CAMPUS
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ACADEMIC YEAR 1998-1999THIS IS GOING TO BE, I hope, an ongoing record of what I am doing with the Campus Project this academic year. I had good intentions with regard to this in past years, as can be seen from the aborted entries I made in 1997 and 1996, but I couldn't find time to keep up with it. Nevertheless, here I am, ready to take another run at it. The purpose of the Campus Project is to promote open debate on the Jewish holocaust controversy on campus and elsewhere. The Project has no other purpose. The primary tool of the Campus Project this year is our ad headed: "There Is No Liberty Without Free Speech And Open Debate". The ad offers $250K to one individual who is able to convince a national television network to facilitate a debate between the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (ADL) and Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH). The text of the ad lists a number of holocaust stories that have entered our cultural history but have not been examined publicly. The Anti-Defamation League has a special "campus desk" in its New York offices, its mission to suppress open debate on the holocaust controversy on college campuses. This desk is handled by Jeffrey Ross. Mr. Ross is the one who most often responds on behalf of the ADL to inquiries from media concerning CODOH's Campus Project and this writer. Mr. Ross routinely misrepresents revisionist theory, misinforms media and the public as to the purpose of CODOH, and slanders this writer. Campus Hillel, usually but not always led by a Rabbi, represents the interests of B'nai B'rith directly on campus. Campus Hillel is typically the first to protest the printing of any materials that express a revisionist viewpoint on the Jewish holocaust controversy, the first to pressure campus journalists to suppress CODOH ads and opinion pieces, the first to organize "protests" against student papers and student editors who follow the dictate's of their conscience with regard to the ideals of a free press the spirit of the First Amendment. Campus Hillel, an ostensibly religious association, follows the line laid down by the Holocaust "lobby" and lets it go at that--as if there were no ethical or even spiritual issues involved in not wanting to allow others to express how they feel and what they think. While ADL and campus Hillel are the "shock" troops representing the Holocaust Lobby on campus, and while it is true these two groups are oftentimes guilty of a transparent Jewish chauvinism, that is very far from the whole story, as you will be reminded of again and again in the briefs that follow. The great majority of colleges and universities in America are not, after all, run by Jews. Most campus newspapers do not have Jews for editors, do not have Jews for advertising managers, and do not have Jews as media advisors. To the contrary. The problem of censorship on campus with regard to the Jewish holocaust controversy, then, is not a Jewish problem. It's a problem of American culture. Those of you who read this page may be interested in participating in the Project as volunteer "stringers"--part-time reporters. Your participation could add significantly to what we know about how journalists and special-interest organizations operate on and off-campus with respect to the holocaust controversy. There are a few rules to follow: you must inform those you speak with who you represent; you must inform them that you are taking notes or recording the interview; you must inform the interviewee that he or she is speaking on the record. You must be honest, fair, and as objective as possible. The materials you send me that I find relevant and interesting will be posted here with or without credit, as you wish. Your identity as a stringer or a source will remain confidential if you wish. For my records, however, I will need to know your name and telephone number so I can verify, to one degree or another, who I am dealing with. With these few remarks then, let the story begin. September 20thDURING THE SUMMER SESSION I submitted an undated version of the 250K ad to a handful of college newspapers. It ran in The Advocate at Boise State 26 August, and in The Signal at Georgia State on 10 September. The ad rep I worked with at The Advocate is Shawn Murphy (I don't have the editor's name to hand). The editor at The Signal is Jennifer J. Smith. The ad has since run in The Titan at Cal State Fullerton (15 Sept.) and was scheduled to run in The Collegian at U of Toledo (17 Sept.), and The South End at Wayne State U.--Detroit (17 Sept.), and in several others over the coming ten days. Lexi Baugher, ad manager for The California Tech at California Institute of Technology, called to say The Tech would run the ad. On the 14th we discussed the layout of the ad by telephone and it was set to go on the 18th. I then received an e-mail message from their business manager:
