Holocaust denial

[El Kabong]

I don't even need to ask miles anymore about America, I already know he assumes the worst of the nation, the people, and the culture. Why that is the case is a bit curious, he seems to believe it's the sophisticated liberal intellectual elite view and that is true those people who preach their gospel of white guilt see America as the great evil in the world. It's not a matter of defeating Facism or Communism or anything, it's about rising to a level of power so high that we "must have cheated" in order to have obtained it and the cries of how "unfair" things are will continue until the end.

[Gandalf]

I don't even need to ask miles anymore about America, I already know he assumes the worst of the nation, the people, and the culture. Why that is the case is a bit curious, he seems to believe it's the sophisticated liberal intellectual elite view and that is true those people who preach their gospel of white guilt see America as the great evil in the world. It's not a matter of defeating Facism or Communism or anything, it's about rising to a level of power so high that we "must have cheated" in order to have obtained it and the cries of how "unfair" things are will continue until the end.

Lyle you treated those good human beings with no respect and wanted them dead to the last. Your own politicians admitted as much. It is as simple as that. It is simple called immoral bad behaviour, which are moral truisms.

[TitoFan]

These threads have a way of going round and round. No one ever convinces anyone else of anything, and just about everyone is incapable of ever saying "You know... you might have a point".

Miles, keep on living in your fantasy land. Words are words. Look up the meaning of "genocide" in the dictionary... and you can very well apply it to the killing of American Indians during the colonization of America. But you can also use it to describe just about any war, or violent conflict where masses of people of a specific race or ethnic group die. Words are words.

Bottom line is this: Nazi Germans lined up Jews (yes... and other unfortunate souls who were born inferior according to Hitler) by the millions, and herded them single file into gas chambers. Four million... one million... whatever. There were a BUNCH of senseless deaths. If lowering the number down to one million makes you feel better, knock yourself out. These human beings were not in battle... they were not armed. They were so many men, women and children who were summarily exterminated.

By contrast, the American Indians, as has been explained to you half a dozen times at least, died over the course of many, many years. Many died in battle... many died of disease. To compare one event with the other is beyond stupidity. And whether you admit it or not, all your arguments carry this tired, old agenda you've been pushing since Day One, about the U.S. being this evil empire and whatnot. I have tried to use reason with you, admitting that the U.S.'s international policies are not always correct... and they tend to intervene where they don't belong. I've even agreed that the use of drones does more harm than good (when you put things in their proper perspective). But to no avail. To you, anyone who doesn't believe in this "evil empire" shit like you do, is not worth arguing with.

So carry on.

[El Kabong]

Lyle you treated those good human beings with no respect and wanted them dead to the last. Your own politicians admitted as much. It is as simple as that. It is simple called immoral bad behaviour, which are moral truisms.

Ok and were those feelings out of the ordinary for other cultures of the same times?

[Beanz]

Miles, there you go again denying a widely accepted figure. Your opening post used the revised Auschwitz figure as though that discredited the scale of the holocaust itself. If you had no agenda and were interested in a openminded discussion you would have acknowledged my post in which I pointed out that the Polish communists under pressure from Russia were responsible for the original inaccurate figure. Nothing to do with a Jewish conspiracy and yet this is the crux of the argument for most deniers. You obviously post a thread for effect and then jump back in again with no interest in any opinion that does differs from your own. You stifle debate and strangle discourse whilst accusing everyone else of using your own methods.

[Gandalf]

The 6 million sum is more likely than not a myth. Even conservative historians readily concede that murder was not the leading cause of deaths in concentration camps. If you are to say that disease and hunger were also part of the death toll, then you can raise it to around 5.1 as someone such as Hilberg does, but likewise you must also accept that in the case of the North American holocaust, the death tolls are also very high. Murder in north America is also less than the death toll inflicted by hunger and disease. Combined the numbers go up an awful lot. In the case of the European holocaust people like to play up the numbers, in the American holocaust people like to do the opposite. I guess the people writing the history do it from the winners and losers point of view.

It isn't denial to accept that an event took place. It also isn't denial to suggest that traditional numbers are exagerrated. Nobody seriously believes that 6 million Jews were killed. It fails to factor in emigration that had taken place for a start. Confessions obtained at Nuremberg were from men who had been kept in conditions such as those that prisoners in Iraq were forced to endure. You cannot take at value the confessions of tortured men. Most would accept that. And to then accept those numbers as the official take on lost lives is a bit daft.

[El Kabong]

You know what miles, I don't think they killed enough Jews....let's 'ave another crack shall we?

