Over the years, one of the most mindless techniques used to suppress questioning of 9/11 has been to equate such questions with Holocaust denial. This smear tactic has been used by propagandists like Glenn Beck, Michael Shermer, and Rachel Maddow, as well as by government representatives like Michael Chertoff. Recently I’ve thought about how absurd such diversionary claims are while at the same time recognizing that I have met some incredible people over the past decade. Two of those people led lives that were Holocaust-related and, for different reasons, their story should be better known.
During the time that I worked for Underwriters Laboratories (UL), I lived next door to an extraordinary woman. Sherry Moses was a widow who lived alone except for occasional visits from her children. She was unafraid, despite having suffered more than anyone I had ever met. I knew of her past suffering because she showed me her tattoo and told me how all of her family was killed at Auschwitz. Sherry was only a child when she was sent there.
In one of the interviews she had with the local newspaper, Sherry told her story of being shipped to Auschwitz on a cattle train, being hungry all the time, and watching others die.[1] She was actually walking in line behind her parents, grandparents, brothers, and sisters, as they were led to the crematorium. Because of the specific number tattooed on her arm, she was spared along with a few, younger girls. She never really knew why.
When we were next-door neighbors, my wife and I found Sherry to be a charming and principled woman with a great sense of humor. When I raked her lawn or shoveled her sidewalk, she insisted on paying me something for the job. When she locked herself out of the house, I told her to ask the butler to open the door. Without missing a beat, she said that she had given him the day off. Sherry told my wife that she thought I would do something great some day.
Sherry died exactly six years after I was fired by UL for attempting to shed light on the origins of another mass slaughter—the U.S.-led War of Terror. When I first spoke out about 9/11 the mainstream media was ignoring any such questioning, but six years later they had begun claiming that anyone like me must be a Holocaust denier.
To the contrary, I’m a Holocaust believer. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the people behind the Holocaust were connected to the people who committed the crimes of 9/11. After all, the FBI has recently revealed documents that suggest that Adolf Hitler might not have died in 1945 but, instead, was hidden in Argentina until his death in 1965. It’s common knowledge that thousands of Nazis, many considered war criminals, were sheltered in Argentina and other South American countries.
Given that the Nazis were big fans of “The Big Lie” and that the crimes of 9/11 appear to be just such a lie (with FBI leadership suspected of being involved), it’s not too wild a notion that Hitler and his legacy survived. Moreover, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) used Nazi war criminals for intelligence operations after the war and the OSS assisted such war criminals in evading capture and prosecution. In a few cases, the OSS actually facilitated their immigration and assimilation in the United States. Therefore, people like Allen Dulles and William Casey, both high-level OSS officers and later CIA directors, provide strong links between the assimilation of Nazis and the U.S. deep state that is suspected of involvement in the 9/11 crimes.
This leads me to the second person I know who was related to the Holocaust, although less so. A former Nazi soldier actually contacted me in late 2012. This was Ernst Rodin, who over the past few years has developed an interest in groups seeking the truth about 9/11. He wrote asking if I would consider speaking at a conference that he was organizing on the subject.
If Rodin is known among 9/11 truth advocates at all it is because he attended The Vancouver Hearings in 2012. He was called both a participant and merely an attendee in that dubious affair, and was said to have had dinner with the organizers. Referred to as a retired psychologist in reviews of the event, Rodin went on to write about it extensively at his blog. It was shortly thereafter that Rodin decided to reach out to me and others in an attempt to organize another such conference. After looking into his background, which is far more interesting than that of any retired psychologist, I declined.
According to his autobiography, War & Mayhem, Rodin was a member of the Hitler Youth for four years and a soldier in the Nazi Wehrmacht for two. His war experiences included killing another soldier who turned out to be an ally and being mysteriously saved before the Russians overran his unit’s position and, presumably, killed everyone else.
