoix, in which his revisionist
theories are presented. At that time, it caused such
a shock in France that even the President had
public words about it. [As for the media hype about
Faurisson, it has been caused by Faurisson’s
appearance on France’s most popular radio
interview of the time – Compare with Cohn’s claims
that without Chomsky, Faurisson and al. would
have remained unknown in France….]. So, how
many times does Chomsky name appear
in L’Express ‘ archives ? Zero…
Let’s conclude with the only Internet site
which contains archives anybody can
read : Le Monde Diplomatique. Well,
same result : Zero… Have a look at for
instance at :
http://www.ina.fr/CP/MondeDiplo/ (Page doesn`t exist)
In particular :
[…]/1996/06/VIDELIER/3747.html
You’ll find names that also appears in
Cohn’s book (Verges, etc…), but no
Chomsky…
Cohn may argue that Le Monde Diplomatique
is neo-nazi, though, since Chomsky wrote in
it. Too bad he won’t hear the thunder of laughs
>from the readers of soc.culture.french, then…
So, Mr Cohn, can you please give me some
references of these alleged French articles
which, according to your claims about France,
keep on popping up everywhere in the
French press about Chomsky’s revisionism ?
Emmanuel Marin
Paris, France
From [email protected] Tue Dec 10 06:35:16 PST 1996
Article: 84736 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Emmanuel Marin)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,alt.fan.noam-chomsky
Subject: Re: “Partners in Hate: Noam Chomsky and the Holocaust Deniers” on the web
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 12:14:42 GMT
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[email protected] (Rich Graves) wrote:
>Followups intentionally set to groups I don’t read. Add alt.revisionism
>back if you want your post archived on Nizkor.
Well, what about simply adding a file in the FTP directory
that contains Cohn’s book, made of two or three posts
>from this thread (like Seith’s debunking of Cohn’s claim
about Chomsky’s sayings on the Holocaust, my debunking
of Cohn’s claims about the French media, and a third
debunking that should soon appear here, I’m told) ?
I’m afraid that having the debunking of Cohn’s lies
available on Nizkor but on the alt.revisionism
archives only, won’t be enough to diminish the
damages, not only to Chomsky, but also to a
real understanding of the French revisionist scene.
Emmanuel Marin
Paris, France
From [email protected] Tue Dec 10 13:01:18 PST 1996
Article: 84874 of alt.revisionism
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From: Scott Solomon
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 12:25:39 -0500
Organization: Columbia University
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On Tue, 10 Dec 1996, Josh Klugman wrote:
> The story is that Chomsky was approached to sign a petition defending
> Faurisson’s right to free speech, as the French government was
making moves to
> censor him. He was also asked to write a little thing about anybody’s,
> including a Holocaust revisionist’s, right to free speech. This was printed
> as the introduction to Faurisson’s book w/o Chomsky’s permission;
I believe in
> fact Chomsky tried desperately to get it removed to no avail.
> –Josh Klugman
>
And that’s the whole story? Werner claims Chomsky refers to Serge Thion
as a “friend” in MANUFACTURING CONSENT. Somehow Deborah Lipstadt and
Werner Cohn are both maligning Noam Chomsky because Chomsky put his name
on a petition and Holocaust deniers printed something Chomsky wrote
without Chomsky’s permission? Were there copyright violations involved in
this deed? It sounds from what Werner is saying that VT has money if
Chomsky actually has a case for copyright infringement!
From [email protected] Tue Dec 10 16:04:35 PST 1996
Article: 84919 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Stephen R. Diamond)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 11:48:26 -0800
Organization: Concentric Internet Services
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<[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
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I know very little about holocaust denial. Most of what I know about
Chomsky concerns his views in psycholinguistics, where he really is
something of a kook, embracing Cartesianism, for instance.
But it does seem to me that even someone who is *not* a free speech
absolutist can defend the academic freedom of kooks. They serve a useful
purpose. I understand the holocaust deniers have spurred serious
historians to gather powerful documentary evidence of the holocaust. Not
that anyone really should require it today – but what about tomorrow.
Kooks have always played an important role in the growth of knowledge. I
am much more favorable to allowing kooks to do researh than to allowing
Nazis to organize. The two issues are not precisely the same, as Graves
seems to think.
Stephen R. Diamond
From [email protected] Tue Dec 10 16:04:36 PST 1996
Article: 84923 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 10 Dec 1996 17:32:51 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
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<[email protected]>
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Scott Solomon writes:
>Solomon:
>
>I love this word Lamont G uses — “criticisms.” This guy Faurisson says
>the Holocaust never happened because no one saw the gas fall into the gas
>chamber and the people choking to death. People led the Jew into the gas
>chambers, and inmates dragged out the dead bodies. But since no one
>inside the gas chamber accidently lived and wrote a book about the
>experience, the Holocaust never happened. Lamont calls this a
>”criticism.” So if a Klansman says _The Invisible Man_ sucks because it
>was written by a nigger, that would be a “criticism”?????? Somehow I can
>think of better words than “criticism” YOU STUPID JACKASS. Try “racist
>filth.”
>
>I’m gonna pull your post apart piece by piece, you asswipe.
I love it when people resort to ad hominems when they have nothing better
to say.
I agree it’s racist fith, moron. It’s also free speech. Get a clue.
—
Lamont Granquist (lamontg @ u.washington.edu) ICBM: 47 39’23″N 122 18’19″W
“First consider a spherical chicken…”
unsolicited commercial e-mail->contacting your ISP to remove your net.access
From [email protected] Tue Dec 10 16:04:37 PST 1996
Article: 84924 of alt.revisionism
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From: Scott Solomon
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 00:47:12 -0500
Organization: Columbia University
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Supporting Cohn’s position that Chomsky is in bed with the Holocaust
deniers (I find his pamphlet to be far from “a lie” as Marin claims, at
least on a first read), I will off this excerpt from Deborah Lipstadt’s
_Denying the Holocaust_, pp. 15-16:
The inroads deniers have been able to make into the American educational
establishment are most diconcerting. Defenders — Noam Chomsky probably
the best known among them — have turned up in a variety of quarters. The
MIT professor of linguistics wrote the introduction to a book by
Faurisson. Faurisson, whom the _New York Times_ described as having “no
particular prominence on the French intellectual or academic scene,” has
argued that one of the reasons he does not believe that homicidal gas
chambers existed is that no deathcamp victim has given eyewitness
testimony of actual gassings. This argument contradicts accepted
standards of evidence. It is as if a jury refused to convict a serial
killer until one of his victims cambe back to say, “Yes, he is the one who
killed me.” Such reasoning is so soft that it makes one wonder who could
possibly take him seriously. Moreover, it ignores the extensive testimony
of the Sonderkommandos who dragged the bodies from the gas chambers.
Chomsky contended that, based on what he had read of Faurisson’s
work, he saw “no proof” that would lead him to conclude that the Frenchman
was an antisemite. According to Chomsky, not even Faurisson’s claims that
the Holocaust is a “Zionist lie” are proof of his antisemitism. “Is it
antisemitic to speak of Zionist lies? Is Zionism the first nationalist
movement in history not to have concocted lies in its own interest?” That
students editing a college newspaper or television producers interested in
winning vieweres should prove unable to make such distinctions is
disturbing. That someone of Chomsky’s stature should confuse the issue is
appalling. Indeed, it was this kind of reasoning that led Alfred Kazin to
describe Chomsky as a “dupe of intellectual pride so overweening that he
is incapable of making distinctions between totalitarian and democratic
societies, between oppressors and victims.” Though Chomsky is his own
unique case, his spirited defense of the deniers shocked many people
including those who thought they were inured to his antics.
In his essay Chomsky argued that scholars’ ideas cannot be
censored irrespective of how distateful they may be*
*It is ironic that this internationally known professor should have become
such a defender of Faurisson’s right to speak when he would have denied
those same rights to proponents of America’s involvement in Vietnam. In
_American Power and the New Mandarins_ he wrote, “By accepting the
presumption of legitimacy of debate on certain issues, one has already
lost one’s humnity.” Though written long before the Faurisson affair, his
comments constitute the most accurate assessment of his own behavior.
Throughout this
imbroglio Chomsky claimed that his interest was Faurisson’s civil rights
and freedom to make his views known. During the past few years, as
deniers have intensified their efforts to insinuate themselves into the
university world by placing ads denying the Holocaust in compus
newspapers, echoes of Chomsky’s argument have been voiced by students,
professors, and even university presidents. (See chapter 10 for additional
information about denial on campus.) In response to student and faculty
protests about the decision of the _Duke Chronicle_ to run an ad denying
the Holocaust, the president of Duke University, Keith Brodie, said that
to have done otherwise would have “violated our commitment to free speech
and contradicted Duke’s long tradition of supporting First Amendment
rights.” Brodie failed to note that the paper had recently rejected an ad
it deemed offensive to women. No one had complained abou possible
violations of the First Amendment.
Let this point not be misunderstood. The deniers have the
absolute right to stand on any street corner and spread their calumnies.
They have the right to publish their articles and books and hold their
gatherings. But free speech does not guarantee them the right to be
treated as the “other” side of a legitimate debate. Nor does it
guaranteee them space on op-ed pages or time on telvision and radio show.
Most important, it does not call for people such as Chomsky to stand by
them and thereby commend their views to the public.*
*Chomsky’s behavior can be contrasted with that of thirty-four of
France’s leading historians who, in response to Faurisson’s efforts,
issued a declaration protesting his attempt to deny the Holocaust. The
declaration read in part: “Everyone is free to interpret a phenomenon
like the Hitlerite genocide according to his own philosophy. Everyone is
free to compare it with other enterprises of murder committed earlier, at
the same time, later. Everyone is free to offer such or such kind of
explanations; everyone is free, to the limit, to imagine or to dream that
these monstrous deeds did not take place. Unfortunately, they did take
place and no one can deny their existence withou committing an outrage on
the truth. It is not necessary to ask how technically such mass murder
was possible. It was technically possibl, seeing that it took place.
With that in mind, I’m curious as to why Marin should be so focussed on
calling Cohn a liar? Why should Cohn’s efforts to expose links between
Chomsky and Holocaust deniers cause him such a little tiff???
I found Cohn’s comparison of Chomsky with the Marlenites particularly
amusing. Also, his criticisms of Chomsky’s _Fateful Triangle_ seem
pointed and accurate.
From [email protected] Tue Dec 10 16:04:38 PST 1996
Article: 84925 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Stephen R. Diamond)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 11:36:37 -0800
Organization: Concentric Internet Services
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In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
(Rich Graves) wrote:
> Now, this is progress. Your article <[email protected]>
> looks like an argument that it wasn’t racist filth, and that it was wrong
> to impute motives. Those are precisely the kind of uninformed substantive
> claims that are completely unnecessary to defend rights, and insulting to
> people who are better informed. They turn otherwise reasonable people
> against free speech, because they see it as just an excuse to defend
> racist filth, which it isn’t.
I think he was referring to the part about ‘niggers,’ not holocaust denial.
> The legal formulation is “inciting hatred against
> an identifiable group.” I think such laws are wrong, but I think it’s OK
> to treat people who advocate them with respect.
But you move from this to the conclusion that it is mantadory NOT to treat
them with disrespect. Incidentally, it is this bias against the
‘inflammatory,’ and this tendency to masquerade your own biases as
objectivity, that unites you with Per and makes you unsuitable to moderate
anything.
> Chomsky went beyond a pure defense of free speech,
Because the defense of academic freedom is both more and less than the
defense of free speech.
Stephen R. Diamond
From [email protected] Wed Dec 11 06:33:58 PST 1996
Article: 84929 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Rich Graves)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: “Partners in Hate: Noam Chomsky and the Holocaust Deniers” on the web
Date: 9 Dec 1996 21:33:21 -0800
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[email protected] (Emmanuel Marin) writes:
>[email protected] (Rich Graves) wrote:
>
>>I agree that his attack — especially his last paragraph, where he
>>needlessly calls you “a pathological liar” — is foolish and uncivil.
>
>The “pathological liar” is a quote from Chomsky in his answer
>to Cohn.
I know that. It’s the last paragraph of Chomsky’s piece. It wasn’t the
last paragraph of anything you’ve written. I can understand Chomsky was
angry, but “pathological liar” just doesn’t seem a very productive thing
to call someone you don’t know.
Peace.
-rich
From [email protected] Wed Dec 11 06:34:02 PST 1996
Article: 84946 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Sanjuro)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 00:19:58 +0000
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In article
, Scott
Solomon wrote:
> *It is ironic that this internationally known professor should have become
> such a defender of Faurisson’s right to speak when he would have denied
> those same rights to proponents of America’s involvement in Vietnam. In
> _American Power and the New Mandarins_ he wrote, “By accepting the
> presumption of legitimacy of debate on certain issues, one has already
> lost one’s humnity.” Though written long before the Faurisson affair, his
> comments constitute the most accurate assessment of his own behavior.
“By accepting the
presumption of legitimacy of debate on certain issues, one has already
lost one’s humanity.”
1) Chomsky wrote those famous words in reference to the Holocaust, not
Vietnam, while making a general point about Vietnam.
2) Those words imply nothing whatsoever about about denying anyone their
right to free speech, as Lipstadt claims. He is merely stating that in his
opinion one shouldn’t discuss the matter. That’s an entirely different
claim. I don’t think one should call blacks “niggers”. In fact, if you
do, I think you’ve given up part of your humanity. But I’m not about to
deny anyone the right to say the “n” word. I read Lipstadt’s book a year
ago and found it rather distressing that she even tried to use this
statement against Chomsky.
3) What has any of this to do with Chomsky’s central claims? Even if it’s
true, and Chomsky is a Nazi, does that alter the fact that he’s
essentially correct when he states that the United States has provided
crucial economic, military, and political support for a variety of
dictatorships in Latin America, and that the mass media tacitly condoned
that support? Even if it’s true that Chomsky is a Nazi, does it alter the
fact that children appear to come genetically equipped with a plan common
to all languages which enables them to distill a complete grammar and
language from the fragmentary input provided by their parents? Is two and
two not four, even if Hitler believed it?
At best, Cohn is trying to impinge the character of a scientist who hardly
anyone in the general population has heard of.
Think, people.
Sanjuro.
From [email protected] Wed Dec 11 06:34:04 PST 1996
Article: 84954 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 11 Dec 1996 00:20:13 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
Lines: 149
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
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[email protected] (Rich Graves) writes:
>Now, this is progress. Your article <[email protected]>
>looks like an argument that it wasn’t racist filth, and that it was wrong
>to impute motives.
I *have* argued that Faurisson might not be motivated out of racism and
that Chomsky may be correct that he’s not anti-semitic. That doesn’t change
the fact that whatever Faurisson’s motives, that holocaust detractors are
almost certainly dominated by anti-semites, and are the bedtime reading of
racist neo-nazis and white supremacists.
This is patently obvious.
>Those are precisely the kind of uninformed substantive
>claims that are completely unnecessary to defend rights, and insulting to
>people who are better informed. They turn otherwise reasonable people
>against free speech, because they see it as just an excuse to defend
>racist filth, which it isn’t.
>
>You don’t have to throw in the disclaimer “this is racist filth, but…”
>everywhere, but please avoid making excuses. You shouldn’t need them, and
>they don’t help.
>
>”It’s speech.”
>
>That’s enough. Stop there.
I have been stopping there. Unfortunately, when I use the use the terms
“research” and “criticism” *I* happen to use those terms in a very value-
neutral fashion, as do damn near everyone else that I know. Maybe it
comes from being around physicists too much who crack geeky “cold fusion”
jokes all the time. Expose yourself to more bad science and lose the
value judgment you’ve got attached to words like “research” and “criticism.”
I can’t help it if you go and read some kind of approval into my words
I use when none is intended or explicitly stated…
>(Actually, you should look into it a little more, to verify that you’re
>not defending direct incitements to violence…
My understanding is the Faurisson is claiming that the Holocaust didn’t
happen. That is not a direct incitement to violence. It may have the
effect of increasing neo-nazi anger, but certainly not *directly* and
that direction leads to exceptions of freedom of speech which are *wide*
open to abuse — I can think of lots of people who I believe are
indirectly inciting violence (i.e. it’s my belief that anyone who believes
in punishing drug users criminally for what at worst is a medical problem
is contributing to violence — can we excempt them from the freedom of
speech as well? and i’m certain there are people out there who find the
preceding sentence to be contributing to violence and they’d love to
consider what i just wrote an exception to the freedom of speech and
shut me up…)
, which are not protected
>speech, not even in the US. To take an extreme example, many Amnesty
>International chapters, including mine, refused to call Nelson Mandela a
>prisoner of conscience because he had not absolutely renounced the option
>of terrorist violence. This doesn’t mean we supported apartheid, or that
>we didn’t think Mandela was unjustly jailed; but “prisoner of conscience”
>is such an absolutist term that it must be used sparingly to preserve its
>moral force. Many people, and the United Nations Convention to Prevent All
>Forms of Discrimination, which the US signed but with substantial
>reservations, hold that hate propaganda belongs in the same category as
>incitement to violence. The legal formulation is “inciting hatred against
>an identifiable group.” I think such laws are wrong, but I think it’s OK
>to treat people who advocate them with respect.)
define “hate propaganda.” it’s like the death penalty — you can come up
with _obvious_ cases where it applies, but Blakmun dissented after a couple
of decades of not being able to decide where the dividing line was.
i don’t view the argument that the holocaust didn’t happen to be hate
propaganda inherantly. certainly it’s used as hate propaganda, but i don’t
believe that justifies excepting it from the freedom of speech. i believe
very strongly that speech which actively incites violence (e.g. “killing jews
is good, go do it”) should not be protected — but something so poorly defined
as “hate propaganda” should not be. in particular i don’t in *any* way see
that arguing that the holocaust did not happen is *a priori* “hatred”
against jews. it does get immediately slurped up by anti-semites and
racists and probably 99-100% of it comes from them (and probably 99-100%
of those who believe it are anti-semitic, but is it *inherantly* hatred,
and *who* *will* *judge*?)
is arguing that the holocaust happened in part due to the refusal on the
part of western european nations to accept deportation of Germany’s
Jews anti-semitic? it’s quite likely to be used by anti-semites to
excuse germany, but i could see how it could be argued to the conclusion
which found the western european nations to be anti-semitic and to
hold some responsibility for not doing whatever was in their power to
prevent it. shall we label it ‘hate speech’ and ban it if 80% of the
people asking the question are anti-semites? 95%? are the 5% who aren’t
anti-semitic just going to be “collateral damage” like those who are
executed for crimes they didn’t commit?
this is a very, very grey area.
>Chomsky went beyond a pure defense of free speech, and in
><[email protected]>, so did you, briefly. That certainly
>doesn’t make you or Chomsky Nazi sympathizers. Perhaps you’re a little
>uncomfortable with pure free-speech absolutism, and think you need to make
>excuses for the groups you defend. Bad mistake.
I haven’t made any excuses for Faurisson. I have pointed out that your
criticism of Chomsky’s claim that Faurisson is not an anti-semite (note:
i’m making excuses for Chomsky, not Faurisson — because I respect Chomsky
and give him the benefit of the doubt — that’s an entire *other* can of
worms though and comes from having read several thousand pages of what he’s
written and listed to multiple hours of hearing him speak such that I have
a basis for giving him the benefit of the doubt… anyway…) i’ve pointed
out that your criticism of Chomsky’s claim is not sufficient since there’s
no evidence you’ve supplied that *Faurisson* is anti-semitic and not simply
your average intellectual idiot. I’m not exusing Faurisson, and I’m
certainly not implying that Faurisson’s book isn’t a tool of anti-semites.
I’m asking you to come up with more evidence that Chomsky’s assessment of
Faurisson is incorrect.
Also, we seem to disagree over the possibility of value-free assessment of
research and criticism. To me the question of “did the Holocaust happen?”
is one that must first be considered independently of those who have vested
interests in the answer to the question and completely impartially. Of
course the answer that it didn’t happen fails quite spectacularly. However,
I view it as a valid question to ask — to not ask it impartially I’d view
as being entirely intellectually dishonest. *After* it has been determined
that the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the existence of Holocaust,
then one can ask questions and make observations about those who believe
that it didn’t happen (i.e. that they’re racist idiots). I get the feeling
that you don’t even feel that the question could even *ideally* be the
subject of dispassionate research and criticism — or that this is even
something beneficial to strive for. Certainly in reality those who
research and criticize both sides of the “debate” (better for you if that’s
in quotes? — that’s another word along with “research” and “criticize”
which have absolutely no inherant value-judgement attatched to them for
me) they have vested interests, biases, and the occasional shitload of
racism and stupidity. But I believe that an dispassionate argument that
the holocaust existed is better than an empassioned one. It’s just a
question, and it’s better to treat it as a question and provide a solid
irrefutable answer than to get hysterical about it. I haven’t read
Faurisson, but in the case of other quacks like the HIV and Cold Fusion
guys that I have read, they have actually made contributions indirectly
by sparking controversy. Those who are right now collecting evidence to
refute idiots like Faurisson are probably doing our decendents 200 years
down the line a favor when the evidence will be harder to amass. This
*isn’t* a defense or excuse of Faurisson. This *is*, however, a defense
of letting him speak.
—
Lamont Granquist (lamontg @ u.washington.edu) ICBM: 47 39’23″N 122 18’19″W
“First consider a spherical chicken…”
unsolicited commercial e-mail->contacting your ISP to remove your net.access
From [email protected] Wed Dec 11 06:34:06 PST 1996
Article: 84964 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Rich Graves)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 10 Dec 1996 10:14:57 -0800
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[email protected] writes:
>Scott Solomon writes:
>>The inroads deniers have been able to make into the American educational
>>establishment are most diconcerting. Defenders — Noam Chomsky probably
>>the best known among them — have turned up in a variety of quarters. The
>>MIT professor of linguistics wrote the introduction to a book by
>>Faurisson.
>
>What part of this quote don’t you understand:
>
>”I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend unto the death your
>right to say it.” — Voltaire.
I understand it. I don’t think Chomsky does, though, because this is not
something that he has done.
This is what Chomsky signed and promoted:
Dr. Robert Faurisson has served as a respected
professor of twentieth-century French literature
and document criticism for over four years at the
University of Lyon-2 in France. Since 1974 he has
been conducting extensive historical research into
the “Holocaust” question.
Since he began making his findings public,
Professor Faurisson has been subject to a vicious
campaign of harassment, intimidation, slander and
physical violence in a crude attempt to silence
him. Fearful officials have even tried to stop
him from further research by denying him access to
public libraries and archives.
We strongly protest these efforts to deprive
Professor Faurisson of his freedom of speech and
expression, and we condemn the shameful campaign
to silence him.
We strongly support Professor Faurisson’s just
right of academic freedom and we demand that
university and government officials do everything
possible to ensure his safety and the free
exercise of his legal rights.
Does defending rights require affirming claims about Faurisson’s
scholarship? (Which Chomsky is proud to say he knows nothing about?)
Does defending rights require characterizing what Faurisson does as
“extensive historical research”? (Which Chomsky is proud to say he knows
nothing about?)
Does defending rights require putting “Holocaust” in derisory quotes?
Does defending rights require describing propaganda as “findings”?
Does defending rights require the inflammatory language in the second
paragraph? (Which Chomsky is proud to say he knows nothing about?)
I would have signed the fourth paragraph, and possibly the third if
amended to be more in line with the truth. I would not have affirmed the
other claims, or if I had, I would not have gone out of my way to attack
people who questioned my wisdom in doing so.
The kindest thing I could say about Chomsky is that he was gullible.
-rich
From [email protected] Wed Dec 11 06:34:13 PST 1996
Article: 84991 of alt.revisionism
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From: Mark R
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 15:37:17 -0700
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On 10 Dec 1996 [email protected] wrote:
> Scott Solomon writes:
> >Did
> >Chomsky write an introduction to Faurisson’s book?
>
> Yes.
No.
This was an interaction between a questioner and Chomsky following a
lecture at UCSD on 11/12/91. Available on videotape from Justicevision.
———————————————————————-
Q: Is it true that you wrote a preface to a revisionist text about the
Holocaust?
NC: What’s true is that I wrote a statement about freedom of speech,
which I believe in as you heard tonight, and that’s not very unusual.
It’s a case where a guy was brought to court and tried and condemned on
the charge of falsification of history, which is a standard Nazi style
law. I’m very opposed to that. I’m anti-fascist, as opposed to the people
who object to this. I’m *anti-fascist*. If Henry Kissinger was brought to
trial for falsification of history I’d defend his right to lie. Now,
there’s a lot of people who don’t like that because they believe in Nazi
and Stalinist principles, so, I’m not one of them.
Q: Why did you allow them to use your writings for a revisionist text?
NC: First of all, have you ever seen the book?
Q: No…what’s it called?
