fake news?
-
Could you be right? Sure. Are you likely right? I doubt it. As you pointed out, there are two sides to every story (at a minimum!) So Amazon's side of the story is probably something along these lines: People (generally) don't know how to think critically anymore. A person can still be smart, but people (especially those in Amazon's first and presumably still primary market, the US,) are a rather ignorant and easily cowed lot anymore. If we (Amazon) offer to sell books that hold an unpopular opinion, we (Amazon) will most likely be seen to support that point of view. This will lead to loss of customer base, and lost revenue, which is obviously a bad thing. Any special interest group can go to Amazon and ask them to stop selling X or Y product for A or B reason. But being a business, they aren't going to do anything that negatively affects profits. Could they be bribed enough money to more than compensate for lost sales? Maybe. But could you imagine the even bigger hit to sales if that bribery ever came to light? I doubt there's enough money available in circulation to compensate for the precipitous fall Amazon could be subjected to for a misstep. Now, as to the Holocaust issue (I promise to keep this lounge worthy,) I am not a Holocaust denier. I'm only 31, so obviously I have no first hand proof one way or the other. I've also never met a survivor to hear their story, so no second hand knowledge either. However, it seems silly to deny that the Holocaust ever happened, given that it would require millions of people to have lied about what happened during that period (which borders on conspiracy levels of paranoia to think that everyone would cover it up...) I also believe that the motivations leading to the atrocities of the Holocaust are many and varied. I won't go as far as to say they were justified (because seriously, any grown person should understand that what happened was objectively wrong,) but sometimes situations get so far out of hand that it is beyond one person to correct. I'm glad that someone took the time to explore the issue from both sides and get it published. At the very least, understanding the reasons and motivations of the Nazi party will help prevent something similar from ever happening again.
Another thoughtful and considerate respond. Thank you. But again, as I have stated and implied in other comments, my intention was never to spark a political discussion. I am just coming off an intense refactoring session and am just blowing off a little steam. The honest truth is I simply needed an interesting diversion that will help me to relax, I inadvertently came across a blog commentary about Amazon and this led me down the proverbial rabbit hole. For the record, I have never and do not deny any of the atrocities that were committed in WW2. I am a strong believer in hearing both sides of every story and my curiosity leads me to read this particular book. What I find most interesting is some of the 'blowback' I have received so far and this is another of the points addressed in the first and only chapter I've read so far. I am getting the impression the issue is comparable to religious indoctrination and must never be questioned. If this is true, that would be a very, very interesting and telling observation. Cheers, Ian
-
I think the question was about amazon removing books rather than the Holocaust. Regarding the Holocaust itself, why are the 5 million dead Slavs never mentioned?
Thank you Matt. Nice to see someone who does not get his pants in knot and does not lose all perspective. I am starting to get a notion of what all the brouhaha is about just by reading the comments being posted here.
-
Hey, you're not even the real Ian Bell, so who are you to talk? But history, as always, is written by the victors.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
But I am the real Ian Bell. The problem was that there was already someone here impersonating me when I first signed up. I raged on for years about this with the CP editors but each time they simply told me to 'take a number' - please note this is 'fake news' and my statement is an outright lie. But I know if I repeat this lie long enough that it will be come a truth, so I persist in telling it. But really, I am as much an Ian as any Ian that you will ever see, hear or know about. Now would be a good time for you to push the big red button and say, 'next topic'. Cheers, Ian
-
I'm winding down on a big refactoring project and have had some free time on my hands. The question was, how do I spend it? Well, glad you asked! I've heard a lot about 'fake news' these days and I started digging around. One thing led to another and before long I came across an article stating that Amazon has quietly shelved all books relating to the Holocaust that do not promote the traditional view I learned. Low and behold, it was true. To find out what the brouhaha was about I looked for one of the books that was dropped. It is titled "Debating the Holocaust - a new look at both sides" by Thomas Dalton. To see what all the fuss was about, I found an online copy and started reading it. Well now, I've only just gotten through the first chapter, I must say it makes a number of very intriguing points, raises some very interesting questions but, from what I've read so far, does not offer anything that resembles 'hate literature'. I'll keep reading and see what else it offers. The question is, did Amazon cave in to 'special interest groups' and this is another example of how our civil rights and liberties are slowing being distorted and curtailed? Stay tuned, I'll let you know once I've finished the book.
-
You need to ask yourself why the Holocaust lobby exists, why it can not support literature that casts doubt on the Holocaust. At the same time ask yourself why the wiki article on the Holocaust ignores completely the 5 million Slavs who were also killed, or the gypsies, spaniards mentally handicapped gays etc to etc.