Rodin went on to become a medical doctor specializing in neurology and he relocated from Vienna to the U.S. where he has led a full life. More interesting is that, in the U.S., he became a leading mind control experimentalist and a CIA asset. In fact, the late journalist Alexander Cockburn described Rodin as a “Dr. Stangelove” type and a mentor of the CIA mind control scientist, Louis West. In a message to me, Rodin denied that he ever tutored West but he did acknowledge having been a CIA asset and he believed that the CIA still wanted something from him.
It is certain that Rodin has a history of conducting unusual experiments on humans. Rodin used human subjects for many tests involving substances like LSD, marijuana, alcohol, PCP, and Metrazol. His experiments were focused on behavioral modification objectives similar to those of MK-Ultra, the CIA mind control project. MK-ULTRA started in 1953 just after Rodin came to the U.S. and at the same time that he began working with the CIA. The project was a successor program to the experiments run by Nazi scientists who had been brought to the U.S. for Operation Paperclip. MK-ULTRA combined the use of drugs, like those in Rodin’s experiments, with hypnosis in attempts to achieve behavioral modifications that existed for longer periods without the subject’s awareness.
Rodin was also at the center of a couple of famous legal cases related to mental health. Once he was sued because he almost convinced the Michigan Board of Health to let him implant electrodes in the brain of a violent inmate. Another doctor in Detroit at the time said that “state mental hospitals are similar to Nazi concentration camps in how they suppress and humiliate their involuntary inmates.” This was big news, as was Rodin’s call for castration of rioting black men in Detroit (a quote he denies). Rodin was further quoted saying it was time to “get down to cold-blooded medical research dealing with individuals rather than masses.”
Perhaps Rodin’s most famous patient was John Hinckley, Jr. If his March, 1981 attempt to assassinate President Reagan had been successful, Hinckley would have made George H.W. Bush the president for up to 12 years. Coincidentally, Hinckley’s brother had a dinner date scheduled with Neil Bush for the next day. Rodin was one of the psychiatrists who examined Hinckley, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity.
After presumably retiring from his mind-control science work, Rodin went on to write a great deal about Zionism and the problems of Jewish history. It seems odd that a former Nazi soldier would find it acceptable to live out his days in the U.S. writing about such things. But it is also interesting that such a person would attempt to insert himself among 9/11 truth advocates as a potential conference organizer. If such a conference did occur, the propagandists would have some material to work with. They would undoubtedly focus on the Nazi organizer angle while ignoring questions about why a CIA-linked mind-control scientist was so eager to get involved.
Anyway, Sherry Moses hoped that we would learn from World War II and the Holocaust. Unfortunately, due to organizations like the OSS, the CIA, and the propaganda machines of the 21st century, it seems that we are doomed to repeat some of the same mistakes. The people of Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, and those who have been indefinitely held and tortured in our War of Terror, would probably agree. Our best hope remains the chance that we will expose the Big Lie of 9/11 and learn from the deceptions behind it.
[1] May Lee Johnson, Auschwitz survivor a ‘walking miracle’: Survivor hopes to keep memory of prison alive, South Bend Tribune, January 30, 2005
Dig Within 
The strange thing about equating Holocaust denial with “conspiracy theories” is that the Holocaust is perhaps the best example of a conspiracy theory turning out to be true. Imagine that you are a German in 1943, say, and somebody whispers to you that the Jews being resettled to the East are not actually being resettled, but just taken to an extermination center to be killed. Surely any reasonable German, even those who didn’t like the Nazis that much, would consider this to be the most outlandish conspiracy theory imaginable. Surely their government would never do something like that.
Except that, of course, they did.
If the Germans had won the war, they would have covered up what they did at places like Auschwitz. Still, independent researchers would likely piece together the truth about what happened there and they would surely be smeared as “conspiracy theorists”. And in that alternate timeline, people like Shermer would be ridiculing those people and their crazy theories about gas chambers and crematoria.
But, of course, the Germans lost the war, so Shermer is ridiculing the people who question the existence of the gas chambers.
With regards to the gas chamber story revisionists make three asertions, one there is no evidence of homicidal gas chambers, two no Hitler order and three the six million figure is not true. I agree with all three.
