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.
As a child growing up, I remember being surprised that there was no law against lying.
@Clark
I don’t mind Roy believing what he wants to believe and he doesn’t mind me believing what I want to believe and we get on just fine.
Now you are trying to make 45 bigger than 55 as well.
Fred, it wasn’t Roy who required me to accept lies. And please stop fighting.
Fred, I don’t have a problem with the people in Scotland running Scotland from within Scotland. I think decision-making would be done better closer to home, in Scotland and everywhere.
I’m sorry Fred, but I think you do have a problem with that.
Fred, at 11:37 am you wrote:
But at 11:28 am I’d written:
Do you see that you’d misrepresented my comment?
Do you know why you did so?
“Do you see that you’d misrepresented my comment?
Do you know why you did so?”
Of course… because he’s a caaaaaant – probably of the “retard” variety too.
Just kiddin’ ! 🙂
Has SB run away, without even attempting to answer a straightforward question, asked to him dozens on times on this thread?
Why are you so afraid, S. Billy – isn’t it because you know it ruins your pretence at honesty straight into the ground?
(Just to refresh your memory, it was about your personal view about where “real” medicine ends, the legitimate stuff, and where all the dodgy stuff like vaccines and so on begins. C’mon, surely you’re up for a stab at it?)
*
I thought you wouldn’t answer properly. But I didn’t expect your total folding on it all round. Ah well.
I’m reminded, on SB’s miserable defence of his anti-vaxxer BS, of this conversation:
Doubtless, Silly Billy would see _all_ of these as absolute evils, just total plots to make money for… err… help us out, SB. What Ayn Rand-esque craziness have you got for us today?
*
Btw, did you know the Big Pharma’s have to be legislated into producing vaccines because there’s nothing in it for them, no profit, they’d rather expend their resources elsewhere?
Glenn
While you’re waiting for Souse Billy, care to address the point I made a couple of days ago? It was in reference to the 1976 swine flu fiasco and I offered a short video clip which illustrated that :
(1) some vaccines can do serious harm.
(2) some large scale vaccination programmes are promoted despite medical advice that they are dangerous to public health.
My conclusion was :
“Either someone demonstrates that Western governments have got more trustworthy in the last 40 years, or I have every right to mistrust modern vaccination campaigns.”
Please base your response on what I have said in this post and not on any assumptions you may have about my underlying beliefs. Bonus points will be awarded for avoiding sarcasm, mockery and use of the word ‘denier’.
Sorry, Scouse Billy, genuine typo above when I missed out the “c”.
Half way through Tom Campbell video.
Glenn, 3:58 am:
I’d really appreciate some sources for that.
Regarding promotion of dubious vaccination programmes, there was one much more recent one involving companies associated with Rumsfeld and Cheney:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/04/27/725102/-Tamiflu-Rumsfeld-and-Cheney
The “insider trading” suggests that companies do make money on vaccines, so maybe they’d make more profit without making vaccines because they’d sell more treatments because more people would get ill, but if government force vaccine production and vaccination, companies optimise their next-best option and maximise profit from that instead.
Clark : “The “insider trading” suggests that companies do make money on vaccines”
They make billions : It is not unreasonable to question the motives behind mass-vaccination programmes.
The 1976 vaccine was known to be dangerous yet it was vigorously promoted by the US government : It is not unreasonable to question the safety of mass-vaccination programmes.
The CDC, the leading national public health institute of the United States, was central in the promotion of that vaccination programme : It is not unreasonable to question the integrity of the medical establishment.
“Either someone demonstrates that Western governments have got more trustworthy in the last 40 years, or I have every right to mistrust modern vaccination campaigns.”
If you read the link you provided thoroughly you could come to another conclusion which is that modern vaccines are a lot safer than they were 40 years ago and that the incidence of GBS which was rare then is even rarer now.
“If you read the link you provided thoroughly you could come to another conclusion which is that modern vaccines are a lot safer than they were 40 years ago and that the incidence of GBS which was rare then is even rarer now.”
I read it thoroughly. It tells me that back then, I couldn’t trust the government and the medical establishment to do look after my best interests. They lied to me then. Why should I trust them now when they tell me “that modern vaccines are a lot safer.” Are you claiming that Western governments have got more trustworthy in the last 40 years?
You don’t have to trust anyone, the evidence is there if you care to take the time to look for it.
“the evidence is there if you care to take the time to look for it”
provided by whom?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YCGMqp6kBE
Your silence speaks volumes, Kempe. What you don’t want to concede is that the evidence you refer to is provided by the government and the medical establishment, the same ones who lied to us about the safety of the 1976 swine flu vaccination.
