L.A. TIMES - ALL HISTORY IS "REVISIONIST"

Three cheers for Jonathan Zimmerman and the L.A. Times who was bold enough to proclaim, "all facts require interpretation and that all history is "revisionist" history." The Bush brothers seem to have a real problem with Revisionism. Could it be that they have some vested interest in not wanting history to be written in accord with the facts?

All history is 'revisionist'
A Florida law banning relativism in classes ignores reality and 75 years of academic tradition.

By Jonathan Zimmerman
June 7, 2006


JUST WHEN YOU thought it was safe to study American history again … the revisionists are back!

You know, those relativists who distort or simply fabricate the past to make it fit their present-day biases. For instance, shortly after the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, President Bush attacked "revisionist historians" who questioned his justifications for using force against Saddam Hussein. He did it again on Veterans Day in 2005. "It is deeply irresponsible," he declared, "to rewrite the history of how the war began."


And just last week, in an unprecedented move, the president's brother approved a law barring revisionist history in Florida public schools. "The history of the United States shall be taught as genuine history and shall not follow the revisionist or postmodernist viewpoints of relative truth," declares Florida's Education Omnibus Bill, signed by Gov. Jeb Bush. "American history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed."

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NEVER MIND THE HOLOCAUST

Hunker Down With History

By Richard Cohen
Washington Post
Tuesday, July 18, 2006; Page A19

The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself.
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ACADEMICS SURVEYED TO DISCOVER WHAT THEY REALLY THINK ABOUT HOLOCAUST REVISIONISM

MediaSyndicate.com

World's first survey of attitudes to Holocaust revisionism

July 13, 2006

A group which stubbornly refuses to identify itself is launching the world's first survey of the attitudes of academic historians to Holocaust revisionism. A spokesman for the group says, 'We read daily in our newspapers and online news sources about Holocaust revisionists being arrested, put on trial or imprisoned for their views, and we get told a lot how very awful these people are and so on, but no one seems to have thought to ask historians what they actually think about Holocaust revisionism.

'Our aim is, first of all, to find out how much historians know about Holocaust revisionism, and then, second, whether their views are supported by an actual encounters with revisionism - or whether they're simply based on prejudice.' More>>

THEY BURNED THE WRONG BOOK

Anne Frank diary burning sparks outrage in Germany

By Dave Graham

July 7, 2006

BERLIN (Reuters) - The ceremonial burning of the diary of Holocaust victim Anne Frank by far-right extremists in eastern Germany was condemned by the German government on Friday amid calls to intensify efforts to stamp out neo-Nazi activity.

"This act was beneath contempt and could scarcely have been more primitive," the German Interior Ministry said in a statement to Reuters. More>>

HOLOCAUST COPY-WRITE

THE FORWARD / 07 July 2006
Iowa Pol: I Said Holocaust, Not the Holocaust

By Ori Nir


WASHINGTON — A Republican congressman from Iowa alleges that the Anti-Defamation League defamed him over claims that he compared illegal immigrants to Nazis.

The ADL has been highly critical of a May 27 speech delivered by Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican, in which he argued that illegal immigrants have killed many more Americans since September 11, 2001, than were killed in the Al Qaeda attacks that day. King, who was speaking to a gathering of anti-immigration activists in Las Vegas, warned that "we have a slow motion holocaust on our hands."

In response, the ADL's director, Abraham Foxman, sent King a June 6 letter arguing that it was "inappropriate and insensitive" for him "to suggest that the conduct of undocumented individuals in America in any way resembles the systematic, genocidal actions taken by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party."

King, who has referred to Senator Joe McCarthy as a "great American hero," countered that he used the word "holocaust" in a generic sense, meaning a great destruction, and that he was in no way referring to World War II."
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Challenging Peter Singer's views on Holocaust deniers

Australian Jewish News
04 July 2006

At the Sydney Writers’ Festival last month, philosopher and ethicist Professor Peter Singer spoke about “What makes a civil society” and said that Holocaust-denier David Irving should not be censored, despite his absurd views. MELINDA JONES, research director of the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission [how much more do we need to know?], takes issue with Professor Singer.

Professor Peter Singer may be one of the world’s greatest philosophers, but on the issue of Holocaust denial he has simply got it wrong. Law constraining freedom of speech are consistent with a civil society, without detracting from the fundamental importance of the principle of free speech for a democratic society. [ ... ]

Holocaust deniers such as David Irving are powerful players who effectively silence the voices of the less powerful, by encouraging hatred and by legitimising antisemitism. The market place on its own cannot change this imbalance of power, so we need law. Silencing holocaust deniers increases the net amount of free speech by emboldening those who would be and are targets of racial hatred. More

THE FREEDOM TO RIDICULE--WHAT?

Council for Secular Humanism
03 July 2006

The Freedom to Ridicule Religion-and Deny the Holocaust
Peter Singer

Freedom of speech is important, and it must include the freedom to say what everyone else believes to be false, and even what many people take to be offensive. Religion remains a major obstacle to basic reforms that reduce unnecessary suffering. Think of issues like contraception, abortion, the status of women in society, the use of embryos for medical research, physician-assisted suicide, attitudes towards homosexuality, and the treatment of animals.

In each case, somewhere in the world, religious beliefs have been a barrier to changes that would make the world more sustainable, freer, and more humane.So, we must preserve our freedom to deny the existence of God and to criticize the teachings of Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, and Buddha, as reported in texts that billions of people regard as sacred. Since it is sometimes necessary to use a little humor to prick the membrane of sanctimonious piety that frequently surrounds religious teachings, freedom of expression must include the freedom to ridicule as well. More

ILLIBERAL EUROPE

Weekly Standard
10 April 2006

By Gerard Alexander

On February 20, an Austrian court sentenced the notorious British writer David Irving to three years in prison for denying in a 1989 speech that Auschwitz contained gas chambers. Many American observers had mixed reactions. They saw Irving as a loathsome anti-Semite but were uncomfortable with the thought of a person serving time behind bars for something he wrote or said, no matter how noxious.

Journalist Michael Barone probably spoke for more than a few when he said that he “shuddered” at the news of Irving’s imprisonment, “yet I can understand why Austria, like Germany, has laws that criminalize Holocaust denial and glorification of Nazism. History has its claims--heavy ones, in the cases of Germany and Austria.” In other words, criminalizing speech might not be the American way of doing business, but it’s understandably Austria and Germany’s way of dealing with their unique Nazi past. More