Munchies_Matt wrote:
why the wiki article on the Holocaust ignores completely the 5 million Slavs
Maybe you looked at the wrong wiki... Holocaust victims - Wikipedia[^]
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
-
The Zyklon gas chambers did exist, but were used for delousing and sanitary purposes.
Rewriting history there. Denying the holocaust is illegal here. You'd be saying that all the scientists, witnesses and archives were fake.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^][](X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett)
Eddy Vluggen wrote:
The Zyklon gas chambers did exist, but were used for delousing and sanitary purposes.
That's totally true - dead bodies are present a great sanitary problems!!! And my grandparents (Auschwitz, Dachau, Mauthausen) told, there were a large number of those...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
-
A great idea, but just not up here (i.e. Canada) and just now. Up here, the lakes are frozen over. But we always have a few who win the Darwin Award of the Year for not 'believing' a truck and ice house are not heavy enough to go through the ice. Cheers, Ian
Ian Bell, #2 wrote:
i.e. Canada) and just now. Up here, the lakes are frozen over.
In the Chicago area we had about 12 hours of ice fishing or so it seemed this year. Hell, in Canada I'd be out on a daily basis ice fishing if I could, and I have yet to go through the ice in 30+ years of ice fishing. :)
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment "Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst "I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
-
Now, really, was it? As for your other question, because noone's pushing it. How many people knows about Holodomor? There's a really big difference betweeen ignorance and outright denial.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
You gave the impression, by not responding to the OPs point, that you had missed it. :) Anyway, Holodomor, never heard of it, until now. These were the Tartars they wiped out was it? I heard they had ben targeted, didnt know the figures though. (just looked it up on wiki) As for the Holocaust, of course Hitler explicitly supported Jewish emigration to Palestine: Haavara Agreement - Wikipedia[^] Doesnt mean he was a Zionist per-se, but it does mean he didnt intend to kill them. So, why didnt it work? Read the small print: "The agreement provided a substantial export market for German factories in British-ruled Palestine" Right, OK, so the nation that 80 years earlier went to war with China so it could continue to sell its population Opium rejected the emigration of Jews from Germany probably because it would damage UK trade. In fact the general resistance to accepting Jews fleeing Germany pre WWII was high: Google[^] Patria was carrying about 1,800 Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe whom the British authorities were deporting from Mandatory Palestine to Mauritius because they lacked entry permits[^] more than 900 Jews fled Germany aboard a luxury cruise liner, the SS St Louis. They hoped to reach Cuba and then travel to the US - but were turned away in Havana and forced to return to Europe, where more than 250 were killed by the Nazis[^] The Abandonment of the Jews - Wikipedia[^] Things are never as black and white as history pretend
-
Thank you Matt. Nice to see someone who does not get his pants in knot and does not lose all perspective. I am starting to get a notion of what all the brouhaha is about just by reading the comments being posted here.
No worries, virtue is never as cheap as when accusing someone of being an anti-semite. :)
-
Munchies_Matt wrote:
why the wiki article on the Holocaust ignores completely the 5 million Slavs
Maybe you looked at the wrong wiki... Holocaust victims - Wikipedia[^]
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
Sigh: The Holocaust (from the Greek ὁλόκαυστος holókaustos: hólos, "whole" and kaustós, "burnt"),[3] also referred to as the Shoah (Hebrew: השואה, HaShoah, "the catastrophe"), was a genocide in which some six million European Jews were killed by Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, and the World War II collaborators with the Nazis.[^] Perhaps you should not try to evade the truth so desperately. Just google it: Google[^] I count 9 instances of the word 'jew' and not one of 'slav' on the first page returned. I think you get the point.
-
Sigh: The Holocaust (from the Greek ὁλόκαυστος holókaustos: hólos, "whole" and kaustós, "burnt"),[3] also referred to as the Shoah (Hebrew: השואה, HaShoah, "the catastrophe"), was a genocide in which some six million European Jews were killed by Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, and the World War II collaborators with the Nazis.[^] Perhaps you should not try to evade the truth so desperately. Just google it: Google[^] I count 9 instances of the word 'jew' and not one of 'slav' on the first page returned. I think you get the point.