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Thank you for this interesting information. I briefly met Rodin at the Vancouver Hearings, where he was in the audience. He was definitely not a presenter – he paid his money to sit and watch like the others in the audience. Please correct your essay to reflect that.
One of the Vancouver participants, Dr. Nick Kollerstrom – author of the best book on 7/7 – was fired from his teaching job at University College of London due to his research on the Nazi gas chambers. He was fired suddenly and without explanation shortly after publishing a scholarly article arguing – from his position as a historian of science with a focus on chemistry – that extant cyanide residues prove that there were only de-lousing chambers (which mainstream historians admit existed) but no mass homicidal gas chambers. Kevin, since you also have expertise in chemistry, maybe you could direct me to a refutation of that thesis? I watched Errol Morris’s documentary about Fred Leuchter, who did some of the cyanide residue experiments, and its summary of the mainstream position refuting Leuchter is unconvincing. That film is just one big ad hominem attack on Leuchter, which suggests Leuchter is probably right. If there are any decent chemistry-based refutations of Kollerstrom/Leuchter/Rudolph out there, please tell us where to find them. The ones I’ve seen are full of waffling and obfuscation, like the defenses of the 9/11 OCT, while Kollerstrom’s essays seem much more clear, straightforward, and empirical, like the arguments for controlled demolition.
The censorship that you and I have faced on 9/11 – getting fired from our jobs – pales next to the kind of censorship around the holocaust, where honest researchers get sent to prison, and death threats and physical attacks are common. That censorship, like the censorship around 9/11, seems to be designed to maintain a sacred story whose main beneficiary is global Zionism – a program of long-term genocide against Palestine. I don’t see anything in your article deploring the brutal censorship of scholars who question the holocaust, nor any awareness on your part that the sacred story of the Holocaust (regardless of what the historical truth may be) is being maintained in order to legitimize another genocide – the same genocide that 9/11 was designed to accelerate.
Kevin, thanks for the reply. I used the term participant specifically because you did, In your article on the subject of October 2012. You wrote “On Sunday, June 17th, 2012, Webre celebrated the end of the Vancouver Hearings by having dinner with participants Barbara Honegger and Ernst Rodin.” You mentioned Rodin several times in that article.
As for Kollerstrom, Wikipedia quotes him as writing that, “Auschwitz had art classes and a well-stocked library for inmates, as well as an elegant swimming pool where inmates would sunbathe at weekends while watching water-polo matches.” Therefore I’m not sure where I would start with a refutation of his imaginative theories. My own article is based on the eyewitness testimony of someone who was there, who was not watching water polo as her family was killed.
This got me curious about Kollerstrom, and I found this blog post on his paper:
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2013/09/revisionist-article-on-hydrogen-cyanide.html#more
I especially like the sentence: “And so the fact remains that – unlike 9/11 conspiracy theorists – Holocaust denier have not placed a paper in an academic peer-reviewed journal.”
I didn’t realize that Jim Fetzer is now a Holocaust Denier:
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2013/06/jim-fetzers-reasons-to-believe-in.html
Fetzer reportedly also supported the “no aeroplanes” theory that said that no real aeroplanes hit the WTC Towers and/or the Pentagon. Either way, he was wrong, but if he promoted this with respect to the WTC Towers, then he probably supported the nonsense “theory” about the aeroplanes people saw hit the towers being only holographici. He also associates or associated with so-called physicist Dr Judy Wood, who strikes me as being very unscientific and very likely a CIA plant, f.e.
No one serious about 9/11 will waste time with Fetzer.
… I’m pretty sure it’s deliberately fomented….
(Result of super aggressive spellchecker on my Android tablet….)
Also, if you wish to be a little more informed about James Fetzer with regards to 9/11, then do a normal Web search spying wtc7.net and 911review.com using his last name. F.e., use the following for search terms:
Fetzer site:911review.com
Fetzer site:wtc7.net
The latter search terms provide plenty of 911research.wtc7.net pages and some might include mention that he’s a Holocaust denier, for I’ve read such information at one or all of these three “sister” websites in the past. I won’t bother with checking for this now though, for pages referring to Fetzer’s nonsense. What these websites say about him with respect to 9/11, alone or purely, suffices. He isn’t a real 9/11 truth movement leader.
