Raining on the Parade

I'd forgotten how difficult it can be to take an ethical stance when everyone around you either doesn't want to address the issues, or doesn't give a shit about them. It makes me wonder why I even bother. It won't change anything, and I'll just be branded a meddlesome bitch who's trying to undermine everyone's hard work.

Barrett sent an email to RD yesterday in which he insisted that nearly everything in his Wikipedia entry (aside from his birthdate) is incorrect, and that he didn't write the infamous Holocaust letter. But then he went on to say that when he referred to the Holocaust as a "myth", he meant "myth" in the scholarly, academic sense, just as 9/11 is a myth. But wait. Didn't he say he didn't write the letter?! So where and when did he refer to Holocaust education as a "myth"?! And he's a Truther, so clearly he believes that the conventional knowledge of 9/11 is a real myth, right? I'm more confused than ever.

I'm also more disturbed about Holocaust denialism and anti-semitism within the Truth movement. My digging yesterday unearthed more examples:

- Eric D. Williams was the original organizer of the 2007 9/11 Accountability conference in Chandler, AZ, until controversy over his book The Puzzle of Auschwitz surfaced. But he still attended the conference, and panelists fiercely defended him against charges of denialism, demanding that a journalist who asked questions about his involvement in the conference be removed. This, despite the fact that Sander Hicks spotted a swastika on his laptop screensaver. While he doesn't want to be called a denier, Williams believes Treblinka and two other camps never existed and that Auschwitz was a comfy place complete with a swimming pool for prisoners (it was actually for guards). On the Meria radio show, he asked the usual revisionist questions: Why was the plaque at Auschwitz changed from 1.1 million to 6 million? How could the ovens have cremated so many bodies?
Is his book a scholarly examination of the Holocaust, though? You decide. It references Institute for Historical Review material and David Icke.

- Truth activist Don Harkins of Idaho defended David Duke for attending a denial conference in Tehran in 2006.

- Eric Hufschmid wrote one of the first books on 9/11 Truth, Painful Questions. Hufschmid refuses to self-identify as a Holocaust denier, but his other work speaks for itself. Most disturbingly, Truthers still reference and defend Painful Questions and set aside the issue of Hufschmid's other opinions as "irrelevant". One such Truther is Kevin Barrett. As late as last year, he asked Amy Goodman to sign his copy of the book (she politely declined, but told him she supports a new investigation into 9/11). This was right before he said she should be convicted of war crimes and publicly hung (he later apologized for the hyperbole, but not the statements themselves).

- Captain Eric May writes on "the Jewish problem" and the "Zionist-controlled media". He also regularly issues false flag operation warnings that turn out to be bunk. May insists he's not anti-semitic (are you noticing a pattern here?), because he's referring to a minority of Jews and also criticizes Christian Zionists.

All of these people are still embraced by the majority of Truthers. I'm getting the feeling that when Barrett's attendance at this conference is put to a vote this weekend, I'll forever after be known not as the person who took a stand against what I know to be wrong (affiliation with anti-semitism and Holocaust denial, questioning the reality of the Holocaust), but as the bitch who ruined this wonderful conference and tried to silence the voice of Truth. Even RD argued that he doesn't know anything about Hufschmid, so why should it matter what else he believes? Why shouldn't his work be held in esteem alongside David Ray Griffin's? He argued that nearly every Truther holds some aberrant belief that others could find objectionable (Mormonism, UFOs, God-like powers in the case of David Shayler, etc.), so why should someone be ignored on the basis of their beliefs or questions about the Holocaust?

I don't know. They just should. When it comes to Holocaust denial, racism, hate, etc., all bets are off for me. I have a line in the sand. Barrett, to my mind, has crossed it. I want nothing to do with him. Period.