Revision wrote:Revisionism doesn't require belief in some grand conspiracy, exterminationism does. I'm just saying that there are many know-nothing people that call themselves "deniers" or "revisionist", but are more useful to the exterminationist side because of their skewed view of revisionism. Our enemies advertise these already flawed narratives and strawmen about us for a reason. You might be surprised to find out for example that there is a fair bit of flat earthers that have somehow became interested in "revisionism". And it doesn't help that people like Jim Rizoli has uploaded flat-earther videos, because he wants to "seek the truth".
Absolutely. I also agree with Dalton.
A lie or misinterpretation should be challenged on a case by case basis, not made to look like a 'conspiracy'; because it's true that the word 'hoax' brings the fore all kinds of strange implications.
The truth is that the Holocaust is not so much a 'hoax' as it is a hysterical distortion of various pieces of evidence to fit various popular notions (e.g. the witness statements from alleged victims and perpetrators, also wartime reports), all of which are variations of the war-time propaganda idea that the Germans were unprincipled butchers of not only Jews, but everyone that stood in their way. It was this ruthless view of the Germans on the eastern front (not without some level of truth), shielded by the secrecy of the Soviet Union, which allowed these myths to proliferate and find willing adherents among the disgruntled Jews and the Allied nations who sought to indict Germany. Nothing was too crazy to be seen as 'true', especially with the abundance of certain stories. This is of course not to say that there weren't also deliberate lies in the mix.
The narrative was never concocted from above (although it is maintained/controlled from above), but reformed gradually from below by those who studied the matter with a certain preconceived notion in mind which allowed them to perhaps, unwittingly falsify evidence and thus allow them to rationalize 'proof' for their belief. This still happens today when these people attempt to reinterpret a document to 'fit', or to 'fill the gaps' with supposition. It is delusion, backed by irresolute insistence on 'Nazi' wickedness which keeps this story alive, and gives it so much dynamism.
The level of control from within the academic system is probably not as much as we would expect, because most people involved are themselves already indoctrinated with the 'correct' view and tow the line. They wouldn't consciously transgress against it, and thus wouldn't necessarily be punished. If you did step out of line, like Ernst Nolte who didn't even advance any particular revisionist notion (that I can recall) then you will inspire at most an academic debate in which you are practically designated
persona non grata.
This is to say that all the people who perpetuate the Holocaust are
not stooges 'in the know', they genuinely believe it. So whenever they read a document, they view it from their inalterable and preconceived perspective (or pre-imposed perspective) which forces it to conform to their belief in the Holocaust story as it has evolved. The notions which have propped up regarding 'coded language' for example, has itself been enough to dissipate any possibility of cognitive dissonance to evolve from the lack of real explicit documentary evidence.
One can also hide behind the other strongly held notion that the 'Nazis' were all unscrupulous liars, which means any document no matter how secret or entwined within the Nazi bureaucracy itself that doesn't fit the narrative can be reinterpreted to support the Holocaust. For example
this thread regarding Himmler's report of December 29, 1942 to be seen by Hitler only. 'HistorySpeaks' aka Cockerill claims that despite the document making reference to 'bandits' and not Jews, that for some reason this needed to be shielded from Hitler who supposedly authorized the genocide of the Jews. Thus we see a conscious attempt to rationalize what these people
want to believe rather than what's actually true. That in this instance Himmler's office had submitted a banal report to Hitler regarding partisan activity (real and perhaps imagined, who knows how accurate the numbers really are) and because both men are 'Nazis' and thus 'liars' the document is forced to fit.
Any view which is unpopular runs the risk of being inundated with grifting conspiracy nuts who believe anything and everything so long as it seems superficially plausible. Because Holocaust revisionism is not only 'superficially plausible' but logically sound, but also unpopular, it attracts the worst kinds of conspiracy minded people who lack critical thinking skills and so believe all their wild notions are the result of a totally open mind, and therefore
must reflect the 'truth'.
People like Jim Rizoli are festering sores who leak bile and damage the credibility of legitimate historical discussion and opposition to monolithic power narratives. People like this should
never be tolerated. I do not care whether they 'share' my view or not, they do more harm than good in the long term.
