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.
@Clark: “Remember, if a hundred readers follow your suggestion, spend an hour each and find no hard evidence, you’ve wasted a week and a half of working time.”
Actually it hasn’t been an entire waste of time, at least, looking at the published work. I won’t bother looking at hours of videos, it’s unrewarding. But reading your dodgy PDF, and that whale.to BS, was actually rather illuminating. If I had suspicions about vaccines before, seeing crap like that is rather reassuring – it’s the best the anti-vaxxers have, and there’s nothing to it.
Let’s take that latest whale.to article. I skipped down to the “VACCINES AND NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS” section, and selected an assertion at random:
“
Bougie, E., Statistics Canada, Aboriginal Peoples Survey 2006 – School Experiences of Off-Reserve First Nations Children Aged 6-14, January 2009, p. 9
First off, the Bougie, E. report contains not one single word about vaccines, autism, thimerosal, hepatitis, or anything else which justifies the claim which uses it as a reference.
Second, the Toxicological and Environmental Chemistry report it references does not conclude this startling association between vaccines and development impairment. What it does say is the following:
It does conclude that there _may_ be a connection with an agent in vaccines no longer in use, and recommends further study.
But why is Billy doing this anyway? He doesn’t want to discuss anything. He refers to a mass of junk literature, and if that fails to work or is disputed, simply refers to another.
That’s why I’m convinced he’s got nothing. He doesn’t understand even the stuff he claims as “evidence”. He won’t engage on any tangible point. It’s like having someone wave a Bible in your face, and that’s their answer to everything.
So tell us, Billy – what parts of the established medical community is OK with you, hmm? Still got nothing to say on that?
Billy, you’ve had over twenty-five minutes to find and post that sterilisation rate, but you haven’t done it. Do did however, find time to post yet another comment that again attempts to shift the goal-posts. Will you now instead retract the following:
Will you retract your claim that Gates Foundation vaccination is intended to reduce life expectancy?
Glenn, I agree; Billy has produced nothing of substance. He has also misrepresented; both my own position and those of his sources. he moves goal-posts repeatedly.
I further agree that this discussion has strengthened my conviction that the advantages of vaccination greatly outweigh the dangers.
“No, as has been demonstrated by many researchers (that you clearly have ignored), sanitation, refridgeration, transportation etc. reduced these diseases massively prior to any vaccine.”
Really? Even in the Sun-beaten depths of darkest Africa, India or Bangladesh where they didn’t even have electricity (and often still don’t), even as smallpox was eradicated. Fancy that! Smallpox and polio was eradicated worldwide, and that most certainly did not coincide with the benefits of technology being introduced everywhere at once.
Measles is making a strong comeback thanks to anti-vaxxers like you, and the last time I checked, sanitation, refrigeration and transportation was still in effect in America and Britain. Fancy that!
The depths of your denial is staggering. Good thing you’re not in charge of anything. I wonder what you think the cause of AIDS might be – it’s sure to be entertaining 😉
I never thought I’d find myself defending the Gates Foundation! Here’s an excerpt of an e-mail from my inbox, from Gates’ adversary Richard Stallman:
On Wednesday, February 6, 2013 11:26:42 PM UTC, Richard Stallman wrote:
>
> In the article
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/29/bill-gates-charity-work-business-practices
>
> I posted this comment
>
> Part of the “philanthropy” of the Gates Foundation involves “donating”
> copies of Windows to schools. This makes children dependent on
> Microsoft’s software, which leads to more income for Gates. Some
> philanthropy!
>
> The Gates Foundation also promotes GMOs that would make African
> farmers dependent,
>
> https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/07/15
>
> and supported the right-wing lobbying group ALEC.
>
> http://www.prwatch.org/node/11422
>
> which you deleted. Could you please tell me why?
> If it breaks a rule, could you tell me what the rule is?
>
> —
> Dr Richard Stallman
> President, Free Software Foundation
> 51 Franklin St
> Boston MA 02110
> USA
>
> Skype: No way! That’s nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
> Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call
Had 25 minutes – you assume I’m free to post at anytime.
Maybe I’m at Her Majesty’s pleasure (for all you know).
In fact, I’ve been out to the shops but hey don’t let that stop you assuming all sorts of things…
Glenn, you are beyond parody – let’s get this straight: you are the believer and I am the disbeliever.
You claim vaccines work (100% of the time because you think disease only occurs in the unvaccinated – clue, even the vaccine makers don’t make such a ludicrous assertion) and are safe except on rare occasions.
Well it’s up to you to disprove trhe null hypothesis – and you haven’t.
You have no evidence that vaccines actually work, other than the oft repeated assertion that they do.