Correction:
Wherein my post, above, begins by saying, “Also, if you wish to be a little more informed about James Fetzer with regards to 9/11, then do a normal Web search spying wtc7.net and 911review.com using his last name”, the word spying is wrong.
It was probably written due to having been reading quite a bit about NSA spying and I didn’t carefully read what was written before clicking to submit the comment.
The sentence should’ve said, either:
“Also, if you wish to be a little more informed about James Fetzer with regards to 9/11, then do a normal Web search of wtc7.net and 911review.com using his last name”;
or,
the same thing as above, except changing the end part to “using his last name for search term”.
That’s clear from the two examples of search terms that were then provided.
“Spying” and “of” have no resemblance to each other. 🙂
Kevin Barrett, Jim Fetzer…who will be next? How much of a danger is there that the 9/11 Truth Movement will become just another instrument of anti-Semitism?
With all due respect, you wrote, quote: “One of the Vancouver participants, Dr. Nick Kollerstrom – author of the best book on 7/7”.
The best sources about the London bombings of July 7, 2005, aka 7/7, are JulySeventh.co.uk, aka J7, and Tom Secker, who has a number of websites and I believe his InvestigatingTheTerror.com provides a brief statement about Kollerstrom with respect to 7/7. These are the best sources for 7/7 analysis and both are critical of Kollerstrom’s “theories” about this. If J7 is critical of what he said, then I’d stick with J7. If Tom Secker is critical of what he says, then J7 surely also is. Well, they’re both critical of his “contributions” on this topic.
Tom Secker also provided some interviews on Corbett Report about 7/7.
The only two books I know that question the obviously false official story of the London bombings are Kollerstrom’s and Nafeez Ahmed’s. I’ve read them both. Kollerstrom’s is better. Mike, I recommend that you read the books yourself and make up your own mind, and not fall for the ad-hominem fallacy of “I respect so-and-so who doesn’t like Joe Blow so therefore I won’t even look at Joe’s work.”
Kollerstrom isn’t someone I’d bother reading, for he’s been quoted describing the Nazi concentration camps as if they were luxury vacation resorts or very nearly that sort of environment. Everyone knows that the Nazis tried to take over all of Europe and did this with extreme violence. They weren’t going around inviting everyone to a happy party or celebration. We know they killed 20 million or more Russians of the USSR and this isn’t something to confound with celebratory moments. And I knew a Franciscan monk during the 1980s who was imprisoned in one or more of the concentration camps; plus, learned from Professor Norman G. Finkelstein and others who wouldn’t lie about what they learned from or regarding relatives who were victims in some of these camps. Yet, Kollerstrom has pretended that these were happy environments?
Also, JulySeventh.co.uk makes it clear that he contacted “various members of J7, mostly for information that would be in his possession if he were indeed a serious researcher into the events of 7/7, but also to arrange to collect J7 leaflets”, and he subsequently allowed the BBC to falsely present him as a J7 member when he absolutely wasn’t one of them. All of this is referred to in the J7 page entitled, “J7 Decline to participate in BBC’s Conspiracy Files”.
So he’s been disingenuous about 7/7 in addition to making completely absurd claims about the Nazi concentration camps.
If his book on 7/7 contains valid information, then it’s very possible that he obtained it from J7 and Tom Secker without stating this. He’s proven to be disingenuous, so it’s very possible that if he did get and use valid analysis from J7, f.e., then he could omit this fact in order to try to take all of the credit for the research and analysis.
Stealing valid and good work from others and then taking credit for it is a known misdeed. People have done it before and more can do the same thing.
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Kevin,
I really liked your article, but Mr. Barrett’s comments here have made it clear that the 9/11 Truth Movement has a problem. Even if most of us are not Holocaust Deniers, what do we do with the ones who are?
This strikes me, frankly, as a totally ersatz problem.