[TitoFan]

I’m a numbers guy, and since all arguments against Miles are falling on deaf ears, I’ve decided to provide the following table, in a last-ditch effort to appease Miles:

# of Deaths.......................Type of Event

1-3..................................Homicide
4-50................................Massacre
51-500.............................FUCKING Massacre
501-1,000.........................Almost Genocide
1,001-10,000.....................Genocide
10,001-50,000...................FUCKING Genocide
50,001-500,000.................Almost Holocaust
500,001-2,000,000.............Holocaust
2,000,001 and up...............FUCKING Holocaust


Causes of Deaths......................Type of Event

75% to 100% by murder.............Apply table above
50% to 74% by murder...............Reduce by one category
25% to 49% by murder...............Reduce by two categories
1% to 24% by murder.................Forget the whole thing


Perpetrators...............................Type of Event

100% U.S................................... Increase by two categories
50% U.S., 50% UK and/or Israel...... Increase by one category
50% U.S./UK/Israel, 50% others...... Leave category unchanged
25% U.S./UK/Israel, 75% others...... Reduce by one category
100% others................................ It never happened

[El Kabong]

What's amusing to me is on one hand miles downplays the Holocaust and on the other hand he equates the early settlers of America to the Nazis. The problem is 100% of miles' sympathy goes towards the Indians and not the Jews or gypsies or whomever else was rounded up by the Nazis and this is a problem because it shows a distinct double standard miles has.

The Jews that died in the Holocaust...."meh, it really wasn't that many"

The Indians that died in the early years of America ...."Your ancestors were murderers!"

Is that hypocrisy lost on you miles?

[imp]

Im sure there is another extra 6 million we dont even know about...who knows!
Hitler hated jews and killing one was more than enough.

[Beanz]

Like Chomsky Miles you are suffering from a severe case of hypocrisy. You have the gall to speak of unspeakably evil people being under duress whilst ignoring the hateful behaviour they exhibited. Your sympathy for people is very selective and seems not to include anybody who was not wronged by America, Britain or Israel. None of your indignation is saved for the French or Chinese who sold more weapons to Iraq than anyone else, who carried out atrocities in Africa and in the case of China still imprison without due process. No anger at Iran or the Taliban in Afghanistan for murdering, raping and maiming women. Do you also share Noam's views on Cambodia?

[VictorCharlie]

For starters Chomsky is neither a respected historian on American Indians or a paleontologists so he is no more an authoritarian on the subject than your or I. I know you have a man-crush on him but unless we are talking linguistics his opinion is no different than Bilbos. I can't respond to your link b/c it wouldn't work for me.

Regarding your reponse to Lyle: The Indians were no better than the Europeans. They enslaved, raped, and destroyed other tribes. The only reason the Indians helped the English settlers was purely strategic and political, they offset the power of the dominant tribe of the region. The oppressed tribes of Mexico supported the Conquistadores for the same reasons. Indians weren't noble, they weren't holier than the Europeans, they did the exact same things for the exact same reasons. Just that the Europeans were better at it, and they learned by having it done to them. The US perpetuated some pretty horific things on the Natives but not really that different then what tribes did to other tribes and all in all was pretty par for the field regarding how victors treated losers at the time.

Since you started this by comparing the two then lets finish it that way. The Holocaust was a sytematic rounding up of European Jews and other less desirables by Nazi Germany to work in forced labor camps and/or death camps with the "final solution" being extermination of the race. Many Jews were flat out murdered as well as dying of disease and malnutrition in the camps. The process was not only continued but accelerated as the war wound down even to the detriment of the Nazi War effort.

North American exploration (excluding Viking colonies in the far north) is often thought to have started with Columbus but John Cabot was probably the first to actually land on what we now call the US in 1497 but his actual point of landing is disputed. In the early 16 century a slew of explorers land on the US East and Gulf Coasts. Over the first century and a half after Columbus's voyages, the native population of the Americas (North, South and Central) plummeted by an estimated 80% (from around 50 million in 1492 to eight million in 1650) mostly by outbreaks of old world diseases. The Smallpox History of the World states "Epidemics of smallpox (1518, 1521, 1525, 1558, 1589), typhus (1546), influenza (1555,diptheria (1614) and measles (1615 swept ahead of initial European contact,[killing between 10 million and 20 million people, up to 95% of the indigineous population of the Americas."So by the time the first lasting colony (James Town) was established in 1607 the process of de-population in North America was in full swing. There were about a dozen major conflicts during the colonial period some of which were perpetrated by the tribes on the colonials such as the Indian Massacre of 1622 where the indians were welcomed into homes and then massacred over 300 people. Most were different tribes working with colonials to attack rivals or ingratiate themselves with the Europeans. The US was involved in around 40 different military conflicts with Indian Tribes between 1775 and 1918. Many of these were ugly conflicts with atrocities on both sides and I'm also not going to try to sugar coat the treatment of defeated tribes some of which were handled with compassion and some of which were horrendous.

If you read these two descriptions (I admit over simplified a bit) and feel that they are similar then ok but I feel that is a representation of your lack of objectivity when discussing the US versus a well versed opinion.

[El Kabong]

Noam Chomsky is a pompus dick......and soon he will die

[VictorCharlie]

Does he have a terminal illness or something?

[Beanz]

Does he have a terminal illness or something?

He has a chronic case of (zevi'ut).