Censorship by Nizkor

The following note was appended to an item on the CODOH site:

CODOH Comment: This item originally appeared with a statement that the Usenet group to which it was submitted was operated by Nizkor, who “censored” the following material by refusing to post it. A spokesman for Nizkor brought it to our attention that the Usenet group in question is moderated, and that Nizkor has no connection to that function, and none to the newsgroup save the participation there of one or more Nizkor associates. In the absence of any information to contradict this reasonable explanation, we have therefore removed the comments regarding the alleged censorship. However, since the comments that remain are relevant to the subject matter of this section of our site, they are being retained. We thank Nizkor for the correction, and apologize for publishing the apparently incorrect information. Somewhat ironically, the word now omitted at the beginning of the subject line above is “Censored”. What can we say? :- )

David Thomas–1/6/97

With the passage of time and attendant experience, it requires this addendum:

Well, what “we” can say is that I have since had personal experience with Nizkor's self-appointed role as the de facto moral censor for Usenet newsgroups.

Nizkor maintains a file of alleged “liars,” “idiots,” “neo-nazis,” “haters,” “deniers,” and other scurrilous types whose sin appears to be that they dare disagree with Nizkor. Excuse me, I meant to say “absolute truth” which is what Nizkor holds itself either to represent or be, the distinction being at times vague.

Their technique is to monitor names on their blacklist for appearances in sensitive newsgroups where the danger is that the devious ones will express a non-approved opinion there and taint the minds of the ignorant lurkers. One of their associates will then come in and begin to pariah-ize the targeted person. This is done by sarcastic response to one of their posts, working in the previous buzzwords by connection to the post if possible, and if not, then by bald assertion. Their poison posts often end with a stock slander on the order of, “To see examples of this lying denier's tactics and real views, in his own words, see….(a listing of one to any number of URLs in Nizkor's hate files.

This has happened to me twice on the newsgroup soc.history.war.world-war-ii, once by a principal and repeatedly by an associate. When I complained that Principal's post was a pure personal attack that did not even bother to address my post, nor the subject matter of the forum, and was in violation of the posted newsgroup rules on at least three counts, there was no response from the moderators. I also asked if he didn't have some connection to the formation of the newsgroup and was getting special treatment, which was perhaps why his post quietly disappeared from the listing two or three days after my complaint. There was also no response to Associate's attack. He gave some appearance of responding to my post by contemptuously addressing a tiny part of the whole in a somewhat restrained version of his usual gutter level diatribes in alt.revisionism (he's fixated on anal references and sexual allusions for some reason) then launched directly into a lengthy DENIER! LIAR! HATER! routine ending in a Nizkor reference of proof, though they haven't been able to compile a lot on me as I've avoided talking to the creeps after finding out directly what they were about.

What's in their files are posts that people submitted to various newsgroups, not in their entirety, but selected based on their individual content, often accompanied by accusatory ramblings purporting to show via tortured logic that poor syntax constitutes a lie, that angry responses to baiting are proof of hatred, etc. The intent is to leave the reader with the impression that the person targeted is a drooling sociopath with swastika tattoos who would love nothing more than to participate in the lynching of a member of a random minority group, any group will do, although Jews are of course preferred by this antisemite.

The rationalization for this despicability is that they are just using the person's own “publicly posted” words and that the vilification is not only their right, but their duty, because the response of any normal person to someone who repeatedly rejects (their) truth and thereby proves themselves to be a moron is to subject them to public ridicule.

Well I beg to differ.

Taken literally it is the response of a bigoted boor (these guys would be a riot at a home for the mentally retarded, would they not?) and taken in its actual context it is the action of sanctimonious zealots who believe that their exclusive relationship with absolute truth somehow alleviates the fact that any normal person would look on this as the activity of a stereotypical aparatchik snitch intent on destroying what they deem as evil.

Bad is promoting and displaying hatred.

Evil is spying on people and keeping lists of their intemperate out of context remarks for the purpose of character assassination.

Nizkor does both, in a program that bears remarkable similarities to the methods used in Stalinist Russia during the purges, when millions of people were slaughtered based on distortions of the meaning of their words scribbled on grimy scraps of paper carried in the pockets of some of the lowest kinds of human scavengers that exist. I say scavengers and not predators because the dossier makers, the “sneaky little shits,” as Dean Wormer described one of them in Animal House, never have the courage to do their dogma enforcement, they either incite a mob or give their victims over to the authorities as proven heretics. Twain observed that every mob needs a half-man to lead it. In Nizkor's case a reduction of the fraction would be required, otherwise the description fits.

I'll close in a kinder tone, and note that the person registering the complaint did so at my invitation, and has shown himself to be the only person associated with Nizkor who routinely exhibits both honesty and honor. It is for that reason that the original note will remain. This general qualification was made on encountering my earlier words and being struck by how misplaced they'd be in many other instances, and the possibility that the original correspondent's remarks had at least some slight degree of validity given my own learning experiences since. And perhaps they don't, but I think this needed to be said in any case.

None of this, of course, affects the fact that the text of the published piece offers a valuable insight to the mindsets of supporters of the Holocaust religion, Jew and Gentile.

David Thomas — 7/7/97