NC: If you bother to look at it, it’s so boring you won’t continue. It’s
a book in which the guy, who was brought to court, responds to the court
charges of falsification of history on the matter of gas chambers. It’s
his defense against the court charges.
Q: So it’s not the original text?
NC: What original text? It’s French, but it’s called memoir against those
who accuse me of falsification of history on the matter of gas chambers.
It was a response to the court charges. I have a statement in there which
is called an opinion, which was placed in by the editor. I gave it to
the guy…I didn’t even know the book existed. Actually, if I had known I
would have submitted it anyway. Like if Henry Kissinger were brought to
court for falsification of history charges and he wrote a response to the
charges and he asked me to write a preface for it I would write the
preface, even though he’s a war criminal. In this case it happens that I
didn’t, but if I had been asked to I would have, just like if anyone else
was. I mean, freedom of speech is worth defending in my view.
Q: What were his charges…for being a Nazi?
NC: He was brought to court for denying the existence of gas chambers.
Q: Was he a Nazi?
NC: Frankly, I don’t care. As far as I know he wasn’t. But if he was it
doesn’t make any difference anyway.
From [email protected] Wed Dec 11 06:34:14 PST 1996
Article: 84993 of alt.revisionism
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From: Scott Solomon
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 15:39:31 -0500
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In character, Diamond has made a good point. I would only point out that
often times “kookiness” can be a mask for something much more nefarious
(learned a new word, I guess). Dennis King makes this point in his book
on LaRouche. LaRouche cultivated a kooky image to slip neonazi things
past and make it seem more acceptable. Hamlet posed as if he was mad.
From [email protected] Wed Dec 11 06:34:17 PST 1996
Article: 85003 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Rich Graves)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 11 Dec 1996 01:41:06 -0800
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Mark R writes:
>
>Here is the letter Chomsky wrote in response to Cohn’s case against
>him, which was restated in the Canadian Jewish journal _Outlook_ . The
>letter is reprinted in Milan Rai’s _Chomsky’s Politics_ (pg. 200-201).
Yup, seen it, thanks for posting. Just one nit.
[…]
>In the introduction to my first
>collection of political essays, 20 years ago, I add that we have lost our
>humanity if we are even willing to enter into debate over the Nazi crimes
>with those who deny or defend them.
What the devil is this supposed to mean? In context it’s an assertion of
Chomsky’s “political correctness,” kind of a “how dare you,” which I can
understand, but how does one apply this to the Faurisson case?
If Chomsky doesn’t want to get his hands dirty by countering people like
Faurisson, then where does he get off saying that people who do engage
them (as someone must, since Chomsky will help them esconce themselves
into the mainstream, where he grants them a positive right to be) have
lost their humanity? I don’t get it. Does he really not understand the
relationship between what he does and the effects his actions have?
The more I hear, the more I agree with Chomsky’s dismissal of Cohn, but
this particular sentence rings hollow.
-rich
From [email protected] Wed Dec 11 06:34:21 PST 1996
Article: 85020 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Rich Graves)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 11 Dec 1996 02:47:10 -0800
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[email protected] writes:
>[email protected] (Rich Graves) writes:
>>Now, this is progress. Your article <[email protected]>
>>looks like an argument that it wasn’t racist filth, and that it was wrong
>>to impute motives.
>
>I *have* argued that Faurisson might not be motivated out of racism and
>that Chomsky may be correct that he’s not anti-semitic. That doesn’t change
>the fact that whatever Faurisson’s motives, that holocaust detractors are
>almost certainly dominated by anti-semites, and are the bedtime reading of
>racist neo-nazis and white supremacists.
>
>This is patently obvious.
I agree, of course. But it seems that Chomsky goes out of his way to deny
it, which he needn’t do to defend freedom of expression.
>>You don’t have to throw in the disclaimer “this is racist filth, but…”
>>everywhere, but please avoid making excuses. You shouldn’t need them, and
>>they don’t help.
>>
>>”It’s speech.”
>>
>>That’s enough. Stop there.
>
>I have been stopping there. Unfortunately, when I use the use the terms
>”research” and “criticism” *I* happen to use those terms in a very value-
>neutral fashion, as do damn near everyone else that I know. Maybe it
>comes from being around physicists too much who crack geeky “cold fusion”
>jokes all the time. Expose yourself to more bad science and lose the
>value judgment you’ve got attached to words like “research” and “criticism.”
I can do you one better. I have a degree in “Political Science.” 🙂
>I can’t help it if you go and read some kind of approval into my words
>I use when none is intended or explicitly stated…
Wrong; you can help by saying precisely what you just said.
And by not signing your name to positive portrayals of people like
Faurisson written by people like Mark Weber. If Chomsky wanted to stand up
strictly for freedom, he should have written his own more careful
statement, not signed onto a campaign where one Holocaust denier was
patting another on the back for reasons that had nothing to do with
freedom of expression. Chomsky was used.
>>(Actually, you should look into it a little more, to verify that you’re
>>not defending direct incitements to violence…
>
>My understanding is the Faurisson is claiming that the Holocaust didn’t
>happen. That is not a direct incitement to violence. It may have the
>effect of increasing neo-nazi anger, but certainly not *directly* and
[etc.]
Nothing in this paragraph of yours I would disagree with, which I thought
was clear from the context. I will endeavor to word my articles so that
individual sentences are more difficult to misconstrue.
>>, which are not protected
>>speech, not even in the US. To take an extreme example, many Amnesty
>>International chapters, including mine, refused to call Nelson Mandela a
>>prisoner of conscience because he had not absolutely renounced the option
>>of terrorist violence. This doesn’t mean we supported apartheid, or that
>>we didn’t think Mandela was unjustly jailed; but “prisoner of conscience”
>>is such an absolutist term that it must be used sparingly to preserve its
>>moral force. Many people, and the United Nations Convention to Prevent All
>>Forms of Discrimination, which the US signed but with substantial
>>reservations, hold that hate propaganda belongs in the same category as
>>incitement to violence. The legal formulation is “inciting hatred against
>>an identifiable group.” I think such laws are wrong, but I think it’s OK
>>to treat people who advocate them with respect.)
>
>define “hate propaganda.” it’s like the death penalty — you can come up
>with _obvious_ cases where it applies, but Blakmun dissented after a couple
>of decades of not being able to decide where the dividing line was.
[etc.]
Again, agreed for a couple paragraphs. I’ve spoken on this topic before,
with arguments similar to yours. However…
>>Chomsky went beyond a pure defense of free speech, and in
>><[email protected]>, so did you, briefly. That certainly
>>doesn’t make you or Chomsky Nazi sympathizers. Perhaps you’re a little
>>uncomfortable with pure free-speech absolutism, and think you need to make
>>excuses for the groups you defend. Bad mistake.
>
>I haven’t made any excuses for Faurisson. I have pointed out that your
>criticism of Chomsky’s claim that Faurisson is not an anti-semite (note:
>i’m making excuses for Chomsky, not Faurisson — because I respect Chomsky
>and give him the benefit of the doubt — that’s an entire *other* can of
>worms though and comes from having read several thousand pages of what he’s
>written and listed to multiple hours of hearing him speak such that I have
>a basis for giving him the benefit of the doubt… anyway…) i’ve pointed
>out that your criticism of Chomsky’s claim is not sufficient since there’s
>no evidence you’ve supplied that *Faurisson* is anti-semitic and not simply
>your average intellectual idiot. I’m not exusing Faurisson, and I’m
>certainly not implying that Faurisson’s book isn’t a tool of anti-semites.
>I’m asking you to come up with more evidence that Chomsky’s assessment of
>Faurisson is incorrect.
OK. Since I’m no expert, and I’d hate to make as weak an argument as Cohn
does, I’m hoping that Emmanuel Marin or Michel Fingerhut, who seem to have
the most knowledge about these matters, will jump in here. But I’ll try
later if they don’t.
>Also, we seem to disagree over the possibility of value-free assessment of
>research and criticism. To me the question of “did the Holocaust happen?”
>is one that must first be considered independently of those who have vested
>interests in the answer to the question and completely impartially. Of
>course the answer that it didn’t happen fails quite spectacularly. However,
>I view it as a valid question to ask — to not ask it impartially I’d view
>as being entirely intellectually dishonest. *After* it has been determined
>that the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the existence of Holocaust,
>then one can ask questions and make observations about those who believe
>that it didn’t happen (i.e. that they’re racist idiots). I get the feeling
>that you don’t even feel that the question could even *ideally* be the
>subject of dispassionate research and criticism — or that this is even
>something beneficial to strive for.
On the contrary, I think Jean-Claude Pressac, who spun out from under
Faurisson’s wing by the way, has done an excellent job at precisely this.
(Faurisson commissioned Pressac to help him prove the gas chambers
couldn’t have worked, and Pressac went and proved quite the opposite.)
There’s an awful lot of his stuff on Nizkor; see the GIFs of his diagrams
of how the gas chambers worked in the camps/auschwitz FTP directory.
I’m not sure what you mean by “those who have a vested interest in the
answer.” [Oops, there I go hypocritically responding out of context, just
as I told you not to. Later you make it clear you’re referring to
antisemites with a vested interest in proving The Jewish Conspiracy. My
sensitivity, of course, is that Faurisson et al are on record saying, in
so many words, that mainstream historians have a vested interest in
advancing Jewish interests. I’m thinking out loud here to demonstrate that
thinking is something I do; I’m not sure that Chomsky and Cohn,
respectively, do anymore.]
>by sparking controversy. Those who are right now collecting evidence to
>refute idiots like Faurisson are probably doing our decendents 200 years
>down the line a favor when the evidence will be harder to amass.
Thank you.
>This *isn’t* a defense or excuse of Faurisson. This *is*, however, a
>defense of letting him speak.
It’s a rather twisted defense, but one with an excellent pedigree, for
example, the latter half of Milton’s On Liberty, or for that matter,
Nizkor’s recent interview with Der Spiegel.
https://nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/german/der-spiegel-online/ Broken link
I would rather Voltaire had said, “I *do* disagree with what you say,
*and* I will defend your right to say it.” People frequently complain that
my writing, for example this sentence, is riddled with “buts,” but [see?]
on matters of principle, I like to see no discontinuities. No politically
convenient silences or euphemisms.
-rich
From [email protected] Wed Dec 11 06:34:23 PST 1996
Article: 85028 of alt.revisionism
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From: Mark R
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 15:32:11 -0700
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On 10 Dec 1996, Rich Graves wrote:
> >That someone of Chomsky’s stature should confuse the issue is
> >appalling. Indeed, it was this kind of reasoning that led Alfred Kazin
> >to describe Chomsky as a “dupe of intellectual pride so overweening that
> >he is incapable of making distinctions between totalitarian and
> >democratic societies, between oppressors and victims.” Though Chomsky is
> >his own unique case, his spirited defense of the deniers shocked many
> >people including those who thought they were inured to his antics.
Doesn’t it strike anybody as a little odd that none of these people, Cohn,
etc, can deal with the concept of freedom of speech? Quoting Chomsky:
it is taken for granted by civil libertarians that defense of freedom of
expression is independent of the views expressed. Thus when I sign
petitions (and go far beyond that) in the case of Soviet dissidents, some
of whom have absolutely horrendous views, I never allude to this fact in
the slightest way. In signing petitions supporting Salman Rushdie, I make
no comment about whether his book slanders Muslims. I have no doubt that
this practice enrages mullahs in Qom and commissars in the Kremlin as much
as it does Werner Cohn, and for the same reasons. Where no civil liberties
issues arise, I have been quite explicit about the fact that the views of
Faurisson and others are diametrically opposed to my own firm conclusions
about the facts, as in the statement quoted in Cohn’s ‘crucial source’.
> I think Lipstadt and Kazin are dead-on here. “Dupe of intellectual pride”
> indeed. However, I don’t see this as very supportive of Cohn’s thesis that
> Chomsky is essentially a neo-Nazi.
Perhaps then you could explain, because as far as I can tell, it’s
nonsense.
> I read most of Cohn’s book (just skimmed chapters 7-8, because I don’t
> know the history of Israel), and while some of it was OK, I was struck by
> an eagerness to impute motives where Lipstadt doesn’t. I also see no
> reason to doubt Emmanuel’s contention that Cohn gets a lot of the French
> politics wrong.
Agreed.
> Chomsky is a man of prodigious ego, a casual disregard for the facts, a
> great knack for vituperation, and an inability to compromise or apologize,
> but he’s no Nazi. I can certainly understand Cohn’s going after Chomsky
> after his “pathological liar” attack and other behavior. But that doesn’t
> make it right.
You’ve got this backwards, Rich. Cohn is a man of prodigious ego, a
casual disregard for the facts, a great knack for vituperation, and an
inability to compromise or apologize. Cohn didn’t go after Chomsky,
Chomsky responded to Cohn’s allegations, which are, as has been
demonstrated, pathological lies.
mr
From [email protected] Wed Dec 11 06:34:24 PST 1996
Article: 85030 of alt.revisionism
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From: Mark R
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 15:34:39 -0700
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From: [email protected]
Date: 9 Aug 1995 05:48:11 -0400
It seems Kalina has found time to digest his “new book” by the
illustrious Werner Cohn.
…
—-
As for the swill below, and as for Kalina’s new friend Sampson in
particular, the reader might take a look at the December 22, 1984
and March 2, 1985 issues of _The_Nation_. In the former (on pp.
670-671) will be found evidence that Sampson is wrong; and in the
latter (p. 226) will be found a letter *from Sampson*, expressing
“great regret” for his falsehood — you might even say Sampson
almost apologized (a quotation appears below).
Of course, Sampson decided to blame everyone else for his mistake,
and generally behaved like a weasel — which only endears him even
more to any fan of Kalina’s — but the point is, even dear Geoffrey
Sampson has conceded that his charge was false.
Unbeknownst to Kalina, Cohn sold him a pack of lies. But because our
simpleton is so eager — desperate — to find *something* with which
he can appear to justify his own disgusting behavior with regard to
Chomsky, he falls victim to Cohn, and pays for the privilege.
Moral of the story: A (Militant) Fool and his Money are Soon Parted.
—-
Now. In order to follow my response to Kalina’s swill, readers may
find the following narrative useful.
Synopsis:
Bullock: edits a compendium of biographies
Sampson: writes some trash about Chomsky for Bullock
Fontana: a division of Collins, publishes Bullock in the UK
Chomsky: reads Sampson’s trash — i.e., *after* it is published
sends two letters to Bullock showing that Sampson is wrong
asks Bullock to repudiate and/or correct the next edition
Harper: seeks to publish Bullock in the US
receives *from Fontana/Collins et al* the letters by Chomsky
is told by its own lawyers that Sampson’s trash is actionable
asks Sampson to substantiate his trash
refuses to publish when Sampson refuses to substantiate
At this point, Sampson begins to say that his failure is due to
Chomsky’s influence and threat of libel.
Which is amazingly stupid, for three reasons: (1) almost anyone has
more “influence” with US corporations than Chomsky; (2) it is well
known that Chomsky does not believe in suing for libel, so that
Sampson’s lie is not credible; and (3) far from threatening to sue
anyone, Chomsky never even *tried to contact* Fontana or Harper & Row!
Clearly, Geoffrey Sampson is no ordinary fool.
Peeved at his own inadequacy, Sampson writes an entire article in
the _New_Criterion_, telling us how Chomsky ruined his brilliant
expose by threatening to sue. “Censorship” is what he calls it.
Presumably, Cohn saw it there and added it to his pack of lies.
Now along comes Kalina, brilliant as ever, believing only what he
wants to believe, once again making a total fool of himself in
front of the entire Known Universe.
Cohn: in 1988, writes a pamphlet filled with nonsense
reissues his “book” in 1994 when he senses a new market
Kalina: buys a “book” filled with nonsense
wills himself to believe the nonsense
posts great gobs of stupidity extracted from the nonsense
I’ve said before: *why* Kalina keeps doing this to himself is a mystery.
Time and again, he tumbles for the worst of the worst — we thought
his infatuation with Rothmanlichter was bad; then he began to tell us
about his prophet George Gilder; then Paul Johnson; then David Irving,
whose work was pronounced “intriguing”; and now Werner Cohn; and I’m
sure there are others. It takes real work to build up a library when
the material comes from such a collection of intellectual ciphers.
Some say Kalina can’t be as stupid as he seems — but I ask: *why not*?
—-
Kalina:
> Jon M. Gallagher ([email protected]) wrote:
> : It’s a Web page with pointers to documents that discuss Chomsky’s
> : signing a petition in support of Robert Faurisson. Chomsky later
> : learned that Faurisson was (and still is) a notorious Holocaust
> : denier. Chomsky still supported Faurisson’s right to speak and
> : that landed Chomsky in untold amounts of hot water.
> : That’s the problem with having principles. Chomsky doesn’t try to
>
> Principles. Indeed.
Yes. Apparently not something Kalina can fathom.
> Some years ago, British linguist Geoffrey Sampson wrote a blurb
> about Chomsky for the _Biographical Companion to Modern Thought_.
> Said blurb praised Chomsky’s contribution to linguistics but
> contained the following caveat about his political activities: […]
1. “British linguist”: In his book _Liberty_and_Language_,
Sampson suggests that trade unions should be abolished,
that it is wrong to have laws that forbid the employment
of children in coal-mines, and that Margaret Thatcher
was a great proponent of “principled liberalism.” The
book was reviewed in the _Journal_of_Linguistics_, which
described it as “a right-wing tract” with “no intellectual
value.” That’s Kalina’s (i.e., Cohn’s) “British linguist.”
2. “Caveat”: Actually, Sampson’s remarks about Chomsky are
a desperate lie, not a “caveat.” Neither Sampson, nor
Cohn, nor Paul Johnson, nor Kalina, nor any other, can
substantiate what Sampson wrote. It’s simply false.
> >… he forfeited authority as a political commentator by a series
> >of actions widely regarded as ill-judged (repeated polemics minimizing
> >the Khmer Rouge atrocities in Cambodia; endorsement of a book — which
> >Chomsky admitted he had not read — that denied the historical reality
> >of the Jewish Holocaust).
This is part of what Sampson wrote for Lord Bullock’s book. It’s
false. And when the editors at Harper & Row — the publishers of
the US edition — asked Sampson to modify or substantiate these
statements, he refused. As a result, they declined to include the
statements in the US edition. This is not “censorship,” except
to the likes of Sampson and Kalina, who simply don’t understand
why people value the truth.
> This caveat, strangely enough, did not appear in the American
> edition of the publication.
“Caveat”? “Strangely enough”? Kalina is being Kalina again.
Chomsky did not even _know_ there was going to _be_ an American
edition. Nor did he ever make any attempt to contact, let alone
threaten, the American publishers, nor even the British publishers.
How do we know? *They* say so:
| Simon King, managing director of Fontana/Collins, has confirmed
| to me that Chomsky “never wrote to this company, nor threatened
| legal action.” Hugh van Dusen of Harper & Row says Chomsky never
| communicated any threat either personally or through an intermediary.
| Lord Bullock says that in neither of the two letters Chomsky wrote
| to him did he threaten to sue. And, finally, Sampson acknowledges
| that he never saw any direct evidence of Chomsky’s “rush to law.”
|
| — Alexander Cockburn, _The_Nation_, December 22, 1984, p. 670.
|
So, on the one hand, we have Cohn and Kalina; and on the other hand
we have the people Chomsky is alleged to have threatened!
> Sampson claims Chomsky used his influence to
> have the entry censored (see _New Criterion_ v3 #2).
Of course, Kalina repeats the claim. Of course, it is false:
|
| On the question of whether Noam Chomsky threatened libel action
| in connection with my entry in Lord Bullock’s biographical
| dictionary … I now accept that Chomsky did not make the threat.
| I greatly regret having written that he did.
|
| — Geoffrey Sampson, “apologizing,”
| in the March 2, 1985 issue of _The_Nation_.
|
Notice: this is *Sampson* himself! (But Kalina & Cohn know better?)
(Kalina: to pay money for Cohn’s garbage, you have to be STUPID.)
> Whether or not he did so, however, Chomsky in unambiguous in his
> endorsement of the expurgation of Sampson’s critique:
1. “Whether or not he did so.” Typical Kalina slime.
2. It was not “the expurgation of Sampson’s critique” — it was
the refusal (by Harper & Row) to publish statements that Sampson
declined to modify or substantiate. This is not censorship. On
the part of the publisher, it is common decency and simple respect
for the facts; on the part of Sampson, it is duplicity. No wonder
Kalina is confused.
3. *Of course*, Chomsky would endorse the “expurgation” of Sampson’s
lies. *I* endorse the “expurgation” of Sampson’s lies. But
neither Chomsky — nor anyone else — ever threatened anything.
The publishers (Harper & Row) made their own decisions, based on
Sampson’s manifest inability to substantiate his own assertions.
The publishers have said (as quoted above) that they were never
contacted by Chomsky, let alone threatened with legal action.
They were only sent copies of his two letters, *by their UK
counterparts*. They found, *simply by reading his letters*, that
he had made “a good case on the inaccuracy of Sampson’s remarks”
(_Nation_, 19841222, p. 671). Had Sampson substantiated his
remarks, Harper & Row would have published. He did not. They
showed him the door. Period.
> >With regard to a book, readers can form their own conclusions. But an
> >entry in a reference work is something quite different. Readers rely on
> >the reputation of the editors to guarantee that what is presented is
> >accurate, not fabrication and mere slander as in this case; and the
> >editors surely have a responsibility to justify that trust.
> (Chomsky, in _The New Criterion_, January 1985)
> So it’s OK to censor Sampson’s biographical sketch, because it
> was in a reference work, and reference works are… something else…
> but not books. OK. Whatever.
The premise is false. Chomsky did not “censor” anything, nor
did he say “it’s OK to censor” anything. Kalina is being Kalina.
Besides, the entire charge is ridiculous, because it is well known
that Chomsky objects to such lawsuits *on principle*.
Not that a Virtuous Hypocrite like Kalina can be expected to
understand such a position, of course.
> Of course, even the most devoted civil libertarian is not
> obligated to endorse fraud, fabrication and slander (although Chomsky
> seems pretty thin-skinned about it). So Chomsky can be consistent to his
> aforementioned principles, while still opposing the publication of this
> allegedly slanderous biography.
If only this paragraph had a point.
> There is, however, a minor problem: Fauisson and his allies in
> the French anti-semitic left (including Chomsky buddies Serge Thion and
> Pierre Guillaume) have for some time been engaged in a bitter, highly
> personal campaign of libel and slander against various Holocaust
> survivors and witnesses.
Who but Cohn says any of this is true?
And what does any of it have to do with Chomsky?
> So Chomsky’s “principles” would appear to be that absolute
> freedom of speech is a wonderful thing, even taken so far as to include
> slander, libel and fabrication… unless it’s directed against him.
If true, Kalina would be bankrupt by now.
> I don’t see why he should find such “principles” any trouble.
> Many of us might find it quite convenient to have principles that flexible.
Desperate!
> _The Chomsky Reader_, interestingly, neglects the Faurisson
> affair. Perhaps it vanished down the memory hole.
Kalina might try looking at the book,
just to see if he can discern its actual subject.
> And the hits just keep on comin’…
Maybe Rockwell can help Kalina out here, with a suitable anagram…
> “I don’t know enough about [Faurisson’s] work to determine if what he is
> claiming is accurate or not.” –Chomsky, _Liberation_, 12/23/80
Factual statement.
Kalina thinks this is embarrassing?
> “We don’t want people to have religious or dogmatic beliefs about the
> existence of the Holocaust.” –Chomsky, _Le Matin_, 1/19/81
Neither do I. So what?
Kalina thinks this is embarrassing?
> “[Israel] Shahank is an outstanding scholar, with remarkable insight and
> depth of knowledge. His work is informed and penetrating, a contribution
> of great value.”
> –Chomsky, cover endorsement for _Jewish History, Jewish Religion_,
> which includes the informed and penetrating observation that
> “Both before and after a meal, a pious Jew ritually washes
> his hands… On one of these two occasions he is worshipping
> God… but on the other he is worshipping Satan.”
One would think that — given recent events — Kalina would know
better by now than to try telling us what is — and is not —
acceptable Jewish scholarship.
One would think that — but one would be wrong.
So we now have the rather unlikely sight of Kalina standing up for
the dogma of Jewish fundamentalism.
As interesting as it is to watch this profoundly cynical display,
I can’t resist giving Kalina some rope. He should tell us, with
clear references and no elided text, where his various quotations
occur in Shahak’s book; and then he should explain why he thinks
they prove anything.
And he should be aware: if he makes even one mistake, I’ll know.
And then so will he. And so will the rest of the Known Universe.
—-
By the way, far from needing to defend it against the likes of Cohn
and Kalina, I *recommend* Shahak’s book:
Israel Shahak.
_Jewish_History,_Jewish_Religion:_
_The_Weight_of_Three_Thousand_Years_.
London: Pluto Press Ltd., 1994. ISBN: 074530818X; 0745308198 (pbk).
