Letters

[Please inform me if you do not want your name mentioned in SR. While I read every letter that crosses my desk, I can not respond to any that does not pertain to important business needing immediate attention.]

I just read David Cole's “repudiation” on the CODOH website. Instant reactions: You are quite right to be suspicious of the validity of the statement, given its source. If it is valid it probably reflects the fact that the JDL got David's home address. I wonder who got the “monetary reward”? Even other anti-revisionists consider the JDL to be thugs. Why in the world would David chose the JDL as a vehicle unless he was intimidated? He's smart enough to understand that. Even if valid, the statement is so abject as to raise doubts about the emotional state of the writer. It is short on facts and adopts the usual rhetoric of the JDL. Another Hoess “confession”?

Albert Doyle, FL

Congratulations on having the best Internet website in the world.

Fritz Berg, NJ

I am aware that some SR readers are sending your literature in the postage free envelopes they get with their junk mail. That is a good idea. But I suggest including your flyer in every piece of out-bound mail. In my business and personal dealings I have written as many as 99 checks in one month. At least half were mailed in stamped envelopes. I know this technique gets results. Recently my salesman expressed astonished amazement at reading part of your newsletter. Apparently the newsletter was shared by the entire office staff. It created quite a stir. The business is a large carpet wholesaler. The same thing happened at my lumber company’s office.

John Zimmerman, TX

After much on-campus and local-media controversy spurred by a CODOH advertisement in the Rice Thresher (11-21-97), I decided to find out more about CODOH for myself. I easily located the site and was impressed by the methodicalness with which CODOH presents its point of view. I was especially impacted by much clear-cut data against the widely accepted holocaust story in the form of pictures, tables, quotes, etc…. I now wonder about the widely accepted story's legitimacy. Beyond this, I absolutely agree that the story is at least debatable. With or without any constitution, speaking our minds will eternally remain an inalienable right. I will be a regular visitor of the CODOH site.

Carlos Mauricio Chacon, El Salvador

What I can testify to is the effect of yr continuing refusal to see “Israel” as not just related but the very Heart of yr Issue, making CODOH increasingly Cosa Tua, of every diminishing relevance (to me at least). The same, alas, can be said of Intellectual Freedom. There has to be a way to connect our passions, consistently, to the Overwhelming Question, or watch them dwindle to… hobbies, if not bees in our bonnet—No?

Tom Reveille, CA

I don’t know. I could say that the overwhelming question is: What is the overwhelming question? How do you know when you have found the answer? The question that is most overwhelming for me circles around the issue of intellectual freedom. Others feel overwhelmed by other questions. Each of us wants to live his life in concert with his deepest feelings. It’s clear however that nations come and go while the ideal of intellectual freedom remains what it is. Employed, it will destroy Zionism as we know it now, and it will destroy those elites who most want to destroy Zionism. It's exciting but probably impossible to imagine what would occur in the Mideast if the political and intellectual elites among Jews and Arabs both were to decide that intellectual freedom is the overwhelming issue of their societies and their cultures. When Israel goes down, will the U.S. Congress become the overwhelming question? If so, why isn’t it so now?