As many will remember - and as I have repeated many times lest history forgets :) - in January-February of 1996 the first global cyberwar broke out, with the Zundelsite right in the middle.
Chronologically the events, here summarized from memory and vastly simplified, went thusly:
* Starting in September 1995, Jamie McCarthy and others of Nizkor started heckling Ernst Zundel via insolent, pompous letters sent to the Zundelsite and taunting Nizkorite postings in various newsgroups, trying to lure him into the sewers of alt.revisionism for a so-called "debate" on the Holocaust.
* A number of letters went back and forth, where the Zundelsite argued for an orderly debate on the Holocaust via websites, involving serious scholars and researchers all over the world, and Nizkor argued for a loosey-goosey shouting match on alt.revisionism where anybody could participate and people could have fun ". . . with lampshades on their heads", to quote one of Jamie McCarthy's asinine letters.
* Thanks but no thanks! said the Revisionist folks. Mud-wrestling wasn't our style. Since we didn't budge, Nizkor reluctantly agreed with our plan and challenged us formally on January 1, 1996 to let the debate get underway via websites. Ernst Zundel was to be the collective spokesman for Revisionism, but many others would participate - at least that was the plan. It never came to that.
* Ernst Zundel sent a fax on January 5, 1996 to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, inviting them to participate in the debate. This was followed by a second fax on January 8, 1996. There was no reply - then or since. Meanwhile, I started moving heavy duty Revisionist documents onto the Zundelsite - tons and tons of it!
* Two days later, January 10, 1996, the New York Times ran an article about the horrid dangers of websites on the Internet giving voice to politically incorrect views. The Simon Wiesenthal Center followed shortly thereafter, as I remember it, with thousands of letters to ISPs and university presidents urging them to stop the heresy about to be revealed in cyberspace.
* By mid-January of 1996, a global cyberwar was on, with censors crawling out of the woodworks, ostensibly concerned about "pornography". Yeah, sure! Almost immediately, Germany started electronically inking out the Zundelsite portion of our Mission Statement, and shortly thereafter, 1,300 websites on our server, Web Communications, were blocked. This caused such a cyber rush to the Zundelsite documents that Webcom had to put on a throttle that permitted only 30% of the Zundelsite Internet traffic to go through.
* At first, it was vigorously denied by the Holocaust Enforcers that it was the Zundelsite that caused this cyberwar, but by January 27, 1996 in a global broadcast, the Zundelsite was mentioned by the BBC as ***the*** politically incorrect "culprit". (We first heard it from South Africa . . . ) Thus, yes, we take the credit: It was the Zundelsite that flushed out the so-called "pornography" Wiesenthal censors!
* During the first week of February 1996, both the spontaneous Zundel mirrors at various universities and the Blue Ribbons appeared in defiance of Holocaust Enforcer censorship, largely if not entirely led by a young, brilliant fellow named Declan McCullagh. (Later Declan and others were greatly annoyed that we took credit for the Blue Ribbons - they couldn't very well deny that website mirroring was done on our behalf! - saying that the struggle ***was*** about pornography and had been going on for quite some time, and that we took ourselves too seriously. Well, check the calendar. And let us wait and see.)
* Shortly thereafter, the CDA (Communications Decency ACT) was rushed and pushed through Congress - later defeated in the Supreme Court after a vigorous defense put on by a number of anti-censorship groups. Again, the claim was, as the name implied, ***pornography***. Ever heard about the Brooklyn Bridge?
* In August of 1996, the German government indexed 8 Revisionist documents on the Zundelsite as ". . . ethnically disorienting to minors" - to our knowledge, the first such attempt on the Net to designate Internet content "harmful" to minors. (Note: Not one of the documents was written by Ernst Zundel! They were traditional Revisionist posts such as the Jewish-Soap-debunking article authored by Mark Weber.)
* Practically simultaneously that summer, the Canadian Human Rights Commission swung into censorship action against Ernst Zundel and the Zundelsite at the behest of Canadian Holocaust Enforcer individuals and groups - the third brazen censorship attempt by Holocaust Enforcement Squads!
