From jamie@voyager.net Mon Jan 29 09:11:42 PST 1996
Article: 21929 of alt.revisionism
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!nntp.netrex.net!news.voyager.net!NewsWatcher!user
From: jamie@voyager.net (Jamie McCarthy)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: Unresolved issues for Mr. Raven
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 05:29:58 -0500
Organization: Absence Software
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jamie@voyager.net (Jamie McCarthy) wrote:

> ...I thought Mr. Raven might set aside some of the
> alt.revisionism posting time he apparently has, and address a few issues
> that remain unresolved.

[requests to address issues deleted]

> I warn Mr. Raven that these requests will not be forgotten, _especially_
> if he continues to ignore them.

Mike Stein commented in email:

>    A case could be made that Mr. Raven has implicitly acknowledged the
>request by explicitly refusing to honor it due to alleged "personal
>attacks."  This is, however, a claim which he has consistently failed to
>document with specifics, as alluded to by Mr. McCarthy in a part of his
>message which I have snipped out.

Mike, you are being scrupulously fair, as always.  One could make that
case, but it would ring hollow.

I see two possibilities:


(1)

If Mr. Raven is offended by "personal attacks" from me, and considers
that to be reason enough not to link to a document which I have
collaborated on, then I can only shrug helplessly.  He has always been
looking for excuses not to communicate with me, despite my telling him
repeatedly that I wanted to keep the channels of communication between
us open "by email, fax, snail-mail, or carrier pigeon."  The excuse he
settled on was a simple misunderstanding back in February 1995 that I
immediately acknowledged;  in fact, I had even _invited_ him to
correct me on the matter a few days before he supposedly became so
offended that he had to break off communication.  He stated that the
misunderstanding was only one of a long string of examples of my
errors that he could name, but curiously, despite my asking, he has
never named a single other error that I have made.

He is welcome to confront me with these alleged "personal attacks,"
and I promise to explain, defend, and/or retract each incident which
he brings up.  (Which is more than Mr. Raven has done for me!)

In fact, I have even corrected several things which I thought might be
offensive to Mr. Raven -- without his asking!  When Ross Vicksell
suggested that maybe my quoting Raven's line about Hitler was annoying
him, I looked it up, realized I had a few words out of place,
corrected them, and added more context.  (I already had a link to the
full context, so this was a minor change, but I made it nonetheless.) 
When Mr. Raven stated that the IHR's funds raised for their internet
projects were _not_ being given to him to reimburse him for his
web-related efforts, I immediately emailed him to say that I took his
word for it, and removed all references I could find that I had made
to his site being "the IHR-financed web site."  (I would have done so
earlier, if he had simply answered my request to disclose whether or
not he had received any of those funds.  I'd assumed he had;  I wrote
what I believed with links to my reasoning;  my assumption was wrong; 
I changed what I wrote.)

Am I supposed to somehow divine Mr. Raven's feud with me by using
psychic powers, and magically apologize for whatever-it-is that has
offended him?  If I knew what it was, I might even apologize for
something I didn't do, if it would only get Mr. Raven to discuss
cross-linking et al. with me!

Or, more likely, am I just supposed to shut up and go away, and stop
writing well-referenced, documented, fact-filled refutations of his
propaganda?

The bottom line is that professionals don't let personal tiffs get in
the way of their work.  But that is precisely what Mr. Raven is doing --
in fact, he has gone out of his way to invent a tiff (or inflate one
unreasonably) for precisely that purpose.


(2)

If Mr. Raven claims to be offended by "personal attacks" in the 66 QAR
themselves, he must have sharper eyes than I.  Here are _all_ the places
where he is mentioned in the 66 QAR (excluding simple references to
"Greg Raven's web site" and such).  I find no "personal attacks."

A few notes:  the underlined words are linked to the full context of
the quotations in question.

I realize Mr. Raven does not enjoy being called a Holocaust-denier (in
index.html), but that is a precisely accurate term for what he is, and
I have explained my reasoning for that term many times in the past.

The Hitler quotation in qar62 is demanded by the IHR's ridiculous
claim that "There is no correlation between 'Holocaust' refutation and
anti-Semitism or neo-Nazism."