Foreword by Gore Vidal
1. The Consequences of Ethnic Cleansing
2. The Jewish Religion and its attitude to non-Jews (Part 1)
The Social Structure and Major Features of Classical Judaism
The Muslim World
Christian Spain
Poland
Anti-Jewish Persecution
Modern Anti-Semitism
The Zionist Reform
Confronting the Past
3. The Jewish Religion and its attitude to non-Jews (Part 2)
Prejudice and Prevarication
Structure of the Legal Edifice
Interpretations of the Bible
Structure of the Talmud
4. Conclusions
Israel Shahak is a long-time human-rights and civil-rights activist.
A (retired) professor of organic chemistry by training, he moved
to Palestine in 1945. That is to say, he moved to Palestine after
he was born in the Warsaw Ghetto, and after he survived Belsen.
His books have been written in English and Hebrew, and translated
into Arabic. To understand why the Israeli right wing despises
him, we need only look as far as Ronald Reagan and his attitude
towards those who worked to advance civil rights.
It’s the same everywhere: treat the “other” like a human being and
you are no longer one of “us.” Shahak’s only mistake is that he
sees it is *wrong* for the state of Israel to treat innocent Moslem
people in the same way that innocent Jewish people have been —
and are — themselves treated elsewhere.
And for this, the likes of Werner Cohn tell lies about him. And since
Chomsky supports Shahak’s stand in favor of human rights, it is found
necessary to lie about Chomsky as well.
The survivor of Belsen is called a Holocaust-denier, and the son of
a Hebrew scholar is called his partner in hate. And Kalina joins in.
No surprises here. But a question: can Kalina sink much lower?
Of course he can. Just watch.
Dhanesh
From [email protected] Wed Dec 11 06:34:26 PST 1996
Article: 85036 of alt.revisionism
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From: Mark R
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 15:41:36 -0700
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Here is the letter Chomsky wrote in response to Cohn’s case against
him, which was restated in the Canadian Jewish journal _Outlook_ . The
letter is reprinted in Milan Rai’s _Chomsky’s Politics_ (pg. 200-201).
Editor
Outlook
6184 Ash St., #3
Vancouver BC V5Z3G9
June 1, 1989
Dear Sir,
Observing the performances of Werner Cohn is a curious experience.
An occasional phrase has a relation to reality, but it takes an effort to
imagine what may lie behind the discourse.
In _Outlook_, May, Cohn presents a fevered account of a second
existence that he has conjured up for me, in France, where I pursue my
secret life as a neo-Nazi, hoping that no one outside of Paris will notice.
He gives two proofs. The first is what he calls his ‘most crucial source’:
‘a joint article by Chomsky and his friend Pierre Guillaume, “Une mise au
point”,’ in Guillaume’s book _Droit et Histoire_. The second is that
‘Chomsky could have published the French version of his _Political Economy
of Human Rights_ (written with Edward Herman) with a commercial publisher,
but, in order to show solidarity with VT [Vielle Taupe], Chomsky insisted
on publishing the book with it.’
Since I never wrote a ‘joint article’ with Guillaume, I was
curious, and after a search, found the book in question. Indeed, it
contains the chapter ‘Une mise au point’, written in first-person singular
by Guillaume, with no hint of any collaboration with me. I am mentioned in
it, and fragments of a letter of mine are quoted in which I discuss
changes in the U.S. intellectual climate since the 1960’s (with typical
veracity, Cohn describes this as my ‘comments on Guillaume’s version of
the Chomsky-VT relationship’, which is nowhere mentioned). By Cohn’s
intriguing logic, I am also the co-author of his various diatribes –
perhaps in my third life, which he will expose in the next instalment.
Cohn asserts that I found ‘nothing to correct in Guillaume’s’
account. He has not the slightest idea what my reaction to the article is.
Recall that this ‘joint article’ is his ‘crucial source’.
Let us turn to his second decisive piece of evidence. When I
learned of Cohn’s fairy tales about the French translation of the book of
Herman and mine, I was intrigued. Of course, it is obvious even without
further inquiry that his claims are outlandish. There is no possible way
that he could know of my intentions (and those of my co-author, Edward
Herman, who somehow seems to have disappeared from the tale; perhaps I
invented him as a cover). But we need not speculate on Cohn’s mystical
ability to read minds.
Standard procedure is to leave translations in the hands of the
publisher. I make no attempt to keep track of the innumerable translations
of books of mine in foreign languages. Curious about Cohn’s allegations,
I contacted the publisher, who checked their files and located the
contract for the French translation — with Albin-Michel, a mainstream
commercial publisher, to my knowledge. They did not know whether the
translation had appeared, never having received a copy. The same is true
of my co-author and me.
Note that these are the examples that Cohn selects as the decisive
proof of his theses. A rational person will draw the obvious conclusions
about the rest.
Cohn makes two further claims. He says that in defending the right
of freedom of expression in the case of Robert Faurisson, I have always
‘indicated’ that my ‘”diametrically opposed” view was more a matter of
opinion than of scientific knowledge’ (a statement that he appears to
attribute to Guillaume); and I have always defended freedom of expression
‘interms that are absolutely incapable of hurting Faurrison [sic].’
Consider these allegations.
In Cohn’s ‘crucial source’, cited above’, Guillaume quotes my
statement that ‘there are no rational grounds that allow any doubt about
the existence of gas chambers.’ Thus Cohn is refuted by his own ‘crucial
source.’ In my own writings, from the earliest until the present, the
conclusions of standard Holocaust studies are taken simply as established
fact, as Cohn knows perfectly well. In the introduction to my first
collection of political essays, 20 years ago, I add that we have lost our
humanity if we are even willing to enter into debate over the Nazi crimes
with those who deny or defend them. The only particle of truth in Cohn’s
absurd charge is that I never use the phrase ‘scientific knowledge’ in
dealing with any questions of history; my book with Herman, for example,
which is neither science nor mere opinion.
Turning to Cohn’s second point, it is taken for granted by civil
libertarians that defense of freedom of expression is independent of the
views expressed. Thus when I sign petitions (and go far beyond that) in
the case of Soviet dissidents, some of whom have absolutely horrendous
views, I never allude to this fact in the slightest way. In signing
petitions supporting Salman Rushdie, I make no comment about whether his
book slanders Muslims. I have no doubt that this practice enrages mullahs
in Qom and commissars in the Kremlin as much as it does Werner Cohn, and
for the same reasons. Where no civil liberties issues arise, I have been
quite explicit about the fact that the views of Faurisson and others are
diametrically opposed to my own firm conclusions about the facts, as in
the statement quoted in Cohn’s ‘crucial source’.
The remainder of Cohn’s ranting has to do with the alleged views
of others, and fanciful comments about France. His conceptions on these
matters are, naturally, of no concern to me.
That Cohn is a pathological liar is demonstrated by the very
examples that he selects. Knowing nothing about him, and caring less, I am
in no position to comment further on what may lie behind this odd and
pathetic behavior.
Sincerely yours,
Noam Chomsky
From [email protected] Wed Dec 11 14:11:14 PST 1996
Article: 85098 of alt.revisionism
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From: Dominique Abalain
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 11 Dec 1996 16:06:25 GMT
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As a french, and someone who took the pain to actually READ Guillaume,
Faurissonand Thion ( and so will be held as a neo-nazi for such a crime,
I guess ), I’d like to give my understanding of a few points :
Faurisson, respected scholar :
Well, he was teaching literature criticism in Lyon 2 university, and had
his time in the french intellectual world in the 60’s, after he wrote
some unconventional theses on Rimbaud and Lautreamont. It depends on what
you call ” respected “. He was not much known, but not unknown.
Faurisson, ultra-right activist, and anti-semite :
Vidal-Naquet, one of the major opponent to the revisionist, had to go
back to some student’s memories to testify that Faurisson is a long time
anti-semite. Faurisson has NEVER been involved in a political party, but
was for some time member of a teacher’s union that is rather ” leftist”.
What I don’t understand in Mr Cohn’s book, is that anti-semitism would be
enough to become a nazi activist. There are unfortunately a lot of people
who have anti-semitic feelings, but they are not all nazis.
The conspiracy :
Mr Cohn tells Chomsy met Guillaume in 1979. What he forgets to quote from
Guillaume’s words is that the meeting lasted FIFTEEN MINUTES, and
aparently, they didn’t meet since that time. They had to correspond on
matters of publcations as this story went on, and Guillaume praises
Chomsky’s correctness when many, even his libertarian left friends have
been ready to let him off, by fear of beeing named ” neo-nazi”.
Well, there would more to say, but let it be like this.
Hope this helps.
D.Abalain
From [email protected] Wed Dec 11 14:11:16 PST 1996
Article: 85099 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Rich Graves)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 11 Dec 1996 03:14:54 -0800
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[email protected] (Brian Siano) writes:
>Scott Solomon ([email protected]) wrote:
>
>: Supporting Cohn’s position that Chomsky is in bed with the Holocaust
>: deniers (I find his pamphlet to be far from “a lie” as Marin claims, at
>: least on a first read), I will off this excerpt from Deborah Lipstadt’s
>: _Denying the Holocaust_, pp. 15-16:
>
> I reviewed this book for _Skeptic_ magazine, and briefly
Excuse my laziness, but could you tell me what issue, and whether it’s on
the Skeptics Society web site?
>singled out the following passages as a serious lapse on Lipstadt’s
>part. For example, she goes after Chomsky on trumped-up charges for at
>least two pages, yet exonerates Pat Buchanan– who’s actually endorsed
>some Revisionist claims– from being an anti-Semite.
Innaresting, thanks.
I wish I could commit the time to reproduce your work independently, but I
think I’ll have to settle for peer review.
I presume you still found it a worthwile book.
-rich
From [email protected] Wed Dec 11 14:11:17 PST 1996
Article: 85101 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Stephen R. Diamond)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 11 Dec 1996 18:53:29 GMT
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In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] wrote:
> >It is also true that civil libertarians tend to get annoyed when people
> >try to leverage “freedom of expression” rhetoric for partisan or personal
> >gain…
>
> And apparently Chomsky realizes, what you don’t, that even if the freedom
> of expression defense is used for partisan or personal gain it must be
> defended provided that it is legitimate. There are people who raise the
> issue of freedom of speech under bogus circumstances to further partisan and
> personal gain, and they should clearly not be defended. However, when
> the issue is legitimate, it needs to be defended. Anything less than this
> and you’re entering grey areas which open it up to abuse.
I think you slightly miss Graves’ point, such that it is. He isn’t
objecting to the support of free speech, when the defense is accompanied
by the leveraging, but to support *of* the leveraging, itself. The issue
comes down to:
1. Was the petition neutral.
2. If not, is signing a non-neutral petition support of leveraging.
I would answer yes to the second question. But I think Graves’ conception
of neutrality is biased (which is a general point about Graves).
To take the one issue which I don’t think this thread has considered – was
it a bias to put Holocaust in quotes? Graves thinks so, because he
construes the quotes as derisive. He doesn’t tell us how he would word a
petition so as to be neutral between denial and historical truth. It would
not be neutral to expect a denier to circulate a petition that denies
denial. The quotes are really a neutal way to specify the holocaust
without committing to its reality.
It is hard to see things from so alien and false a perspective as
holocaust denial. Chomsky apparently has the breadth of perspective
(perhaps because he is really something of a crank himself) to do this;
Graves and Cohn are too ensconced in their parochial moralism to take this
leap.
Stephen R. Diamond
>From Zog
From [email protected] Wed Dec 11 15:02:07 PST 1996
Article: 85105 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Mark Van Alstine)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 08:44:25 -0700
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In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Josh Klugman)
wrote:
> In article
> ,
> Scott Solomon wrote:
>
> >What is the relationship between Chomsky and ‘La Vielle Taupe’? Did
> >Chomsky write an introduction to Faurisson’s book?
>
> The story is that Chomsky was approached to sign a petition defending
> Faurisson’s right to free speech, as the French government was making
moves to
> censor him. He was also asked to write a little thing about anybody’s,
> including a Holocaust revisionist’s, right to free speech. This was printed
> as the introduction to Faurisson’s book w/o Chomsky’s permission; I
believe in
> fact Chomsky tried desperately to get it removed to no avail.
>
> –Josh Klugman
Mr. Klugman, it appears that Pierre Vidal-Naquet, may have a different
opinion on the matter of Chomsky’s and Faurisson’s “relationship:”
[…]
Let us now pose the other side of the question. What does Noam Chomsky
know of the “criticisms” that have been addressed to Faurisson, and
specifically of the study that he refers to, which I published in
_Espirit_ and which attempts to analyze “historically” the “method” of
Faurisson and of several others? The answer is simple. “Certain
individuals have taken Faurisson’s defense for reasons of principle. A
petition with several hundred signatories, led by Noam Chomsky, protested
against the treatment Faurisson has recieved by presenting hin
‘conclusions’ as though they were in fact discoveries (Ve’rite’, p.163).
That petition seems to me to be scandalous.”[8]
The content of those lines leaves no doubt about Chomsky’s motives. It is
not a question of the gas chambers; it is very little a question of
Faurisson, and only secondarily of freedom of speech. It is above all a
question of Noam Chomsky. It is as though by anticipation, Jaques Pre’vert
were speaking of him, and not of Andre’ Breton, when he wrote in 1930: “He
was, then, quite thin-skinned. For a press clipping, he would not leave
his room for eight days.”[9] Like many intellectuals, Chomsky is scarcely
sensitive to the wounds he inflicts, but extremely attentive to whatever
scratches he is forced to put up with.
But what is his argument? He signed, we are told, an innocent petition “in
defense of Robert Faurisson’s freedom of speech and expression. The
petition said absolutely nothing about the character, quality, or validity
of his research, but limited itself quite explicitly to defending
elementary rights which are “teken for granted in democratic societies.”
[…]
Is the petition an innocent decleration in favor of a persecuted man that
everyone, and first of all myself, could (or should) have signed?
Let us read:
Dr. Faurisson has served as a respected professor of twentieth-century
French literature and document criticism for over four years at the
University of Lyon 2 in France. SInce 1974 he has been conducting
extensive independant historical research into the “Holocaust” question.
Since he began making his findings public, Professor Faurissin has been
subject to a viscious campaign of harassment, intimidation, slander,
and physical violence in a crude attempt to silence him. Fearful
officials have even tried to stop him from further research by denying
him access to public libraries and archives.
Let us pass over what is excessive or even openly false in the petition.
Faurisson has been neither forbidden from neither archives nor public
libraries.[10] Does the petition in fact present Robert Faurisson as a
serious historian conducting genuine historical research? To ask that
question is to supply an answer.[11] The most droll aspect of it all is
that one finds the following adage, which has become something of a motto,
preceding works published by La Vielle Taupe: “What is terrible when one
sets out after the truth is that one finds it.” For my part, I maintain-
and prove -that with the eception of the quite limited case of the _Diary
of Anne Frank_,[12] Faurisson does not set out after the truth but after
falsehoods. Is that a “detail” which does not interest Chomsky? And if one
is to understand that poorly informed, he singed on trust a genuinely
“scandalous” text, how are we to accept his willingness to underwrite
today the efforts of a falsifier?
[…]
“I do not want to discuss individuals,” Chomsky writes, and immediately
thereafter, in accordance with the same double discourse with which we are
beginning to be familiar, he attacks an imaginary “person” who “does
indeed find the petition ‘scandalous’ [which was indeed the word I used],
not on the basis of misreading, but because of what it actually says”
(p.xi). An elegant way of not saying- and at the same time, saying -that I
assualt the freedom of my enemies. For Chomsky goes on to say: “We are
obliged to conclude from this that the individual in question believes
that the petition was scandalous because Faurisson _should_ in fact be
deproved of the normal right to self-expression,m that he should be
harassed and even subjected to acts of physical violence, etc.” It happens
that what I wrote was precisely the opposite, and that on the very page on
which Chomsky did such a poor job of deciphering the five lines that so
disturbed him. Was it really impossible to read that page through? The
conditions under which Faurisson was brought to request leave of Lyon and
enter the National Center of Broadcasted Instruction were certainly
regrettable, and I have said as much, but his freedom of expression,
subject to extent of law, has not been threatened at all. He was able to
be published on two occasions in _Le MOnde_. Thion’s book, in which his
theses are vented, was not the subject of any lawsuit, and if Faurisson is
the target of a civil suit, brought by various antiracist associations,
which do not all have freedom as their primary goal,[15] such lawsuits do
not prevent him from writing or being published. Is not the book
preferenced by CHomsky- with the exception of instances of libel towards
specific individuals that it may contain -proof? Would he like a law
passed by the republic requiring that Faurisson’s works be read in public
schools? Is he asking for all history books to be rewritten in accord with
his discoveries- I mean, conclusions (_Findings))? Is he requesting at the
very least that they be advertised and sold at the entrance to synagogues?
Is every French intelectual to assume in turn the roles of his exegete,
like Serge THion, his psychiatrist, like Pierre Guillaume, or his bufoon?
The simple truth, Noam Chomsky, is that you were unable to abide by the
ethical maxim you had imposed. You had the right to say: my worst enemy
has the right to be free, on condition that he not ask for my death or
that of my brothers. You did not have the right to say: my worst enemy is
a comrade, or a “relatively apolitical sort of liberal.” You did not have
the right to take a falsifier of history and to recast him in the colors
of truth.
There was once, not so long ago, a man who uttered this simple and
powerful principle: “It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak
the truth and to expose lies.” But perhaps you know him?” [16]
[…]
…[In] a letter of December 6 addressed to Jean-Pierre Faye, Chomsky
somehow disavowed not his text but the use that had been made of it
without his agreement as a preface to Robert Faurisson’s book. The book
was nonetheless printed with the preface in question, which was dated
October 11, 1980. On that same Dcember 6, he wrote to Serge Thion
concerning the same text: “If publication is not under way, I strong;y
suggest that you not put it in a book by Faurisson,” which did not prevent
him from maintaining his fundemental position. [17]
Let us restate the point with due calm: the principle he invokes is not at
stake. If Chomsky had restricted himself to defending Faurisson’s right to
free speech, from my point of view there would not be a Chomsky problem.
But that is not the issue. Nor is the issue for me one of responding to
the innumerable proclamations, articles, and letters through which
Chomsky, like some worn-out computer reprinting the same speech, has
spewed forth his outrage at those who have been so bold as to criticize
him, and specifically at the auther of these pages. [18]
It will suffice for me to observe: 1) that he went considerably further in
his support for Faurisson, exchanging friendly letters with him,[19]
accepting even to be prefaced by a leader of the revisionist league Pierre
Guillaume [20] (while claiming- mendaciously -that he had not written a
preface for Faurisson), [21], characterizing Guillaume as “libertarian and
antifascist on principle” [22] (which must have provoked some hilarity
>from the interested party, since he regards antifascism as fundementally
mendacious); 2) that he has not remained faithful to his own libertarian
principles since he- whom the slightest legal action against Faurisson
throws into a fit -went do far as to threaten a publisher with a lawsuit
over a biographical note concerning him in which several sentances had the
misfortune of displeasing him. And in fact, he succeeded in having the
biographical note in question assinged to a more loyal editor [23].
To be sure, it is not the case that Chomsky’s theses in any way
approximate those of the neo-Nazis.[24] But why does he find so much
energy and even tenderness in defending those who have become the
publishers and defenders of the neo-Nazis, [25] and so much rage against
those who allow themselves to fight them? [26]. That is the simple
question I shal raise. When logic has no other end than self-defense, it
goes mad.
Source: Vidal-Naquet, _Assassins of Memory_, pp.67-73.
“8. _Espirit_, p.52. I reprinted these lines as they were published. For
reasons of precision I rephrased them in the definitive version of my
text, _supra_, p.58.” (Ibid. p.162.)
“9. Maurice Nadeau, _Histoire du surre’alisme_, II, _Documents
surre’alistes_ (Paris: Seuil, 1948), p.154.” (Ibid.)
“10. Concerning the refusal of the personnel of the Centre de
Documentation Juvive Contemporaine (a private foundation) to serve him,
cf. _Espirit_, p.52, and _supra_, p.58.” (Ibid.)
“11. These are the words, American and English colleagues have told me,
which might be said of a university thesis- and a good one!” (Ibid.)
“12. For the sake of completeness, I will say that in his new book there
is material on gas chambers that were either imaginaru or did not function
in the western camps, Buchenwald and Dachau. But it is all so poorly
analyzed from a historical point of view that even such documentation is
hard to utilize.” (Ibid.)
“15. When a regional director of LICRA protests against a performance of
Shakespeare’s _The Merchant of Venice_ (cf. _Le Monde_, July 5, 1980), he
is working for Faurisson, who is delighted to mention such venomous
foolishness.” (Ibid.)
“16. Cf. Stephen Lukes, ‘Chomsky’s Betrayel of Truths,’ _Times_ (London),
Higher Education Supplement, November 7, 1980, p.31.” (Ibid.)
“17. See P. Guillaume, _Droit et Histoire_ (Paris: La Vieille Taupe,
1986), pp.158-159.” (Ibid.)
“18. I possess a huge file of material; suffice it for me to refer to a
small book published, alas, by Editions Spartacus (Paris, 1984), N.
Chomsky, _Re’esponses ine’dites a mes de’tracteurs parisiens_.” (Ibid.)
“19. P. Guillaume, _Droit et Histoire_, p.54.” (Ibid.)
“20. P. Guillaume signed a preface to Chomsky’s book, _Re’esponses
ine’dites_, with his initials.” (Ibid.)
“21. My colleague and friend Professor Arno Mayer of Princeton spoke with
Chomsky about his preface a few weeks before its publication.” (Ibid.
p.163.)
“22. See his letter in the _Village Voice_ of March 18, 1986, p.7,
responding to an article by Paul Berman in the same newspaper (February
18, 1986).” (Ibid.)
“23. I refer to the American edition of the _Biographical Companion to
Contemporary Thought_, edited by A. Bullock (London: Fontana-Collins,
1983); details of this matter can be found in an article by G. Sampson
(author of the note), ‘Censoring 20th-Century Culture: The Case of Noam
Chomsky,’ _The New Criterion_, October 1984, pp.7-16.” (Ibid.)
“24. W.D. Rubenstein’s article, ‘Chomsky and the Neo-Nazis,’ published in
the Australian periodical _Quadrant_, October 1981, pp.8-14, seems to miss
the mark; it was followed by a published debate, in which Chomsky (setting
forth his usual line) participated, as well as R. Manne (on the subject of
Cambodia) (_Quandrant_, April 1982, pp. 6-22). In P. Guillaume’s _Droit et
Histoire_, pp.152-172, one finds fragments of an unbelievable attack by
one Chantal Beachamp, characterized as a ‘ professor and _agre’ge’e_ in
history,’ against Chomsky, who is accused of being a closet
exterminationist, and his accomplice P. Guillaume. One would like to know
the elements of this dlectable affair.” (Ibid.)
“25. N. Chomsky, for example, appears not to had any problem with La
Vieille Taupe publishing the (genuinely Nazi) volume of W. Sta”glich, _Le
Mythe d’Auschwitz_ (1986). To someone who asked him what he thought of it,
he replied that he did not discuss things with fascists (testimony of Paul
Berman, 1986). The most intelligent article written to defend Chomsky- C.
Hitchen’s ‘The Chorus and Cassandra: What Everyone Knows About Noam
Chomsky,’ _Grand Street_, Autumn 1985, pp.106-131 -avoids confronting this
type of question.” (Ibid.)
“26. See his polemic against Nadine Fresco, for example, in _Dissent_,
Spring 1982, pp.218-220.” (Ibid.)
Mark
posted/e-mailed
——————————————————————————–
“Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes
not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties–but
right through every human heart–and all human hearts.”
— Alexander Solzhenitsyn, “The Gulag Archipelago”
——————————————————————————–
From [email protected] Wed Dec 11 17:32:01 PST 1996
Article: 85119 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Stephen R. Diamond)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 11 Dec 1996 07:35:13 GMT
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In article , Mark R
wrote:
> Cohn is a man of prodigious ego, a
> casual disregard for the facts, a great knack for vituperation, and an
> inability to compromise or apologize.
The second and fourth can be seen in his casual errors concerning the
historical Leninist position on oppressor nations. Cohn charged
Trotskyists with anti-Semitism for labeling Israel, and not just the
Israeli capitalists, as oppressors, making the argument that this position
deviated from the historical Leninist position on national oppression.
When it was pointed out he was mistaken, Cohn failed admit the error, or
even acknowledge that it had been called to his attention.
