Holocaust Deniers, Nazis, and Klansmen, Oh My! How the MSM Deals with Uncomfortable Questions

Richard Hoste

October 1, 2009

Not too long ago I ran across the headline “Ahmadinejad Proud of Holocaust Denial.” Sounds like a bad guy, doesn’t he?

He stoked the fires ahead of the visit with new comments casting doubt on the Holocaust. Asked about widespread condemnation of such remarks, Ahmadinejad said Monday: "The anger of the world's professional killers is (a source of) pride for us," according to state news agency IRNA.

During a speech Friday, he questioned whether the Holocaust was "a real event" and called it a pretext used by Jews to trick the West into backing the creation of Israel. He said the Jewish state was created out of "a lie and a mythical claim."

In politics when people tell you that your enemies are angered, it’s standard to reply “I’m proud to have them as my enemies.” That’s not a big deal.

But exactly what did he say was a “lie”? The Associated Press can’t be bothered to tell us.  What the headline above presupposes — that the Iranian president denied the Holocaust  —  is at least doubtful.  This Ahmadinejad-as-Holocaust-denier meme started after a statement he made in December of 2005.  The sentence that showed up in all the news stories is this: "Today, they have created a myth in the name of Holocaust and consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets." 

That could be taken as a denying that the Holocaust happened.  Equally plausible is that the Iranian president was commenting on how the Holocaust has been elevated to a sacred event that mustn't be questioned while criticizing how world leaders act as if the event is relevant to contemporary political issues. Indeed, Ahmadinejad's greatest concern about the Holocaust is clearly that it has been used as to justify what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians. In the same 2005 speech, Ahmadinejad noted, that if Europeans committed the crime, then they should pay the price: "This is our proposal: if you committed the crime, then give a part of your own land in Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to them [Jews], so that the Jews can establish their country."

On September 18th, 2009, the New York Times ran a front page story about a different speech that the Iranian leader gave.  According to the author, Ahmadinejad yet again called the Holocaust a “lie.”  Luckily, the president’s personal website happened to report on the same speech.  The actual statement in its context is the following: "The pretext for establishing the Zionist regime is a lie; a lie which relies on an unreliable claim, a mythical claim, and the occupation of Palestine has nothing to do with the Holocaust." That “pretext” which is a “lie” could mean the Holocaust or it could mean the idea that European Jews had some historical or biblical claim to the Holy Land. And in any case, again Ahmadinejad is most concerned about how the Holocaust is used to justify what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. 

As the Arabic webzine Al-Jazeera wrote a day after the Times piece:

It is an important principle of journalism that when someone makes a statement, especially a controversial one with grave implications, the comment should be put in the fullest possible context so the reader can make an informed judgment. But that rule doesn’t seem to apply when the New York Times writes about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Ahmadinejad has had opportunities to make himself clear in the Western media.  On September 25th he sat down with CNN’s Larry King and the issue came up.

KING: We're back with the President of Iran. All right. We can discuss the Palestinian — I understand that point. Are you saying though — are you denying that a Holocaust existed? Are you — will you acknowledge here tonight that there was a Holocaust? That six million Jews were exterminated by the Germans? That's all I'm asking. We'll get to the Palestinian issue in a minute. Are you denying that?

AHMADINEJAD: I am an academic. I don't speak like a journalist. And I do not wish to speak non-academically. What I have in my mind is an academic question, so if you can bear with me and listen to these questions, we'll welcome any answers you have to give me. If you can't answer my questions, I'll really welcome any other person who wants to answer the question. Unless we answer the question, I can't be convinced. So the question was where did it take place? You said, "In Europe." I said, "Who were the perpetrators?" And you said, "Germans." And my third question is was — was the crime committed by the Palestinians —"

KING: No.

AHMADINEJAD: — to be forced to sort of be punished as a result of —

KING: No, it was not committed by the Palestinians.

AHMADINEJAD: So very well. Very well said. Excellent.

KING: But my question was —

AHMADINEJAD: Establish — allow me — establishing the Zionist regime, using the Holocaust as an excuse. I mean that is what happened, because the Holocaust happened, they said, and the Jewish people were oppressed, and the Jewish people need an independent government. And where in the world? In Palestine.

And we think, well, what exactly does this have to do with Palestine?

KING: Well, I — I understand that — intellectually understand that —

AHMADINEJAD: Allow me. Allow me. Listen, please allow me.