* In mid-December of 1996, the Zundelsite server, Webcom, was electronically "nuked" with 28.8 million e-mail containing three words: "Denial of Service" - 200 letters per second, for 40 hours straight! The anonymous electronic terrorists were never apprehended, but not a few folks wonder to this day why the attack was first reported to have originated out of Nanaimo, Canada - the "home" base (!) of the Nizkor folks.
Coincidence?
(The story later changed conveniently, and the attack is said to have originated somewhere in the East of Canada . . . and somebody's nose is still growing!)
So here we are - still in the midst of global censorship attempts. Since January of 1996, hundreds of articles have been written about the Zundelsite - and no end yet in sight. The Zundelsite is truly in the proverbial eye of the hurricane - and yet, where is the support for our struggle?
The randy fellows fuss about pornography. We have had next to no support at all from people who piously claim to be fighting hard for freedom of speech on the Net. Professional intimidators have done a good job, and people are clearly afraid. The Nizkorite shriekers and howlers have won. The original "fight-censorship" members, at first magnificent in their response on our behalf, have had their teeth pulled, one by one. It was a sad, sad sight to see - albeit quite predictable. Who wants to be called "Nazi"? Horrors!
It isn't catching, folks. Believe me. Nor are we dangerous. The censors are the danger. Find me a violent Revisionist. Go to the Zundelsite and read about the blood already shed, the fires set, the pipe bombs sent by censorship goons and enforcers!
Meanwhile, the struggle for freedom of speech on the Internet continues - still in the guise of, yes, (loud trumpets here!) ***pornography***. Where CDA I was defeated, CDA II appeared - a backdoor attempt at censorship where a front door assault didn't work.
Here is the latest update, written by Declan McCullagh, one of the truly magnificent original cyber warriors who came to our defense at first - but later cooled to us. I say here and now he is wrong. There is one - and only one! - issue that plays in this struggle for freedom of speech on the Net: ***That issue was, and is, Revisionism!***
Pornography my foot! Where would the little statelet be without the money flowing from the "Holocaust"?
To Declan and to others I say: If you value your freedom of speech, you will have to assist in our struggle. You have no other choice. The day Revisionism goes, there goes your freedom, too! Right down the cyber drain! Don't kid yourself that this is now, or ever has been, about pornography! Where were the Wiesenthalers when people needed them - what with all the Lewinsky filth on the Net?
Read on what Declan has to say, and remember that the ever so hypocritical ". . . harmful to minors" attempt was first imposed on ***us*** two years ago already - with not a peep from the tenderfoot ones with all their electronic wizardry and love for ribaldry but not the foggiest when it comes to the Stalinist grin:
3:00 a.m. 20.Nov.98.PST
US District Judge Lowell A. Reed Jr. is a
reluctant free speech advocate.
It took him all day Thursday to accept
that the CDA II, scheduled to take effect
on Friday, would have let federal
prosecutors punish any American who
operates Web sites with material deemed
"harmful to minors."
By the time he finally decided to bar the
Justice Department from enforcing the
law, he painstakingly outlined how
difficult his decision was. "The court has
and will give careful analytical deference
to" an act of Congress, he said.
Reed's reluctance is easy enough to
understand. In language sure to give
even the most steely-nerved judge the
jitters, the US Supreme Court has called
any court's decision to strike down an act
of Congress "the gravest and most
delicate duty that [it can be] called upon
to perform."
The rest of Declan's articles can be found at
http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/16387.html
and
http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/16370.html
In closing let me say that, even as I write this, I still remember that Declan once told me in a private conversation that he would speak up on behalf of ***any*** underdog. I took that seriously. I thought he really meant it. There are now hard feelings between us. Declan has carefully distanced himself - for he is young, and there is a career. I won't pretend it didn't hurt. It does. What we say as Revisionists is far more valuable than smut. Revisionists with pride and principles and need for dignity are being kicked around as though they had no feelings. Believe me we have feelings, too - for we are human beings.
I say it one more time: It's not becoming a democracy - and should not happen here. These things were said to have happened in Hitler's Germany to Jews, remember? Are we not constantly reminded not ever to forget?
Ingrid
Thought for the Day:
* "Zundel has won every case so far. Convictions that are overturned on appeal are no longer convictions - - they are history."
(Letter to the Zundelsite)