The $250K ad is a new ad which The Tech has not run before. The Tech ran one of my ads before (a "similar" one, I suppose) and had "trouble," so they will not run another like it. So--those who made "trouble" over the previous ad have won at The Tech . These "problems" are created wherever open debate is suggested regarding the Jewish holocaust controversy--and I am not diminishing the fact that real problems are created, including but not limited to destruction of property, threats of physical violence against editors, threats of economic retaliation, and other forms of harassment. So, on the one hand I understand what Ms. Koo is up against. On the other, The Tech (I don't know if its editors were involved in the decision) caved in to the fear of a handful of petty totalitarians on her campus. On the plus side, Ms. Koo assures me The Tech will consider running other CODOH ads. I'll have to find out which kind of CODOH ad The Tech might be interested in. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran an article (15 Sept.) headlined: "Ad sparks annual controversy." The story reports on the first reactions to the ad having run at GSU. Written by Ernie Suggs, it reports that the ad challenges the ADL to a national televised debate "on such issues as whether gas chambers were used to exterminate Jews and if The Diary of Anne Frank is fiction, not fact" The language of the debate challenge is not presented quite accurately in either case, though it's close. Heidi Berger, the Metro Campus Program director for Atlanta YAD, the Jewish Young Adult Agency, is quoted saying "... this [to promote open debate on an historical controversy] is ethically wrong. For a university that talks about diversity [that is, ethnic diversity, but not diversity of opinion], allowing an ad to run like this doesn't reflect well on them." Signal editor Jennifer J. Smith told Suggs: "It is a noble thing not to offend anyone, but the implication of picking and choosing what you are going to run based on what you like and identify with scares me very much." Mark Budnitz, a law professor and faculty adviser told Suggs "This was not a freedom of speech or debate issue [Suggs doesn't ask and Budnitz does not say why it is not]. This is just a bunch of scurrilous charges that are creating bad feelings among the student body [Suggs doesn't ask and Budnitz doesn't say which "scurrilous" charges are being referred to and why they are scurrilous or why a challenge for "open debate" should cause bad feelings among university students. By not making it clear what Budnitz is talking about, the Journal-Constitution readers can not understand what is being argued. This is inadequate]. Jim Scott, vice president for student services at GSU, told Suggs "the paper is partially funded by the university through student activity fees but we can't tell the paper what they can print and what they can't print. We sort of leave it to their judgment...." In all, this is a fair story but too slight to give readers a real sense of what the "argument" is about. Using e-mail, I've submitted a letter to the editor of the Journal-Constitution in response to the Suggs article. (Thanks to David Irving's Online Newsletter for first bringing this story to our attention.) |
October 8thTHIS IS AN ACCUMULATIVE LIST of the campuses where it has been confirmed that our ad, "There Is No Liberty Without Free Speech And Open Debate" has run. If this list is in error or incomplete, I would appreciate being brought up to date.
UPDATE -- On 20 September I reported here that I had arranged with The Tech's business manager, Lexi Baugher, to run "There In No Liberty Without..." and sent off a check. The next day I received an email message from Jennifer Koo, advertising manager, saying that the ad had been rejected because an earlier ad of mine had caused "problems" for the paper. I wrote off The Tech . A couple weeks later I received a tear sheet from the 18 September issue with my ad printed on the inside of the back cover. There was a note from The Tech's business manager, Lexi Baugher, saying in part: "If you would like to advertise in The Tech again in the future, don't hesitate to contact us." What's the lesson here? First, its not over until its over. Second: this suggests how important a single voice can be on a newspaper staff. If one person on the staff will take responsibility for encouraging a free press, others will go along. its when there are mixed views among staff, with no individual willing to take responsibility for making "trouble," that is, allowing controversy, that those special interests that argue against intellectual freedom will win the day. University of Toledo - The Collegian n UPDATE -- Advertising agreed to run the ad, I sent them the check, I received it back in the mail with my ad. No explanation. This sort of behavior is not worth following up on. University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh - The Advance Titan The ad ran on 16 September and was followed by an uproar that took its staff rather by surprise. On the 23rd the AT printed ten (10!) letters written by professors, each one more complaining, craven and evasive than the next. Reading them brought to mind the old Maoism about "running dog intellectuals." Not a single letter written by any one of these UW-Oshkosh professors addresses one issue raised by the text of the ad, and not one says anything interesting or unique about anything else. I am only treating with them here because they represent 99 percent of everything written by university professors in response to revisionist theory, and illustrate everything they evade when they write about it. If you want to see the original ten letters I'll send them to you in return for a sase. If I had someone to scan them in for me I'd post them all here for the record, empty and useless as they are.