Stephen R. Diamond
From [email protected] Wed Dec 11 19:08:24 PST 1996
Article: 85132 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Rich Graves)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: Not In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 11 Dec 1996 15:18:09 -0800
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[email protected] (Stephen R. Diamond) writes:
>
>In article <[email protected]>,
>[email protected] wrote:
>
>> >It is also true that civil libertarians tend to get annoyed when people
>> >try to leverage “freedom of expression” rhetoric for partisan or personal
>> >gain…
>>
>> And apparently Chomsky realizes, what you don’t, that even if the freedom
>> of expression defense is used for partisan or personal gain it must be
[…]
>I think you slightly miss Graves’ point, such that it is. He isn’t
>objecting to the support of free speech, when the defense is accompanied
>by the leveraging, but to support *of* the leveraging, itself. The issue
>comes down to:
>
>1. Was the petition neutral.
>
>2. If not, is signing a non-neutral petition support of leveraging.
Thank you. This is the first time you have paraphrased me with any
accuracy. I must accept some responsibility for this, because I’ve been
enjoying the irony of your fumbling around so much that I’ve avoided
explaining who I am and why I care about this issue. It has also been
enlightening watching how LamontG reacts to criticism from someone he
doesn’t know. Somehow I’ve become someone who doesn’t believe in freedom
of speech “even for Nazis,” which is quite comical, really. It makes me
suspect that Chomsky is committing the same kind of error when he says the
people criticizing his behavior have no appreciation of free speech. In
fact even Cohn is on record opposed to the laws under which Faurisson was
charged. “My opponents don’t understand freedom of speech” is a straw man,
and while I can’t speak for Cohn (and I’d really rather not be forced to,
since I’m convinced that most of his personal attacks on Chomsky are
bunk), I have good reason to resent the charge myself.
>I would answer yes to the second question. But I think Graves’ conception
>of neutrality is biased (which is a general point about Graves).
>
>To take the one issue which I don’t think this thread has considered – was
>it a bias to put Holocaust in quotes? Graves thinks so, because he
>construes the quotes as derisive.
As they are, when inscribed by Mark Weber. Even on his best behavior, as
in his recent MSNBC interview, when he says the word “Holocaust,” he can’t
suppress a sneer. (Btw, yes, I’m assuming that the charge that the
petition was sent to Chomsky by Weber is accurate, and that Chomsky had
even the foggiest idea who Weber, who is not the most obscure and
inscrutable figure, was. I haven’t seen this assertion challenged. If
anyone has information to the contrary, please let me know, and I’ll take
it into consideration.)
>He doesn’t tell us how he would word a
>petition so as to be neutral between denial and historical truth. It would
>not be neutral to expect a denier to circulate a petition that denies
>denial. The quotes are really a neutal way to specify the holocaust
>without committing to its reality.
This is an interesting redefinition of “neutral.” To act in a neutral
manner, you need to accept your opponent’s premises? What’s wrong with
saying, more simply, “Professor Faurisson has come under legal and in one
instance physical attack* because of his writings and public statements.
We deplore these assaults on freedom and find them inconsistent with
international norms of human rights.” It isn’t necessary to address the
substance of his writings at all, not while wearing your civil
libertarian hat. Even clearly libelous statements should be defended from
violent responses, whether by individuals or by criminal law. Libel is a
matter of civil law.
* – Another example of “neutrality” run amok. One instance must be
presented as a “campaign.”
>It is hard to see things from so alien and false a perspective as
>holocaust denial. Chomsky apparently has the breadth of perspective
>(perhaps because he is really something of a crank himself) to do this;
>Graves and Cohn are too ensconced in their parochial moralism to take this
>leap.
You are so far off base about my “parochial moralism” that I can’t think
of a civil response to this. Please try to avoid putting me in the same
phrase as Cohn in the future.
-rich
From [email protected] Thu Dec 12 05:21:27 PST 1996
Article: 85155 of alt.revisionism
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From: Scott Solomon
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 10:48:06 -0500
Organization: Columbia University
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>From Lipstadt’s Book:
> >Faurisson, whom the _New York Times_ described as having “no
> >particular prominence on the French intellectual or academic scene,” has
> >argued that one of the reasons he does not believe that homicidal gas
> >chambers existed is that no deathcamp victim has given eyewitness
> >testimony of actual gassings. This argument contradicts accepted
> >standards of evidence. It is as if a jury refused to convict a serial
> >killer until one of his victims cambe back to say, “Yes, he is the one who
> >killed me.” Such reasoning is so soft that it makes one wonder who could
> >possibly take him seriously.
Lamont G of Washington.Edu
> Supply any evidence that Chomsky takes those criticisms seriously. He
> defends Faurisson’s right to make those criticisms, but that doesn’t mean
> that he things they’re serious criticisms, correct criticisms, or make
> any judgement on those criticisms. They’re just criticisms and he defends
> the right of them to be said. That is all.
> Anything else you’re reading into it.
Solomon:
I love this word Lamont G uses — “criticisms.” This guy Faurisson says
the Holocaust never happened because no one saw the gas fall into the gas
chamber and the people choking to death. People led the Jew into the gas
chambers, and inmates dragged out the dead bodies. But since no one
inside the gas chamber accidently lived and wrote a book about the
experience, the Holocaust never happened. Lamont calls this a
“criticism.” So if a Klansman says _The Invisible Man_ sucks because it
was written by a nigger, that would be a “criticism”?????? Somehow I can
think of better words than “criticism” YOU STUPID JACKASS. Try “racist
filth.”
I’m gonna pull your post apart piece by piece, you asswipe.
From [email protected] Thu Dec 12 05:21:32 PST 1996
Article: 85173 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 11 Dec 1996 17:32:37 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
Lines: 92
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References: <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <[email protected]>
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[email protected] (Mark Van Alstine) writes:
>Let us now pose the other side of the question. What does Noam Chomsky
>know of the “criticisms” that have been addressed to Faurisson, and
>specifically of the study that he refers to, which I published in
>_Espirit_ and which attempts to analyze “historically” the “method” of
>Faurisson and of several others? The answer is simple. “Certain
>individuals have taken Faurisson’s defense for reasons of principle. A
>petition with several hundred signatories, led by Noam Chomsky, protested
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
he signed a petition. he wrote an “opinion.”
how on earth does this “leader” of the protest against the infringement
of Faurisson’s rights become unaware of the fact that their “opinion” is
going to be printed as an introduction and then make an effort to
halt publication?
interesting that those who actually led the petition are eager to claim
Chomsky as one of theirs, that those who are critical of the petition and
of Chomsky are eager to claim Chomsky was their “leader”, yet Chomsky’s
“leadership” in the matter apppears strangely absent…
>The content of those lines leaves no doubt about Chomsky’s motives. It is
>not a question of the gas chambers; it is very little a question of
>Faurisson, and only secondarily of freedom of speech. It is above all a
>question of Noam Chomsky. It is as though by anticipation, Jaques Pre’vert
>were speaking of him, and not of Andre’ Breton, when he wrote in 1930: “He
>was, then, quite thin-skinned. For a press clipping, he would not leave
>his room for eight days.”[9] Like many intellectuals, Chomsky is scarcely
>sensitive to the wounds he inflicts, but extremely attentive to whatever
>scratches he is forced to put up with.
And why not? Intellectually if you can’t take the heat you should stay out
of the kitchen and you should be able to deal out harsh criticism when it’s
called for. Particularly when it comes to politics and not hard science
the interaction becomes more ruthless because it’s very hard to just pop
down to a lab and do an experiment to decide the matter one way or the
other…
>But what is his argument? He signed, we are told, an innocent petition “in
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
When has Chomsky claimed it was “innocent”?
Exact quotes please, because i’m getting very tired of these kinds of
distortions in this discussion.
>defense of Robert Faurisson’s freedom of speech and expression. The
>petition said absolutely nothing about the character, quality, or validity
>of his research, but limited itself quite explicitly to defending
>elementary rights which are “teken for granted in democratic societies.”
>
>[…]
>
>Is the petition an innocent decleration in favor of a persecuted man that
>everyone, and first of all myself, could (or should) have signed?
yes.
[…]
>Does the petition in fact present Robert Faurisson as a
>serious historian conducting genuine historical research? To ask that
>question is to supply an answer.
I’m afraid the answer here is yes. The fact that he is also brain-damaged
at best and racist at worst doesn’t change the fact that it is historical
research. Cold Fusion is “geninue research” although the findings of
Pons and Fleschmann’s “research” was completely flawed. I think that the
folks here at UW who believed them for awhile have even given up on them,
but that doesn’t change the fact that it was “scientific research.”
>[11] The most droll aspect of it all is
>that one finds the following adage, which has become something of a motto,
>preceding works published by La Vielle Taupe: “What is terrible when one
>sets out after the truth is that one finds it.” For my part, I maintain-
>and prove -that with the eception of the quite limited case of the _Diary
>of Anne Frank_,[12] Faurisson does not set out after the truth but after
>falsehoods. Is that a “detail” which does not interest Chomsky?
Which is clearly improper research methodology, but the world is full of
improper research methodology. And yes, why should that concern Chomsky?
To protect free speech you need to be largely content-blind. I tend to
believe that entire enterprise of modern economics consists of people
seeking out falsehoods, but I don’t try to deny them either the fact that
what they are doing is “research” or that what they are doing is convered
by the freedom of speech. I simply think that it is garbage.
I have to go blow things up in the physics bulding now… More later…
—
Lamont Granquist (lamontg @ u.washington.edu) ICBM: 47 39’23″N 122 18’19″W
“First consider a spherical chicken…”
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From [email protected] Thu Dec 12 05:21:36 PST 1996
Article: 85184 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Stephen R. Diamond)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 11 Dec 1996 11:59:01 GMT
Organization: Concentric Internet Services
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In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
(Rich Graves) wrote:
> If Chomsky doesn’t want to get his hands dirty by countering people like
> Faurisson, then where does he get off saying that people who do engage
> them (as someone must, since Chomsky will help them esconce themselves
> into the mainstream, where he grants them a positive right to be) have
> lost their humanity? I don’t get it. Does he really not understand the
> relationship between what he does and the effects his actions have?
It doesn’t ring hollow to me; I even agree with it, although the
_rhetoric_ is rather too sanctimoniously moralistic for my taste.
Holocaust revisionists should have not only free speech rights, but full
academic freedom. But, since they have not established even the barest
prima facie case for their contentions, debating them is a waste of time,
and lends unnecessary credence to their position.
It seems to me you don’t appreciate Chomsky’s position because you see
only the free speech dimension. I gather Chomsky perceives another, to my
mind more significant danger, in laws (as in Germany) where it is illegal
to proclaim the holocaust didn’t occur. It is the danger of official
history, where taking certain positions on what happened in the past is 1)
thought wrong not as an ordinary empirical matter, but as a dogma and 2)
is *equated* with a normative political position.
This cluster of issues is logically independent of the free speech question.
Stephen R. Diamond
From [email protected] Thu Dec 12 05:21:37 PST 1996
Article: 85185 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Rich Graves)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 10 Dec 1996 10:56:48 -0800
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[email protected] writes:
>Scott Solomon writes:
>>Solomon:
>>
>>I love this word Lamont G uses — “criticisms.” This guy Faurisson says
>>the Holocaust never happened because no one saw the gas fall into the gas
>>chamber and the people choking to death. People led the Jew into the gas
>>chambers, and inmates dragged out the dead bodies. But since no one
>>inside the gas chamber accidently lived and wrote a book about the
>>experience, the Holocaust never happened. Lamont calls this a
>>”criticism.” So if a Klansman says _The Invisible Man_ sucks because it
>>was written by a nigger, that would be a “criticism”?????? Somehow I can
>>think of better words than “criticism” YOU STUPID JACKASS. Try
>>”racist filth.”
>>
>>I’m gonna pull your post apart piece by piece, you asswipe.
>
>I love it when people resort to ad hominems when they have nothing better
>to say.
I don’t. So I vote we stop it.
>I agree it’s racist fith, moron. It’s also free speech. Get a clue.
Now, this is progress. Your article <[email protected]>
looks like an argument that it wasn’t racist filth, and that it was wrong
to impute motives. Those are precisely the kind of uninformed substantive
claims that are completely unnecessary to defend rights, and insulting to
people who are better informed. They turn otherwise reasonable people
against free speech, because they see it as just an excuse to defend
racist filth, which it isn’t.
You don’t have to throw in the disclaimer “this is racist filth, but…”
everywhere, but please avoid making excuses. You shouldn’t need them, and
they don’t help.
“It’s speech.”
That’s enough. Stop there.
(Actually, you should look into it a little more, to verify that you’re
not defending direct incitements to violence, which are not protected
speech, not even in the US. To take an extreme example, many Amnesty
International chapters, including mine, refused to call Nelson Mandela a
prisoner of conscience because he had not absolutely renounced the option
of terrorist violence. This doesn’t mean we supported apartheid, or that
we didn’t think Mandela was unjustly jailed; but “prisoner of conscience”
is such an absolutist term that it must be used sparingly to preserve its
moral force. Many people, and the United Nations Convention to Prevent All
Forms of Discrimination, which the US signed but with substantial
reservations, hold that hate propaganda belongs in the same category as
incitement to violence. The legal formulation is “inciting hatred against
an identifiable group.” I think such laws are wrong, but I think it’s OK
to treat people who advocate them with respect.)
Chomsky went beyond a pure defense of free speech, and in
<[email protected]>, so did you, briefly. That certainly
doesn’t make you or Chomsky Nazi sympathizers. Perhaps you’re a little
uncomfortable with pure free-speech absolutism, and think you need to make
excuses for the groups you defend. Bad mistake.
-rich
From [email protected] Thu Dec 12 05:21:38 PST 1996
Article: 85188 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Rich Graves)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 11 Dec 1996 01:20:20 -0800
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Mark R writes:
>On 10 Dec 1996, Rich Graves wrote:
>
>> >That someone of Chomsky’s stature should confuse the issue is
>> >appalling. Indeed, it was this kind of reasoning that led Alfred Kazin
>> >to describe Chomsky as a “dupe of intellectual pride so overweening that
>> >he is incapable of making distinctions between totalitarian and
>> >democratic societies, between oppressors and victims.” Though Chomsky is
>> >his own unique case, his spirited defense of the deniers shocked many
>> >people including those who thought they were inured to his antics.
>
>Doesn’t it strike anybody as a little odd that none of these people, Cohn,
>etc, can deal with the concept of freedom of speech?
Oh? Look up my name in Lexis-Nexis and get back to me.
>Quoting Chomsky:
>
>it is taken for granted by civil libertarians that defense of freedom of
>expression is independent of the views expressed.
This is true.
It is also true that civil libertarians tend to get annoyed when people
try to leverage “freedom of expression” rhetoric for partisan or personal
gain, for the same reason that most Holocaust survivors are offended by
the casual invocation of epithets like “Nazi” or “fascist” to malign
opponents. Civil libertarians will stand up for truth and justice even
when a good cause is shoved in their face. Civil libertarians are
constantly badgered by cranks and crackpots, and usually learn quickly to
adopt a skeptical attitude and a careful tone. Civil libertarians tend to
be a stubborn and legalistic lot.
-rich
From [email protected] Thu Dec 12 05:21:43 PST 1996
Article: 85198 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 10 Dec 1996 17:30:58 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
Lines: 18
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
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Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.politics.socialism.trotsky:17599
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Scott Solomon writes:
>Did
>Chomsky write an introduction to Faurisson’s book?
Yes.
>Does Chomsky write a distorted
>account of Palestine/Israel history in _Fateful Triangle_?
No.
Cough up a quote where Chomsky suggests that he actually agrees with
Faurisson, or shut up. Please.
—
Lamont Granquist (lamontg @ u.washington.edu) ICBM: 47 39’23″N 122 18’19″W
“First consider a spherical chicken…”
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From [email protected] Thu Dec 12 05:21:48 PST 1996
Article: 85213 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Brian Siano)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Followup-To: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Date: 11 Dec 1996 01:07:55 GMT
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Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.politics.socialism.trotsky:17602
alt.fan.noam-chomsky:19643 alt.revisionism:85213
Scott Solomon ([email protected]) wrote:
: Supporting Cohn’s position that Chomsky is in bed with the Holocaust
: deniers (I find his pamphlet to be far from “a lie” as Marin claims, at
: least on a first read), I will off this excerpt from Deborah Lipstadt’s
: _Denying the Holocaust_, pp. 15-16:
I reviewed this book for _Skeptic_ magazine, and briefly
singled out the following passages as a serious lapse on Lipstadt’s
part. For example, she goes after Chomsky on trumped-up charges for at
least two pages, yet exonerates Pat Buchanan– who’s actually endorsed
some Revisionist claims– from being an anti-Semite.
: Chomsky contended that, based on what he had read of Faurisson’s
: work, he saw “no proof” that would lead him to conclude that the Frenchman
: was an antisemite. According to Chomsky, not even Faurisson’s claims that
: the Holocaust is a “Zionist lie” are proof of his antisemitism. “Is it
: antisemitic to speak of Zionist lies? Is Zionism the first nationalist
: movement in history not to have concocted lies in its own interest?” That
: students editing a college newspaper or television producers interested in
: winning vieweres should prove unable to make such distinctions is
: disturbing. That someone of Chomsky’s stature should confuse the issue is
: appalling. Indeed, it was this kind of reasoning that led Alfred Kazin to
: describe Chomsky as a “dupe of intellectual pride so overweening that he
: is incapable of making distinctions between totalitarian and democratic
: societies, between oppressors and victims.”
Why does Lipstadt cite this _ad hominem_ quote from Kazin?
Though Chomsky is his own
: unique case, his spirited defense of the deniers shocked many people
: including those who thought they were inured to his antics.
I find this to be somewhat dishonest on Lipstadt’s part: it
elides between “defense of the revisionist thesis” (which Chomsky has
never defended) and ‘defense of the revisionists’ rights” (which
Chomsky _has_ defended).
: In his essay Chomsky argued that scholars’ ideas cannot be
: censored irrespective of how distateful they may be*
: *It is ironic that this internationally known professor should have become
: such a defender of Faurisson’s right to speak when he would have denied
: those same rights to proponents of America’s involvement in Vietnam. In
: _American Power and the New Mandarins_ he wrote, “By accepting the
: presumption of legitimacy of debate on certain issues, one has already
: lost one’s humnity.” Though written long before the Faurisson affair, his
: comments constitute the most accurate assessment of his own behavior.
I’m truly amazed Lipstadt would make this argument. In the
very essay she cites in this footnote, Chomsky compares reading
defenses of Vietnam policy to reading defenses of the Nazi policies;
it was after making this comparsion that Chomsky made the above
comment. In short, Lipstadt has misrepresented Chomsky’s argument, and
to an extremely ironic degree.
The irony is intensified when Lipstadt adds the following
footnote:
: *Chomsky’s behavior can be contrasted with that of thirty-four of
: France’s leading historians who, in response to Faurisson’s efforts,
: issued a declaration protesting his attempt to deny the Holocaust. The
: declaration read in part: “Everyone is free to interpret a phenomenon
: like the Hitlerite genocide according to his own philosophy. Everyone is
: free to compare it with other enterprises of murder committed earlier, at
: the same time, later. Everyone is free to offer such or such kind of
: explanations; everyone is free, to the limit, to imagine or to dream that
: these monstrous deeds did not take place. Unfortunately, they did take
: place and no one can deny their existence withou committing an outrage on
: the truth. It is not necessary to ask how technically such mass murder
: was possible. It was technically possibl, seeing that it took place.
This statement, which Lipstadt cites approvingly, is fairly
close to Chomsky’s own comments on the subject.
What we wind up with is an interesting combination. On the one
hand, Chomsky defends the speech rights of even reprehensible people,
like the Revisionists. This position is stated by the group of French
historians. But Lipstadt cites one approvingly, and the other in
extremely critical terms. She even goes so far as to mischaracterize
Chomsky’s introduction to _New Mandarins_ in an effort to portray him
as some kind of enemy of free speech– the passage describes Chomsky’s
revulsion over the lies and apologietics of mass murder, _oddly
enough_.
Lipstadt’s book has a lot of extremely good information on the
Revisionists, and in many ways it’s admirable, but many of her
arguments over what to _do_ about them are, well, a mess. On the one
hand, she faults a number of student newspapers for running
Revisionist ads– even when they run debunkings and denunciations on
their editorial pages, a tactic she dismisses as a ‘light of day”
argument. However, this is the very reason she wrote her book in the
first place, and I can think of no good reason for Lipstadt to
denounce others for doing what she _eventually_ decided to do.
Brian Siano – [email protected]
From [email protected] Thu Dec 12 07:44:51 PST 1996
Article: 85219 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Rich Graves)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 11 Dec 1996 03:06:35 -0800
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[email protected] (Sanjuro) writes:
[…]
>3) What has any of this to do with Chomsky’s central claims?
Nothing. And vice versa.
>Even if it’s true, and Chomsky is a Nazi,
Hold it right there, cowboy. He’s not a Nazi, and I don’t like the way
that this article, probably unintentionally, could be read.
>does that alter the fact that he’s
>essentially correct when he states that the United States has provided
>crucial economic, military, and political support for a variety of
>dictatorships in Latin America, and that the mass media tacitly condoned
>that support?
[Disclosures-R-Us: I feel about the same way about Chomsky’s writing on
Latin America as Emmanuel Marin does about Cohn’s writing on France, and
for the same reasons. I agree with Chomsky on the broad strokes, but he’s
quite horrible when it comes to the factual details. Fortunately or
unfortunately, I won’t stray from the topic of this thread because I’ve
forgotten most of those discussions from 1990-92.]
>Even if it’s true that Chomsky is a Nazi, does it alter the
>fact that children appear to come genetically equipped with a plan common
>to all languages which enables them to distill a complete grammar and
>language from the fragmentary input provided by their parents? Is two and
>two not four, even if Hitler believed it?
Yes, but Hitler’s arithmetic is not at issue here.
Chomsky is certainly not a Nazi, and he may be a good guy on balance, but
in this specific instance, he fucked up.
-rich
From [email protected] Thu Dec 12 07:44:52 PST 1996
Article: 85222 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Stephen R. Diamond)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: Not In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 12 Dec 1996 02:04:28 GMT
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In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
(Rich Graves) wrote:
> This is the first time you have paraphrased me with any
> accuracy.
And later:
> You are so far off base about my “parochial moralism” that I can’t think
> of a civil response to this.
Was the referent of the above an example of “paraphrasing” you
inaccurately? [Quotation marks are meant derisively in this instance].
Of course, it was not a paraphrase, but a characterization. Perhaps you
should take the fact that the only time I chose to paraphrase you, I did
so accurately, to mean that if you disagree with my characteizations of
your position, it is not because I didn’t get your drift.
> >To take the one issue which I don’t think this thread has considered – was
> >it a bias to put Holocaust in quotes? Graves thinks so, because he
> >construes the quotes as derisive.
>
> As they are, when inscribed by Mark Weber.
One doesn’t construe the meaning of a petition by noting how the
expressions are used by the drafter. A petition is intended to stand on
its own, and should be read that way.
> …I’ve avoided
> explaining who I am and why I care about this issue.
You pump gas at Stanford, right?
The pomposity of this remark makes me think your dwelling on the size of
Chomsky’s ego is pure psychological projection.
I care not in the least about the real life identities of online personas.
Stephen R. Diamond
From [email protected] Thu Dec 12 07:44:54 PST 1996
Article: 85234 of alt.revisionism
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From: Brian Siano
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 13:16:53 -0800
Organization: University of Pennsylvania CCEB
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Rich Graves wrote:
>
> [email protected] (Brian Siano) writes:
> >Scott Solomon ([email protected]) wrote:
> >
> >: Supporting Cohn’s position that Chomsky is in bed with the Holocaust
> >: deniers (I find his pamphlet to be far from “a lie” as Marin claims, at
> >: least on a first read), I will off this excerpt from Deborah Lipstadt’s
> >: _Denying the Holocaust_, pp. 15-16:
> >
> > I reviewed this book for _Skeptic_ magazine, and briefly
>
> Excuse my laziness, but could you tell me what issue, and whether it’s on
> the Skeptics Society web site?
That it is: the URL for the specific issue is:
http://www.skeptic.com/02.4.contents.html
Editor Mike Shermer’s also written a book about the Revisionists,
and it should be published fairly soon. His own article in that issue
(which isn’t on the web page, alas) is extremely good, and even if he
didn’t publish my stuff I’d still say it’s one of the best articles
to rebut the Revisionists.
> >singled out the following passages as a serious lapse on Lipstadt’s
> >part. For example, she goes after Chomsky on trumped-up charges for at
> >least two pages, yet exonerates Pat Buchanan– who’s actually endorsed
> >some Revisionist claims– from being an anti-Semite.
>
> Innaresting, thanks.
When I was writing the review, I considered doing a section
specifically on her remarks on Chomsky, which I thought were extremely
inaccurate (to begin with). I think I still have the drafts on my
home hard drive, and maybe it’s worth posting.
> I wish I could commit the time to reproduce your work independently, but I
> think I’ll have to settle for peer review.
>
> I presume you still found it a worthwile book.
