I was involved in the organisation of the 50th anniversary commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz, while First Secretary at the British Embassy in Warsaw. The 50th did not receive anything like the media coverage given to the 70th, of which more later.
Senior British visitors to Poland invariably included a concentration camp on their itinerary, and from escorting people around I visited camps a great deal more often than I would have wished. I found the experience appalling and desolate. The first I ever saw was Majdanek and I recall that I just had to sit helpless and shivering for some time. One thing the experience left me with – including meeting survivors and both Polish and German eye-witnesses, and seeing the architects’ plans for camps – was a contempt for those who claim the whole thing did not happen, or was an accident, or was small scale.
It in no way diminishes the genocidal attack on the Jews to remember that a vast number of Poles also died in the camps, as well as gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled and disparate political prisoners. I tried sometimes to diminish the horror I felt at involvement with the camps, with attempts at humour. I was present at a meeting listing the guests of honour; the President of Lithuania was included. I whispered that he was coming to represent the camp guards. That was offensive, and I apologise. But there is a real problem that to this day Eastern Europe – including Poland itself – has not come to terms with historical truth about collaboration with anti-Jewish genocide and other attacks on minorities. I recommend this website, which tackles these issues very honestly and is well worth a lengthy browse.
It requires bigotry not to be able to understand why nationalist resistance movements against Russian occupation became allied with Germany during World War II. That would be reprehensible only in the same sense that allied collaboration with Stalin might be reprehensible, but for the added factor of enthusiastic collaboration with genocidal and master race programmes and fascist ideology. That is what makes the glorification of Eastern European nationalist figures from this period generally inappropriate.
I fear however that the real reason that the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz received so much more coverage than the 50th is a media desire to reinforce the narrative of the War on Terror and Western policy in the Middle East by invoking the spectre of massive anti-Semitism. There have been isolated but deplorable, apparently anti-Semitic attacks of a small-scale terrorist nature in France and Belgium in recent years. But to conflate this into stories of a wave of popular anti-Semitism in Europe is a nonsense. Maureen Lipman’s claim that she may have to leave the UK is not just silly but disingenuous. I do not believe she feels in personal danger of attack – there is absolutely no reason why she should – she is rather making a political point.
There are two factors which could exacerbate anti-Semitism at present. One is the appalling behaviour of Israel and its indefensible action in continually seizing Palestinian land and using its military superiority to dominate and occasionally massacre Palestinians. Regrettably, there are a very small minority of people who wrongly blame Jews in general for the actions of Israel.
The second factor is of course the terrible economic hardship wrought across the whole world by irresponsible banking practices, and the fact that the bankers luxury lifestyles were maintained at the cost of everybody else. There are still a tiny minority of people stuck in the medieval mindset associating banking with the Jewish community. There is in fact a very plausible argument that if any “race” has a disproportionate influence on the development and character of international banking since the mid eighteenth century, it is the Scots! But those who see banking as a racial issue are nutters.
You could construct an argument from these factors, and you could identify that anti-Semitic people do exist. They certainly do. They dominate the very small category of people who get banned even from this free speech blog. But are their opinions intellectually respectable, promoted in the mainstream or able to be expressed openly without fear of either social or legal consequences? No, no and no. Anti-semites are fortunately a tiny and strange minority. I might add that in my numerous and frequent social contacts in the British Muslim community, I have never encountered anti-Semitism (unlike, say, Poland and Russia where I encountered casual anti-Semitism quite frequently).
The final point, is of course, the conflation of anti-zionism with anti-Semitism. That seems to me the fundamental design of the media campaign exaggerating the scale of anti-Semitism at the moment. Yes, we must always remember the terrible warnings from history and it is right to remember those who died in the concentration camps, Jewish, Polish, Romany, Gay, Communist or any other category. But we should be aware of those who wish to manipulate the powerful emotions of horror thus evoked, for present objectives of the powerful.
Scouse Billy:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/may/25/woolwich-suspect-kenya-torture
They created a monster, but your theory says it all never happened. The man who revealed this was immediately arrested. Here’s another for you:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/16/-sp-guantanamo-diary-false-confession-slahi
Why did they bother with rendition, extended imprisonment and torture? Why didn’t they just make it all up like the theories you popularise? Why didn’t they just “false flag” the destruction of the CN Tower? These questions are rhetorical; please don’t answer. Go have a long, hard think instead.