I have provided evidence to the contrary from luminaries such as Alfred Russel Wallace to modern medical practitioners who’ve bothered to examine this assertion such as Dr Suzanne Humphries. You chose to ignore her I noted – guess you didn’t have an answer so swept her under the carpet.
Blimey, you’re a joke – maybe you’ve been vaccine damaged 🙂
Scouse Billy, if you’re really trying to alert us to a real set of dangers, you’ve been doing a crap job.
So I’ll make you an offer. If you find me a real danger, I’ll help you to learn correct argument methods so you can alert the public. How’s that?
Or we could even return to discussing that ISIS video you’ve been diligently ignoring ever since you posted a link to it. I thought it looked quite interesting.
Oh yeah, I haven’t researched enough on ISIS to have formed an opinion even approaching a high degree of probability, so no can’t really comment.
There are many that claim Training of ISIS in Turkey and Jordan and also reports of ISIS casualties receiving medical support over the Golan Heights by Israel. However, not enough corroboration so, as I say, can’t really comment.
Discussing possibilities would I think waste more of your valuable time.
If I receive anything stronger will post it – ok?
Scouse Billy Liar wrote:
I cite the eradication of smallpox, which is common knowledge, but multiple reference can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox#Eradication
For various vaccinations you’ll find multiple references here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_controversy#Effectiveness
Billy, you’ll find it’s been a long, long time since the null hypothesis for most vaccines was that they do nothing. You really should spend some time at Wikipedia (what was your reason for not updating it?); there’s a vast wealth of knowledge there.
Scouse Billy, 4:27 pm
So why the fuck did you link to a video about it? On what basis did you choose that specific video? Do you simply not care?
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/01/auschwitz/comment-page-2/#comment-506069
Oh boy – back to the wiki bible, eh?
“Common knowledge” – lol, isn’t that what I said, just an oft repeated assertion?
I told you I played in a quiz on Monday night (my “brain test”) – well, there was a discussion afterward and would you believe wiki was mentioned.
The derision was unanimous, and we included teachers, academics and so on.
I remember the late Lloyd Pye once saying how his wiki article was factually inaccurate, something mundane like his DoB, so he corrected it under his own name and they changed it back to the wrong one!
Please, I can’t take anyone who cites wiki as evidence seriously – try not to be so daft, Clark.
I could refer to you to the infamous William Connolly episode at wiki but, knowing you, you’ll simply look it up on wiki! 🙂
You clearly have issues, Clark – bye for now.
Clark: That Sheldrake claimed the conservation of energy to be an “untested assumption”. I came across that sort of science denial a lot in the past few days, here, looking at the anti-vaxxers stuff. “Herd immunity” as a concept itself is questioned by that dodgy PDF of yours.
(Btw – mea culpa, I was wrong to say _no_ victims of measles had been immunised earlier. I should have said just the vast, vast majority of new cases had not.)
A great deal of anti-vaxxer literature is taken up with fretting about agents like mercury, with references which themselves refer to toxic effects of mercury from fish, smoke-stacks and so on – nothing to do with vaccines. Or ravings about Polysorbate 80 in swine flu vaccines, the shrieks of horror that it causes sterility. They’re trying to sterilise us!!
Except that Polysorbate 80 is used in all sorts of things from ice-cream, an emulsifier for food-stuffs, mouth-wash, etc. etc., so that we consume about 100mg per day. Vaccines typically contain 25µg – 1/4000th the typical daily intake. Yet anti-vaxxers throw up their hands in horror all the same.
I have yet to find an exception to this mass of deflection, supposition, flat out lies and scaremongering. Yet we are referred to more, and more of the same, and called dupes and deniers. It appears to be proof by mass assertion.
Billy won’t answer any of these questions, refuses to answer simple points, will not refer us to anything he has personally checked as being a genuine part of some paper. He says I must have a “vested interest” which is true – I don’t like people to suffer and die, just because of a goddamned stupid, anti-science campaign, led by people (like SB) who lack the courage to even discuss their own hand-picked material.
Scouse Billy, Habbabkuk asserted that you are not a serious commenter. You’ve had three days and over two pages of comments to demonstrate otherwise. Instead, you’ve confirmed the allegation, in spades, and demonstrated yourown intellectual dishonesty.
Scouse Billy, please mend your ways. Please join with the sceptical, evidence-based approach to analysis. Or at least cease encouraging others to become misled.
Bin-wagon disaster?
Scouse Billy, (sigh) Wikipedia is the opposite of a bible. It’s the encyclopaedia everyone can edit. Every edit is recorded publicly. Everyone can challenge it. It’s as un-bible-like as you can get!
Oh, please, I haven’t read anything on the bin wagon but I gathered from an earlier conversation that he’s calling it suspicious or possibly even a hoax.
I have no idea regarding it – I do enjoy Chris Spivey’s pieces and abhor the treatment he recently endured courtesy of his local bluebottles but that’s it really.