As I have said
elsewhere you cannot bombard people with "truth" about various topics they're already unlikely to agree with, because you're then forcing them to become iconoclasts. This they simply will not do, and you seem less trustworthy as a result. Inherently in-fact. Nobody is going to trust a single thing you say if what you're saying sounds as if you're trying to convince them the sky is green and the moon is made of cheese. This is practically no different when you go on about all the various 'TRUTHS' out there. No matter how 'true' you think they are, it is tactically irresponsible to bombard people with them, let alone to tolerate shit like the idea the earth is flat or the moon-landing didn't happen (this latter one is popular too, and completely irrelevant even if true).
The real truth is - I (and many others too) have experienced this - that people do not want, nor will they believe that institutions of power which they're taught to trust are really not the bastions of truth they have always supposedly been. Emotionally, the idea that people are liars is reserved for the enemies of history (the 'Nazis' and to a lesser emotional degree the Communists) whom the collective yet divergent forces behind the current political axiom had designated as the proprietors of such indecent behaviour. This shields criticism of those in power, and allows them to implicate normal people with historical 'criminals'. It's of course much more comforting to believe that the enemies of 'truth', 'justice', and 'liberty' were vanquished decades ago. And that in some way the manifestation of hatred and lies is a residue from those times which we are lucky to never experience. The foundations of this view are difficult to challenge because it isn't just a historical question, it is a moral and political one with widespread implications.
It is only natural for regular people who have a stake in the current system - because they implicitly trust it - to simply dismiss you if you're telling them all sorts of 'crazy' sounding things about history. If you do not pick your battles, and at the right moments, then you will never make headway with the truth. The dominos will not fall if you insist on blowing them up immediately. Then the damage is irreversible.
People do not want to believe that liars (or irrational ideologues) pervade their impeccable institutions which represent authenticity, truth, and objectivity. Of course this has a lot to do with people's general political preconceptions.
So when today someone has a 'left-wing' orientation it is impossible for them to see the fact that those whom they agree with ( and are largely representative of those in power) are themselves ideologues who aren't objective. And because colloquially 'leftism' is the general orientation of society today (whereas being 'right-wing' is synonymous with 'lies' and can be dismissed out of hand and as a
reason in itself not to trust someone or something) these ideologues are harder for regular people to identify, which means they insist that no such people exist!
Everyone believes - and has believed historically - that they (the ones in power at a given time) are the bearers of the truth while those they disagree with whom are powerless must also be reasonless and irrational ideologues; hence their less powerful status*. It's not any different now than it was 100, 200 or however many years ago. The masses (i.e. the layman) will never be capable of seeing the forest from the trees. They never have and never will. They fall victim to the same deluded cycle again and again until the orientation of society shifts over time and the new society becomes aware of how the old society rewarded lies, perpetuated dogmas, and irrationally believed in what those in power said. Then a new myth is created behind the dogmatic belief that this 'new society' will never do such a thing again. "Caution" is then propagated against the previous lies and dogmas, and this is done until it believes itself to be progressive, by which time - inevitably - it happens all over again; the new dogmatic system corrupts itself and polices itself and whatever new dogmas reign will again be incapable of being challenged because 'this time for real' we have 'learnt from the past' and recognize 'objectivity' and 'truth'. As is said today in the wake of WW2, allowing all sorts of immoral transgressions on normal people who do not conform. This kind of hypocritical injustice consists of such things as police harassment, social stigma, discrimination, censorship and of course political violence. Some variation of which I'm sure many of us have experienced.
As stated, the cycle perpetuates and is primarily enforced by a new belief in 'progress' accompanied by principled meritocracy, which evolves into ideological dogmatism against the new minority thought and is justified by its own authoritarianism. As Rod Serling and my grandma have both said: "It has forever been thus".
*
As family and friends have told me, if what I believe is true, then it must surely be accepted as such by wider society, which they erroneously think is malleable to logical challenge and not dogmatic in the least. Of course this is contradicted by their understanding of how dogmatic and unwelcome challenge is to the Holocaust narrative. But this is simply viewed as legitimate outrage at an 'impossible' criticism, which is of course believed to have sinister implications and propagated by those with sinister intentions.