That somebody is right or wrong about topic A does not logically imply that they are right or wrong about topic B.
By the same token, what should 9/11 truth do about people within its ranks that believe (out not) in Chinese astrology, in transcendental meditation, in seances where they communicate with the dead, in…. you name it…
Well…. nothing… right? Isn’t this all just a game? And isn’t the correct stance to refuse to play the game?
Clearly, there is a concerted effort to associate 911 Truth with holocaust denial and antisemitism, -or any other nonsensical and/or pseudo scientific claims, (i.e. ‘no planes’) for that matter. JREF, which is disinfo central for 911 truth, has had repeated postings, year in, year out, with such headings as, ‘A 9/11 investigator explains the holocaust’ -and the like. Anything that helps to misdirect, mischaracterize, or just muddy the waters, helps to maintain the ‘big lie.’ “The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments.” -Nietzsche
You people read in the wrong places. I’ve seen reference to JREF in the past, but never learned more about it than just seeing mention of it. I’ve never used any 9/11 truth websites that promote any bogus theories, anti-semitism, nazi’ism, etc. It’s surprising to learn that there’re any 9/11 “truth” websites that promote anti-semitism or nazi’ism, though not surprising to learn that there’re disinfo websites, for 911review.com and 911research.wtc7.net have warned about such websites for many years and these have been the two websites I most used; these, plus others they recommend in their pages for Recommended websites or resources. I later learned of this blog of Kevin Ryan.
I’ve come across comments at YouTube that continue bs “theories” and just respond with a little refutation and recommending good websites to use. After that, it’s up to readers to make use of the recommendations. If people don’t do that, then they’re lazy or don’t want to consider alternative, say, views and analyses, as well as evidence. If that’s their position, say, then I wouldn’t waste more time with them, for they’re people who aren’t serious about wanting the Truth anyway.
Some people complain by claiming that if God existed, then the evils experienced in this world wouldn’t exist. It’s a totally nonsensical p.o.v., for it’d then be like saying that we don’t want individual conscience and, therefore, responsibility for our actions and choices. We don’t want to be able to think for ourselves, make our own decisions, etc. Instead, we want God to do everything for us. That’s what such idiots essentially say and it’s total nonsense.
God isn’t going to micro-control what does and doesn’t happen in this world and none of us can do it, either. We need to be individually responsible for our decisions, etc.
So, I just refute bs “theories” and provide links for the good websites I know of, depending on what the particular 9/11 subject is.
I won’t waste a second of time trying to post comments at bogus websites. Instead, I’ll just comment at YouTube and at good websites, such as this blog by Kevin Ryan, f.e. Bogus websites are used by relatively few people and if anyone is dumb enough to use these as if they’re good resources, then it’s sad, but I won’t waste time with them. When the same people post their bs at YouTube, then it’s a website that’s used by very many people, so I can then take time to refute bs while also including links for good websites.
That’s all I’ll do. The important thing for serious truth researchers and supporters to do is to just try to get people who’ve only learned from the bogus sources to begin to learn from the good sources. Some people might’ve seen only Loose Change I, f.e., and it was badly done. If these people don’t subsequently learn from good sources, then they’re left with a very poor or bad impression about the overall 9/11 truth movement. So, they need to be informed of the good sources to use.
911review.com and/or 911research.wtc7.net (two sister websites, say) provide information about the or certainly some of the disinfo websites and films. Mark Robinowitz, editor of oilempire.us, which has been recommended by these two other websites for plenty of years, also provides some good information, but I don’t know how much time he spends with keeping it up to date today. There’s still good information there though.
Don’t waste time with the bogus stuff. Instead, put the energy into promoting the good sources.
F.e., tell people, “If all you’ve seen so far are Loose Change I or even I and II or just II, or anything promoting “theories” like no airliners were used for the attacks, f.e., then put that stuff aside, because it’s nonsense. Instead, use 911review.com and 911research.wtc7.net, websites linked in their Recommendations page, and Kevin Ryan’s DigWithin.net. Only then will you begin to really know what real 9/11 truth research, analysis and evidence provides”.