Those awful people who are expressing doubt about what the Dean of the College of Letters and Science believes all others should believe have surfaced at UW-Oshkosh! Better get on the telephone to her little androids and have them try to overwhelm the AT staff who, after all, are only students and are vulnerable socially, politically and with respect to their careers if they persist in running a newspaper that encourages free inquiry and open debate. When history professor Rivers "heard from the Dean of the College of Letters and Science" she leapt to her desk to pen her robotic little note that says in so many words what all the other professorial androids represented in this issue of the Advance-Titan have said. The ad denies the Holocaust (it doesn't), that I represent a group that seeks to deny the historical truth of the H. (I do not--to the contrary--I am insisting that what is false and fraudulent in the story be gotten rid of so that what remains is, in fact, the truth), that no one in my "group" knows anything about history or historical evidence (professor Rivers is ignorant of what we have on our Website--see, for example, Foundations of Contemporary History, edited by Germar Rudolf, German scholar condemned to prison in Germany for publishing work such as this--I challenge this silly broad to respond professionally to Germar Rudolf's paper on the "gas chambers" of Auschwitz and Majdanek); we are trying to spread misinformation (we are trying to promote an open debate to get rid of misinformation--that's what open debate does, lady, it helps get rid of misinformation--its called a free exchange of ideas); and she is terribly offended by the appearance of my ad, which she has not yet read. Reading these letters from these UW-Oshkosh professors is like spending time at the city dump on a hot afternoon. its trashy, it smells bad, its a vast pile of waste material without any redeeming qualities. I shouldn't go on like this, I have given in to some of the worst sides of my character. What has happened to my natural easy-going nature? As a matter of fact, professorial response to the appearance of any revisionist materials at all about the Jewish holocaust story are universally ignorant, evasive, and I suppose I might as well say it, contemptible. I suppose the professors themselves are perfectly decent folk, I know they are, who are simply unable to stand up like adults and professionals and enter into a little back and forth on this one particular subject. Taboos are no respecter of class. It's as difficult for a professor to challenge a taboo as it is for a factory worker. Students are not so deeply wired as professors when it comes to taboos. This is why students are often able to print materials in student newspapers that adults find shocking, including ads that reflect a skeptical view or a current historical orthodoxy. There are still two more letters I have not addressed, both by economics professors, and as you might suspect they are no better informed or more open minded than their colleagues. Same old stuff. I'll spare you going over them here. What are we to make, then, of the UW-Oshkosh faculty? They appear to be represented by spokespersons who are regressively orthodox, timid, censorious, juvenile, and on this controversy lacking in intellectual standards and personal generosity. If these professors had been in teaching in Germany in 1938 and I had submitted an advertisement to student papers demanding that Jews be returned their civil rights and be allowed to join in public debate over the value of Nazi theory, these professors, as a class, would have behaved then as they behave now. They would have argued on the side of the current orthodoxies, against intellectual freedom, for censorship, and would have denounced me as a "Jew-lover." Looking back, we would have held their behavior in contempt, as we should hold their behavior today.
Well, Brad, I'm interested in more than raising eyebrows and upsetting people. When someone tries to tell the truth, there are always upset feelings, no matter what professors with immature inner lives tell you. Look at Germar Rudolf's paper on The Gas Chambers at Auschwitz and Majdanek and ask yourself why a professor, any professor, would not want you to know that such material exists.
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