Stop extrapolating and looking for categorical certainty where it doesn’t exist.
Anyway I really do have things to do so, hasta la vista.
Oh ffs – no not anyone at wiki some are more equal than others – wise up!
Now I’m running really late – be seeing you.
Still no time to reference any particularly strong element in one of your many references, Billy? Anything that you have PERSONALLY checked and will vouch for? Got nothing, huh? Shame.
Ah well, just call me names and make childish insults if it makes you feel better. Far better than actually taking the effort to substantiate your own wild allegations, because – clearly – you’re not up to the job.
Yes, there are administrators at Wikipedia who have more power than standard editors. This is needed to prevent nutters like you from vandalising it, unfortunately, which is probably why you don’t like it.
WP:UNDUE_WEIGH
WP:ORIGINAL_RESEARCH
WP:VANDALISM
But all well-referenced material is retained. Contrarian theorists like Scouse Billy even get given their own pages, where they can present their evidence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_controversy
Now I too have to leave. If Scouse Billy has any integrity, he should post the sterilisation rate caused by the Gates Foundation’s vaccines.
Oh, I just remembered. There really has been a fake vaccination programme. The US conducted it, in Afghanistan, I think, to gather identification data on the local population – of course they claimed it was to catch Osama bin Laden, but they didn’t seem to want him really anyway. It was condemned by the medical community, but not reported much in the corporate media. I expect you’ll find it thoroughly documented (though probably somewhat sanitised) on Wikipedia.
I’m actually in favour of the scientific process, in its ideal form.
What I’ve tried to highlight above is that when you get institutional and other pressures you can end up with a belief system.
It’s that which ensures outdated theories can be difficult to shift despite the build up of anomalies.
I’d have thought that was uncontroversial.
On false flags, I’d just ask what theory you’re applying to your observations.
Musical interlude (a bit rough, but appropriate):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agPcECFLi34
Herbie, my musical interlude wasn’t in reply to you; I hadn’t refreshed the page. Yes, to accept “science” as portrayed in much down-market media certainly is to take on a belief system; as Glenn put it, “scientists say…”. But I really didn’t need anyone else helping to support SB’s BS in any way right then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBTT3VPriV8
😉
Rupert Sheldrake’s Science Delusion Talk at Quantica Symposium 2013.
The first 5 minutes alone are germane to the differences between myself on the one hand and Glenn and Clark on the other in this thread:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR1SLQwHDog
I’ll leave you with this – I have to eat then have a football match to watch.
It’s not just downmarket media. You’re missing the point.
The institutional pressures are day and daily real, and they affect research – what is looked at, what isn’t looked at and so on.
It seems to me that you’re presenting a very idealised view of the scientific process.
You’ve studied the history of science.
Is it possible that the greatest theoretical breakthroughs take place outside institutional influence or even that a significant number do?
And, on false flags, I’d just ask what theory you’re applying to your observations. I’m assuming here that you have one.
SB: WTF don’t you answer some questions raised by the hundreds of references you’ve already supplied, before wallowing us in yet more of them?
Anyway, it’s only fair to conclude at this point that SB is not a serious commentator, has no intention of discussing weaknesses in his own hand-chosen references, wishes to bury any doubters of his hysterical anti-science theories under mountains of time-wasting BS, and lacks the courage to have a discussion (even on his terms) about where he thinks Real science and medicine properly starts and ends.
Presumably SB accepts computer science, or he could not use the Internet, for example. So what about other science? SB will not discuss it.
No – SB is a joke. But not a very funny one, because his brand of mischief and lies is causing misery and death.
Herbie, what Clark and I have outlined to you is simply what genuine science is. It’s not some rose-tinted spectacles view. Of course there are bad scientists, and bad science – such as that being peddled by the anti-vaxxers for instance.
You might like to consider how the really big names in science achieved their fame – namely, by providing a far more encompassing explanation that explains all the observable evidence. They overturned long held theories and understandings, by finding data which contradicted them. Such people are not shouted down and thrown out of institutions – they win Nobel prizes for such work.
That – incidentally – is what Andrew Wakefield and his team had their eye on. Not to mention making a considerable amount of money – huge returns of over £70 million/year in the UK & US – in patented molecular viral diagnostic tests. And more revenue was anticipated from alternative vaccine programmes. The whole MMR scandal really does appear to be as simple as a lust for fame and fortune.
Well, I still think there will be institutional and financial pressures that cause problems for the scientific process and rational inquiry more generally.
That’s been going on for thousands of years.
I’ve no reason to believe it’s stopped now.
But, the MMR scandal may well be as you describe. It’s not my main interest.
The good thing is that all the evidence, research and debate seem to be available.
If there were material not forthcoming, for example, then it might be a very different matter.