You can then rest truly assured that you’re providing the best advice humanly available or possible.
I don’t pretend to be one of the experts, for I’m definitely not one of them; but, I can recognize good work that’s carefully done. It’s not a guarantee against errors, but take Kevin Ryan, f.e. He’s highly careful and I don’t imagine that a person could be more careful about the investigation that the person is performing. He’s no “loose gun” researcher. He’s keenly careful. This is very obvious after having read plenty of his articles and listening to some interviews with him. His sincerity is transparent.
So, rather than trying to fight against the bogus theorists, try to steer other people towards the good sources; leaving the bogus theorists to themselves, their little crowd. To heck with the bad and promote the good. If this is sufficiently done, then the bad will die out like a fire that has no oxygen to feed it.
Kollerstrom’s article here:
http://codoh.com/library/document/876
“Let us hope the schoolchildren visitors are properly taught about the elegant swimming-pool at Auschwitz, built by the inmates who watched the water-polo matches [6]; and were shown paintings from its art class, which still exist; and told about the camp library which had some forty-five thousand volumes for inmates to choose from, plus a range of periodicals; and the six camp orchestras at Auschwitz/Birkenau, its the theatrical performances, including a children’s opera, the weekly camp cinema, and even the special brothel established there. Let’s hope they are shown postcards written from Auschwitz, some of which still exist, where the postman would collect the mail twice-weekly. Thus the past may not always be quite, as we were told. “
So, what about it? Are you agreeing with him, or not?
Hi Mike,
No, I’m not agreeing with Kollerstrom. I thought I remembered seeing a comment from Barrett to the effect that Wikipedia had misquoted Kollerstrom (the comment isn’t here, anymore. My imagination?). So I followed the reference at Wikipedia back to Kollerstrom’s original article.
Hi Jonathan,
The problem, as Kevin Ryan pointed out at the beginning of this article, is that people are accusing 9/11 Truthers of being Holocaust deniers. If we do not loudly and publicly denounce Holocaust deniers such as Barrett and Fetzer, it will be difficult to deny the accusation that we also are Holocaust deniers. I applaud Mr. Ryan for doing so. However, his is not the only 9/11 blog or website out there.
I’m reading Denying History by Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman. I realize that Shermer has many unkind things to say about us 9/11 Truthers, but that doesn’t mean that everything he says should be disregarded. Kevin Barrett has referred to Leuchter’s experiments showing that the delousing chambers showed more exposure to Zyklon-B than the gas chambers, which is supposed to prove that they weren’t used to kill people: From the book:
“…lice take much longer to succumb to Zyklon-B than humans do, who absorb it through their lungs and die in a matter of minutes (the delousing of clothing took twelve to eighteen hours). And minutes after the prisoners died, the gas was let out of the chambers (and the bodies removed), preventing any long-term buildup of residue in most cases.” (p.131)
What you cited from the text by Shermer and Grobman doesn’t prove that the Nazi holocaust of Jews didn’t happen. What you quoted only seems to be used as an argument that the shower rooms weren’t turned into gas chambers for gassing many people to death at the same time.
From what I read several years ago in 1 article, I think you mean small chambers that were used for disinfection and/or de-bugging/de-licing blankets, etc., when referring to “delousing chambers”. Well, what you cited from the text certainly says that prisoners died from this. Quote: ” And minutes after the prisoners died, the gas was let out of the chambers (and the bodies removed), …”.
The text doesn’t say that many people weren’t killed this way or that the shower rooms weren’t used for this as well; rather than only relatively tiny chambers being used for killing prisoners.
And people who survived the Nazi concentration camps prove that these weren’t luxury resort environments like Kollerstrom has reportedly claimed in the past. I knew a Franciscan monk who survived one or more of the camps and this remained a permanent nightmare for him. I never heard speak of Jews when he spoke of this history of his and I heard him speak of it several times.
Not only Jews were imprisoned in these camps.
My first reply to you might not be accepted due to length, f.e., so I’ll submit a much shorter one.