This does not imply that all doctors are liars, any more than a broken manifesto implies all politicians are liars, or a paedophile cover-up implies all priests are guilty.
And it doesn’t imply that any given vaccination programme is harmful, just that it would be foolhardy to risk my health on the basis of your ‘evidence’.
My silence speaks volumes only of the fact that I have better and more pressing things to do. Off to bed very soon as I have an early (0500) start tomorrow.
On the subject of evidence where does the evidence you rely on come from if not from the medical “establishment” who are the only people in a position to collect and correctly analyse it?
My evidence is agreed by both sides of the vaccination debate. Quite plainly you haven’t even looked at it. You’re in knee-jerk reaction mode – protect the establishment . . . avoid the question . . . sow doubt . . . run away.
May we see some it? I was not aware that they agreed on anything.
The clip was from a CBS “60 MINUTES” documentary, the article from Wikipedia. How establishment do you want? Neither are friends with conspiracy theorists! Here’s the Washington post on the subject :
Michael Hattwick is the guy who informed the CDC of these dangers BEFORE the vaccine programme started. If you want any more evidence, check the history books. Gerard Ford re-election campaign was dominated by the bill he rushed through indemnifying the vaccine manufacturers.
@Node:
OK, (1) some vaccines do serious harm to a very small proportion of people. That is no secret, although anti-vaxxers always pretend that it is. (2) I’d be surprised if a large scale vaccination programme was introduced despite it being contrary to medical advice. Other than for the army or suchlike.
Medical science has come on a bit in the last 40 years, and so – amazingly enough – has government accountability. A bit, anyway.
Sorry, you will no doubt not agree, but I’m not going to “do” arguments against YouTube videos. It’s an incredibly lazy way to put your case. “Hey – watch this video, and then argue against them (even though they are not here). I’ll sit back and give you the thumbs up/down, depending on how well you present a defence.” If you have a case, please make it. References to papers or research to back your case are fine. Just referring to someone else’s videos is not.
In fairness to Scouse Billy – I told him all along I would not be wasting my time in responding to his interminable, wretched propaganda videos. It would hardly be OK to say, “Sure!” to you, carefully make notes, run around chasing up purported references in this video of your own, and then run back with my replies to it. Even if I was so inclined, which I certainly am not.
“Sorry, you will no doubt not agree, but I’m not going to “do” arguments against YouTube videos”
The YouTube video you dismiss so lightly is part of a CBS ‘60 Minute Report‘, recorded back in the day when it was a respected investigative documentary programme :
There is no dispute about the basic story (google “swine flu fiasco” for your own sources). The CDC steam-rollered the US government into a mass vaccination programme even after one of their own medical experts had advised them it was dangerous. A mass advertising campaign was launched to counter the many dissenting voices. Those who argued against it were demonised. The programme was cancelled after a couple of months when cases of neurological damage became undeniable. The US government admitted the causal link but dragged its feet over compensation while rushing through a bill granting immunity of prosecution to the vaccine manufacturers.
Yes, if you are determined to, you’ll find reports contradicting some of what I have said, that’s the internet for you, but if you’re objective I’m confident you’ll conclude that in this instance, the government and medical establishment abused the trust of the public.
Node, I cast no aspersions on what your source might have consisted of, merely that I would not entertain someone else’s YouTube lectures or whatever, as something that I should go away, spent time watching, make notes, come back and argue against their case – but in my reply having to provide full references, of course.
If you don’t see that as a textbook definition of “giving someone the run-arounds”, nothing will. Hey – go to the library, read every medical textbook . Take a medical degree and then come back to me and argue about it. Would that be ok?
I’m not even going to argue with you that mistakes have been made in vaccination programmes, while assuming nothing about this particular case. But you are appearing to argue that the entire principle of vaccinating is somehow to be drawn into question.
Do I think the medical establishment betrays trust, and is capable of acting in bad faith? Good God, yes! Look at how the medical establishment abused women in Ireland, in their unnecessary pelvis operations, to satisfy the perverted excesses of the Catholic Church:
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/symphysiotomy-in-ireland-compensation-092
Look at what they got up to in America, failing to treat poor black men with syphilis (but pretending to do so), in order to monitor its unchecked progress:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment
There are endless lists of reasons not to fully trust the medical establishment. Not least, it’s politically run.
But you cannot deny basic science itself, and claim that is a plot. The verifiable facts at each lead you to where you arrive in science, not scurrilous, world-wide mass hoax conspiracies.
*
Just to get the basics here, do you “believe” that vaccinations against polio, smallpox, typhoid and so on actually are some kind of hoax, totally unnecessary? That now we have ‘fridges, transport and running water, that all these diseases would have died out by themselves?
