Opinion piece: "Coronavirus conspiracy theories could be a fast-track to Holocaust denial"

[Lamprecht]

Although this article does not provide any tangible evidence for this theory, I am inclined to believe that there's an element of truth to it. There is another thread on the coronavirus with a wealth of information, but no discussion on how it links to an increase in skepticism over the "Holocaust" narrative. As schools and workplaces get shut down, people have more time to go online and do research. For those who are locked down and financially ruined over what they are told is a plague, despite not knowing anyone that has died from it, questions will naturally arise.

Since this "pandemic" scare has happened, politicians in Iceland and Ireland have pushed for laws banning "Holocaust denial" like those that already exist elsewhere in Europe. Back in October, the CODOH forum reached a new record for visitors. A rise in Holocaust skepticism last year would fit into the long-term trend of growing support for revisionism but at the same time this could just be seen as a clickbait article for Jan 27th whining that there are still people that exist that question the big H, with calls for censorship in the way that already exists for "deniers."

Thoughts?

Coronavirus conspiracy theories could be a fast-track to Holocaust denial

In these turbulent times, extremism is on the rise. It’s more important than ever we stand together against hate and misinformation

Joe Mulhall | 27 Jan 2021

The past year will forever be marred by the global pandemic that spread around the world, locking us in our homes, forcing us to hide our faces behind masks, and tragically taking hundreds of thousands of lives. However, while the arrival of numerous vaccines provided a shard of light in the seemingly unending darkness of last year, the ramifications of the pandemic will continue to be felt for years to come.

Alongside the more obvious effects of the global pandemic, such as economic turmoil and unemployment, is the as yet unclear long-term effect of the dramatic increase in numbers of people engaging with conspiracy theory content online. How many of us have a friend or family member who has gone down the rabbit hole in the past year?

Whether it is conspiracy theories about Covid-19 being a hoax, 5G being dangerous or the rise of QAnon in the UK, a worrying number of people have come to support conspiracy theories over the past year. One of the most concerning elements of this is that amidst this online world of fake news, misinformation and conspiracy theories is the pernicious lie of Holocaust denial.

It is tempting to dismiss conspiracy theories as amusing or strange. Those that push them have often seen as harmless eccentrics who gather in dingy pubs and frequent peculiar corners of the internet. In truth, though, conspiracy theories are the lifeblood of hateful extremism. They provide an “evil enemy” that can be blamed for world events and personal misfortune.

The reasons behind the rise of conspiracy theories are complex, but such theories do provide a simplified and monocausal framework for interpreting unpredictable and bewildering events taking place across the world. It is no surprise, then, that belief in conspiracies tends to spike in popularity during turbulent times; times like right now.

One of the major concerns about more people engaging with conspiracy theories is that all too often, if you scratch the surface of a conspiracy theory, you quickly find antisemitism. Belief in a conspiracy theory requires belief in a conspirator and all too often it is Jews that have, for centuries, faced the blame.

For some, the belief that a secret cabal of Jews secretly run the world creates an insurmountable contradiction. How could a supposedly “all-powerful” people have “let” the Holocaust happen? For die-hard antisemitic conspiracy theorists, the answer is that they didn’t and the Holocaust is a lie.

In the past year, my team at the anti-fascist organisation HOPE not hate has monitored antisemites and Holocaust deniers spreading their lies on social media, who specifically target people who believe in other, less obviously pernicious conspiracy theories. We have watched in real-time some of those who started as anti-lockdown or anti-5G activists become radicalised towards antisemitism, Holocaust denial and even adopt veneration of Hitler.

Traditionally, the route to becoming a Holocaust denier was through more moderate forms of antisemitism and far-right politics. The recent explosion of conspiracy theories opens up an alternative route to denial through other conspiracy theories, some of which are antisemitic but some of which are not. This all begs the question of whether the rise in conspiracy theories during the pandemic has created a fast-track towards Holocaust denial?

In the face of this challenge, remembering the truth of the Holocaust remains as important as ever. Some things are true. Some things happened. When it comes to the Holocaust, there is no room for “alternative facts” or manufactured theories. The Holocaust happened and we have to remember that.

It is for this reason that Holocaust Memorial Day continues to be so important, as a day in which people come together in these difficult times and unite against prejudice. To do that this year the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust is asking us to light a candle and safely place it in your window at 8pm on 27 January. To remember those who were murdered for who they were. To stand against hatred and division today.

http://archive.fo/cfom9 | http://web.archive.org/web/202101271157 ... 93391.html

[Sannhet]

how it ["Covid"] links to an increase in skepticism over the "Holocaust" narrative

Corona-discourse and Holocaust-discourse have some similarities.