I’ll ignore you, actually – I’m busy listening to Chris Spivey on the Kev Baker Show.
If Glenn pops up from nowhere to attack me personally because I might just be on the same wavelength as his erstwhile “friend”, I think I have the right of reply.
Meanwhile, who asked you to stick your nose in with the most specious bollocks of an argument? I believe it’s Craig Murray’s blog – was it him?
Scouse Billy, why have they bothered to introduce secret courts, where the prosecution’s evidence does not have to be disclosed to the defence? Why bother, if they can so easily fake incidents like the Woolwich murder or Sandy Hook? Are they not hiding that the prosecution’s case rests upon false confessions extracted under torture?
That’s how it worked when Craig witnessed it in Uzbekistan, and now we have the same system here. Wake up, Scouse Billy, see how it fits together, and protest about something real.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPtxSztTnRU
Scouse Billy, yes, I’m a friend of Craig’s; I spent a lot of time with him in Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh last year. When I was moderating, he was very angry at me when I called you a liar, but he praised my action in moving your diversionary “contribution” about “chemtrails” onto a different thread. And I’m sure he’d approve what I’ve written to you above.
Oh, ok then I’ll go away 😉
…for a while.
Meanwhile you can chat to yourself 🙂
Scouse Billy, no, I’m not trying to drive you away, and that video is mostly right about ISIS – ISIS projects Saudi Wahhabist ideology and it is funded through the Gulf Monarchies. It is descended and composed from forces the US has used as proxies – the same problem that led to 7/7; look up “covenant of security” if it hasn’t been scrubbed entirely off the ‘net by now.
I’m just trying to get you to be a bit more critical of contrarian theories. I’ve looked quite closely at one of Spivey’s articles and it contained no critical thinking at all.
Clark, chill – I’m catching up with a novel before sleep. Gotta a lot to do tomorrow.
Listening to this – enjoy if it’s your thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohrpmf7vBOg
Good night
Souse Billy, Glenn can be a bit harsh at times – but you did really upset him when you claimed that medical professionals were all part of a plot to withhold effective cancer treatment from patients – his wife is a senior care nurse, I believe, and you effectively, though inadvertently and indirectly, accused her of being an accomplice to torture.
Nice album; thanks. Sleep well. Please reread my comments above when you get the chance.
@SB: Just so you know Glenn “thinks”
Vaccines are good for you
Global warming is real”
Err… yeah! That’s because I’m not a credulous fool, Billy. Presumably you think typhoid, diphtheria, polio, tetanus, smallpox and on, and on, and on, are long-term plants?
It’s actually tough to know what whacked-out angle you’re coming from. Did these diseases never exist – are they all ancient plots. perhaps?
Maybe the government went around painting people with spots, for hundreds of years, before killing them – is that the setup? Faking disease?
If that’s too crazed, why aren’t these diseases around now, in your inestimable opinion?
When did this government plot about vaccines start, in your esteemed view – and how did they get all these academics and medical people on board?
Your smug rejection of facts, science and logic is rather worrying. Should you have a medical condition, I fear you would leave it untreated. Worse still, you advise others to leave their own conditions untreated.
You – after all – are a person sufficiently deluded, that you believe the entire medical establishment exists solely in order to kill people!
*
RoS : This is a “serious” person, in your view?
Note the use of white phosphorus (again) by the IDF. Shown in the video at the top of this report. It appears that it is being used close to dwellings.
Three killed as Israel and Hezbollah clash on Lebanese border
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-31015862
Glenn
Of course Scouse Billy is not a serious poster – have you taken this long to work that out? Far from being “harsh” in your comments (said Clark) I think you’re remarkably tolerant and forgiving actually.
And as for “Republiccofscotland” – well, just look carefully at his posts (themes, timings, etc)…..
Glenn seeks to mischaracterise me as a buffoon that would deny the existence of infectious disease.
If in innocence then he is severely deficient in comprehension skills, if not then he insults not only me but anyone reading this blog.