The line in qar63 that "Raven is a former writer for stand-up comics
and automotive magazines" comes from the IHR's own biography of him
and from a simple search at the library (a search which I attempted to
confirm with Mr. Raven, by the way;  I received, of course, no
answer).

http://www.almanac.bc.ca/features/qar/index.html

   The pamphlet itself has been put up on the world-wide web by at
   least two separate Holocaust-deniers: Greg Raven, head of the IHR...

http://www.almanac.bc.ca/features/qar/qar01.html

   Ask the deniers why they shrug off the testimony of Franz Suchomel.
   Greg Raven will _tell you_ that "it is not evidence...bring me some
   evidence, please."

http://www.almanac.bc.ca/features/qar/qar02.html

   Holocaust-deniers often claim that they do not have to prove
   anything because, as they say, "it is impossible to prove a
   negative." Greg Raven has said this at least twice: once _implicitly_,
   and once _explicitly_:
   
      We also note in passing that they ask me to prove a negative,
      which is impossible.

http://www.almanac.bc.ca/features/qar20.html

   Try this experiment: 
   
      Email Greg Raven, the head of the IHR, at ihrgreg@kaiwan.com. Ask
      him:
      
         1. whether he thinks that individual acts of Allies brutalizing
         Nazis would count as evidence toward a policy of torture.
         
         2. what evidence he has to prove that "it was American,
         British, French, and Soviet policy to torture German prisoners
         in order to exact confessions."
         
         3. whether he thinks that individual acts of Nazis murdering
         Jews would count as evidence toward a policy of extermination.
         
         4. whether he considers Himmler's speech of October 4th, 1943
         to indicate a Nazi policy to exterminate Jews:
         
            "The Jewish people are being exterminated," says every
            Party member, "quite true, it's part of our plans, the
            elimination of the Jews, extermination, we're doing it."
      
      Send a Cc of your email to webmaster@nizkor.almanac.bc.ca, and
      ask Mr. Raven to do the same.

http://www.almanac.bc.ca/features/qar29.html

   if there are supposedly so many gases that are "far more efficient,"
   why doesn't the IHR just name some? Greg Raven was asked to do
   exactly this in on Usenet in 1994-95, but, after being asked many
   times, he was only able to state:
   
      Carbon monoxide would be faster than Zyklon B, for example, as
      would any of numerous nerve gasses.

http://www.almanac.bc.ca/features/qar39.html

   Perhaps Greg Raven, the head of the IHR, would like to explain the
   quotations below. When asked about them previously, he has always
   tried to change the subject and bring up gas chambers. But if he
   truly believes that "there was no deliberate attempt to exterminate
   anyone" -- period -- then he should be able to respond to these
   quotations without referring to gas chambers:

http://www.almanac.bc.ca/features/qar/qar62.html

   62. What about the claim that those who question the "Holocaust" are
   anti-Semitic or neo-Nazi?
   
   The IHR says:
   
      This is a smear designed to draw attention away from facts and
      honest arguments. ...  There is no correlation between
      "Holocaust" refutation and anti-Semitism or neo-Nazism.

   The IHR is currently headed by Greg Raven, who in 1992 _stated_
   publicly that Hitler was "a great man...certainly greater than
   Churchill and FDR put together...about the best thing that
   could have happened to Germany."

http://www.almanac.bc.ca/features/qar/qar63.html

   63. What has happened to the historians who have questioned the
   "Holocaust" material?
   
   The IHR says: 
   
      They have been subject to smear campaigns, loss of academic
      positions, loss of pensions, destruction of their property and
      physical violence.
   
   Nizkor replies: 
   
      Violence is a deplorable response to speech, of course, and it
      must be condemned.
      
      But still, what historians? There is not a single Ph.D.
      historian in the revisionist community. Faurisson was a
      professor of literature, Zuendel was a photo-retoucher by
      trade, Butz is a professor of electrical engineering, Staeglich
      is a judge, O'Keefe is a Harvard dropout, and Cole is a
      high-school dropout. Raven is a former writer for stand-up
      comics and automotive magazines.

http://www.almanac.bc.ca/features/qar/qar66.html

   Greg Raven's entire web site provides exactly zero links back to
   Nizkor, and Greg Raven has stated that it would be "illogical" to
   expect that he would provide such links.
   
   In addition to links to every Holocaust-related Internet resource
   that we can find, truthful or otherwise, we also archive Usenet
   postings by every major revisionist. Would you like to see all of
   Greg Raven's _postings to Usenet in November 1994_? How about his
   _views on Hitler_? Or maybe a discussion thread that he started by
   posting a _prepared piece_ on what Holocaust-denial is?

Posted and emailed to Mr. Raven;  cc'd to Mr. Smith and Mr. Zuendel.
-- 
 Jamie McCarthy          http://www.absence.prismatix.com/jamie/
 jamie@voyager.net     Co-Webmaster of http://www.almanac.bc.ca/
 Unless you specify otherwise, I assume pro-"revisionism" email
 to be in the public domain.            I speak only for myself.

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