Maybe the most interesting to me is standards of evidence. I mean through which people believe and stay "on-narrative." To over-simplify a bit, people are generally convinced of both "Covid-as-unprecedented-threat" and the truth of the orthodox Holocaust story because of anecdotes. Emotionalized anecdotes.

With "Covid," people are convinced it is some kind of alarming, historic threat not because they (or the ones molding their beliefs on the matter) have examined extensive sets of data and come to nuanced conclusions. They are convinced because of emotionalized anecdotes, scary pictures and video. Remember February 2020, into March 2020: "Haven't you seen the pictures out of China? They wouldn't have shut down a whole province unless there was really something unusually dangerous." Almost always these anecdotes/pictures/video were not representative of complex reality, but still they worked/work.

I view "Covid" as fundamentally a moral-panic cycle (and the Holocaust-as-social-phenomenon, in our time, essentially is one too). People get caught up in the emotion of it. By March 2020 I noticed how people's Covid anecdotes, starting to circulate, were often highly suspicious, usually unverified or unverifiable, and always sensationalistic. People ended up believing things that were detached from reality, and believing them strongly unable to let them go. Many of the anecdotes end up tracing to either a single lie (and the lie spreading faster than the truth can catch up), or to someone misunderstanding something and it spreading from there, often some of these lies/misunderstandings have some explicit overlap with Holocaust imagery, like the idea that hospitals had so many dead they were just dumping bodies in mass graves, a stretching of the truth which seems to be tailor-made for a populace trained to Holocaust belief (there must not be a single educated Westerner not familiar with the piles of bodies at Bergen-Belsen). And all of this became backed up by strong political forces at some point and thereafter became a hard slog to dislodge. Sounds a lot like the Holocaust!

_______________

Fog-of-War stories vs. Follow-up Inquiry is another parallel I see.

A year after the early stages of the Virus Panic (as of this writing), most people still seem to have a totally distorted picture of "Covid." Such was forgivable a year ago when people didn't know much. After some point it just became embarrassing to our collective dignity to continue treating it like Ebola (as so many do) and not as a bad flu virus of the kind previously ignored. In the 1940s it's understandable that in a fog-of-war -- in a global war with millions dead, terrifying new technology coming out, and a global geopolitical earthquake -- that some people believed some outlandish claims. But eventually investigation and open inquiry should win out.

We know, on hard data, and we have known since late-April/May 2020 to the best reasonable standard of science and by observed reality really everywhere, that there is no unusual threat beyond a severe fly. We have lived through many of these without people ever being aware, without triggering the major responses we've seen (extreme government social experiments) which are so harmful to so many.

How can such a sustained overreaction have lasted this long, both at popular level and political level? This is a rhetorical question on Covid but the same question could really be asked about the Holocaust.

Here were stumble into what I'll call the "training-wheels Holocaust Skeptic's Dilemma." Some are able to get past the Emotionalized Anecdote Barrier and do question the Holocaust and look into it and even engage with some of the literature in whatever semi-samizdat form they find it. Eventually, though, many fall back into passive belief because, on one hand, the Holocaust-as-social-force has gained its own momentum and is compelling simply by its awesome power, its power to awe: "So many people can't be so wrong. There must be something to it." A second type of response is "Okay, I now know the Holocaust-narrative has serious problems, but I'd better not say anything about it." Both of these are exactly the reactions most people have to Covid-as-Historic-health-catastrophe narrative. "There must be something to this Covid Crisis after all because so many are saying it; and, look, there's the latest anecdote!" and "I don't want to be one of those anti-masker crazies the TV is making fun of; I'd better keep quiet."

There is something psychologically similar to the power the Holocaust has over minds and the power the Corona-Crisis has over minds. One can "disprove the Holocaust" but a lot of people's eyes glaze over or worse. The same is true with most people and "disproving Corona."

__________________

There is of course one fairly important and big difference between the Holocaust-narrative and the Covid-narrative at least as we stand today. And that is that we are living in/through "Covid" whereas the Holocaust is so long ago.

As for us today: We are still sensory beings with real, lived lives; in real space; in real communities. IRL observation that there is no general crisis confronts the digital-space and media-space drumbeat about a historic crisis. This should create cognitive dissonance and lead many into the Covid Skeptic realm. Once investigated with an open mind, the apocalypse-narrative falls apart like a sandcastle at high tide.

The" cognitive dissonance leading to skepticism leading to inquiry leading to disbelief" pipeline SHOULD, in principle, spell the end of the lockdowns and all the rest because people would revolt. The lack of revolt is fascinating, and I think points to the degree to which our reality has been digitized. People in the clutches of Corona-terror are generally kept in by anecdotes they're consuming digitally!