Of course, my position is that vaccines are neither effective nor safe and that the great killer diseases were largely, though not completely, eradicated by advances in sanitation (cf. cholera for which there has never been a “vaccine”), refrigeration and efficient transportation.
It would appear that, on this matter, I am in good company.
1. I would refer Glenn and anyone else interested to The Wonderful Century (1899) by Alfred Russel Wallace, freely available in pdf and epub form from archive.org:
XVIII. VACCINATION A DELUSION ITS PENAL ENFORCEMENT
A CRIME, 213
APPENDIX THE CAUSES OF THE IMPROVEMENT IN
THE HEALTH OF LONDON TOWARD THE END OF
THE EIGHTEENTH AND BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH
CENTURIES, . . . . .
Of which I will post salient extracts and conclusions in a separaet post
2. Dr Suzanne Humphries, a nephrologist classically taught to believe in vaccines at medical school, like I and many others, finally began to have doubts. Unlike Glenn, she decided to study the historical and scientific evidence behind the vaccine mantra:
Here is a relatively short summary of her findings as delivered in her recent lecture tour in Sweden:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpC0Tbb3diI
3. Finally (I could of course give many more examples), it should be noted that DR Andrew Wakefield was vilified for merely suggesting that there might be a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Not only have his research findings been corroborated many times by researchers in many countries, but last summer a Centre for Disease Control (CDC) researcher, Dr William Thompson, in an apparent crisis of conscience, came out and admitted that back in 2004 the CDC had deliberately withheld data from a paper that would have shown a causal connection between vaccines and autism. This received virtually no coverage by mainstream media!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THGbJnpywyw
From Alfred Russel Wallace, The Wonderful Century, Chapter XVIII:
The Vaccination question has been discussed at the greatest length for several reasons. It is the only surgical operation that, in our country, has ever been universally enforced by law. It has been recently inquired into by a Royal Commission, whose Majority Report is directly opposed to the real teaching of the official and national statistics presented in the detailed reports. The operation is, admittedly, the cause of many deaths, and of a large but unknown amount of permanent injury; the only really trustworthy statistics on a large scale prove it to be wholly without effect as a preventive of small-pox; many hundreds of persons are annually punished for refusing to have their children vaccinated; and it will undoubtedly rank as the greatest and most pernicious failure of the century. I claim that the evidence set forth in this chapter, with the diagrams which illustrate it, demonstrate this conclusion. It is no longer a question of opinion, but of science; and I have the most complete confidence that the result I have arrived at is a statistical, and therefore a mathematical certainty.
But we have yet another example of an extremely well-vaccinated town in this epidemic Warrington, an official report on which has just been issued. It is stated that 99.2 per cent, of the population had been vaccinated, yet the comparison with unvaccinated Leicester stands as follows:
EPIDEMIC of 1892-93
LEICESTER WARRINGTON
Small-pox cases per 10,000 population, 19.3 128.3
deaths ” ” ” 1.4 11.4
Here, then, we see that in the thoroughly vaccinated town the cases are more than six times, and the deaths more than eight times, that of the almost unvaccinated town, again proving that the most efficient vaccination does not diminish the number of attacks, and does not mitigate the severity of the disease, but that both these results follow from sanitation and isolation*
This is a matter upon which it is necessary to speak plainly. For refusing to allow their children’s health, or even their lives, to be endangered by the inoculation into their system of disease-produced matter, miscalled “lymph,” * hundreds and probably thousands of English parents have been fined or imprisoned and treated as criminals; while certainly thousands of infants have been officially done to death, and other thousands injured for life. And all these horrors on account of what Dr. Oreighton has well termed a “grotesque superstition,” which has never had a rational foundation either of physiological doctrine or of carefully tested observations, and is now found to be disproved by a century’s dearly bought experience. This disgrace of our muchvaunted scientific age has been throughout supported by concealment of facts telling against it, by misrepresentation, and by untruths. And now a Royal Commission, which, one would have supposed would have striven to be rigidly impartial, has presented a Report which is not only weak, misleading, and inadequate, but is also palpably one-sided, in that it omits in every case to make those comparisons by which alone the true meaning can be ascertained of those “great masses of national experience” to which appeal has been made by the official advocate of vaccination par excellence Sir John Simon.