Actually, I did: there’s a lot of good information in Lipstadt’s
book, and it’s certainly indispensable. However, I think she went
out of her way to smear Chomsky, and her arguments about what do to
about
the revisionists struck me as being somewhat inconsistent, if not
problematic.
“Life is a continuous process of pain, anguish, loneliness, and despair.
However, we cannot let the occasional flashes of joy and happiness
distract us from this fact.”
— Brian Siano
From [email protected] Thu Dec 12 07:44:58 PST 1996
Article: 85250 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 10 Dec 1996 23:08:05 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
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[email protected] (Rich Graves) writes:
>This is what Chomsky signed and promoted:
>
> Dr. Robert Faurisson has served as a respected
> professor of twentieth-century French literature
> and document criticism for over four years at the
> University of Lyon-2 in France. Since 1974 he has
> been conducting extensive historical research into
> the “Holocaust” question.
>
> Since he began making his findings public,
> Professor Faurisson has been subject to a vicious
> campaign of harassment, intimidation, slander and
> physical violence in a crude attempt to silence
> him. Fearful officials have even tried to stop
> him from further research by denying him access to
> public libraries and archives.
>
> We strongly protest these efforts to deprive
> Professor Faurisson of his freedom of speech and
> expression, and we condemn the shameful campaign
> to silence him.
>
> We strongly support Professor Faurisson’s just
> right of academic freedom and we demand that
> university and government officials do everything
> possible to ensure his safety and the free
> exercise of his legal rights.
>
>Does defending rights require affirming claims about Faurisson’s
>scholarship? (Which Chomsky is proud to say he knows nothing about?)
Well, I’m not familiar with what “document criticism” entails, but I’ve
never seen any evidence that Faurisson was not a respected professor
of french literature. I don’t see what is wrong with affirming this
claim since it has nothing to do with the holocaust, which is a historical
question.
>Does defending rights require characterizing what Faurisson does as
>”extensive historical research”? (Which Chomsky is proud to say he knows
>nothing about?)
It sounds like Faurisson *has* done extensive historical research.
Biased research, flawed research, research not worth the paper that it’s
printed on, but research none the less.
You seem to have a very usual attatchment to words. “Criticism” to you
apparently implies some kind of implicit value judgement as to it’s worth
as does “Research.” I, on the other hand, have come across lots of
lousy research and criticism, and don’t place any kind of special value
on them. It’s just a plain simple fact that Faurisson has done research
and levelled criticism. That’s just entirely descriptive of his actions,
nothing more. Value judgements can (and should) be tacked onto those
actions since they don’t occur in a moral vacuum, but *for* *the* *question*
*of* *free* *speech* they are irrelevant. Academic research and criticism
should always be allowed (at the very least to the point of simply not
harassing, intimidating and taking punitive actions against the investigator).
Cold fusion is a good example in my field of something that I think is
sheer unadulterated bullshit, but don’t feel like people should be
_silenced_ over it. The “debate” over if HIV causes AIDS is another good
example of utterly worthless criticism, but criticism that I believe should
be a protect form of speech. The same goes for idiots like Faurisson. All
these people have their heads firmly buried up their asses, but they’re
all doing “research” and making “criticisms.”
>Does defending rights require putting “Holocaust” in derisory quotes?
>
>Does defending rights require describing propaganda as “findings”?
You expect that they’re going to pass around a petition emphasizing
all of the flaws with Fourisson personally, politically, ethically,
scientifically (and any other -lly you care to mention) but then go
“but we really support his freedom of speech (the undersigned).” Not
fucking likely. In real life it was drafted quite obviously by his
supporters and coming from them the language is pretty mild (e.g.
“Holocaust” in quotes, etc…) they could have been much more extreme
in actually coming out and _stating_ that they thought Fourisson was
a shining beacon of truth rather than simply including language which
allowed the interpretation…
>Does defending rights require the inflammatory language in the second
>paragraph? (Which Chomsky is proud to say he knows nothing about?)
I fail to see anything inflammatory about it. I’m certain that Faurisson
probably was harassed and threatened and I don’t feel that’s an appropriate
way to deal with him. I also don’t think that removing his access to
libraries is appropriate.
Apparently you feel that it’s okay to take punitive measures against
people who disagree with you. I disagree both in that it isn’t ethical
and in that it tends to be counter-productive.
>I would have signed the fourth paragraph, and possibly the third if
>amended to be more in line with the truth. I would not have affirmed the
>other claims, or if I had, I would not have gone out of my way to attack
>people who questioned my wisdom in doing so.
Pardon, but Chomsky has been attacked by those who have “questioned his
wisdom.” I mean ‘cmon — “Partners in Hate” is “questioning his wisdom?”
That’s a personal attack if I’ve ever seen one…
—
Lamont Granquist (lamontg @ u.washington.edu) ICBM: 47 39’23″N 122 18’19″W
“First consider a spherical chicken…”
unsolicited commercial e-mail->contacting your ISP to remove your net.access
From [email protected] Thu Dec 12 10:45:18 PST 1996
Article: 85269 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Rich Graves)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: “Partners in Hate: Noam Chomsky and the Holocaust Deniers” on the web
Date: 8 Dec 1996 14:40:10 -0800
Organization: Fans of Nizkor, https://nizkor.org/objectives.html (Page doesn`t exist)
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In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
(Emmanuel Marin) wrote:
[a lot, but I’ll just respond to the general criticism of Nizkor]
Look, please don’t let this be a “Nizkor v. Chomsky” or “Nizkor v. the
Left” thing. I do NOT speak for Nizkor, and as a rule, Nizkor is an
archive of ALL relevant material. Only the stuff in the FAQ and Features
sections necessarily represent the views of Nizkor.
For a long time, the only mention of controversy about Chomsky on Nizkor
was Chomsky’s *response* in form of the *Nation* article. In that context,
I hardly think the recent archiving of a book, er, critical of Chomsky
amounts to a campaign to smear him.
Your article (and every other article in alt.revisionism since October or
so) is also archived on Nizkor. Sectarian battles not directly related to
Nizkor’s objectives probably aren’t going to rate the attention and
resources given to, say, the IMT, but your offers of additional materials
are probably going to be welcome (again, I do NOT speak for Nizkor).
Indeed, this is exactly why I started this thread.
I am at a serious disadvantage here because I have little personal
knowledge of this debate, but my own view of Chomsky, based largely on his
rants on Latin American affairs, is that he’s an ideologue who far too
often presumes to bring his preconceived notions about the nature of
imperialism to subjects in which he has no competence. I would call him
sloppy and irresponsible in much of his rhetoric, and naive in his
misapplication of principles. I take it that Cohn, who comes to this with
his own biases, misinterprets Chomsky’s many mistakes as evidence of
latent antisemitism, whereas I’d attribute them to Chomsky’s hyperinflated
ego and his bad habit of butting his nose into other people’s affairs.
Cf. Rich Graves and Declan McCullagh. 🙂
http://www.stanford.edu/~ajg/project.html (Page doesn`t exist)
Still, even if Cohn is completely wrong about Chomsky — and I don’t think
he’s *completely* wrong — he raises some very important questions about
antisemitism and irresponsible behavior on the left. I’m very happy to
have his book available.
-rich
From [email protected] Thu Dec 12 17:20:41 PST 1996
Article: 85286 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Jamie McCarthy)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: Not In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 23:08:09 -0500
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[email protected] (Rich Graves) wrote:
> What’s wrong with
> saying, more simply, “Professor Faurisson has come under legal and in one
> instance physical attack* because of his writings and public statements.
> We deplore these assaults on freedom and find them inconsistent with
> international norms of human rights.”
>
> * – Another example of “neutrality” run amok. One instance must be
> presented as a “campaign.”
Actually, I understand Faurisson has been attacked a number of times. At
least twice were serious, I believe: once when acid was thrown in his face
(“poured in his eyes” say the deniers, inscrutably), and once when he was
beaten badly enough to warrant a hospital stay.
While it is true that Holocaust-deniers are very fond of turning isolated
incidents they dislike into orchestrated worldwide campaigns, this is one
instance where they appear to be not wrong. Many people don’t like
Faurisson, and, unfortunately, violent idiots abound everywhere.
Posted/emailed.
—
Jamie McCarthy http://www.absence.prismatix.com/jamie/ (Page doesn`t exist)
[email protected] Co-Webmaster of https://nizkor.org/
From [email protected] Fri Dec 13 05:44:39 PST 1996
Article: 85316 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Sanjuro)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 05:03:27 +0000
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In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
(Rich Graves) wrote:
> [email protected] (Sanjuro) writes:
> >Even if it’s true, and Chomsky is a Nazi,
>
> Hold it right there, cowboy. He’s not a Nazi, and I don’t like the way
> that this article, probably unintentionally, could be read.
I’m making a point, and maybe you missed it. The point is this, even if
all of Cohn’s claims about Chomsky’s alleged relationship with neo-Nazis
are true, and I do not think that they are, it in no way undermines the
legitimacy of Chomsky’s work on other matters. I hardly think my phrase,
“even if it’s true, and Chomsky is a Nazi” could sway anyone into thinking
that Cohn’s right.
> >does that alter the fact that he’s
> >essentially correct when he states that the United States has provided
> >crucial economic, military, and political support for a variety of
> >dictatorships in Latin America, and that the mass media tacitly condoned
> >that support?
>
> [Disclosures-R-Us: I feel about the same way about Chomsky’s writing on
> Latin America as Emmanuel Marin does about Cohn’s writing on France, and
> for the same reasons. I agree with Chomsky on the broad strokes, but he’s
> quite horrible when it comes to the factual details. Fortunately or
> unfortunately, I won’t stray from the topic of this thread because I’ve
> forgotten most of those discussions from 1990-92.]
I don’t want to stray either, but I’ve lived in Costa Rica and in my
opinion Chomsky is pretty much bang-on with regards to Latin America. I
mean, it’s easy enough to demonstrate that, for instance, my country,
Canada, sells arms and gives economic aid to countries in Latin America
which have terrible records of human rights abuse.
Sanjuro
From [email protected] Fri Dec 13 05:44:40 PST 1996
Article: 85319 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 11 Dec 1996 16:58:37 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
Lines: 17
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References: <[email protected]>
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[email protected] (Rich Graves) writes:
>It is also true that civil libertarians tend to get annoyed when people
>try to leverage “freedom of expression” rhetoric for partisan or personal
>gain…
And apparently Chomsky realizes, what you don’t, that even if the freedom
of expression defense is used for partisan or personal gain it must be
defended provided that it is legitimate. There are people who raise the
issue of freedom of speech under bogus circumstances to further partisan and
personal gain, and they should clearly not be defended. However, when
the issue is legitimate, it needs to be defended. Anything less than this
and you’re entering grey areas which open it up to abuse.
—
Lamont Granquist (lamontg @ u.washington.edu) ICBM: 47 39’23″N 122 18’19″W
“First consider a spherical chicken…”
unsolicited commercial e-mail->contacting your ISP to remove your net.access
From [email protected] Fri Dec 13 05:44:43 PST 1996
Article: 85337 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Rich Graves)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Followup-To: alt.flame,alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 12 Dec 1996 23:55:14 -0800
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[email protected] (Stephen R. Diamond) writes:
>In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
>(Rich Graves) wrote:
>
>> It is however, a legitimate
>> reason to inquire about possible bias. It doesn’t seem right for attacks
>> based on Cohn’s pro-Zionist biases to be OK, but for attacks based on
>> Chomsky’s anti-Zionist biases to be seen as attacks on free speech. It’s
>> that shifting definition of “neutrality” again.
Yes, as a matter of fact, I did write that. I also wrote the preceding and
succeeding sentences, which if included, would have shown your attack to
be nonsensical at best.
You’re more than welcome to have the last word, as long as I don’t have to
read it. Followups set to alt.politics.socialism.trotsky only.
HAND.
-rich
From [email protected] Fri Dec 13 05:44:44 PST 1996
Article: 85338 of alt.revisionism
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From: Mark R
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 14:15:57 -0700
Organization: New Mexico State University
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emailed and posted
On Wed, 11 Dec 1996, Mark R wrote:
> I have worked with Amnesty International in four cities (Montreal,
> Cambridge MA, Albuquerque NM, and Las Cruces, NM), with CASA, the Central
> America Solidarity Association, met with Mothers of Disappeared Prisoners
> (the El Salvadoran human rights group), and am currently working with
> Pastors for Peace. Though many of these people I have worked with do find
> Chomsky’s style a little ponderous, and his tone a little acerbic, he is
> generally considered to have not only the best work on the subject, but
> BY FAR the most informed and comprehensive scholarship on the subject of
> Latin American affairs.
Please let me clarify. I did not mean to suggest that Amnesty
International or CASA or Mothers of Disappeared Prisoners endorse or
approve of either me or my opinions. They do not. I feel very badly that
this could have been construed. Rich is correct — I should not have used
their names. I apologize. I should have only said that, In working with
various human rights workers, and being somewhat familiar with the cases,
Chomsky’s work on the subject is often considered some of the most
comprehensive.
This is very serious and not worthy of childish bickerings.
—
Mark Richer
From [email protected] Fri Dec 13 09:04:30 PST 1996
Article: 85364 of alt.revisionism
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From: Scott Solomon
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 23:23:03 -0500
Organization: Columbia University
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Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.politics.socialism.trotsky:17634
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On 13 Dec 1996, Stephen R. Diamond wrote:
> I don’t blame you. There is still the additional layer of complexity that
> even if he is an anti-Semite, his holocaust position is not necessarily a
> product of his anti-Semitism. Kooks will have a heightened propensity
> toward anti-Semitism, because the latter tends to accompany forms of
> instability of the kookish paranoid variety, even if the main focus of
> their kookishness is totally removed from their anti-Semitism. Consider,
> for example, the case of Marc Vigliemo, who is no doubt a crank in any
> number of ways, quite independently of his anti-Semitism.
What about those attracted to commie scumbag Trot political cults? Are
they kooky too?> Kooky in a different way?
From [email protected] Fri Dec 13 09:04:31 PST 1996
Article: 85365 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Brian Siano)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Followup-To: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Date: 12 Dec 1996 04:57:12 GMT
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Rich Graves ([email protected]) wrote:
: [email protected] writes:
: >> >singled out the following passages as a serious lapse on Lipstadt’s
: >> >part. For example, she goes after Chomsky on trumped-up charges for at
: >> >least two pages, yet exonerates Pat Buchanan– who’s actually endorsed
: >> >some Revisionist claims– from being an anti-Semite.
: To understand why she did this, you have to understand her milieu and the
: climate at the time.
: The popular wisdom in her milieu was that Buchanan is essentially a Nazi.
: For a humorous take on this, see http://www.buchanan96.org/. A little less
: funny was a hit piece by FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), which
: was about as biased and inaccurate as I’m told Cohn’s book is. By the way,
: Buchanan has *not* actually endorsed some Revisionist claims. After seeing
: FAIR’s broadside many times, I went to the Buchanan campaign for their
: response, and found that they were quite right to say that where FAIR’s
: citations were accurate at all, they were out of context.
I hate to say this, but Lipstadt’s book includes a few remarks
by Buchanan on this point. And frankly, I’m not sure I’d regard the
Buchanan campaign as a neutral source: they were working to get their
man into the White House, after all.
: In this climate, I think Lipstadt’s defense of Buchanan is understandable.
: She’s certainly no friend of Buchanan, but fair’s fair (and FAIR wasn’t).
And Lipstadt has written for FAIR as well.
: In contrast, the popular wisdom about Chomsky (in her milieu, at least)
: was that his interests were purely civil libertarian. I don’t support
: Cohn’s thesis, but in context of Chomsky’s consistent attacks on the state
: of Israel (with which I often agree, but that’s beside the point), I don’t
: believe his motives or actions are as pure as he or his most activist
: defenders say. To be anti-Zionist is certainly not the same as being a
: Nazi, but it’s not purely civil libertarian, either.
No, but being pro- or anti-Zionist is not exactly related to
bveing a civil libertarian on free speech issues. One can support the
dieals of free speech and have almost any opinion regarding
Israel. And one’s position on Zionism does notipso facto compromise
one’s free-speech stance.
: In this climate, I think Lipstadt’s attacks on Chomsky is understandable.
: Thanks for the correction of her misquote, but I don’t believe she set out
: to bash Chomsky (certainly not the way Cohn did), just to balance the
: slate a little.
I hate to say this, but I got the strong impression that
Lipstadt went after Chomsky on the basis of the even stronger attacks
mounted by conservatives: I’m certain that, with some patience, she
might have realized what the situation really was, but in this case
she sort of jumped the gun.
: I don’t think Lipstadt is infallible — the funny thing is, your review
: accepts as fact something she said about David Irving that I found
: unsupportable (follow the “self-described moderate fascist” footnote,
: purely in the interest of accuracy; my record on bashing Irving in ways I
: do consider supportable is quite clear) — but IMO your expose of the
: apparent unfairness in Lipstadt’s respective treatment of Chomsky and
: Buchanan isn’t as important as you think it is.
—
Brian Siano – [email protected]
“The Internet is an elite organization. Most of the
population of the world has never even made a phone call.”
— Noam Chomsky
From [email protected] Fri Dec 13 09:04:32 PST 1996
Article: 85366 of alt.revisionism
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From: Scott Solomon
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 11:01:27 -0500
Organization: Columbia University
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I always mean it to be tongue in cheek, considering I’m totally a case of
arrested academic development.
Hey! Henry Kravis went to Pomona Boy’s College, or something like that.
KKR has more buying power than the GNP of Pakistan.
On 12 Dec 1996, Chris Faatz wrote:
> Scott: this bludgeoning of your opponents with your academic credentials
> is really tiresome. So fucking what. I graduated from nowhere at all. I
> guess I don’t even rate, eh?
>
> Cut it out, buddy.
>
From [email protected] Fri Dec 13 09:04:35 PST 1996
Article: 85383 of alt.revisionism
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From: Dominique Abalain
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 13 Dec 1996 08:31:11 GMT
Organization: SCT / Worldnet – Internet Provider & Information Exchange – Paris,
France
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[email protected] (Brian Siano) wrote:
To be anti-Zionist is certainly not the same as being a
>: Nazi, but it’s not purely civil libertarian, either.
>
Here I’d like to point a very basic and very important thing that people
in France never seem to understand about Thion and Guillaume :
They could certaily be called anti-Zionists, but just as much as they
have been critical of ANY nationalism. Thion was involved in the Algerian
strugle against french colonialism in the 60’s. That meant as he says
something that ” technically ” can be called ” treason ” to his country.
But he never endorsed the FLN views. So here’s an important point,
because to a nationalist of any kind, his opponents are ” traitors “, and
” self-hating “, and the nationalist will allways try to associate the ”
traitor ” with another nationalism or regionalism. This is the
Weltanschauung of nationalists, and they will try to bring the matter at
this level, at any cost.
D. Abalain
From [email protected] Fri Dec 13 09:04:40 PST 1996
Article: 85401 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Rich Graves)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Followup-To: alt.fan.noam-chomsky
Date: 12 Dec 1996 22:58:12 -0800
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[Everyone breathe deep. OK, better.]
[email protected] (Sanjuro) writes:
>In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
>(Rich Graves) wrote:
>
>> [email protected] (Sanjuro) writes:
>
>> >Even if it’s true, and Chomsky is a Nazi,
[…]
>I’m making a point, and maybe you missed it. The point is this, even if
>all of Cohn’s claims about Chomsky’s alleged relationship with neo-Nazis
>are true, and I do not think that they are, it in no way undermines the
>legitimacy of Chomsky’s work on other matters. I hardly think my phrase,
>”even if it’s true, and Chomsky is a Nazi” could sway anyone into thinking
>that Cohn’s right.
You got it backwards. Actually, what I meant was, I don’t want to go down
the path of deciding what Nazi points of view might or might not be
correct, at least, not in this thread. I did understand your point, but
the formulation “even if…” can be misused in many ways. Just a pet
peeve, sorry.
>> [Disclosures-R-Us: I feel about the same way about Chomsky’s writing on
>> Latin America as Emmanuel Marin does about Cohn’s writing on France, and
>> for the same reasons. I agree with Chomsky on the broad strokes, but he’s
>> quite horrible when it comes to the factual details. Fortunately or
>> unfortunately, I won’t stray from the topic of this thread because I’ve
>> forgotten most of those discussions from 1990-92.]
>
>I don’t want to stray either, but I’ve lived in Costa Rica and in my
>opinion Chomsky is pretty much bang-on with regards to Latin America. I
>mean, it’s easy enough to demonstrate that, for instance, my country,
>Canada, sells arms and gives economic aid to countries in Latin America
>which have terrible records of human rights abuse.
Yes, this is true, in broad terms. I might as well retract the above, in
this context. It’s appropriate in a group of Latin Americanists who all
know the background and share concern for human rights, which is where I
was in 90-92, but by throwing out such an absolutist denunciation in a
nonspecialist forum, I made the same error I was accusing Chomsky of. I
think Chomsky listens to most of the right people, but since he doesn’t
personally know all the languages, dates, names, places, etc., and since
his foremost concern is arguing a point about imperialism or propaganda,
not writing history, he gets the details wrong. Details that don’t make
much difference as far as broad policy prescriptions go, such as the
one-sentence summary you give, but to make a real difference you need to
read not Chomsky, but the things that Chomsky’s sources read. It’s the old
telephone game — every hop introduces random error.
The pathetic thing is, I don’t even remember the details. Maybe he bought
into the Allende “assassination” conspiracy-and-hero-mongering that was
pushed by Castro (as opposed to the fact that he committed suicide while
under siege), or maybe it was “How to Read Donald Duck.” I’m sure he got
some important details on Operation Success wrong, but I’ve forgotten the
specifics. The bottom line is that it’s minutiae and ideological fine
points, mostly, and it’s in the past.
Followups set to alt.fan.noam-chomsky only.
-rich
From [email protected] Fri Dec 13 09:04:41 PST 1996
Article: 85403 of alt.revisionism
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From: Mark R
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 17:20:14 -0700
Organization: New Mexico State University
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Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.politics.socialism.trotsky:17641 alt.fan.noam-chomsky:19712 alt.revisionism:85403
On 10 Dec 1996, Rich Graves wrote:
> [email protected] (Josh Klugman) writes:
> >The story is that Chomsky was approached to sign a petition defending
> >Faurisson’s right to free speech, as the French government was making moves
> >to censor him. He was also asked to write a little thing about anybody’s,
> >including a Holocaust revisionist’s, right to free speech.
>
> This is untrue. He was asked to sign a petition specifically supporting
> Holocaust deniers. The person who asked him was Mark Weber, who is rather
> obviously a Nazi apologist, not a civil libertarian. The statement he
> signed was not just a defense of free speech; it made substantive claims
> that need not have been made in order to defend freedom of speech. Chomsky
> was not asked to write “a little thing” in defense of freedom of speech;
> he wrote “a little thing” on his own initiative attacking people who
> chose to exercise their own freedom of speech by questioning the wisdom of
> Chomsky’s actions.
This is complete nonsense. Answer the question, Mr. Graves, How come
Chomsky is the ONLY ONE, out of more than 500 people, that anybody ever
mentioned from this infamous petition? I’ll tell you why. Because Chomsky
writes about human rights abuses, and there is a lot of powerful
opposition against those who expose human rights abuses. When people
expose American human rights abuses, they’re called “anti-American,” a
nice little totalitarian epithet. Those who expose Israeli human rights
abuses, well, we know what they are labeled.
The “substantive” claims in the petition that over 500 people signed but
only Chomsky is responsible for, are things like: they called Faurisson’s
(disgusting) work “findings,” and dignified his Jewish holocaust denial
with the word “view.” Sorry, these are not “substantive.”
And you’re lying Mr. Graves, and I suspect you know it, when you say
Chomsky wrote “Some Elementary Comments on The Rights of Freedom of
Expression” on his own initiative. He was asked to do it, as was published
in a correspondence between Chomsky and the editor, and as I have posted.
It’s perfectly true that Chomsky is hated by many American and Israeli
Jews for his defense of the Palestinians. Somebody at the Anti-Defamation
League leaked to Chomsky their file on him. Alan Dershowitz tried to use
the lies therein to defame Chomsky as well, and was publicly caught.
Cohn has found a convenient little niche to make a quick buck, by
appealing to those who hate Chomsky, not for anything going on in France
really, but for completely different reasons. Unfortunately for Cohn, his
scholarship is so appalling that there is hardly anybody, outside of the
internet, capable of taking it seriously. As has been pointed out in
a previous posting, Werner Cohn, in his horrible little screed, has the
outright gall to label Israel Shahak, a survivor of the Belsen
concentration camp, a holocaust denier! This is his style: throw enough
mud, and hope that people will accept at least some of it. Seems to have
had marginal success in this case.