King, representing the mainstream media, wants to focus on WWII. Ahmadinejad wants to talk about the suffering of the Palestinians today and he is again questioning the logic whereby events that happened in Europe in WWII can justify the tragedy of the Palestinians. But I don’t hear any denial that Jews suffered in the 1930s and 40s.

The leader we’re all supposed to think is crazy asks another provocative question.

AHMADINEJAD: Allow me to raise a second question, and you'll get your answer. You'll have your answer then, if you bear with me.

Now, as for the second part of my question. Now, there are many historical events. Many things have happened throughout history. Throughout World War II, 60 million people were killed. They all matter. They were all human beings. We have to respect each and every life that was lost in the course of the Second World War.

Now, if the Holocaust is indeed a historical event, why is it that politicians care so much about it? Usually, politicians — allow me — usually, politicians do not give so much attention to historical events. So my question is exactly — what result was to be derived of the event that happened that made it so important? How did it influence what we see today? I mean, what is the connection —

Indeed, how strange it would be if public figures went around saying “We can’t allow another holodomor!” every time Russia and the Ukraine had a dispute.

But at this point we still don’t know whether Ahmadinejad denies that the Holocaust was a real historical event. King eventually gets a straight answer.

KING: All — I understand that, but all I wanted to know is do you agree that there was a Holocaust. That's a simple yes or no. Do you agree that there was a Holocaust?

AHMADINEJAD: If you bear with me, I'll give you an answer...

AHMADINEJAD: — it's — it's the European that has allowed historians and scholars to freely engage and research that involved the event and discuss all their points of differences and come to the consensus and tell everyone what they're [sic] think, that would be a great step, but unfortunately, even when a member of parliament sort of says something that goes against the common, uh, plain, uh, they're ousted from parliament in Europe. I mean, that's why we have

KING: I need to take a break. We still need — we still need research. Mr. Netanyahu didn't prove it to you yesterday? All right. We'll be right back.

There you have it. Ahmadinejad’s crime, what makes him a madman in the eyes of the international community, is his refusal to have a historical opinion on an issue on which the West doesn’t allow free speech. And it’s not as if the appearance on Larry King Live was the first time Ahmadinejad set the record straight.   He said many of the exact same things in a 2006 interview with the German paper Der Spiegel and in his 2007 speech at Columbia University.

Imagine an alternative universe with a news story that accurately summed up the Iranian president’s position and a typical reaction to his statements.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today wondered why any crimes committed by the Germans against the Jews should be used as a pretext to punish Palestinians. He also questioned why scholars across Europe are sitting in jail for their opinions about a historical event. The Iranian president called for freedom of speech on this and all other academic issues.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to these calls for academic debate by threatening to strike Iran. All six parties in the German parliament signed a resolution denouncing Ahmadinejad’s remarks and defending the country’s right to lock up those that disagree with what the government declares as history.

In the real world, the media distorts what people say in order to demonize those who don’t go along with the globalist agenda. “I don’t have an opinion about the Holocaust,” becomes “He denies the Holocaust.” And when Ahmadinejad says that he’s proud of the enemies he’s made, it really means he’s proud of denying the Holocaust, since that’s what we all know he did! And when Ahmadinejad says that the Zionist regime will collapse (like the Soviet regime collapsed), he really means that he wants to wipe Israel off the map completely.

To get a feeling of what Ahmadinejad actually believes, I started to seek out his transcripts and videos. Here’s the main quote from one speech I found.

All countries build monuments that they are proud of. And when tourists come, they show them these monuments. Over there, they build monuments, and every German who passes by is constantly reminded “Look you are the son of criminals, and must be humiliated.” In culture, science, and international politics, Germany should have a prominent standing. But 60 years later, they are still held prisoner by a handful of people...

The quote above doesn’t show up in any AP piece. “Ahmadinejad Proud of Holocaust Denial” makes a much better headline than “Ahmadinejad Wonders Why Germans Build Giant Monuments of Shame.”

I not too long ago analyzed how many Google hits certain current and historical world leaders get if the search terms include a reference to Hitler. For example, the phrase “Mugambe is like Hitler,” with the quotation marks gets 25,000 hits. Excluding the last two American presidents (W. and Barack are the two biggest Hitlers ever), Saddam Hussein (448,900 hits) and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (119,000) have been most often compared to the infamous Austrian.

As a writer, I try to make my work somewhat original. If in my work I see a phrase or analogy that I think is too common or predictable, I try not to use it. My standards are apparently higher than those of mainstream media writers. A Washington Post op-ed piece wanted to make the point that internet racism is dangerous. The historical analogy the author utilizes? How the Nazis used radio to spread their message! Whether we’re talking about free speech on the internet, Iran’s nuclear program, the rise of European conservative parties, or Obama's health care plan, the lazy writer has a ready-made insult to use against whomever he wants to call racist, mean, controlling, authoritarian, violent, war-like or evil. Reductio ad Hitlerum.