I venture to think that I have here so presented the best of these statistical facts as to satisfy my readers of the certain and absolute uselessness of vaccination as a preventive of smallpox; while these same facts render it in the highest degree probable that it has actually increased susceptibility to the disease. The teaching of the whole of the evidence is in one direction. Whether we examine the long-continued records of London mortality, or those of modern registration for England, Scotland, and Ireland; whether we consider the “control experiment” or crucial test afforded by unvaccinated Leicester, or the still more rigid test in the other direction of the absolutely revaccinated Army and Navy, the conclusion is in every case the same: that vaccination is a gigantic delusion; that it has never saved a single life; but that it has been the cause of so much disease, so many deaths, such a vast amount of utterly needless and altogether undeserved suffering, that it will be classed by the coming generation among the greatest errors of an ignorant and prejudiced age, and its penal enforcement the foulest blot on the generally beneficent course of legislation during our century.
But, of course, Glenn and Habbalarf et al will, no doubt, suggest that Alfred Russel Wallace (now reinstated to prominence alongside Charles Darwin) was NOT a SERIOUS PERSON.
Do your research, folks
Scouse Billy, to return the PressTV video you linked to, I already wrote that it’s more right than wrong about funding of extremist fighters; how do you feel about that?
March for Homes
http://bambuser.com/v/5255222
Wallace did a lot of useful work but was off the wall on his anti-vaccine stance. He also believed in spiritualism and phrenology.
From Wiki:-
In 1890, Wallace gave evidence before a Royal Commission investigating the controversy. When the commission examined the material he had submitted to support his testimony, they found errors, including some questionable statistics. The Lancet averred that Wallace and the other anti-vaccination activists were being selective in their choice of statistics, ignoring large quantities of data inconsistent with their position. The commission found that smallpox vaccination was effective and should remain compulsory, though they did recommend some changes in procedures to improve safety, and that the penalties for people who refused to comply be made less severe. Years later, in 1898, Wallace wrote a pamphlet, Vaccination a Delusion; Its Penal Enforcement a Crime, attacking the commission’s findings. It, in turn, was attacked by The Lancet, which stated that it contained many of the same errors as his evidence given to the commission.
Wakefield has never been exonerated and rightly so.
I suppose it’s the mercury in the vaccines causing autism is it?
Kempe, do you really want to head so off-topic?
Scouse Bill
31/01/2015 12:19 pm
“3. Finally (I could of course give many more examples), it should be noted that DR Andrew Wakefield was vilified for merely suggesting that there might be a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Not only have his research findings been corroborated many times by researchers in many countries, but last summer a Centre for Disease Control (CDC) researcher, Dr William Thompson, in an apparent crisis of conscience, came out and admitted that back in 2004 the CDC had deliberately withheld data from a paper that would have shown a causal connection between vaccines and autism. This received virtually no coverage by mainstream media!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THGbJnpywyw”
I am most grateful for Scouse Billy for making me aware of this unfolding story. Very few people have been more vilified than Dr Andrew Wakefield, who suggested a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. He was later found guilty of fraud and financial interest and was struck off by the General Medical Council. Following that, there has been the most extraordinary campaign of vilification against him, to which he appears to have stood up with the most remarkable vigour. I say at once that I have no expertise on this matter and maybe everything that has been said about Dr Wakefield is fully justified. The whole story has just had an odd ring to it, to me: he seems to be either a person of great integrity, courage and honesty, or he is the most amazing and fanatical liar. He says he is quite happy to debate his critics in public and so far he seems to have had no takers. Very strange.
I haven’t followed the matter with intensity because I haven’t the expertise, but it has always really intrigued me. I also had three young children at the time all this blew up, so I had quite a vested interest.
Now comes this story in which scientists of apparently good standing, such as William Thompson and Brian Hooker, are saying that there is a link between MMR and autism after all, and that the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention deliberately covered it up.