> Yes, some of the ways some people “questioned the wisdom of Chomsky’s
> actions” were irresponsible. Cohn may fall into that category, and I’m
> sure others have been even more harsh (and inaccurate). To paint them all
> with the broadest brush, though, is quite wrong, but unfortunately quite
> typical of Chomsky. A more intellectually honest approach would have been
> to open a dialogue with his more moderate critics, but this is something
> of which Chomsky is apparantly incapable. (I’m speaking from personal
> experience with his uninformed ravings on Latin American affairs — as
> someone who agreed with many of his political conclusions, I found his
> blatant inaccuracies and abusive antics very embarrassing.)
Rich, you just gave the game away.
I have worked with Amnesty International in four cities (Montreal,
Cambridge MA, Albuquerque NM, and Las Cruces, NM), with CASA, the Central
America Solidarity Association, met with Mothers of Disappeared Prisoners
(the El Salvadoran human rights group), and am currently working with
Pastors for Peace. Though many of these people I have worked with do find
Chomsky’s style a little ponderous, and his tone a little acerbic, he is
generally considered to have not only the best work on the subject, but
BY FAR the most informed and comprehensive scholarship on the subject of
Latin American affairs.
Please post up some of these “blatant inaccuracies” and “uninformed
ravings” that you know so well, Mr. Graves. When you cannot, I feel that a
public apology would be in keeping with the very high moral ground you
claim to stand on.
> Without evidence to the contrary (and I don’t think Cohn provides
> sufficent evidence), I am willing to accept that Chomsky was merely
> incredibly naive and arrogant in going along with the IHR, and in bashing
> his critics rather than investigating whether he might have been wrong.
> Greater men, such as Gary Botting and the Zundelsite mirrors, would have
> learned form the experience to be more careful, not about whose rights
> should be defended, because everyone deserves a competent defense, but
> about supporting the substantive claims of hate propagandists.
> I have personally taken more active measures to defend the rights of hate
> propagandists than Chomsky did, at greater risk to myself (but I
> personally had a lesser impact on the the world, since I didn’t have the
> reputation/notoriety of a Chomsky beforehand). I did not, though, pretend
> that my actions happened in a moral vacuum; I did not invent new
> euphemisms for the people I was defending; I did not refuse to listen to
> people who disagreed with me; and I certainly did not go out of my way to
> attack people with an honest commitment to the truth. I also chose to
> learn from the experience, while Chomsky did not.
What are you talking about? Do you have ANY EVIDENCE for these claims?
> To claim, as Cohn does, that Chomsky is intellectually or emotionally
> sympathetic to the neo-Nazis, I believe, is to exaggerate the depth of
> Chomsky’s convictions. I doubt Chomsky is capable of genuine introspection
> or genuine concern for a cause greater than himself.
I doubt that Rich Graves is capable of genuine introspection or care for
other human beings.
Rich suggested I do an internet search for his name, and I did, only to
find that apparently he is fairly well known for spamming the net. Often
with his other account, [email protected] I haven’t yet
verified the accuracy of these charges. However, a quick search of
dejanews shows that Mr. Graves is an total master of EVERYTHING he
accuses Chomsky of. Namely:
inventing new euphemisms for the people … refusing to listen to people
who disagree with him; and certainly going out of his way to attack
people with an honest commitment to their causes. He also chose not to
learn from the experience.
It’s an absolute MIRACLE of hypocrisy.
—
Mark Richer
From [email protected] Fri Dec 13 09:44:39 PST 1996
Article: 85408 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Emmanuel Marin)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 11:15:53 GMT
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[email protected] wrote:
>Well, I’m not familiar with what “document criticism” entails, but I’ve
>never seen any evidence that Faurisson was not a respected professor
>of french literature.
As a matter of fact, in the field of french litterature he was quite a
kook too. He had proposed “revolutionary ways of reading” some
French poets, which have never been taken seriously by anyone
to my knowledge. He then started to propose “revolutionary
ways of reading” the documents about the Holocaust.
I know it can hint at the fact that Faurisson’s “works” on
the WWII has more to do with him being a kook than him being
anti-Semitic, but I don’t want to enter this debate as I’m afraid
it’ll never been solved in a clear-cut way.
Emmanuel Marin
Paris, France
From [email protected] Sat Dec 14 07:53:30 PST 1996
Article: 85491 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 11 Dec 1996 17:08:34 GMT
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[email protected] (Rich Graves) writes:
>Mark R writes:
>>
>>Here is the letter Chomsky wrote in response to Cohn’s case against
>>him, which was restated in the Canadian Jewish journal _Outlook_ . The
>>letter is reprinted in Milan Rai’s _Chomsky’s Politics_ (pg. 200-201).
>
>Yup, seen it, thanks for posting. Just one nit.
>
>[…]
>>In the introduction to my first
>>collection of political essays, 20 years ago, I add that we have lost our
>>humanity if we are even willing to enter into debate over the Nazi crimes
>>with those who deny or defend them.
>
>What the devil is this supposed to mean? In context it’s an assertion of
>Chomsky’s “political correctness,” kind of a “how dare you,” which I can
>understand, but how does one apply this to the Faurisson case?
>
>If Chomsky doesn’t want to get his hands dirty by countering people like
>Faurisson, then where does he get off saying that people who do engage
>them (as someone must, since Chomsky will help them esconce themselves
>into the mainstream, where he grants them a positive right to be) have
>lost their humanity? I don’t get it. Does he really not understand the
>relationship between what he does and the effects his actions have?
>
>The more I hear, the more I agree with Chomsky’s dismissal of Cohn, but
>this particular sentence rings hollow.
Uh, I’d think you would have appreciated it. He’s saying that he doesn’t
want to give them any shred of legitimacy by voluntarily entering into
debate with them. I don’t believe it was intended to pass judgement on
those who are forced into debating them, but as a judgement on the notions
themselves — that intellectually no one should give them any credit, but
that they should be simply shot down wherever they occur.
Interesting that it’s so easy to read whatever the hell you want to into
a statement like that…
Anybody out there with the Context?
—
Lamont Granquist (lamontg @ u.washington.edu) ICBM: 47 39’23″N 122 18’19″W
“First consider a spherical chicken…”
unsolicited commercial e-mail->contacting your ISP to remove your net.access
From [email protected] Sat Dec 14 07:53:39 PST 1996
Article: 85530 of alt.revisionism
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From: Brian Siano
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: Chomsky,Lipstadt,Alexander,Peretz(was Re: In Support of Werner Cohn)
Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 12:35:31 -0800
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Seth Kulick wrote:
>
So it’s of interest that this same
> ridiculous smear was made in print at least once before Lipstadt’s book –
> by Edward Alexander, in The New Republic, 2/14/81, in response to
> a paragraph by Martin Peretz in the 1/3/81 NR in which he wrote that
> “On Faurisson’s argument, however he [NC] had no view he wished to state.
> On the question, that is, at to whether or not six million Jews were
> murdered, Noam Chomsky is apparently an agnostic.”
One item I don’t think I included was another possible
source for this ‘agnostic” remark. Lucy Dawidowicz reported that,
in a letter, Chomsky had stated that he was “agnostic” over whether
Faurisson was an anti-Semite. I’ve forgotten the title of
Dawidowicz’s book– it’s a recently-published collection of essays–
but she stated this in a footnote with only the word “agnostic”
in quote marks. Given that the essay appeared in _Commentary_,
I’m not exactly likely to simply take Dawidowicz’s word on this.
I’d thought that when people were saying that Chomsky
was an ‘agnostic” on the Holocaust, they were simply garbling this
remark of Dawidowicz’s. Apparently, Marty Peretz is the source.
> Alexander’s letter is as follows:
>
> The admirable remarks in M.P.’s Washington Diarist (TN, 1/3/81) about
> Noam Chomsky’s defense of Robert Faurisson’s inalienable right to
> propagate, from a university chair, the neo-Nazi lie that the Holocaust is
> a Zionist invention omitted one crucial detail. This is the same
> Chomsky who in many speeches over a decade ago denied to proponents of
> our involvement in Vietnam the right to free speech, anywhere, and in a
> book called American Power and the New Mandarins (1968) wrote that
> “by accepting the presumption of legitimacy of debate on certain issues,
> one has already lost one’s humanity.” Apparently, since he takes an
> “agnostic” view on the question of whether the Jews of Europe really
> were murdered, Chomsky does not fear that his “humanity” is
> endangered by neo-Nazism. Has he lately become a convert to
> Millite liberalism, or does his zeal for free speech swell in proportion to
the
> anti-Zionism of the speaker?
Thanks to Seth for nailing this point down.
—
“Life is a continuous process of pain, anguish, loneliness, and despair.
However, we cannot let the occasional flashes of joy and happiness
distract us from this fact.”
— Brian Siano
From [email protected] Sat Dec 14 07:53:42 PST 1996
Article: 85544 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Seth Kulick)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,alt.revisionism
Subject: Chomsky,Lipstadt,Alexander,Peretz(was Re: In Support of Werner Cohn)
Date: 13 Dec 1996 05:25:28 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania
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In article <[email protected]>,
Brian Siano wrote:
>Rich Graves ([email protected]) wrote:
>: [email protected] writes:
[]
>
> Beginning on page 16, Lipstadt presents a short account of a
>bitter controversy over Noam Chomsky’s 1981 defense of holohoaxer
>Robert Faurisson’s right to free speech. Lipstadt’s account distorts
>Chomsky’s positions on these and other issues; and judging from her
>account, it appears that Lipstadt wanted to discredit Chomsky.
[]
>paragraph. “In his essay Chomsky argued that scholars’ ideas cannot be
>censored irrespective of how distasteful they may be,” she writes–
>but then follows a footnote that reads:
>
> “It is ironic that this internationally known professor should
>have become such a defender of Faurisson’s right to speak when he
>would have denied those same rights to p[roponents of America’s
>involvement in Vietnam. In _American Power and the New Mandarins_ he
>wrote, ‘By accepting the presumption of legitimacy of debate on
>certain issues, one has already lost one’s humanity.’ Though written
>long before the Faurisson affair, his comments constitute the most
>accurate assessment of his own behavior.”
>
> This is about as dishonest a smear as one can get. First of
Brian has shown in his other posting just how dishonest this is. If Lipstadt
did actually look at the original quote by Chomsky and then wrote this, then
it’s straightforward dishonesty on her part. But she may have just been
lazy, and borrowed this line of reasoning from someone else without
checking it out herself. So it’s of interest that this same
ridiculous smear was made in print at least once before Lipstadt’s book –
by Edward Alexander, in The New Republic, 2/14/81, in response to
a paragraph by Martin Peretz in the 1/3/81 NR in which he wrote that
“On Faurisson’s argument, however he [NC] had no view he wished to state.
On the question, that is, at to whether or not six million Jews were
murdered, Noam Chomsky is apparently an agnostic.” [this is referring to
a short piece in the NY Times 12/5/80 in which NC is quoted as saying
“I have nothing to say about the contents of the book. I addressed
myself solely to the civil liberties issue. An author should have his rights
of publication protected, regardless of his views” and that he hand’t
read the book. ]
Alexander’s letter is as follows:
The admirable remarks in M.P.’s Washington Diarist (TN, 1/3/81) about
Noam Chomsky’s defense of Robert Faurisson’s inalienable right to
propagate, from a university chair, the neo-Nazi lie that the Holocaust is
a Zionist invention omitted one crucial detail. This is the same
Chomsky who in many speeches over a decade ago denied to proponents of
our involvement in Vietnam the right to free speech, anywhere, and in a
book called American Power and the New Mandarins (1968) wrote that
“by accepting the presumption of legitimacy of debate on certain issues,
one has already lost one’s humanity.” Apparently, since he takes an
“agnostic” view on the question of whether the Jews of Europe really
were murdered, Chomsky does not fear that his “humanity” is
endangered by neo-Nazism. Has he lately become a convert to
Millite liberalism, or does his zeal for free speech swell in proportion to the
anti-Zionism of the speaker?
Edward Alexander
Univ of Washington
Then there’s also a letter by Chomsky, reitering the usual stuff about
his views on the Holocaust. Then follows this response by Martin Peretz
that starts off “In his letter above, Professor Alexander disposes of Noam
Chomsky’s pretentions at being a civil libertarian”, then accuses NC of being
a liar due to the misquote of Harry Truman in APNM, that Chomsky wrote
“a 1000 defense of Robert Faurisson”, and that his quotations in the
NY Times article are an indication of his agnosticism about the Holocaust.
====================================================================
Alexander’s letter, when compared with the actual quote from NC,
indicates quite a level of dishonesty. It should be noted that
Alexander wrote the introduction (or preface, I forget what it’s
called) to Cohn’s book, which seems appropriate, I guess.
Aside from the question of the quote, his statement about how Chomsky
“in many speeches … denied the right to free speech” is completely
unsupported, and again is simply a lie. Martin Peretz says that
this “disposes of Chomsky’s pretentions at being a civil libertarian”.
In my view, this little exchange says much more about Alexander and
Peretz than it does about Chomsky.
————————————————————
Seth Kulick “There are no kings inside the
University of Pennsylvania gates of Eden” – Bob Dylan
[email protected] http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~skulick/home.html (Page doesn`t exist)
From [email protected] Sat Dec 14 07:53:46 PST 1996
Article: 85555 of alt.revisionism
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Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 19:50:59 -0800
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
From: [email protected] (Rich Graves)
Subject: Back to your Trotskyist hole, please
Organization: No
Followup-To: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
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In article ,
[email protected] (Stephen R. Diamond) wrote:
>> >In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
>> >(Rich Graves) wrote:
>> >
>> Yes, as a matter of fact, I did write that. I also wrote the preceding and
>> succeeding sentences, which if included, would have shown your attack to
>> be nonsensical at best.
Note “and succeeding.”
>The upshot – Graves ridiculously considers Chomsky’s anti-Zionism a source
>of possible BIAS on a civil liberties question, when anti-Zionism is a
>prerequisite to any consistent defense of democratic rights.
I invite you to discuss amongst yourselves the anti-Zionist perspective on
Stalin’s anti-Zionist policies. If you believe that this is an important
issue for alt.revisionism, ignore the Followup-To: line yet again, but
expect to be killfiled.
-rich
From [email protected] Sat Dec 14 07:53:48 PST 1996
Article: 85561 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Brian Siano)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Followup-To: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
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Rich Graves ([email protected]) wrote:
: [email protected] writes:
: Oh yeah, I read that back in March of this year, but it’s good to revisit
: it now that I have some idea what I’m talking about.
: In this climate, I think Lipstadt’s attacks on Chomsky is understandable.
: Thanks for the correction of her misquote, but I don’t believe she set out
: to bash Chomsky (certainly not the way Cohn did), just to balance the
: slate a little.
(The following was written about two years ago, when I was
reviewing Deborah Lipstadt’s _Denying the Holocaust_ for _Skeptic_
magazine. Since Lipstadt’s passages on Chomsky have had new
circulation on this newsgroup, I’ve freshened it up for y’all. I
should state that I liked Lipstadt’s book, and that it’s frequently a
valuable resource, but I did have problems with her arguments on free
speech, as well as her two-page attack on Chomsky.)
Beginning on page 16, Lipstadt presents a short account of a
bitter controversy over Noam Chomsky’s 1981 defense of holohoaxer
Robert Faurisson’s right to free speech. Lipstadt’s account distorts
Chomsky’s positions on these and other issues; and judging from her
account, it appears that Lipstadt wanted to discredit Chomsky.
Lipstadt’s account begins by characterizing Chomsky as a one
of many “Defenders,” already muddying a distinction between defending
their _rights_ and defending their _theses_. She then writes that
“[Chomsky] wrote the introduction to a book by Faurisson.” Nope:
Chomsky wrote an essay, which was used as an ‘introduction’ without
his express permission.
After taking Chomsky to task regarding Faurisson’s
anti-Semitism (Chomsky argues that Faurisson’s complaints about
‘Zionist lies’ are not an indication: “Is it antisemitic to speak of
Zionist lies? Is Zionism the first nationalist movement in history not
to have concocted lies in its own interest?”), Lipstadt adds a
somewhat revealing comment:
“Indeed, it was this kind of reasoning that led Alfred Kazin to
describe Chomsky as a ‘dupe of intellectual pride so overweening that
he is incapable of making distinctions betwen totalitarian and
democratic societies, between oppressors and victims.’ Though Chomsky
is his own unique case, his spirited defense of the deniers shocked
many people including those who thought they were inured to his
antics.”
One can comfortably dismiss Kazin’s slug-line as little more
than _ad hominem_ hysteria– and, given Chomsky’s exhaustive
cataloguing of victims in his dozens of books, it’s factually
inaccurate as well. One wonders why Lipstadt chose to quote him; until
we see her characterization of Chomsky’s work as “antics” to which, we
assume, people must be ‘inured’ to.
Lipstadt’s attack on Chomsky falls apart in the next
paragraph. “In his essay Chomsky argued that scholars’ ideas cannot be
censored irrespective of how distasteful they may be,” she writes–
but then follows a footnote that reads:
“It is ironic that this internationally known professor should
have become such a defender of Faurisson’s right to speak when he
would have denied those same rights to p[roponents of America’s
involvement in Vietnam. In _American Power and the New Mandarins_ he
wrote, ‘By accepting the presumption of legitimacy of debate on
certain issues, one has already lost one’s humanity.’ Though written
long before the Faurisson affair, his comments constitute the most
accurate assessment of his own behavior.”
This is about as dishonest a smear as one can get. First of
all, Chomsky has cited that _very same sentence_ to illustrate why he
did not comment on Faurisson’s claims. But some background is in
order.
In the Introduction to _New Mandarins_, Chomsky describes a
trap one falls into while researching atrocities– and he uses the
Holocaust as a specific example. Chomsky writes that “We enter into a
technical debate with the Nazi intelligentsia; is it technically
feasible to dispose of millions of bodies?. . . Without awareness, I
found myself drawn into this morass of insane rationality– inventing
arguments to counter and demolish the constructions of the Bormanns
and the Rosenbergs.”
Then the meat of the matter: “By entering into the arena of
argument and counterargument, of tecnical feasbility and tactics, of
footnotes and citations, _by accepting the legitimacy of debate on
certain issues, one has already lost one’s humanity_. This is the
feeling I find almost impossible to repress when going through the
motions of building a case againat the American war in Vietnam. Anyone
who puts a fraction of his mind to the task can construct a case that
is overwhelming; surely this is now obvious. In an important way, by
doing so he degrades himself, and insults beyond measure the victims
of our violence and our moral blindness. There may have been atime
when America policy in Vietnam was a debatable manner. This time is
long past. . . The war is simply an obscenity, a depraved act by weak
and miserable men, including all of us, who have allowed it to go on
and on with endless fury and destruction. . . ”
What a difference context makes. As we see, Chomsky was
comparing the rationalizations for the Vietnam conflict to those for
the Holocaust, and very clearly denouncing them both. If Lipstadt has
read the essay– by citing it, she claims to have done so– then she
has distorted Chomsky’s positions on free speech.
Second, not only has Chomsky _not_ tried to censor the voice
of Vietnam hawks, he was active in preserving Walter Rostow’s post at
MIT when the student body was agitating that this architect of the war
should be prevented from teaching– an event that is in clear
opposition to Lipstadt’s claims. Chomsky is on record as _preserving_
the rights of even those whom he must despise. (Rostow makes an
interesting contrast to Faurisson– for all his undeniable ugliness,
Faurisson has not, to the best of my knowledge, actually _enacted_
policies of mass murder.)
On the next page, Lipstadt quotes a statement by French
historians that appeared in _Le Monde_ in 1979, as a “contrast” to
Chomsky’s actions. The statement talks about peoples’ freedom to
interpret the Holocaust, compare it to other horrors, or even
speculate or believe that it didn’t happen. But it did happen, the
statement says; we don’t even have to argue about the technical
how-it-was-done questions. “This truth it behooves us to remember in
simple terms; there is not and cannot be a debate about the existence
of the gas chambers.”
When these historians argue that there “cannot” be a debate on
the existence of the gas chambers, Lipstadt approves. Lipstadt herself
refuses to appear on talk shows with the gargoyles of the Institute
for Historical Review, arguing that to do so would give them an
undeserved legitimacy as the “opposition” on the matter.
But when Chomsky says that there is no debate on the obscenity
of the Vietnam war– about as analogous an argument as one can make to
the other– Lipstadt denounces it as the suppression of the free
speech of the Vietnam hawks. One can’t help but wonder whether
Lipstadt’s problem isn’t with the message so much as it is with the
messenger.
Lipstadt also argues that talk shows that give Holohoaxers a
platform should understand that they “become pawns in a dangerous
war.” And when citing legal efforts at silencing the
Holohoaxers–restrictions on speech, barring entry rights– Lipstadt
does not condemn these out of principle, but because they “transform
the deniers into martyrs on the altar of free speech.”
Clearly, Lipstadt wishes to attack Chomsky for some reason or
another. Since Lipstadt cannot compromise Chomsky as an actual
Revisionist, she tries to portray Chomsky’s free-speech position as
being arbitrary and duplicitous– and therefore, dishonest. However,
she does this by misrepresenting Chomsky’s works, and ascribing
anti-free-speech positions to him that he’s never advocated. These
positions, ironically enough, are fairly close to what Lipstadt
herself advocates.
—
Brian Siano – [email protected]
“The Internet is an elite organization. Most of the
population of the world has never even made a phone call.”
— Noam Chomsky
From [email protected] Sat Dec 14 07:53:58 PST 1996
Article: 85596 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Stephen R. Diamond)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Gravesyard Logic
Date: 14 Dec 1996 06:24:56 GMT
Organization: Concentric Internet Services
Lines: 28
Message-ID:
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
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In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] (Rich Graves) wrote:
> I invite you to discuss amongst yourselves the anti-Zionist perspective on
> Stalin’s anti-Zionist policies.^
Graves defends his claim that Chomsky’s anti-Zionism is a potential source
of bias
> **One can support the
> >dieals of free speech and have almost any opinion regarding
> >Israel. And one’s position on Zionism does notipso facto compromise
> >one’s free-speech stance.
>
> You’re absolutely right: “Not ipso facto.” It is however, a legitimate
> reason to inquire about possible bias. It doesn’t seem right for attacks
> based on Cohn’s pro-Zionist biases to be OK, but for attacks based on
> Chomsky’s anti-Zionist biases to be seen as attacks on free speech.-Graves
–his agreement that Zionism has _no_ bearing on free speech, when Zionism
is by its nature an attack on fundamental democratic rights-
by implying that Stalin will serve as counter-example.
Ouf course it was Stalin’s Stalinism, NOT his anti-Zionism, which was the
“biasing” factor.
Stephen R. Diamond
From [email protected] Sat Dec 14 13:08:14 PST 1996
Article: 85660 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: Not In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 14 Dec 1996 17:59:37 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
Lines: 28
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
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[email protected] (Stephen R. Diamond) writes:
>In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
>(Rich Graves) wrote:
>> …I’ve avoided
>> explaining who I am and why I care about this issue.
>
>You pump gas at Stanford, right?
>
>The pomposity of this remark makes me think your dwelling on the size of
>Chomsky’s ego is pure psychological projection.
Heh, you’ve noticed Stephen?
Rich keeps on dropping hints (something about “you think I don’t support
freedom of speech — check Lexus and Nexus” as i recall…) which simply
screams “ego, ego, ego, ego, ego…”
I think Rich is just jealous and wants us to create alt.fan.rich-graves for
him. That would explain why he’s so obsessed with technicalities in order to
find some fault with Chomsky’s motives…
Me? I find that getting into stupid arguments on the net is a great way to
procrastinate…
—
Lamont Granquist (lamontg @ u.washington.edu) ICBM: 47 39’23″N 122 18’19″W
“First consider a spherical chicken…”
unsolicited commercial e-mail->contacting your ISP to remove your net.access
From [email protected] Sat Dec 14 17:02:05 PST 1996
Article: 85689 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: Not In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 14 Dec 1996 17:49:11 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
Lines: 23
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
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[email protected] (Rich Graves) writes:
>Thank you. This is the first time you have paraphrased me with any
>accuracy. I must accept some responsibility for this, because I’ve been
>enjoying the irony of your fumbling around so much that I’ve avoided
>explaining who I am and why I care about this issue. It has also been
>enlightening watching how LamontG reacts to criticism from someone he
>doesn’t know. Somehow I’ve become someone who doesn’t believe in freedom
>of speech “even for Nazis,” which is quite comical, really.
Unfortunately, that is exactly how you’ve come across. I’ve gathered that
you are a civil libertarian, but I’m left with basically two conclusions.
Either you don’t understand your own biases or the freedom of speech. Or
else you simply don’t like Chomsky and would like any reason to find fault
with him for attempting to support the freedom of speech. I guess it must
be the latter then.