Once you’ve been painted with the Hitler brush, the typical reader or TV watcher understands that your name is synonymous with bad. By the time a character like Ahmadinejad is interviewed on TV, anybody with even rudimentary social understanding knows not to listen to what he has to say. If your average Joe Sixpack, God forbid, finds himself agreeing with the guy we’re all supposed to think is crazy, he purges such evil thoughts from his head. Wasn’t six million enough?

Watching the Ahmadinejad interview with King reminded me of times I’ve seen David Duke on TV. He’s always introduced as “former Klansman” instead of “PhD.” or “former presidential candidate.” The Ku Klux Klan isn’t invoked as often as National Socialism is, but association with the group is something we are supposed to know disqualifies anybody from being seen as capable of moral reasoning. When American public school students today aren’t reading Elie Wiesel’s Night and writing reports on Anne Frank, they’re learning about the oppression faced by Blacks in the Old South.

Here’s a video of Duke chiding former AIPAC lobbyist Wolf Blitzer for mentioning the Klan 11 times in Duke’s introduction. The media would rather you think that a White activist is in favor of lynching Black people than let you know what he really thinks. They must realize that in a truly free debate, who can argue with the idea that Whites should have the same rights as everybody else?

I admit that I’ve become sort of fascinated with digging up Duke’s media appearances. My favorite is when he asked a Black female NPR host why Whites are given collective guilt because of a few thousand lynchings over a hundred year period while Blacks should have no collective guilt over 40,000 rapes they perpetrate against White women a year. (Try this one on your liberal friends.) In this Phil Donahue taping from 17 years ago, you can see members of the crowd torn between knowing that they’re supposed to hate this “Klansmen” and at the same time not being able to find anything wrong with his arguments for ending affirmative action or preserving Western civilization. One can almost feel the psychic stress building in the audience.

At the beginning of part four, a woman stands up to say that she’d vote for Duke. Donahue can’t believe that she would make up her mind based on listening to him for twenty minutes. (How long is the average citizen supposed to listen to each candidate?) She backtracks, and by the end of the exchange, while still sympathetic to Duke, she won’t stand by her statement that he would have her vote. Another woman stands up and says that her neighborhood has become biracial and she can’t walk down the street without being in fear for her life. Despite that and what looks like her initial bravery, she says that she’d support Duke only on “some issues.”

Of course, when not misrepresenting Duke’s positions, the media and politicians aren’t above telling straight out lies. In 1992, Black author Sister Souljiah said “If Black people kill Black people every day, why not have a week and kill White people?” Bill Clinton during his famous "Sister Souljah Moment" commented in response, “If you took the words ‘Black’ and ‘White’ and reversed them, you might think that David Duke was giving that speech.”

That Clinton could take it for granted that the general public thought that Duke was advocated killing Blacks shows how low the chattering classes stooped in order to stop a man they saw as dangerous.

So-called conservatives are no better. Rush Limbaugh compared Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor to Duke for her support of affirmative action. The latter corrected the record by replying that he favored equal rights for all.

Many have commented on the fact that, unlike Europeans, we in America have freedom of speech. Perhaps it’s not because our rulers are any better, but because there’s no need to lock people up for unpopular thoughts when you control the media and education system. The freedom to “debate” issues related to White survival or the Holocaust after the people listening to you have been subjected to decades of anti-racist propaganda does about as much good as the freedom to debate religion with those who’ve arrived at Mecca. Resistance to what the global elites want will only come in the next few decades from Europe and those in the non-White world like Ahmadinejad, if at all. For the US, it’s hard to be even guardedly optimistic. It took a lot of propaganda to make Whites frightened by the idea that they have collective interests and it doesn’t seem that any of the approved conservatives or liberals have any interest in changing that.

My advice is to support people like Duke and Pat Buchanan when they can get on TV without naively believing that there’s going to be a sea change in MSM opinion. Luckily, on the Internet, pro-White advocates are on a more level playing field. One has to wonder how things would be different if something like Duke’s 1992 gubernatorial campaign happened today and pro-White opinion (along with racial science) was at the fingertips of anybody curious enough to look for it. That the public is depending less and less on the mainstream liars to report and interpret the news is a welcome development.  

 

Richard Hoste is a graduate student in anthropology. He runs the website HBD Books.