Do you also believe – as SB claims as personal testimony from a number of GPs – that the medical establish does really know it’s all a hoax, but they’re scared for their jobs?
I don’t bother with typos as a rule, because the meaning is usually obvious. However, I left out a word which made a sentence above a bit hard to follow. It should have been:
“But you cannot deny basic science itself, and claim that is a plot. The verifiable facts at each step lead you to where you arrive in science, not scurrilous, world-wide mass hoax conspiracies.“
@Node
Facts can be interpreted in different ways what your are presenting is just a variation on the runaway tramcar dilemma.
The brakes have failed on a tramcar and it’s going to kill five workmen on the line, by pulling a lever you can divert the tram onto a sideline where it will only kill one workman.
A doctor has six patients five needing transplants and one healthy, by killing the healthy one he can save the lives of the other five.
Both effectively the same dilemma yet people have different reactions to them.
In 1919 H1N1 caused the deaths an estimated fifty to a hundred million people, in 1976 a decision by someone in America caused the deaths of an estimated 25 in a gamble to prevent far more people dying yet the latter seems so much worse than the former.
Node, I cast no aspersions on what your source might have consisted of, merely that I would not entertain someone else’s YouTube lectures or whatever, as something that I should go away, spent time watching, make notes, come back and argue against their case – but in my reply having to provide full references, of course.
If you don’t see that as a textbook definition of “giving someone the run-arounds”, nothing will. Hey – go to the library, read every medical textbook . Take a medical degree and then come back to me and argue about it. Would that be ok?
So, you can’t be arsed to check out anything I say, but somehow you’re certain it’s wrong. OK, just so’s I know what I’m up against here.
But you are appearing to argue that the entire principle of vaccinating is somehow to be drawn into question.
Where? I categorically deny it.
Do I think the medical establishment betrays trust, and is capable of acting in bad faith? Good God, yes!
I have been arguing that it is not unreasonable to question :
(1) the motives behind mass-vaccination programmes
(2) the safety of mass-vaccination programmes
(3) the integrity of the medical establishment.
It seems we’re part way to agreement on point (3). My example (1976 swine flu fiasco) shows that the medical establishment knowingly endangered the public and luckily, since since you aren’t inclined to even check mine, both your examples demonstrate the same thing.
Betrayal of trust and knowingly endangering patients adds up to a lack of integrity on the part of the medical establishment. That some of the establishment sometimes behave like this is enough to justify my claim that it is not unreasonable to question the integrity of the medical establishment.
You can see where I’m going with this. Do I have to spell out my reasoning on points (1) and (2) as well?
I am protecting my right to voice reasonable doubts on an important matter without being shouted at for being anti-science, called a liar or a denier, accused of endangering poor little children, hating the medical establishment, and generally being scum.
You too Fred, are trying to draw me into someone else’s argument. I’m off out for the night now so I’m just going to repeat what I said above.
I have been arguing that it is not unreasonable to question :
(1) the motives behind mass-vaccination programmes
(2) the safety of mass-vaccination programmes
(3) the integrity of the medical establishment.
If you’ve got any argument with any of that, I’ll see you tomorrow.
Node: I’ve explained why I won’t argue against YouTube videos references very clearly. You can describe that position as “So, you can’t be arsed to check out anything I say, but somehow you’re certain it’s wrong.” if you like, but given my fairly comprehensive examination and rebuttals to fairly technical references, it is not a fair or truthful accusation. As demonstrated. Just in this thread.
Since we’re on the subject of your accusations, you accused me of using the term “denier”:
Bonus points will be awarded for avoiding sarcasm, mockery and use of the word ‘denier’.
Perhaps you should aim that particular charge elsewhere, and even look a bit closer to home.
I just ran a little stat-checker across this thread, and guess what! Here’s the number of
occurrences of the use of the term “denier” by individuals:
– Canspeccy – x15
– you (node) x10
– “anon” – x5
– Habbabkuk – x5
– Fred – x4
– Homeneara – x3
– Fool – x3
– Nevermind – x2
– Dreoilin – x2
– Mary – x1
– Philw – x1
– myself (glenn) – x1- but only referencing charges against me being a “denier”
– John Goss – x1
– Ba’al – x1
Stats speak so much louder than baseless accusations, wouldn’t you agree?
Node, 10 Feb, 6:22 pm; OK, if you think it’s reasonable to question those things, go ahead and research them fairly and properly.
For research to be fair and proper its findings must enable readers to assess the risks of each specific vaccine against the reduced risk from the target infection.
I think it is unreasonable to just fire off questions without such research because doing so amounts to spreading FUD – Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt – about a life-saving technique and the entire class of medical professionals.