If you simply don’t like Chomsky, then why don’t you just say so? I’ve
got better things I should probably be doing…
—
Lamont Granquist (lamontg @ u.washington.edu) ICBM: 47 39’23″N 122 18’19″W
“First consider a spherical chicken…”
unsolicited commercial e-mail->contacting your ISP to remove your net.access
From [email protected] Sat Dec 14 19:34:54 PST 1996
Article: 85696 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 14 Dec 1996 17:17:14 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
Lines: 49
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
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[email protected] (Stephen R. Diamond) writes:
>
Note that I munge all my headers because I’m sick and tired of getting
e-mail spam. Correct e-mail address is in my .signature…
>I think you slightly miss Graves’ point, such that it is. He isn’t
>objecting to the support of free speech, when the defense is accompanied
>by the leveraging, but to support *of* the leveraging, itself. The issue
>comes down to:
>
>1. Was the petition neutral.
>
>2. If not, is signing a non-neutral petition support of leveraging.
>
>I would answer yes to the second question. But I think Graves’ conception
>of neutrality is biased (which is a general point about Graves).
The problem is that neutrality isn’t something that can reasonably be
expected to be a “yes” or “no” question by it’s very nature. The first
question should be stated something like:
1. Was the petition _sufficiently_ neutral?
Or maybe:
1. Was the petition not _overtly_ biased in favor of Faurisson’s views on
the Holocaust?
>To take the one issue which I don’t think this thread has considered – was
>it a bias to put Holocaust in quotes? Graves thinks so, because he
>construes the quotes as derisive. He doesn’t tell us how he would word a
>petition so as to be neutral between denial and historical truth. It would
>not be neutral to expect a denier to circulate a petition that denies
>denial. The quotes are really a neutal way to specify the holocaust
>without committing to its reality.
Yes. To expect them to have circulated a petition that affirmed the
existence of the Holocaust when that’s what they’re denying is a bit much.
I’m still waiting to hear how the petition that Chomsky signed should have
read. It seems to me that the petition was *mostly* about the academic freedom
of Faurisson. It fits my criteria of not being overtly biased and being
sufficient neutral…
—
Lamont Granquist (lamontg @ u.washington.edu) ICBM: 47 39’23″N 122 18’19″W
“First consider a spherical chicken…”
unsolicited commercial e-mail->contacting your ISP to remove your net.access
From [email protected] Sat Dec 14 19:34:55 PST 1996
Article: 85697 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 14 Dec 1996 17:05:54 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
Lines: 25
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
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[email protected] (Rich Graves) writes:
>In contrast, the popular wisdom about Chomsky (in her milieu, at least)
>was that his interests were purely civil libertarian. I don’t support
>Cohn’s thesis, but in context of Chomsky’s consistent attacks on the state
>of Israel (with which I often agree, but that’s beside the point), I don’t
>believe his motives or actions are as pure as he or his most activist
>defenders say. To be anti-Zionist is certainly not the same as being a
>Nazi, but it’s not purely civil libertarian, either.
Ah, so, since Chomsky disapproves of the present Zionist movement and
disapproves of the actions of the state of Israel, his support of Faurisson
is no longer “civil libertarian” but is instead somehow “biased.”
Horseshit. You’re just looking for any reason to deny Chomsky’s civil
libertarian stance. I suppose that Chomsky’s criticism of the US is naturally
behind his support for dissident’s free speech in the former USSR and that
he wasn’t motivated as a “pure civil libertarian” then, either.
Holding up to your standards, I doubt that anyone is a “pure civil
libertarian.”
—
Lamont Granquist (lamontg @ u.washington.edu) ICBM: 47 39’23″N 122 18’19″W
“First consider a spherical chicken…”
unsolicited commercial e-mail->contacting your ISP to remove your net.access
From [email protected] Sun Dec 15 08:11:14 PST 1996
Article: 85707 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (william c anderson)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Followup-To: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Date: 14 Dec 1996 20:44:20 GMT
Organization: Emory University
Lines: 12
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Ben ([email protected]) wrote:
: Isn’t it strange that on this “socialist” newsgroup, nobody has
: brought up the fact that his rather irrelevant comment on an apologist
: for previous crimes aside, Chomsky has done far worse: endorsed the
: U.S./U.N./NATO intervention in Bosnia, a contemporary act of mass
: murder that he could have probably changed a significant number of
: minds by opposing.
I’m a little confused; how does the UN intervention in Bosnia
constitute “mass murder”?
Bill
From [email protected] Sun Dec 15 08:11:29 PST 1996
Article: 85790 of alt.revisionism
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From: Dominique Abalain
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 15 Dec 1996 04:02:45 GMT
Organization: SCT / Worldnet – Internet Provider & Information Exchange – Paris,
France
Lines: 81
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <[email protected]>
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To: [email protected]
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alt.fan.noam-chomsky:19814 alt.revisionism:85790
[email protected] (Mark Van Alstine) wrote:
>
>[…]
>
>Let us now pose the other side of the question. What does Noam Chomsky
>know of the “criticisms” that have been addressed to Faurisson, and
>specifically of the study that he refers to, which I published in
>_Espirit_ and which attempts to analyze “historically” the “method” of
>Faurisson and of several others? The answer is simple. “Certain
>individuals have taken Faurisson’s defense for reasons of principle. A
>petition with several hundred signatories, led by Noam Chomsky, protested
>against the treatment Faurisson has recieved by presenting hin
>’conclusions’ as though they were in fact discoveries (Ve’rite’, p.163).
>That petition seems to me to be scandalous.”[8]
>
>The content of those lines leaves no doubt about Chomsky’s motives. It is
So, by quoting Vidal-Naquet, who doesn’t seem to have understood the
meaning of the petition, and Chomsky’s role in it, what do you want to
prove?
such lawsuits do
>not prevent him from writing or being published.
It was true before the Gayssot ( a french communist ! ) law was passed.
>a comrade, or a “relatively apolitical sort of liberal.” You did not have
>the right to take a falsifier of history and to recast him in the colors
>of truth.
>
Nobody has been giving an answer to this simple question : Are we to call
Neo-nazis people who have never been involved in a political activity,
but have raised issues that look to some others like promoting
antisemitism, or who could be said ( on the base of old time memories or
private letters, like Vidal-Naquet did with Faurisson) to have antisemite
feeling ( not talking of any rationalisation of them)? Considering the
very high sensitivity of, for example Zionists, who seem to consider that
opposition to them is antisemitism, are we to call anti-Zionsts as
neo-Nazis ?
>It will suffice for me to observe: 1) that he went considerably further in
>his support for Faurisson, exchanging friendly letters with him,[19]
Guillaume writes ” nous sommes bien places pour savoir ce que cette
CIVILITE a de rare et de courageux.”
No comment.
>accepting even to be prefaced by a leader of the revisionist league Pierre
>Guillaume [20] (while claiming- mendaciously -that he had not written a
>preface for Faurisson), [21], characterizing Guillaume as “libertarian and
>antifascist on principle” [22] (which must have provoked some hilarity
>from the interested party, since he regards antifascism as fundementally
>mendacious);
Now, go ahead, and tell us that Editions Spartacus are neo-Nazis. Look at
the book they publish !
The question of the crtic of anti-fascism, by Bordigist seems to me the
only one that would deserve a substantiated answer in Cohn’s book.
Unfortunately, I am not familiar with their theses. I’m surprised no-one
coul do it.
But why does he find so much
>energy and even tenderness in defending those who have become the
>publishers and defenders of the neo-Nazis, [25] and so much rage against
>those who allow themselves to fight them? [26]. That is the simple
>question I shal raise. When logic has no other end than self-defense, it
>goes mad.
>
A logic can be build on false facts. It is what people tell Faurisson
does. Using a way and return between american and french sources with no
coherence, I shall say it is also what you do.
D.Abalain
From [email protected] Sun Dec 15 08:11:32 PST 1996
Article: 85809 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Brian Siano)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Followup-To: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Date: 13 Dec 1996 03:08:07 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania
Lines: 36
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References: <[email protected]>
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Rich Graves ([email protected]) wrote:
: On Lipstadt: Yes, like everyone else worth a damn, she makes mistakes.
: It’s interesting to note that we’re focusing on mistakes and alleged
: mistakes in her treatment of Chomsky and Buchanan — neither of whom are
: central features in her book. I can see her being a little lax on these
: personalities, because the real meat of the book, and the reason we both
: recommend it, is her treatment of the actual hard-core deniers.
I kind of agree: although I could have written a lengthy bit
about her two pages on Chomsky, I was reviewing her book overall– so,
I kept the Chomsky thing as a short remark in the beginning, and
reviewed the book overall.
: Likewise specific mistakes do not wholly discredit Chomsky. I’ve never
: meant to suggest that they do. Ironically, the reason I started this
: thread was that I thought Cohn’s treatment of Chomsky was unfair, and I
: wanted his more informed defenders to speak their piece. I got a little
: more than I bargained for in questioning just how unfair it was. Sorry.
Some of us have encountered this story before, and frankly,
it’s rough going: the Chomsky terror tales have circulated for a long
time, and a lot of people have turned up here after hearing only the
one side of the matter. One of these days, a genuine FAQ will come out
of it, I guess.
Brian Siano – [email protected]
“The Internet is an elite organization. Most of the
population of the world has never even made a phone call.”
— Noam Chomsky
From [email protected] Sun Dec 15 08:11:33 PST 1996
Article: 85810 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Stephen R. Diamond)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 13 Dec 1996 04:04:07 GMT
Organization: Concentric Internet Services
Lines: 18
Message-ID:
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <[email protected]>
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In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
(Emmanuel Marin) wrote:
> I know it can hint at the fact that Faurisson’s “works” on
> the WWII has more to do with him being a kook than him being
> anti-Semitic, but I don’t want to enter this debate as I’m afraid
> it’ll never been solved in a clear-cut way.
I don’t blame you. There is still the additional layer of complexity that
even if he is an anti-Semite, his holocaust position is not necessarily a
product of his anti-Semitism. Kooks will have a heightened propensity
toward anti-Semitism, because the latter tends to accompany forms of
instability of the kookish paranoid variety, even if the main focus of
their kookishness is totally removed from their anti-Semitism. Consider,
for example, the case of Marc Vigliemo, who is no doubt a crank in any
number of ways, quite independently of his anti-Semitism.
Stephen R. Diamond
From [email protected] Sun Dec 15 08:11:34 PST 1996
Article: 85813 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Stephen R. Diamond)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 13 Dec 1996 14:44:42 GMT
Organization: Concentric Internet Services
Lines: 47
Message-ID:
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <[email protected]>
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In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
(Rich Graves) wrote:
> [email protected] (Stephen R. Diamond) writes:
> >In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
> >(Rich Graves) wrote:
> >
> >> It is however, a legitimate
> >> reason to inquire about possible bias. It doesn’t seem right for attacks
> >> based on Cohn’s pro-Zionist biases to be OK, but for attacks based on
> >> Chomsky’s anti-Zionist biases to be seen as attacks on free speech. It’s
> >> that shifting definition of “neutrality” again.
>
> Yes, as a matter of fact, I did write that. I also wrote the preceding and
> succeeding sentences, which if included, would have shown your attack to
> be nonsensical at best.
My apologies to Graves. I did quote him out of context and misconstrue his
point. Which is very stupid, because he digs his own graves well enough,
and in this case what he said was much worse than what I imputed.
Here is the entire relevant quote – The second writer is Graves:
> > No, but being pro- or anti-Zionist is not exactly related to
> >bveing a civil libertarian on free speech issues. One can support the
> >dieals of free speech and have almost any opinion regarding
> >Israel. And one’s position on Zionism does notipso facto compromise
> >one’s free-speech stance.
>
> You’re absolutely right: “Not ipso facto.” It is however, a legitimate
> reason to inquire about possible bias. It doesn’t seem right for attacks
> based on Cohn’s pro-Zionist biases to be OK, but for attacks based on
> Chomsky’s anti-Zionist biases to be seen as attacks on free speech. It’s
> that shifting definition of “neutrality” again.
By point stands, but is strengthened. Graves imports a context-free
concept of neutrality from the civil liberties arena, and applies it to
the evaluation of positions. But the standard is the abstract “perspective
is irrelevant to neutrality – consider it or don’t consider it,
evenhandedly” not the more concrete “ignore perspective where bias is
concerned,” that I erroneously imputed to him.
The upshot – Graves ridiculously considers Chomsky’s anti-Zionism a source
of possible BIAS on a civil liberties question, when anti-Zionism is a
prerequisite to any consistent defense of democratic rights.
Stephen R. Diamond
From [email protected] Sun Dec 15 08:11:37 PST 1996
Article: 85827 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Brian Siano)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Followup-To: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Date: 15 Dec 1996 06:11:24 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania
Lines: 28
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References: <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <[email protected]>
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[email protected] wrote:
: [email protected] (Rich Graves) writes:
: >You’re absolutely right: “Not ipso facto.” It is however, a legitimate
: >reason to inquire about possible bias.
: Of course.
: However, it’s a long way from being against the present form of Zionism
: and the actions of the Israeli state to being in favor of Faurisson and
: Holocaust deniers. I’m as vehemently anti-Israel as Chomsky is and
for
Just one point here: what, exactly, is ‘anti-Israel?” If it
means “critical of Israeli state policies,” then fine. But if it means
“against the existence of the state of Israel,” then Chomsky doesn’t
qualify: he’s critical of its policies, but he’s said that he is not
opposed to its existence.
—
Brian Siano – [email protected]
“The Internet is an elite organization. Most of the
population of the world has never even made a phone call.”
— Noam Chomsky
From [email protected] Sun Dec 15 08:11:38 PST 1996
Article: 85828 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Brian Siano)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Followup-To: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Date: 15 Dec 1996 06:13:50 GMT
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Ben ([email protected]) wrote:
: Isn’t it strange that on this “socialist” newsgroup, nobody has
: brought up the fact that his rather irrelevant comment on an apologist
: for previous crimes aside, Chomsky has done far worse: endorsed the
: U.S./U.N./NATO intervention in Bosnia, a contemporary act of mass
: murder that he could have probably changed a significant number of
: minds by opposing.
Chomsky’s not alone: Christopher Hitchens was also in favor of
intervention to put a stop to the mass murders and the rise of
authoritarian regimes there.
I don’t see how Chomsky’s alleged support for this effort is
“far worse.” Frankly, one can make a strong historical parallel to the
Spanish Civil War, where a number of socialists and anarchists went to
fight against fascism. It’s far from a cut-and-dried,
anti=intervention issue.
—
Brian Siano – [email protected]
“The Internet is an elite organization. Most of the
population of the world has never even made a phone call.”
— Noam Chomsky
From [email protected] Sun Dec 15 19:21:17 PST 1996
Article: 85903 of alt.revisionism
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nntp0.teleport.com!cfaatz
From: [email protected] (Chris Faatz)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Followup-To: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Date: 12 Dec 1996 05:57:33 GMT
Organization: Teleport – Portland’s Public Access (503) 220-1016
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[email protected] wrote:
: Scott Solomon writes:
: >Moron? Look, douchebag, repeat after me:
: >
: >Lamont — U washington
: >Solomon — Columbia
: >Lamont — U washington
: >Solomon — Columbia
Scott: this bludgeoning of your opponents with your academic credentials
is really tiresome. So fucking what. I graduated from nowhere at all. I
guess I don’t even rate, eh?
Cut it out, buddy.
From [email protected] Mon Dec 16 07:05:00 PST 1996
Article: 85917 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Stephen R. Diamond)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 14 Dec 1996 20:47:05 GMT
Organization: Concentric Internet Services
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In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] wrote:
> What’s kind of amusing is that the very reason that I don’t believe that
> Chomsky is biased is the fact that the existence of the Holocaust is not
> a pro/anti-Israel or pro/anti-Zionist issue.
Even if it were, it would not be good reason to expect bias, since
anti-Zionism is a sine qua non of consistent civil libertarianism.
Stephen R. Diamond
From [email protected] Mon Dec 16 10:40:46 PST 1996
Article: 85976 of alt.revisionism
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From: Dominique Abalain
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 16 Dec 1996 16:33:09 GMT
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It doesn’t seem right for attacks
>> based on Cohn’s pro-Zionist biases to be OK, but for attacks based on
>> Chomsky’s anti-Zionist biases to be seen as attacks on free speech.
Orwell,Antisemitism in Britain in Contemporary Jewish Record 1945
” (…) All I would say with confidence is that antisemitism is part of
the larger problem of nationalism, which has not yet been seriously
examined, and that the Jew is evidently a scapegoat, though for what he
is a scapegoat we do not yet know (…)
Plenty of people who are quite capable of beeing objective about sea
urchins, say, or the square root of 2, become schizophrenic if they have
to think about the sources of their own income. What vitiates nearly all
that is written about antisemitism is the assumption in the writer’s mind
that he himself is immune to it. (…)
A Jew, for example, would not be antisemitic : but many Zionist Jews seem
to me to be merely antisemites turned upside-down, just as many Indians
and Negroes display the normal colour prejudices in an inverted form.
(…)
In that way one might get some clue that would lead to it’s psychological
roots.
But that antisemitism will be definitively cured, without curing the
larger disease of nationalism, I do not believe.”
Penguin, Collected essays, vol 3, p.386,7,8
From [email protected] Tue Dec 17 06:58:20 PST 1996
Article: 86126 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 16 Dec 1996 00:24:15 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
Lines: 34
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[email protected] (Brian Siano) writes:
>Ben ([email protected]) wrote:
>: Isn’t it strange that on this “socialist” newsgroup, nobody has
>: brought up the fact that his rather irrelevant comment on an apologist
>: for previous crimes aside, Chomsky has done far worse: endorsed the
>: U.S./U.N./NATO intervention in Bosnia, a contemporary act of mass
>: murder that he could have probably changed a significant number of
>: minds by opposing.
>
> Chomsky’s not alone: Christopher Hitchens was also in favor of
>intervention to put a stop to the mass murders and the rise of
>authoritarian regimes there.
> I don’t see how Chomsky’s alleged support for this effort is
>”far worse.” Frankly, one can make a strong historical parallel to the
>Spanish Civil War, where a number of socialists and anarchists went to
>fight against fascism. It’s far from a cut-and-dried,
>anti=intervention issue.
Does anyone know what Chomsky’s opinion _is_ on Bosnia? The only thing I’ve
heard him say is to be critical of the US massive-retaliation-zero-casualties
engagement policy.
Also, I’d love to know what the Politically Correct opinion on Bosnia is. I
certainly can’t support the Bob Dole approach to just letting the arms flow
(and reaping profits) while both sides slaughter each other. And letting
genocide happen doesn’t seem like a particularly good thing either. Has the
Clinton admin been blocking peaceful settlements that could have ended the
war? Is there a more “enlightened” engagement policy that the US/UN might
have followed (in a perfect world)?
—
Lamont Granquist (lamontg @ u.washington.edu) ICBM: 47 39’23″N 122 18’19″W
“First consider a spherical chicken…”
unsolicited commercial e-mail->contacting your ISP to remove your net.access
From [email protected] Wed Dec 18 08:17:40 PST 1996
Article: 86479 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Hunter Watson)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: Not In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 14 Dec 1996 02:32:38 GMT
Organization: Committee for the Rehabilitation of Socialism
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Message-ID:
References: <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <[email protected]>
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In article ,
[email protected] (Stephen R. Diamond) wrote:
> I care not in the least about the real life identities of online personas.
>
> Stephen R. Diamond
If this is so you and similar colleagues are mock, pretend Marxists.
Theoretical maunderings unconnected to the revolutionary process are just
smoke and mirrors.
H.W.
From [email protected] Thu Dec 19 05:53:16 PST 1996
Article: 86629 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Stephen R. Diamond)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: Not In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 18 Dec 1996 14:15:29 GMT
Organization: Concentric Internet Services
Lines: 9
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In article ,
[email protected] (Hunter Watson) wrote:
> If this is so you and similar colleagues are mock, pretend Marxists.
No one ever said Social Democrats are _absolutely_ unteachable. They are
only very slow learners.
Stephen R. Diamond
From [email protected] Thu Dec 19 20:50:13 PST 1996
Article: 86857 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Brian Siano)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Followup-To: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Date: 17 Dec 1996 04:43:43 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania
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[email protected] wrote:
: [email protected] (Brian Siano) writes:
: > Just one point here: what, exactly, is ‘anti-Israel?” If it
: >means “critical of Israeli state policies,” then fine. But if it means
: >”against the existence of the state of Israel,” then Chomsky doesn’t
: >qualify: he’s critical of its policies, but he’s said that he is not
: >opposed to its existence.
: I thought I’d made it clear from context when I wrote anti-Israel that
: I meant against the actions of the state, rather than the existence of
: the state itself (and we can even further qualify that by drawing distinctions
: between The State and the state, if you know what I mean…) — i must have
: left the disclaimer off that time..
I figured the phrase is, well, open to some serious
mis-interpretation, for obvious reasons.
—
Brian Siano – [email protected]
“The Internet is an elite organization. Most of the
population of the world has never even made a phone call.”
— Noam Chomsky
From [email protected] Thu Dec 19 20:50:14 PST 1996
Article: 86859 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Brian Siano)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Followup-To: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Date: 17 Dec 1996 04:45:27 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania
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[email protected] wrote:
: Also, I’d love to know what the Politically Correct opinion on Bosnia is. I
: certainly can’t support the Bob Dole approach to just letting the arms flow
: (and reaping profits) while both sides slaughter each other. And letting
: genocide happen doesn’t seem like a particularly good thing either. Has the
: Clinton admin been blocking peaceful settlements that could have ended the
: war? Is there a more “enlightened” engagement policy that the US/UN might
: have followed (in a perfect world)?
Hey, don’t ask me. If y’all will read the current issue of
_Skeptic_, you’ll find a ten-page article that sort of explains why I
wouldn’t be the best guy to say what’s politically correct about
anything.
Yes, this has been an obvious plug.
—
Brian Siano – [email protected]
“The Internet is an elite organization. Most of the
population of the world has never even made a phone call.”
— Noam Chomsky
From [email protected] Fri Dec 20 15:40:19 PST 1996
Article: 87045 of alt.revisionism
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not-for-mail
From: [email protected] (Truthsk763)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: Jewish Anti-Semitism II
Date: 20 Dec 1996 15:09:14 GMT
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
Lines: 32
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References:
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I never said that Noam Chomsky denied the Holocaust, but he is, in fact, a
close associate not only of Robert Faurisson, but a whole array of French
anti-Semites. It is also a fair comment to note that Chomsky, despite his
observant background, is viscerally hostile to his Jewish heritage.
The source for these assertions is a new book by Werner Cohn, Partners in
Hate, which can be accessed in its entirety at www.nizkor.org in the
“What’s New” section.
Regarding Faurisson, Chomsky gave his name to a petition authored by Mark
Weber of the Institute for Historical Review decrying the suppression of
Faurisson’s “findings.” Later, he wrote a forward to a book by Faurisson
on the Holocaust. He has had his articles published on a regular basis
in Faurisson’s “revisionist” journal. In addition, some of Chomsky most
self-hating material has been published by one Pierre Guillaume, who is
very active in the dissemination of anti-Semitic materials in France and
is close to Faurisson.
To round it out, one of the easiest places to obtain Chomsky’s political
writings is from Noontide Press, publishing arm of the IHR, whose
catalogue contains several of his audio tapes and books. According to the
IHR, Chomsky “enlightens as no other on Israel, Zionism, and American
complicity.”
For your review, I am e-mailing you the preface of this book, but please
read the rest of the book, it contains very specific documentation.
I hope this helps. On another note, I appreciate your thoughtful postings
and have found them very helpful in understanding different aspects of
this subjects.
Ed Marks
From [email protected] Fri Dec 20 15:40:21 PST 1996
Article: 87052 of alt.revisionism
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Daniel Keren)
Subject: Re: Jewish Anti-Semitism II
Message-ID:
Keywords: dkeren [email protected]
Organization: The World, Public Access Internet, Brookline, MA
References: <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 07:53:44 GMT
Lines: 32
[email protected] (Truthsk763) writes:
# Noam Chomsky – Known for his brilliant work in the field of
# linguistics, Chomsky is a passionate “anti-Zionist” who has
# criticized the Palestine Liberation Organization for making
# peace with Israel. He is a close associate of virulent
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
# anti-Semite and Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is, plain and simple, not true. Chomsky is not my hero,
but there is no need to make such claims as you have made here.
Chomsky is not, at any rate, a “close associate” of Faurisson;
neither is he, at any rate, a Holocaust denier. He has most
clearly stated that he has never seen any reason to believe
what the deniers are saying.
# David Cole – A filmmaker active with the Institute of Historical
# Review,who made a video which attempts to refute the thesis that
# genocide was committed at Auschwitz.
Cole is indeed a rather miserable fellow, a 26-year-old highschool
dropout, who probably joined forces with various Nazis in order
to have his moment in the spotlight. It did get him into some
talk shows…
Posted/e-mailed.
-Danny Keren.
