* Two German vassals, President Johannes Rau and Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin, thought that "an overall tightening of laws against use of the Internet to spread hate" was in order. Having failed with direct censorship measures - such as the repeat direct attacks on the Zundelsite - Germany now calls for registration of Web sites and their authors. The use of drivers' licenses as a monitoring device has been suggested.
Meanwhile, the Zundelsite was featured again in prime time television broadcasts across Germany and Europe.
* Most American rabbis seem to be losing their touch. According to a study by Bethamie Horowitz, a social psychologist at Brandeis University, a mere 5 percent of the respondents reported that their rabbi had been a positive force for them. Little wonder, too, once one gets to know Professor Israel Shahak's books, like "Jewish History, Jewish Religion". These days, the poor rabbis have not much of relevance to fall back on, it would seem.
* A panel of senior British lawyers, chaired by Anthony Julius - he of the Irving-Lipstadt fame - advised the British government against the introduction of legislation in England that would outlaw Holocaust Revisionism.
"They (Holocaust Revisionists) are small, benighted people," sniffed Julius. "Their work does not represent a challenge to historians. They are few in number, and that number is not growing. The response to denial should be proportionate to its menace."
Julius added that Holocaust Revisionists "cannot be convinced of either the wickedness or the idiocy of their cause."
* Germany's justice minister called for global rules against hate speech on the Internet and urged stronger self-regulation by Web companies to beat racism and xenophobia.
"What is forbidden offline must be forbidden online," Herta Däubler-Gmelin told a conference in Berlin on hate speech on the Web, speaking of the need for a "global value consensus."
Rabbi Cooper of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, wails about an "explosion of extremist websites" in the United States.
He says in 1995 there was but one - and now there are 2,000.
"We turned to Germany to wake up American-based companies to the fact they had captured the niche market in hate," Cooper said. Those conquered, beaten-down German vassal regimes installed after 1945 come in very handy to restrict the freedoms even of Americans.
* For now, the US seems to have stuck to free speech principles, based on the First Amendment. Said Michael A. Vatis of the FBI's counter-terrorism division, attending a cyber conference in Germany:
"In the United States, we make a fundamental distinction between hate speech and hate crimes." Thumbs up!
* Rabbi Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center recently bemoaned the lack of online librarians ". . . to help readers of the disguised propaganda to analyze its veracity", according to a Los Angeles Times article. "We need to find ways," the rabbi opined, "not only of protecting our privacy but our very identity."
* To illustrate the "danger" of the Internet, the SWC tried to embarrass giant German media conglomerate, Bertelsmann, by using the company's very own Internet services to download "Mein Kampf."
* After making a few feeble speeches that it would not let itself be bullied, online bookseller Amazon.com has now quietly programmed its computers to reject delivery of "Mein Kampf" to addresses in Germany and the Netherlands.
* You will find this one hard to believe, but President Clinton - he of the stained-blue-dress fame - has issued an executive order forbidding "genetic discrimination" against federal employees. (!) Accommodating their president, Democrats in the House and the Senate have been busy proposing anti-genetic discrimination statutes, but neither bill has progressed very far in the legislative process.
* Only juries, not judges, can decide whether someone charged with a "hate crime" was motivated by bias and therefore should be given a higher maximum sentence, the Supreme Court ruled. This means that appointed judges cannot pander to their benefactors' wishes - as seems frequently now the case in Canada in politically tinged show trials.
* Helmut Kohl, former Chancellor of Germany, dreamed up for himself a story similar to George Washington's fabled cherry tree.
Kohl carefully perpetuated the legend that he kept on his desk two pens - one government-supplied pen only for official business, and a private pen he had purchased himself for his private correspondence.
Now what is that we hear of ". . . suitcases filled with dirty cash, funny-money bank accounts in foreign countries, falsified and missing documents, phone taps, kickbacks from ever-so-grateful Holocaust survivors, shady connections to arms dealers and influential German industrialists with unsavory ties to the Third Reich" - all having been benefactors of Kohl's party for decades? The old crook may well go to prison, which is where he belongs. He can join there thousands of Revisionists who ended up behind bars because of legislation his corrupt party enacted - grateful for the "donations."
* Guess who sits on the commission endeavoring to declassify documents regarding World War II? None other than Elizabeth Holtzman, a former Jewish member of Congress who gave the world the "Holzman Amendment" also known as the "stain on America's reputation" called the OSI. Holzman "doubts" whether the European documents can be finished to meet the congressionally mandated deadline. The commission has to deal with more than 600 million pages. So far, only 1.5 million pages have been declassified - all related to the war in Europe.
You can bet no documents related to Allied war crimes will be permitted to be released. Few other US Intelligence Services, including the FBI, have a say in the declassification process. Who wants to damage US interests by the release of these documents? Good thing that James Bacques, Alfred de Zayas and others have already published their books, exposing Allied war crimes that led to the death of millions ***after*** World War II.
* Here's one for "food for thought":
Ninety-nine percent of the seniors of America's top universities could identify profane adolescents "Beavis and Butthead" as "television cartoon characters," but only 23 percent identified James Madison as the principal framer of the Constitution.
"These students are allowed to graduate as if they didn't know the past existed,'' said Jerry Martin, one of the authors of this study.
As they say in computerese: "Garbage in, garbage out." Imagine that these students represent the leader class of tomorrow. You bet they'll know about the Holocaust!
* TNT, a major American network, has produced a powerful remake of the trial of Nürnberg, also known as Nuremberg. This mini-series will premiere July 16th and is reported to have almost doubled the numbers of Jews allegedly killed in World War II - from 6 million to 10 million. Revisionism - Hollywood style!
* The Germans have rediscovered an old song - their uncensored national anthem, known as "Deutschland über alles" It was forbidden to be sung in all its verses by the Allied occupiers because it gave the true geographic boundaries of German lands in Europe.
Now what to do? Many anti-German bigots wail that singing these century-old words is "almost like giving a stiff right-armed Hitler salute". Bundestag president, Rita Süssmuth, described the song's resurrection as "disturbing," - ever more so since ". . . top Christian Democrat leaders declined to condemn their colleague" - a southern German CDU leader who was seen gustily joining in the anthem at a student get-together.
* Americans are slowly being softened up through polls to let go of some of their precious "free speech." A Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center poll - don't you just love the name? - has found that ". . . it appears many Americans are having second thoughts about the First Amendment.''
Kenneth Paulson, executive director of the center, explains: "They treasure it as part of this nation's heritage, but they become uncomfortable when it allows others to speak out in offensive ways."
* A very disturbing development is being reported: The FBI has now begun training its new agents on politically correct Holocaust matters with the help of none other than Sara J. Bloomfield, director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League.
Discerning minds will want to know what a (501)(c)(3) non-profit organization has to do with political indoctrination of law enforcement officers to benefit the political agenda of special interest groups like these two Holocaust-lobbying organizations?
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Thought for the Day:
"I think that there is a need for the Left to look for new ways of making the past into a source of inspiration."
(Robert Evans - British historian and witness for the Lipstadt defense)