BBC Salaries - progress

[ahinton]

I may indeed be 'wrong' ... that's perfectly possible even when I'm pretty sure I'm right ... but I do insist on reading "controversial" articles in full rather than selective quotes taken entirely out of context by opponents.

Fine in principle but which bit of "There was no holocaust (or Holocaust, as my computer software insists) and six million Jews were not murdered by the Third Reich. These two statements of mine are irrefutable truths" do you suppose might lead to a different non-anti-Semitic non-Holocaust-denying interpretation if read in the context of the entire article rather than on its own? Just curious...

[ahinton]

Well, thanks for that, Tippsy.

I'm amazed you seem to think your proudly-presented new evidence exonerates Myers

You and I both!

[french frank]

I really don't know how some people get their jobs - proven holocaust deniers are clearly totally untrustworthy in terms of having any relationship with factual truths.

However, sometimes one has to go back to the original before passing judgement. I suspect Myers was being a deliberate contrarian as some (!) journalists enjoy being. What he actually said was : "I'm a holocaust denier; but I also believe that the Nazis planned the extermination of the Jewish people, as far as their evil hands could reach." He was simply questioning the meaning of 'holocaust', saying the word could only be considered 'a metaphor'; and he questioned the fact that 6 million had come to mean 6,000,000 - no more no less ('efficient though the Nazis were, they were not so clinically precise as to kill six million Jews — not a Jew more, or not a Jew less').

That said, anyone who toys with these sensitive issues deserves all they get in retaliation. Stupid, stupid man. He got his comeuppance.

[Lat-Literal]

I may indeed be 'wrong' ... that's perfectly possible even when I'm pretty sure I'm right ... but I do insist on reading "controversial" articles in full rather than selective quotes taken entirely out of context by opponents.

As I said in another place one often has to look for oneself for the whole truth ...

http://www.fpp.co.uk/Austria/arrest_2005/Irish_Indep_220206.html

However, maybe it's also wise for me to now say no more on what is a completely different issue from huge salaries for a lucky few at the BBC!

Pedant's Paradise is no doubt often a wonderful place. However, if you or I were to write about a systemic state sponsored mutilation of all in Leicestershire sometime in a dystopian future in the terms that some of those who suffered merely had a few limbs hacked off and there were ten people from the county who were known to have survived the business, we would not be granted any sort of news space in the Irish Independent or the Sunday Times, both of which would "probably" still be in existence. There is then a reasonable expectation that professional journalists - and academics - would filter in at least a bit of intellect regarding priorities re priniciple and a sense of proportion. For what it's worth, the actual derivation of holocaust mostly concerns animal slaughter. Consequently it might seem on the surface to be an unusual word for anti-fascists to wish to use and protect but then it is also very considered because it emphasises two things. The treatment meted out to millions of unfortunate individuals and also the promoted attitude towards these people as being animal like which - and it may have been Calum who said this in a long lost day; I am not sure - has for far longer in history been the way to justify mass murder based in hysteria. Furthermore, what it isn't is, quote, "fashionable". It has been used to describe the events since the early 1950s. That is why it is important. It conveys the need for ongoing stability and security.

Certain words especially leap out in that article - "purity", the inversion of the Nazi's programme of racial purity to justify a daft questioning of the exact numbers of death - ie he says that the six million is not a pure number ; "probably" - dismissive in tone - for his idea that most may have been worked to death; the designed-to-outrage description of the gas chambers as "irrelevant", doubly dismissive almost to the point of "who cares?"; and the suggestion that Irving is generally reported as a "consistent" denier when the focus of the trial in the same year as the article was on specific offences in 1989. Irving admitted to being a holocaust denier. When the article was written in 2006 by Myers it was penned to refute that admission so it is an article that goes further than Irving did. The "academic" was, of course, still in short trousers when the war ended. The "journalist" was spawned after the war so neither could possibly know the facts from personal experience. So focussed are they on the lobbies for the groups of people who were facing wipe out and good states with considerable sympathies towards them, they tend to forget one thing. That is, many of us had non Jewish, non gypsy, non black, non gay, no axe to grind relatives who had to go in to sort out Belsen. They really must take us for monkeys if they expect that they can slip in what is really an early version of fake news and hope it will be accepted if it's served with fake hand wringing window dressing. Let me throw one into the equation. Probably most were not worked to death but murdered by being kept starved in insanitary conditions. That was what I was told anecdotally by someone who had merely been there and who had not spent half his life peculiarly poring over a few documents that had no personal relevance to him at all.

All of this arises out of a BBC that walks into traps as soon as they are laid out for them. Where are we on this now? Almost week three? It's a public relations disaster and someone should be taking the responsibility. A BBC that has until this point been considered by many on the right to be not sufficiently supportive of Jewish people in contrast with its painstaking way of trying to optimize other diversity. That takes some doing. I will give Myers that but only to the extent that I will now claim the BBC discriminates against London when evidence is to the contrary. Easy and trite. The fact that he has turned the gender debate almost completely on its head is not so original but its lack of nuance renders it as malevolently phony.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

However, sometimes one has to go back to the original before passing judgement. I suspect Myers was being a deliberate contrarian as some (!) journalists enjoy being. What he actually said was : "I'm a holocaust denier; but I also believe that the Nazis planned the extermination of the Jewish people, as far as their evil hands could reach." He was simply questioning the meaning of 'holocaust', saying the word could only be considered 'a metaphor'; and he questioned the fact that 6 million had come to mean 6,000,000 - no more no less ('efficient though the Nazis were, they were not so clinically precise as to kill six million Jews — not a Jew more, or not a Jew less').

