Archived HERE
First twenty minutes: Monologue on the downside of technological progress while attempting to make contact with scheduled guest Andrew Blair, using a new updated-and-ruined-by-Microsoft version of Skype.
Next 35 minutes: Andrew Blair carries forward my recent discussion with Joel Simpson on Holocaust controversies. Andrew writes: “Though I am still agnostic on much of the history I do have a definite opinion on whether the story of the holocaust should be called a ‘hoax.’ It should not be, because that implies deliberate deception. Nor should it be called a ‘lie’ because that implies intent to deceive. People who believe the story to be largely false do not like to hear me say those things because it is insufficiently denunciatory for them. But I find it easy to believe that people who tell falsehoods are themselves self-deceived as opposed to being deliberate liars. Even if some of the story has been perpetuated by deliberate liars I think it best to be cautious in making the claim because a) it’s hard to be sure, and b) it unnecessarily antagonizes those who unquestioningly believe the conventional story.”
We also discuss my claim that the Holocaust serves as a foundational sacred narrative of Zionism.
Andrew Blair, Ph.D. has worked in academia and computer programming. Now retired, he is able to devote a significant amount of time to serving the public interest. A fan of the Open Society and philosopher John Stuart Mill, Dr. Blair is a champion of academic freedom and was a leading defender of, professor Tony Hall, who was targeted by a political witch hunt.
Second hour: Libertarian-turned-Trump-loving-Republican Rolf Lindgren celebrates Trump’s alleged exoneration in William Barr’s summary of the Mueller Report. We argue about many other things as well, constantly interrupting each other while attempting to hurl food, beverages, and furniture before remembering we are not in the same room.
I’d like to add a note about why I am agnostic about the degree to which the orthodox story of the Jewish Holocaust is in need of revision. To believe the orthodox story, in its present state, I need to have more assurance that the academic historians are not subject to confirmation bias. To avoid confirmation bias they must have the academic freedom to consider the strongest arguments that can be brought against the orthodox story. But I know that they do not have academic freedom on this issue. For more on this see https://supportfreespeechmonika.com/.
One of the arguments brought forward in the case at the University of Lethbridge regarding Professor Hall was that his call for open debate on the Holocaust is very offensive and discriminatory to Jewish students. I think this is completely wrong-headed. A university should be a place where all cherished beliefs are open to question, and it is a sign of respect toward the integrity of Jewish students that they not be given some special exemption. For more about the case at the University of Lethbridge see https://academicfreedomanthonyhall.ca/.
I have only read a handful of books on the Holocaust debate. What immediately jumps out at me is the shocking weakness of the of the pro-orthodoxy arguments. The revisionists gleefully cite this as evidence that the pro-orthodoxy case is indefensible. That is of course the obvious takeaway. But it could also be because (a) the official story doesn’t even need to be defended because it is a sacred myth, so believers have no reason to mount a serious argument, and (b) taking the revisionists seriously enough to mount a real counter-argument is “unthinkable” because even to go there is to court severe damage to one’s career and reputation.
Anyway, for whatever reason, there seem to be no even halfway decent defenses of Holocaust orthodoxy, just as there are no halfway decent defenses of the 9/11 OCT.
Thank you to Dr. Barrett for continuing to have all manner of views on his shows, and to Dr. Blair for his strong stance on free speech.
That said, I think it would have been helpful for this show to have set some baseline starting points such as:
1) What is the core revisionist position on the holocaust? (see below)
2) What scholarly holocaust revisionist work exactly has Dr. Blair read? (I appreciated Dr. Blair acknowledging that he is not that familiar with the subject at hand.)
3) Of the “3 pilliars” (see below), what is it about each of them Dr. Blair disbelieves to the degree that the word “hoax” is inaccurate?
As long as the conversation was centered on myths and sacred narratives — and not *scientific forensic evidence* — it was easy to have a discussion based on opinion, if not Dr. Blair’s seeming embrace of the moral high ground.
According to Debating the Holocaust by Thomas Dalton, the “3 pillars” most revisionists agree on are:
1) There were not 6 million Jews murdered in WWII. It was more like 300,000-500,000 total.
2) No gas chambers were ever used for extermination. They were used for disinfecting lice which brought on the killer typhus epidemics in the camps.
3) There was never a Nazi extermination policy to kill Jews. There was an *expulsion* policy to transfer them out of Europe — a policy with which Zionists of the day collaborated arm in arm.
Without a specific discussion of the actual reasons why the word “hoax” is used, understanding of this issue was flaccid, remaining in essence a variation of an ad hominem attack.
What’s the possibility of Dr. Blair reading for starters the Dalton book and Ron Unz’s Holocaust Denial essay (if he has not already), and then coming back on the show to discuss from a more informed position the issue of using the word “hoax” to describe the official WWII Jewish holocaust narrative?