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Discussion of Holocaust to Be Banned?
By Michael Collins Piper
The recent tragic death of a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, allegedly killed by an individual said to be a “Holocaust denier” is now being touted as a reason to institute laws in the United States similar to those laws outlawing so-called “Holocaust denial” in force in 14 countries, mostly in Western Europe.
However, long-standing evidence suggests that those who advocate such measures in the United States do not intend to directly confront the issue of “Holocaust denial” in pushing such legislation. Rather, they intend to deal with the issue through an insidious tactical “back door” approach.
The scheme has been in the works for a long time and is not to be confused with the long-standing drive (once again before Congress) to set up a federal “hate crimes” bureaucracy.
Here’s the story that’s not been reported anywhere else: On June 12, the conservative Washington Times—which regularly touts the globalist and Zionist agenda—featured a headline story announcing that “Debate arises on legality of Holocaust denial,” as a consequence of what happened at the Holocaust Museum, adding fuel to the fire.
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So now the propaganda drive for legislation targeting not just “Holocaust denial” but all manner of political freedom of expression is being rejuvenated.
Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, the wealthy American founder of the Israel Project, one of many well-funded Jewish lobby operations, was quoted in the Washington Times article as saying that public distribution of so-called “hate literature” as well as “hate” on public access cable should be outlawed.
And although the Times quoted officials from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B’nai B’rith as saying the ADL does not advocate laws criminalizing “Holocaust denial” in America, the fact is that for more than 20 years the ADL has been in the forefront of a coordinated effort to pave the way for legislation designed to suppress speech in the U.S. the ADL considers dangerous to its agenda.
The ADL’s plan is to outlaw what it called “group defamation” that could be considered hurtful against certain specifically identifiable groups of people and thus potentially spark violence against them. In fact, the ADL’s contention is that hurtful language actually constitutes “violence” in and of itself.
In other words, if an individual criticized the actions of the state of Israel for its recent bloody incursion into Gaza, this could be considered offensive by American Jewish supporters of Israel and, in turn, those criticisms of Israel could cause other Americans to become angry at the supporters of Israel. As a consequence of this, it is said, violence could occur.
Or, for example, if someone raised questions about the number of Jews who died in Europe during the Holocaust and suggested that the numbers had been inflated by Jewish groups for political benefit and financial profit—this is considered a form of “Holocaust denial” in Europe today—Jewish people could be “hurt” because their integrity was being questioned and it might cause others to think badly of them.
If this sounds unlikely or extraordinary, consider the documented record of the ADL in this regard.
In 1988 at Hofstra University in New York, the ADL conducted a three-day legal symposium entitled “Group Defamation and Freedom of Speech: The Relationship Between Language and Violence.” The forum concluded with a call for passage of a law to ban what was described as “hate literature” by so-called “extremists.”
The opinions expressed by the featured speakers at the ADL conclave advocating a ban on hate literature centered around two ideas:
• That words, written or spoken, in and of themselves, constitute violence. (For example, one need only call someone a “bad” name without threatening any physical action to perform an act of violence.)
• That words, written or spoken, take on a certain power that creates a reality for the target or victim of these words. (For example, by calling someone a “dirty rotten bum,” he will become one.)
In his opening remarks, Hofstra law professor Monroe Freedman said that trying to defend free speech while trying to protect minorities against those who “defame” them is a “paradox of Constitutional democracy.”
According to Freedman:
Group defamation can create a social climate that is receptive to and encourages hatred and oppression. If a minority group can be made to appear less than human, deserving of punishment, or a threat to the general community, oppression of that minority is a likely consequence.
We know also that language itself can hurt, that there are words that, by their very utterance, inflict injury. . . .When the message is violent, language can itself be violence.
Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) spoke of the “psychic pain” inflicted by language. Another speaker, self-described “Holocaust survivor” Elie Wiesel, injected his opinion that those engaging in group defamation should be “fought” and “dealt with harshly.”
The conference featured a moot court argument of the winning submission of a competition among law students around the nation to write a model statute that could be used to prosecute those who engage in so-called “group defamation.”
The first prize winner was a model statute defining group defamation as:
Any oral, written or symbolic speech, published with malice, that debases, degrades or calls into question the loyalties, abilities or integrity of members of a group based on a characteristic that [is] allegedly common to the members of that group, or that by its very utterance inflicts injury upon members of a group, or that promotes animosity against a group.
A “group” was defined as “an aggregation of people identified by a common race, religion, national origin, ethnicity or gender, or based upon heterosexuality or homosexuality.”
Under the proposed statute, an agency would be established to monitor acts of group defamation; assess the impact of any speech that defames a group; and counteract the actually and potentially adverse effects of that speech. That agency would also review all films and movies before they could be shown and, if deemed to be offensive, ban public viewing.
In a similar vein, on November 2, 1995, then-Rep. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)—now a powerful U.S. senator—joined with the aforementioned Congressman Conyers in promoting legislation of the character proposed at the ADL conference. The Schumer measure, H.R. 2580, was deceptively called “The Republican Form of Government Guarantee Act.”
A longtime ADL spokesman in Congress, Schumer proposed to outlaw discussion of what he called “baseless conspiracy theories regarding the government” that he said endangered public order. Already he was known as the leading congressional enemy of the Second Amendment and the rights of gun owners. Schumer’s new target—the First Amendment—would have been scrapped had the bill been passed.
A journalist specializing in media critique, Michael Collins Piper is the author of The High Priests of War, The New Jerusalem, Dirty Secrets, The Judas Goats, The Golem, Target Traficant and My First Days in the White House All are available from AFP.
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(Issue # 26, June 29, 2009)
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