I hope that all manner of legal proceedings come out of this. I really do, because it’s a really striking illustration of how we are all so reliant on expert scientific opinion, and really have little option except to believe the majority opinion, and yet there seems a possibility that it has been thoroughly in error and/or highly corrupt for years.
Kind regards,
John
“Do your research, folks”
I have. I’ve had some experience of vaccination of animals both agricultural and domestic and it is my opinion that they work, the principals on which they work are sound and that their benefits far outweigh the risks.
Not long ago if you wished to travel abroad your pets must stay home or face quarantine on your return. Now, thanks to vaccination, pets can travel with you to parts of the world where infectious diseases such as rabies have not been eradicated.
The evidence for the benefits of vaccines is overwhelming.
Logic seems to be severely flawed in some circles these days, there seems to be a belief that if you can cast doubt on some small part of something it proves all of it false and all other evidence, no matter how compelling, may be ignored.
Or as Paul Simon said “A man sees what he wants to see, And disregards the rest.”.
“@RoS: I’m actually rather surprised that you admire that cynical fraudster Spivey.”
_________________________
Glenn.
I keep an open mind, Chris Spivey isn’t everyones cup of tea, and that’s fair enough.
Tell me Glenn, why in your opinion is Spivey a cynical fraudster, please post evidence to back up this claim.
Thanks.
As for Scouse Billy, whom I’ve only ever replied to once prior to yesterday, I’d say to Clarke and Glenn, if you don’t like or agree with what he says, or thinks, fair enough, don’t reply to his comments.
John Spencer-Davis, for investigating that, you could probably find blogs where William Thompson and Brian Hooker post or comment. There certainly must be discussions on the Internet between people who have much experience in these fields – a bit like searching out Craig’s opinions on foreign policy.
“And as for “Republiccofscotland” – well, just look carefully at his posts (themes, timings, etc)…..”
___________________________________
Guido aka Habb.
Hmmm, Care to expand on your above post? of course you won’t cynical establishment shills never do.
That’s Scouse Billy, not Scouse Bill – my apologies.
John
Republicofscotland, are you in Scotland? I’ve been meaning to ask some of the people I know in Glasgow about that bin-wagon disaster. You linked to the article on Spivey’s site. It’s not a case of “cup of tea” or not. I saw nothing of credible evidence in that article, and some of the “reasoning” was just ludicrous. Do you have any connections in Glasgow?
Clark
2:46 pm
Yes, I will be doing that, naturally. What’s very interesting is that I did not know of their existence till an hour ago. I read a daily newspaper, and I listen to the news most days, but I’m not zealous about it and it’s possible I would have missed it. But it’s a bloody big story, isn’t it? “Link between MMR and autism possible after all. CDC whistleblower seems to partially confirm discredited convicted fraudster Dr Andrew Wakefield’s conclusions.” Not easy to believe I would have missed something like that in August 2014 particularly since it is a story that interests me. So where was the reporting of it?
Kind regards,
John
John Spencer-Davis, exactly – propaganda works mostly by omission.
“Republicofscotland, are you in Scotland? I’ve been meaning to ask some of the people I know in Glasgow about that bin-wagon disaster. You linked to the article on Spivey’s site. It’s not a case of “cup of tea” or not. I saw nothing of credible evidence in that article, and some of the “reasoning” was just ludicrous. Do you have any connections in Glasgow?”
____________________________________
Clarke.
Sometimes I’m in Glasgow, I know the city.
What evidence or reasoning do you speak of, Spiveys article has many pictures and text tell me Clarke how long did it take you to read the article?
Republicofscotland, I spent hours on that article; it is huge. Spivey indicates positions of victims, but he shows no indication of knowing anything about them. He says they are not in the right places, but has no basis for saying where they should be. So there was someone at point x, in another picture they’re not there, but he doesn’t know who that person is; it could be someone with a minor injury who walked off. He shows a few people who recur in several photographs and claims this to be mysterious, and he shows an illuminated sign and claims it has symbolic significance. And so on. No evidence.
So far I’ve asked one Glaswegian friend, and he said that everyone he knows thinks its an accident.
Suhayl Saadi is a long-term commenter at this site, he’s a doctor in Glasgow and he loves a good conspiracy theory. He’d be on here like a shot if there was anything in it.