What you quoted from p. 131 of the text by Shermer and Grobman doesn’t prove or even seriously argue that the holocaust of Jews by Nazis didn’t occur. The quote begins by saying that Zyklon-B kills humans much faster than it kills lice and then rather clearly adds that prisoners were killed with or certainly died from exposure to this gas. It says nothing about whether, or not, the holocaust happened; meaning the one about the Jews, since far from only they were killed in the millions by the Nazis.
Whoever says that what you quoted is supposed to prove that this gas and gas chambers weren’t used to kill people and/or that the holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis didn’t occur really needs to carefully question their interpretations.
Julian/Bilbo isn’t defending Holocaust denial, but is just giving examples of the sort of stuff these people are willing to endorse. It sounds like you’re taking him to agree with these quotes.
Hi Mike,
I guess I wasn’t clear. The quotation was to show exactly the point you made. We agree.
Kevin, you write that Shermer is one of the people who use the “smear tactic” in equating the “questioning of 9/11” with “Holocaust denial.” Julian similarly writes that Shermer has “many unkind things to say” about truthers.
Here is an actual article where Shermer makes a similar comparison:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shermer/911-truthers-a-pack-of-li_b_84154.html
But it seems to me that he isn’t equating questioning 911 in general to Holocaust denial in general, or even saying anything “unkind” in the usual sense (the hyperbolic title of the piece notwithstanding, since those are often written by editors…). Rather, he thinks that something he calls the “tactic of anomalies-as-proof” appears in analogous ways in both movements. This seems to me to be a much narrower claim than a blanket, smearing equation of the two movements. Moreover, if we take Shermer’s word for it, the narrow comparison is based on considerable experience investigating and being pressed on both issues – which is more effort than most people have devoted to either issue.
So it would be useful to see a careful comparison of the sorts of arguments Shermer has in mind, and further arguments for why they are or are not (i) parallel and if so (ii) a bad form of reasoning (and if not, why truthers would reject them in the Holocaust case). My own sense (pretty weak because I haven’t explored Holocaust denial) is that both views are at least partly supported by epistemically analogous proofs via anomalies, and that this is a bad form of reasoning. (That being said, I don’t support a blanket comparison of the movements, nor do I think truthers are a “pack of liars”…).
I’m acquainted with Shermer’s views on 9/11, having debated him on a national radio show. Here are my reflections on that experience.
Thanks for the link to the post (and, by extension, to the debate)!
I’ll be interested to see if there is discussion of the principles involved in reasoning from anomalies, which is the issue I mentioned.
My apologies to anyone who has taken the lack of comment approvals badly. I’ve had several complaints about the content of comments and, frankly, I don’t have the interest or time to be a chat room moderator. This is meant to be a blog providing information that cannot be obtained elsewhere, not a chat room. If a comment is too long, is offensive to me or others, or is simply not relevant, I won’t bother with it. And for everything else, it could take days for a comment to show up.
I’m surely one of the guilty commenters. Please don’t think I meant to complain, for while one of my comments began in a manner that can certainly seem to be a complaint, I knew the longer comments might not appear for the very reason that you state. I take the chance while knowing that you won’t have the time to approve it due to your time being limited.
So let me be the one to apologize.
JDB,
You replied with the following comment to me.
Quote:
Julian/Bilbo isn’t defending Holocaust denial, but is just giving examples of the sort of stuff these people are willing to endorse. It sounds like you’re taking him to agree with these quotes.
End quote
No, I didn’t say that Julian/Bilbo was defending holocaust denial, and I replied to Julian Stroh, not a Julian/Bilbo. My comments are about text he cited from the book and whether it says prisoners were killed with gases, or not. Etc. Reread the comments again, if necessary and you wish to do so.
This talk of holocaust has to be drawn to a close. Kevin Ryan has made it clear that his time is limited and he can’t be spending it moderating these comments as if this was a discussion forum. We have to respect this, with great gratitude for the great work he’s been doing for years and making available for people to read at no charge.
Understood.
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