From [email protected] Fri Dec 20 22:01:15 PST 1996
Article: 87108 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Stephen R. Diamond)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 13 Dec 1996 07:24:59 GMT
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In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
(Rich Graves) wrote:
> It is however, a legitimate
> reason to inquire about possible bias. It doesn’t seem right for attacks
> based on Cohn’s pro-Zionist biases to be OK, but for attacks based on
> Chomsky’s anti-Zionist biases to be seen as attacks on free speech. It’s
> that shifting definition of “neutrality” again.
Of course it’s fair – just as it would be fair to have an a prior bias
against Chomsky on civil liberties questions if he were a supporter of,
say, the Gadaffi regime. Israiel was _based_ on the denial of fundamential
rights to Palestinians. How can someone who covers this fact up be trusted
in other matters of civil liberties?
Graves has a tremendous problem about when to apply what norm of
neutrality. He writes as though it ought never shift. UnZogian, this way
of thinking! The norm of neutrality is of course going to be different
when considering the question of rights, versus considering the
authoritativeness of a source.
Stephen R. Diamond
From [email protected] Sat Dec 21 13:36:19 PST 1996
Article: 87315 of alt.revisionism
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From: Ben
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 13:27:24 -0500
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[email protected] wrote:
>
> Chomsky’s not alone: Christopher Hitchens was also in favor of
>intervention to put a stop to the mass murders and the rise of
>authoritarian regimes there.
> I don’t see how Chomsky’s alleged support for this effort is
>”far worse.” Frankly, one can make a strong historical parallel to the
>Spanish Civil War, where a number of socialists and anarchists went to
>fight against fascism. It’s far from a cut-and-dried,
>anti=intervention issue.
Yeah, just like the U.S. intervention to “Save Vietnam” from the
“authoritarian regime” in the North, correct? Its only “far from a
cut-and-dried, anti-intervention issue” for those who have made their
peace with the policies of U.S. imperialism, or who are incapable of
standing up to the pressure of imperialist “public opinion.”
Has Chomsky volunteered for the U.S. army in line with his endorsement
of the imperialist presence there? I think not. Hittchens? Wohlforth?
I’ve repeatedly suggested to Wohlforth that he join up on list-servs
and newsgroups that he’s participated in after he’s spewed out garbage
in favor of the intervention. After his refusal to respond, I brought
out the suggestion that perhaps Wohlforth along with Chomsky and the
rest of the arrogant liberal-radical types advocating sending troops
there should be burned alive with Napalm. John Holmes has suggested
instead that they be used to test Bosnia for old land mines, on the
grounds that my suggestion would violate international law.
The comparisons to Spain are stupid and worthless. Socialists,
anarchists, etc. *NEVER* advocated U.S. aid to the Spanish
anti-fascists, as those who whined and bitched about the arms embargo
on Bosnia did. Rather, they simply wanted a free hand to organize to
send volunteer brigades, guns and money from workers organizations
outside of Spain. Never did any of these people advocate sending in
the U.S. Army to “save Spain.”
Also, of course, most of the arrogant, anti-working class bastards
advocating U.S. intervention in the pages of the Nation and elsewhere
strongly supported one particular set of mass-murdering nationalist
gangsters(the Muslim fundementalist proxy of U.S. imperialism and its
Croatian ally, butchers of Krajina) over another(the Serbs, the only
set without guns, money and “advisors” from one or another imperialist
power.) The issue here is quite abundantly clear: the U.S. and Germany
were arming and funding nationalist gangsters for the purpose of
destroying the old Stalinist state in Yugoslavia and opening it up for
foreign investment. Eventually, they came in with bomber planes to
massacre the hell out of the Bonsian Serb population–in one case 1000
deaths were tolled within just 3 days of bombing, with “military
targets” including schools and factories. It was the basic, obvious
duty of socialists and radicals in the U.S. to take a strong stand in
military defense of the Serbs against “our own” imperialists. Those
who failed to do this, and who editoralized to an audience of
thousands and thousands of left-leaning people in favor of “our boys”
in Bosnia deserve to be treated like apologists for the Holocaust and
for the war in Vietnam.
The best comment I read came from the Progressive Labor paper
“Challenge”–the author was recalling telling a friend that they were
very worried about their son: he was in the Army Reserve and a “peace”
agreement had just been signed in Bosnia. In imperialist newspeak of
course “peace” means just the opposite.
Ben
From [email protected] Sat Dec 21 13:36:22 PST 1996
Article: 87325 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Stephen R. Diamond)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 21 Dec 1996 17:34:20 GMT
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What you say is correct in general, Ben, but someone has written to this
list that Chomsky, in point of fact, never advocated intervention. Do you
have proof that he did?
Stephen R. Diamond
From [email protected] Sun Dec 22 10:05:54 PST 1996
Article: 87473 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Brian Siano)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Followup-To: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Date: 22 Dec 1996 05:40:29 GMT
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Ben ([email protected]) wrote:
: [email protected] wrote:
: >
: >”far worse.” Frankly, one can make a strong historical parallel to the
: >Spanish Civil War, where a number of socialists and anarchists went to
: >fight against fascism. It’s far from a cut-and-dried,
: >anti=intervention issue.
: Yeah, just like the U.S. intervention to “Save Vietnam” from the
: “authoritarian regime” in the North, correct? Its only “far from a
: cut-and-dried, anti-intervention issue” for those who have made their
: peace with the policies of U.S. imperialism, or who are incapable of
: standing up to the pressure of imperialist “public opinion.”
I, for one, can recognize that silly “if you’re not in
agreement with me, you’re on the side of the imperialist
blood-drinkers” argument a mile off, and this is a prime example.
: Has Chomsky volunteered for the U.S. army in line with his endorsement
: of the imperialist presence there? I think not.
Considering that Chomsky is in his early sixties, this is sort
of a silly demand.
: in favor of the intervention. After his refusal to respond, I brought
: out the suggestion that perhaps Wohlforth along with Chomsky and the
: rest of the arrogant liberal-radical types advocating sending troops
: there should be burned alive with Napalm.
Let me get this straight. You advocated that people who
supported intervention be _napalmed_?
John Holmes has suggested
: instead that they be used to test Bosnia for old land mines, on the
: grounds that my suggestion would violate international law.
I’d hate to run intoeither you or Holms in a dark alley. Lord
knows what you’d want to do to people who just _look_ at you funny.
: The comparisons to Spain are stupid and worthless. Socialists,
: anarchists, etc. *NEVER* advocated U.S. aid to the Spanish
: anti-fascists, as those who whined and bitched about the arms embargo
: on Bosnia did. Rather, they simply wanted a free hand to organize to
: send volunteer brigades, guns and money from workers organizations
: outside of Spain. Never did any of these people advocate sending in
: the U.S. Army to “save Spain.”
I’d beg to differ. If the United States, for some reason,
decided that the defense of Spain was a priority, I’m certain
progressives would have appreciated the fact that a powerful nation
was suddenly on their side. By your logic, then, the United States
intervention in Europe that began in January 1941 is as undesirable as
even a peacekeeping effort would be in any war-ravaged area of the
globe.
The simple fact is that the U.S. acts according to its
interests, and we would be justifiably suspicious of its motives were
it to suddenly decide that it’s worth it to intervene in a national
conflict. Still, this simple fact– which I don’t think anyone here
disagrees with– does not render any and all forms of military
intervention as imperialistic exercises. Given a choice between a)
sending in U.S. troops to enforce some form of stability on a war-torn
region, or b) letting the locals butcher themselves, I’d prefer the
former.
—
Brian Siano – [email protected]
“The Internet is an elite organization. Most of the
population of the world has never even made a phone call.”
— Noam Chomsky
From [email protected] Mon Dec 23 07:53:28 PST 1996
Article: 87831 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: 22 Dec 1996 07:49:15 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
Lines: 40
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References: <[email protected]>
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Ben writes:
>[email protected] wrote:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I didn’t write this.
>> Chomsky’s not alone: Christopher Hitchens was also in favor of
>>intervention to put a stop to the mass murders and the rise of
>>authoritarian regimes there.
>> I don’t see how Chomsky’s alleged support for this effort is
>>”far worse.” Frankly, one can make a strong historical parallel to the
>>Spanish Civil War, where a number of socialists and anarchists went to
>>fight against fascism. It’s far from a cut-and-dried,
>>anti=intervention issue.
>
>Yeah, just like the U.S. intervention to “Save Vietnam” from the
>”authoritarian regime” in the North, correct? Its only “far from a
>cut-and-dried, anti-intervention issue” for those who have made their
>peace with the policies of U.S. imperialism, or who are incapable of
>standing up to the pressure of imperialist “public opinion.”
>
>Has Chomsky volunteered for the U.S. army in line with his endorsement
>of the imperialist presence there?
When has he “endorsed the imperialist presence” in Bosnia?
>[…ranting deleted… …land-mine testing, etc…]
>Eventually, they came in with bomber planes to
>massacre the hell out of the Bonsian Serb population–in one case 1000
>deaths were tolled within just 3 days of bombing, with “military
>targets” including schools and factories.
The only statement I’ve seen of Chomsky’s on Bosnia is that he was against
exactly this kind of use of massive-force.
—
Lamont Granquist (lamontg @ u.washington.edu) ICBM: 47 39’23″N 122 18’19″W
“First consider a spherical chicken…”
unsolicited commercial e-mail->contacting your ISP to remove your net.access
From [email protected] Wed Dec 25 14:30:28 PST 1996
Article: 88498 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Werner Cohn)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 12:56:28 -0400
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In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Brian
Siano) wrote:
> Considering that Chomsky is in his early sixties, this is sort
>of a silly demand.
>
Ch. was born in 1928, so he’ll be 69 in 1997.
From [email protected] Fri Dec 27 11:35:48 PST 1996
Article: 88958 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Brian Siano)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: In Support of Werner Cohn
Followup-To: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
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Date: 27 Dec 1996 01:46:11 GMT
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Werner Cohn ([email protected]) wrote:
: In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Brian
: Siano) wrote:
: > Considering that Chomsky is in his early sixties, this is sort
: >of a silly demand.
: >
: Ch. was born in 1928, so he’ll be 69 in 1997.
It’s almost worth it. An actual, verifiable, and accurate fact
>from Werner Cohn, of all people!
Truly, this is the season for miracles!
—
Brian Siano – [email protected]
“The Internet is an elite organization. Most of the
population of the world has never even made a phone call.”
— Noam Chomsky
From [email protected] Sun Dec 29 07:33:22 PST 1996
Article: 89753 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Peter Herngaard)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: a_nation_sayit.html
Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 23:18:33 GMT
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FROM THE NOAM CHOMSKY ARCHIVE
http://www.lbbs.org
_________________________________________________________________
Title: His Right to Say It
Author: Noam Chomsky
Appeared-in: The Nation, 28 February 1981
Source: Transcribed by Don Bashford ([email protected]). This HTML
version formatted by Daragh McDonnell ([email protected])
Keywords: Faurisson, free speech
Synopsis: Chomsky explains his defense of Robert Faurisson
See-also: “Some Elementary Comments on the Rights of Freedom of
Expression”
“The Chorus and Cassandra”
_________________________________________________________________
HIS RIGHT TO SAY IT
Noam Chomsky
The Nation, 28 February 1981
An article in the New York Times concerning my involvement in the
“Faurisson affair” was headlined “French Storm in a Demitasse.” If the
intent was to imply that these events do not even merit being called
“a tempest in a teapot,” I am inclined to agree. Nevertheless,
torrents of ink have been spilled in Europe, and some here. Perhaps,
given the obfuscatory nature of the coverage, it would be useful for
me to state the basic facts as I understand them and to say a few
words about the principles that arise.
In the fall of 1979, I was asked by Serge Thion, a libertarian
socialist scholar with a record of opposition to all forms of
totalitarianism, to sign a petition calling on authorities to insure
Robert Faurisson’s “safety and the free exercise of his legal rights.”
The petition said nothing about his “holocaust studies” (he denies the
existence of gas chambers or of a systematic plan to massacre the Jews
and questions the authenticity of the Anne Frank diary, among other
things), apart from noting that they were the cause of “efforts to
deprive Professor Faurisson of his freedom of speech and expression.”
It did not specify the steps taken against him, which include
suspension from his teaching position at the University of Lyons after
the threat of violence, and a forthcoming court trial for
falsification of history and damages to victims of Nazism.
The petition aroused considerable protest. In Nouvel Observateur,
Claude Roy wrote that “the appeal launched by Chomsky” supported
Faurisson’s views. Roy explained my alleged stand as an attempt to
show that the United States is indistinguishable from Nazi Germany. In
Esprit, Pierre Vidal-Naquet found the petition “scandalous” on the
ground that it “presented his ‘conclusions’ as if they were actually
discoveries.” Vidal-Naquet misunderstood a sentence in the petition
that ran, “Since he began making his findings public, Professor
Faurisson has been subject to. . . .” The term “findings” is quite
neutral. One can say, without contradiction: “He made his findings
public and they were judged worthless, irrelevant, falsified . . . .”
The petition implied nothing about quality of Faurisson’s work, which
was irrelevant to the issues raised.
Thion then asked me to write a brief statement on the purely civil
libertarian aspects of this affair. I did so, telling him to use it as
he wished. In this statement, I made it explicit that I would not
discuss Faurisson’s work, having only limited familiarity with it
(and, frankly, little interest in it). Rather, I restricted myself to
the civil-liberties issues and the implications of the fact that it
was even necessary to recall Voltaire’s famous words in a letter to M.
le Riche: “I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make
it possible for you to continue to write.”
Faurisson’s conclusions are diametrically opposed to views I hold and
have frequently expressed in print (for example, in my book Peace in
the Middle East?, where I describe the holocaust as “the most
fantastic outburst of collective insanity in human history”). But it
is elementary that freedom of expression (including academic freedom)
is not to be restricted to views of which one approves, and that it is
precisely in the case of views that are almost universally despised
and condemned that this right must be most vigorously defended. It is
easy enough to defend those who need no defense or to join in
unanimous (and often justified) condemnation of a violation of civil
rights by some official enemy.
I later learned that my statement was to appear in a book in which
Faurisson defends himself against the charges soon to be brought
against him in court. While this was not my intention, it was not
contrary to my instructions. I received a letter from Jean-Pierre
Faye, a well-known anti-Fascist writer and militant, who agreed with
my position but urged me to withhold my statement because the climate
of opinion in France was such that my defense of Faurisson’s right to
express his views would be interpreted as support for them. I wrote to
him that I accepted his judgment, and requested that my statement not
appear, but by then it was too late to stop publication.
Parts of my letter to Faye appeared in the French press and have been
widely quoted and misquoted and subjected to fantastic
interpretations. It was reported, for example, that I repudiated my
comments after having learned that there is anti-Semitism in France,
and that I was changing my views on the basis of clippings from the
French press (in the same letter, I had asked Faye to send me
clippings on another matter). My personal letter to Faye was
incomprehensible to anyone who had not read Faye’s original letter to
me; a telephone call would quickly have clarified the facts.
The uproar that ensued is of some interest. In Le Matin (socialist),
Jacques Baynac wrote that my fundamental error was to “defend, in the
name of freedom of expression, the right to mock the facts” – “facts”
determined, presumably, by some board of commissars or a reconstituted
Inquisition. My lengthy discussion on the implications of this
doctrine was from the occasionally recognizable version of the
interview with me published in Le Matin. In Le Monde, the editor of
Esprit, Paul Thibaud, wrote that I had condemned “the entire French
intelligentsia,” launching a “general accusation” against “les
Francais” without qualifications. Alberto Cavallari, Paris
correspondent for the Corriere della Sera went further still, claiming
that I had condemned all of “French culture.” The article is notable
for a series of fabricated quotes designed to establish this and other
allegations. What I had written was that though I would make some
harsh comments about “certain segments of the French intelligentsia .
. . certainly, what I say does not apply to many others, who maintain
a firm commitment to intellectual integrity . . . I would not want
these comments to be misunderstood as applying beyond their specific
scope.” Similar qualifications are removed from the doctored
“interview” in Le Matin, enabling the editors to allege that I
describe France as “totalitarian.”
Cavallari went on to explain that my rage against “French culture”
derives from its refusal to accept the theory that linguistics proves
that “the Gulag descends directly from Rousseau” and other imbecile
ideas he chooses to attribute to me for reasons best known to himself.
In Nouvel Observateur, Jean-Paul Enthoven offers a different
explanation: I support Faurisson because my “instrumentalist theory of
language, the ‘generative grammar’ . . . does not allow the means to
think of the unimaginable, that is the holocaust.” He and Cavallari,
among others, explain further that my defense of Faurisson is a case
of the extreme left joining the extreme right, a phenomenon to which
they devote many sage words. In Le Matin, Catherine Clement explains
my odd behavior on the ground that I am a “perfect Bostonian,” “a cold
and distant man, without real social contacts, incapable of
understanding Jewish-American humor, which relies heavily on Yiddish.”
Pierre Daix explains in Le Quotidien de Paris that I took up left-wing
causes to “clear myself” of the reactionary implications of my
“innatism.” And so on, at about the same level.
To illustrate the caliber of discussion, after I had noted that
Vidal-Naquet’s comment cited above was based on a misunderstanding, he
reprinted his article in a book (Les Juifs, F. Maspero), eliminating
the passage I quoted and adding an appendix in which he claims falsely
that “the error in question had appeared only in an earlier draft,”
which I am accused of having illegitimately quoted. The example is,
unfortunately, quite typical.
A number of critics (for example Abraham Forman of the Anti-Defamation
League in Le Matin) contend that the only issue is Faurisson’s right
to publish and that this has not been denied. The issue, however, is
his suspension from the university because of threats of violence
against him, and his court trial. It is of interest that his attorney,
Yvon Chotard, who is defending him on grounds of freedom of expression
and the right to an attorney of one’s choice, has been threatened with
expulsion from the anti-Fascist organization that is bringing
Faurisson to trial.
As Faye predicted, many showed themselves incapable of distinguishing
between defense of the right of free expression and defense of the
views expressed – and not only in France. In The New Republic, Martin
Peretz concluded from my expressed lack of interest in Faurisson’s
work that I am an “agnostic” about the holocaust and “a fool” about
genocide. He claims further that I deny freedom of expression to my
opponents, referring to my comment that one degrades oneself by
entering into debate over certain issues. In short, if I refuse to
debate you, I constrain your freedom. He is careful to conceal the
example I cited: the holocaust.
Many writers find it scandalous that I should support the right of
free expression for Faurisson without carefully analyzing his work, a
strange doctrine which, if adopted, would effectively block defense of
civil rights for unpopular views. Faurisson does not control the
French press or scholarship. There is surely no lack of means or
opportunity to refute or condemn his writings. My own views in sharp
opposition to his are clearly on record, as I have said. No rational
person will condemn a book, however outlandish its conclusions may
seem, without at least reading it carefully; in this case, checking
the documentation offered, and so on. One of the most bizarre
criticisms has been that by refusing to undertake this task, I reveal
that I have no interest in six million murdered Jews, a criticism
which, if valid, applies to everyone who shares my lack of interest in
examining Faurisson’s work. One who defends the right of free
expression incurs no special responsibility to study or even be
acquainted with the views expressed. I have, for example, frequently
gone well beyond signing petitions in support of East European
dissidents subjected to repression or threats, often knowing little
and caring less about their views (which in some cases I find
obnoxious, a matter of complete irrelevance that I never mention in
this connection). I recall no criticism of this stand.
The latter point merits further comment. I have taken far more
controversial stands than this in support of civil liberties and
academic freedom. At the height of the Vietnam War, I publicly took
the stand that people I regard as authentic war criminals should not
be denied the right to teach on political or ideological grounds, and
I have always taken the same stand with regard to scientists who
“prove” that blacks are genetically inferior, in a country where their
history is hardly pleasant, and where such views will be used by
racists and neo-Nazis. Whatever one thinks of Faurisson, no one has
accused him of being the architect of major war crimes or claiming
that Jews are genetically inferior (though it is irrelevant to the
civil-liberties issue, he writes of the “heroic insurrection of the
Warsaw ghetto” and praises those who “fought courageously against
Nazism” in “the right cause”). I even wrote in 1969 that it would be
wrong to bar counterinsurgency research in the universities, though it
was being used to murder and destroy, a position that I am not sure I
could defend. What is interesting is that these far more controversial
stands never aroused a peep of protest, which shows that the refusal
to accept the right of free expression without retaliation, and the
horror when others defend this right, is rather selective.
The reaction of the PEN Club in Paris is also interesting. PEN
denounces my statements on the ground that they have given publicity
to Faurisson’s writing at a time when there is a resurgence of
anti-Semitism. It is odd that an organization devoted to freedom of
expression for authors should be exercised solely because Faurisson’s
defense against the charges brought against him is publicly heard.
Furthermore, if publicity is being accorded to Faurisson, it is
because he is being brought to trial (presumably, with the purpose of
airing the issues) and because the press has chosen to create a
scandal about my defense of his civil rights. On many occasions, I
have written actual prefaces and endorsements for books in France –
books that are unread and unknown, as indeed is the case generally
with my own writings. The latter fact is illustrated, for example, by
Thibaud, who claims that I advocated “confiding Vietnamese freedom to
the supposed good will of the leaders of the North.” In fact, my
writings on the war were overwhelmingly devoted to the U.S. attack on
the peasant society of the South (and later Laos and Cambodia as
well), which aimed to undermine the neutralization proposals of the
National Liberation Front and others and to destroy the rural society
in which the NLF was based, and I precisely warned that success in
this effort “will create a situation in which, indeed, North Vietnam
will necessarily dominate Indochina, for no other viable society will
remain.”
Thibaud’s ignorant falsifications point to one of the real factors
that lie behind this affair. A number of these critics are
ex-Stalinists, or people like Thibaud, who is capable of writing that
prior to Solzhenitsyn, “every previous account” of “Sovietism” was
within the Trotskyite framework (Esprit). Intellectuals who have
recently awakened to the possibility of an anti-Leninist critique
often systematically misunderstand a discussion of revolutionary
movements and efforts to crush them that has never employed the
assumptions they associate with the left. Thibaud, for example, cannot
understand why I do not share his belief that Lenin, Stalin and Pol
Pot demonstrate “the failure of socialism.” Many left or ex-left
intellectuals seem unaware that I never have regarded Leninist
movements as having anything to do with “socialism” in any meaningful
sense of the term; or that, having grown up in the libertarian
anti-Leninist left, familiar since childhood with works that Thibaud
has still never heard of, I am unimpressed with their recent
conversions and unwilling to join in their new crusades, which often
strike me as morally dubious and intellectually shallow. All of this
has led to a great deal of bitterness on their part and not a little
outright deceit.
As for the resurgence of anti-Semitism to which the PEN Club refers,
or of racist atrocities, one may ask if the proper response to
publication of material that may be used to enhance racist violence
and oppression is to deny civil rights. Or is it, rather, to seek the
causes of these vicious developments and work to eliminate them? To a
person who upholds the basic ideas professed in the Western
democracies, or who is seriously concerned with the real evils that
confront us, the answer seems clear.
There are, in fact, far more dangerous manifestations of “revisionism”
than Faurisson’s. Consider the effort to show that the United States
engaged in no crimes in Vietnam, that it was guilty only of
“intellectual error.” This “revisionism,” in contrast to that of
Faurisson, is supported by the major institutions and has always been
the position of most of the intelligentsia, and has very direct and
ugly policy consequences. Should we then argue that people advocating
this position be suspended from teaching and brought to trial? The
issue is, of course, academic. If the version of the Zhdanov doctrine
now being put forth in the Faurisson affair were adopted by people
with real power, it would not be the “Vietnam revisionists” who would
be punished.
I do not want to leave the impression that the whole of the French
press has been a theater of the absurd or committed to such views as
those reviewed. There has been accurate commentary in Le Monde and
Liberation, for example, and a few people have taken a clear and
honorable stand. Thus Alfred Grosser, who is critical of what he
believes to be my position, writes in Le Quotidien de Paris: “I
consider it shocking that Mr. Faurisson should be prevented from
teaching French literature at the University of Lyons on the pretext
that his security cannot be guaranteed.”
In the Italian left-liberal journal Repubblica, Barbara Spinelli
writes that the real scandal in this affair is the fact that even a
few people publicly affirm their support of the right to express ideas
that are almost universally reviled – and that happen to be
diametrically opposed to their own. My own observation is different.
It seems to me something of a scandal that it is even necessary to
debate these issues two centuries after Voltaire defended the right of
free expression for views he detested. It is a poor service to the
memory of the victims of the holocaust to adopt a central doctrine of
their murderers.
From [email protected] Mon Dec 9 06:06:22 PST 1996
Article: 84567 of alt.revisionism
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From: [email protected] (Emmanuel Marin)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky,alt.fan.noam-chomsky,
alt.revisionism,soc.culture.french
Subject: An open question to Werner Cohn
Date: Mon, 09 Dec 1996 14:25:09 GMT
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