The "skeptic's advantage" over a narrative one is living through, vs. something from forty, fifty, now nearly eighty years ago, is strong but blunted considerably by digitization of many people's realities.

________________

Finally, I think there is overlap in motivation and psychology between people who oppose both Holocaust 'Denial' and Covid 'Denial.'

The Revisionists' and the anti-Lockdownists' positions are strawmanned and their best arguments seldom engaged with.

I was sure that the Corona-panic-drumbeat people would cool down by late spring 2020 once the data was in, and while there might still be beating the Panic drum, the whole thing would fizzle out. I was wrong. Instead, powerful forces saw a highly extended Panic as in their interest(s) for whatever set of reasons I won't speculate on here, closed ranks, and turned any skepticism into something to be treated in the public space like Holocaust Denial.

[Vukdar]

Just one issue with it. Protests are happening (yesterday in my country) because Covid directly impacts on our lives. And by lives I mean jobs. Next to health, a job is the most important thing to people I feel.

When they say how they would like to go back to normal it just means that they want to work and earn their living like they used to.

This goes to such extent that people would take vaccine with just water in it just so that this stops.

With Holocaust story there is no such direct impact that people can instantly see and feel. It takes whole elaborate explanation on how Holocaust story is used to do this and that, and people (seems to me) do not care that much as long as they have decent life, and decent job.

Yes, this will make people question things more but I am afraid that this may create even more insane theories similar to flat earth and chemtrails which are there just so people are entertained with something.

Covid is great in a way that it exposes the official narrative as not necessary true.

[borjastick]

And now Covid and the Holocaust are linked together in conspiracy...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... flets.html

Covid conspiracy theorist Piers Corbyn is arrested over leaflets he made comparing vaccination programme to Auschwitz that were delivered to homes across London

Good old Piers Corbyn rattling that cages of power once again.

Not sure I agree with him but he has the right to upset the permanently offended in my view...

[VonHutier]

The whole 'denial' thing ; Holocaust, vaccine, and climate change ought to make people think.

But when you look at the propaganda spewed by the MSM it's easy to see why most people are so fooled.

[forasanerworld]

vaccineholocaust.jpg
And now Covid and the Holocaust are linked together in conspiracy...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... flets.html

Covid conspiracy theorist Piers Corbyn is arrested over leaflets he made comparing vaccination programme to Auschwitz that were delivered to homes across London

Good old Piers Corbyn rattling that cages of power once again.

Not sure I agree with him but he has the right to upset the permanently offended in my view...

I thought it was unnecessarily provocative but as the piranha of both the MSM and wider commentators soon proved he had a point, political satire has a long history in Britain and there is no good reason for any no go zones.

[stinky]

Coronavirus conspiracy theories could be a fast-track to Holocaust denial

In these turbulent times, extremism is on the rise. It’s more important than ever we stand together against hate and misinformation

Joe Mulhall | 27 Jan 2021

The past year will forever be marred by the global pandemic that spread around the world, locking us in our homes, forcing us to hide our faces behind masks, and tragically taking hundreds of thousands of lives.

The very first sentence sets the tone for the hoax;
the 'global pandemic' forced people to;

-hide their faces behind masks

-be locked in their homes

The 'pandemic' did none of these things. Such measures were forced upon people with heavy fines or coerced by a relentless (and ongoing) psychological operation

Alongside the more obvious effects of the global pandemic, such as economic turmoil and unemployment, is the as yet unclear long-term effect of the dramatic increase in numbers of people engaging with conspiracy theory content online.

And with the next paragraph, the article lays the groundwork for the underlying message, while further blaming the 'pandemic' for;

-economic turmoil

-unemployment

One of the major concerns about more people engaging with conspiracy theories is that all too often, if you scratch the surface of a conspiracy theory, you quickly find antisemitism. Belief in a conspiracy theory requires belief in a conspirator and all too often it is Jews that have, for centuries, faced the blame.

Now we see the main focus of this dog shit article - the usual suspects doing their victimhood routine, in order to censor anything & everything they object to - in this instance by labeling them conspiracy theories.

Turn off your TV. There is NO pandemic.

[Lamprecht]

One of the major concerns about more people engaging with conspiracy theories is that all too often, if you scratch the surface of a conspiracy theory, you quickly find antisemitism. Belief in a conspiracy theory requires belief in a conspirator and all too often it is Jews that have, for centuries, faced the blame.

Now we see the main focus of this dog shit article - the usual suspects doing their victimhood routine, in order to censor anything & everything they object to - in this instance by labeling them conspiracy theories.