Yes - the article seems to be about petty semantics and the "round number"; tasteless and trouble-making for the "fun" of it. One can see why it might appeal to anyone of a similar disposition.

That said, anyone who toys with these sensitive issues deserves all they get in retaliation. Stupid, stupid man. He got his comeuppance.

- and the "insensitive toying" suggests that his comments on two of the BBC's Jewish employees are motivated by other than "being quite complimentary". (And, if he could simply have substituted "Scottish" for "Jewish", we might (?should?) ask why he did not do so. )

[jean]

...Stupid, stupid man...

No, not stupid at all - he knew exactly what he was doing. There was no 'toying' here.

Look at his emphatic endorsement of David Irving in Scotty's link above. And if you need any background to that, read Deborah Lipstadt's book, or see the film.

[ahinton]

However, sometimes one has to go back to the original before passing judgement. I suspect Myers was being a deliberate contrarian as some (!) journalists enjoy being. What he actually said was : "I'm a holocaust denier; but I also believe that the Nazis planned the extermination of the Jewish people, as far as their evil hands could reach." He was simply questioning the meaning of 'holocaust', saying the word could only be considered 'a metaphor'; and he questioned the fact that 6 million had come to mean 6,000,000 - no more no less ('efficient though the Nazis were, they were not so clinically precise as to kill six million Jews — not a Jew more, or not a Jew less').

But this suggests that, whilst admitting to being a "Holocaust denier", he sought also to claim that the Nazis planned to carry out the extermination of the Jewish people (in Germany and wherever else they could) but did not actually do so.

As to his questioning of the notion of 6 million, no more, no less, it would not have mattered in principle whether 5.5m or 6.5m had been slaughtered at the hands of the Nazis because those Nazis would still have been guilty of mass genocide. As to "Holocaust" as a "metaphor", it might be argued by those whose pedantry exceeds their beliefs and their means of expressing them that, as 6 (or however many) million people - mainly but not necessarily all Jews without exception - were not actually all "burned" per se, "Holocaust" might not be the most appropriate or accurate word to describe what happened but, since genocide remains genocide however it's carried out, the gravity of what occurred at the hands of the Nazis would have been no less if it was called "the genocide" rather than "the Holocaust". The only conceivable excuse for being a "Holocaust denier" is therefore the pedantic one that the word might not be the most appropriate or accurate to account for the genocide that happened at the hands of the Nazis; however, Myers' "Holocaust denial" appears to be predicated not upon that but upon his unfounded and unevidenced assertion that the Nazis only planned this genocide but didn't actually carry it out.

[jean]

He's a David Irving supporter. There really is no more to be said.

[Richard Tarleton]

Look at his emphatic endorsement of David Irving in Scotty's link above. And if you need any background to that, read Deborah Lipstadt's book, or see the film.

Also read the book by Deborah Lipstadt's defence team's lead expert witness at the Irvng trial, "Lying about Hitler" by Richard J Evans (who was Regius Professor of History at Cambridge at the time). His book is a forensic demolition of Irving which left Irving's reputation, insofar as he had one, in ruins (except amongst the likes of this person, evidently). It's also a profound reflection on the study and practice of history. By coincidence I mention both books on Dave's new Books thread.

A brilliant film - the screenwriter David Hare stuck faithfully to the transcript for the courtroom scenes, as he explains in the foreword to the Lipstadt book.

Irving has not sued Evans, so far as I know.

[ahinton]

No, not stupid at all - he knew exactly what he was doing. There was no 'toying' here.

Look at his emphatic endorsement of David Irving in Scotty's link above.

At the risk of being pedantic, I submit that it was possible for him to be stupid by reason of doing stupid things but at the same time knowing exactly what he was doing - and his endorsement of Irving seems rather to illustrate that fact.

[jean]

Perhaps we need to define stupidity in some other place.

But no definition I know adequately describes either him or his pronouncements.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

At the risk of being pedantic, I submit that it was possible for him to be stupid by reason of doing stupid things but at the same time knowing exactly what he was doing - and his endorsement of Irving seems rather to illustrate that fact.

Exactly how I see the matter - a stupid "stirrer", using an historic abomination simply to cause "trouble", knowing full well that his behaviour is despicable, and feeling very pleased with himself.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But no definition I know adequately describes either him or his pronouncements.

- he gives "contemptible" a good name.

[ahinton]

- he gives "contemptible" a good name.

The cap certainly fits...

[french frank]

Perhaps we need to define stupidity in some other place.

But no definition I know adequately describes either him or his pronouncements.

It depends which aspects one is attempting to describe. A description may be 'accurate' without being a full or 'adequate' one.

Stupid in thinking he could get away with such comments for ever, but as Tippsy said:

However, maybe it's also wise for me to now say no more on what is a completely different issue from huge salaries for a lucky few at the BBC!

This was a diversion worthy of Tarantella …