You may got me wrong here... I just thought you missed it (as it is in a second level article)... I do not state that the Holocaust is a Jewish-only problem (actually the number of Jews killed is about 10% of all the dead)... I also do not deny the importance of those events to other people (Yad Vashem has a full section about non Jewish victims, and I used to read names on the Holocaust day several times, including theirs)... However it is totally true that I mostly learn about and speak about the Jewish aspect, as I'm a Jew... I of course can not explain why on the global level there are much more mentions of the Jews than the Slavs, where the number of victims are very same... Some may offer you a conspiracy, that may or may not be true, but I think it is more about the communist east that was created after the war... The regime was about the deny the past, so for instance the new Hungary has nothing to do with the one collaborated with Germany (it did not existed actually)... So any mention of the Nazi area became a taboo - either for good or bad, and all the Holocaust became a German-Jewish problem... As all the Slav areas in east Europe closed by the communist it may had the effect of silencing any true research and mention of their victims... On the other hand Israel was outside that territory so there people was able to write books and so, and the amount of publishing against the amount of silence created a twisted global picture...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
-
You may got me wrong here... I just thought you missed it (as it is in a second level article)... I do not state that the Holocaust is a Jewish-only problem (actually the number of Jews killed is about 10% of all the dead)... I also do not deny the importance of those events to other people (Yad Vashem has a full section about non Jewish victims, and I used to read names on the Holocaust day several times, including theirs)... However it is totally true that I mostly learn about and speak about the Jewish aspect, as I'm a Jew... I of course can not explain why on the global level there are much more mentions of the Jews than the Slavs, where the number of victims are very same... Some may offer you a conspiracy, that may or may not be true, but I think it is more about the communist east that was created after the war... The regime was about the deny the past, so for instance the new Hungary has nothing to do with the one collaborated with Germany (it did not existed actually)... So any mention of the Nazi area became a taboo - either for good or bad, and all the Holocaust became a German-Jewish problem... As all the Slav areas in east Europe closed by the communist it may had the effect of silencing any true research and mention of their victims... On the other hand Israel was outside that territory so there people was able to write books and so, and the amount of publishing against the amount of silence created a twisted global picture...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
What was there to miss? Sure if you dig you find the figures, but the prima facie fact is that Slavs (and other victims) are hardly ever mentioned. As to why, well Israel depends on the constant presence of the Holocaust in peoples minds for its continued funding and global 'turning a blind eye' to it's ethnic cleansing and theft of Arab land. At least that's the only explanation I can see for it. I question your figure of only 10% of the victims of the Holocaust being Jewish though, its nearer 50% as far as known figures suggest.
-
What was there to miss? Sure if you dig you find the figures, but the prima facie fact is that Slavs (and other victims) are hardly ever mentioned. As to why, well Israel depends on the constant presence of the Holocaust in peoples minds for its continued funding and global 'turning a blind eye' to it's ethnic cleansing and theft of Arab land. At least that's the only explanation I can see for it. I question your figure of only 10% of the victims of the Holocaust being Jewish though, its nearer 50% as far as known figures suggest.
Munchies_Matt wrote:
What was there to miss?
I saw there (in the link I added) a full paragraph about the Slav victims - that what I thought you missed...
Munchies_Matt wrote:
I question your figure of only 10% of the victims of the Holocaust being Jewish though, its nearer 50% as far as known figures suggest.
I included the solders too - while this is an other kind of loss they were human too...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
-
Munchies_Matt wrote:
What was there to miss?
I saw there (in the link I added) a full paragraph about the Slav victims - that what I thought you missed...
Munchies_Matt wrote:
I question your figure of only 10% of the victims of the Holocaust being Jewish though, its nearer 50% as far as known figures suggest.
I included the solders too - while this is an other kind of loss they were human too...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
Like I said, if you dig you will find the data, but it IS presented as a Jewish only event. As for including soldiers, since that isn't a racial extermination I wouldn't include them. (OK Holocaust isn't necessarily Genocide, but since it is THE Holocaust we are talking about, then race is a key factor since Nazis considered Jews, Slavs, Gypsies etc as racially sub human.)
-
Another thoughtful and considerate respond. Thank you. But again, as I have stated and implied in other comments, my intention was never to spark a political discussion. I am just coming off an intense refactoring session and am just blowing off a little steam. The honest truth is I simply needed an interesting diversion that will help me to relax, I inadvertently came across a blog commentary about Amazon and this led me down the proverbial rabbit hole. For the record, I have never and do not deny any of the atrocities that were committed in WW2. I am a strong believer in hearing both sides of every story and my curiosity leads me to read this particular book. What I find most interesting is some of the 'blowback' I have received so far and this is another of the points addressed in the first and only chapter I've read so far. I am getting the impression the issue is comparable to religious indoctrination and must never be questioned. If this is true, that would be a very, very interesting and telling observation. Cheers, Ian
Yeah, no, I got that. I was just giving my opinion on the topic. We're reaching a point where WW2 was far enough in the past that 'historical tomfoolery' is possible, since those that were actually alive at the time are becoming fewer and fewer. This is both unfortunate (reduces accurate accounts) and fortunate (we can begin to explore the situation from different angles without upsetting as many people.) I never thought about it from the angle of it being akin to religious indoctrination. As you say, if accurate, it would be quite interesting indeed.