Well yes, even when the news about this virus first came out, there were complaints about "anti-Semitism" related to it.

From: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13187

Hey guys, make sure you don't engage in "Coronavirus Anti-Semitism" which I guess is a real thing now.



THE FAR-RIGHT NETWORK BEHIND CORONAVIRUS ANTI-SEMITISM
http://archive.fo/Y1OjF or https://web.archive.org/web/20200627050 ... ission.pdf

Cleveland Jewish News:
"Far-right activists and white supremacists have used the coronavirus pandemic to spread anti-Semitic rhetoric and conspiracy theories, according to a report released this month by the American Jewish Congress." http://archive.fo/QPugI

Times of Israel:
"As the infectious disease — with no vaccine or specific cure — has spread across the globe, a new conspiracy theory has been brewing on the fringes of society: The Jews are behind it. According to Alex Friedfeld, a researcher with the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Center on Extremism, extremists began promulgating the notion in January that the coronavirus was created by a cabal of Jews, around the time the virus was first being detected." http://archive.fo/s0xFm

Jewish Press:
"Everyone – and with good reason – is preoccupied with the Wuhan virus, aka coronavirus, aka the 'Kung Flu,' perhaps the most serious pandemic in the lives of most contemporary Americans. However, another significant international infectious pandemic – one for which, sadly, no effective vaccine has ever been developed – has received little attention: anti-Semitism. Not surprisingly, anti-Semites have begun to crawl out of their mudholes spreading their latest conspiracy theory: that 'the Jews' spread the Wuhan virus for personal financial gain." http://archive.fo/35mln

Jewish News Syndicate:
"Rise of Coronavirus Correlates to Rise in Antisemitism, Especially in Heavily Jewish Areas of New York and New Jersey ... 'Since the beginning of March 2020, we have been receiving disturbing information on accusations on Jews, Zionists and Israelis, as individuals and as a collective, for causing and spreading the coronavirus,' noted a report on global antisemitism issued Monday by the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University and the European Jewish Congress." http://archive.fo/qJbwh

The Yeshiva World:
"Strasbourg, France: A Majority Of Jewish Community Of 20K Infected, Anti-Semitism Rising, Chief Rabbi Says" http://archive.fo/hX7nk

Jerusalem Post (April 29, 2020):
"A bipartisan group of 28 US senators on Monday sent a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs, and asked to increase funding for the State Department’s Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism." http://archive.fo/ID6Nn

Jewish Journal:
"U.N. Rapporteur 'Extremely Concerned' About Rising Anti-Semitism During Coronavirus Pandemic" http://archive.fo/y1zlu

Haaretz:
"'Jews Control Chinese Labs That Created Coronavirus': White Supremacists’ Dangerous New Conspiracy Theory. Far right theories on a Jewish-Chinese COVID-19 cabal are breaking out of the infamously anti-Semitic dark web – with real-world consequences" http://archive.fo/2WEbx

Memri:
"Hitler's Propaganda Minister Goebbels Would 'Like' Today's Social Media – And Would Use It To Blame The Jews For The Coronavirus" http://archive.fo/S8RC1

WSJ:
"Coronavirus Sparks Rise in Anti-Semitic Sentiment... far-right groups, ultraconservative Christian circles, Islamists and the far left have sought to link Jews to Covid-19." http://archive.fo/I72sP

Jerusalem Post:
"The Holocaust and the coronavirus ... the corona era appears to have spawned a new wave of global antisemitism, and we need to be vigilant against blood libels blaming Jews for the current plague, as well as to prevent attacks against Jewish institutions." http://archive.fo/6FHiW

Richard Silverstein:
"Israel Is Militarizing and Monetizing the COVID-19 Pandemic. Coronavirus is ravaging the globe right now. It’s a perfect time for the Israeli state to figure out how to expand its already vast surveillance powers." http://archive.fo/rX8oN

Open Democracy:
"An anti-Semitic wave may hit the world in the aftermath of the pandemic ... A search on Twitter for the words “Jewish” and “coronavirus” from March 20th to April 3rd 2020 revealed the existence of ten different types of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that have been associating the COVID19 with the Jewish community." http://archive.fo/XIW4G

Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs:
"Stopping the Viral Epidemic of Anti-Semitism in the United States. Scientists and doctors are working feverishly to fight the COVID-19 plague around the world. Their tools include quarantines, intubation, and the search for a vaccine. But flourishing simultaneously is another dangerous virus – a social one — called anti-Semitism. If history is an indicator, the financial and economic disasters that await the world are the ideal Petri dishes for that virus’ exponential growth." http://archive.fo/1czrs