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EYE.NET: .Sig Heil -- Canada's Ken McVay Battles Net.Nazis
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Date: Thu, 10 Nov 1994 01:13:11 GMT
From: eye WEEKLY
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ eye WEEKLY November 10 1994 Toronto's arts newspaper .....free every Thursday ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ EYE.NET EYE.NET
.SIG HEIL Holocaust revisionism goes up in flame wars
by K.K. CAMPBELL
It was 56 years ago today that Germans awoke to find the Nazis had spent the night terrorizing Jews and destroying property in something called "Crystal Night." It was a trial-run pogrom for the Holocaust to follow.
Once upon a time, net.news (the Internet's public discussion forums) was swamped with flame wars about the Holocaust. They'd be found anywhere -- in newsgroups like alt.conspiracy, soc.history, soc.culture.canada, misc.headlines, alt.individualism etc.
One of the most persistent Nazi-apologists, Dan Gannon (dgannon@banished.com), wildly spammed Holocaust-denying material, either not understanding or not caring about netiquette -- that is, you post appropriate material to appropriate groups. Thousands, from dozens of newsgroups, complained. Gannon's posts were bad enough, but they always brought rebuttal and endlessly repeated arguments.
Today, most of these debates are found in one newsgroup: alt.revisionism -- dedicated to discussing "Holocaust revisionism," the claim that the Nazi extermination of Jews and other distinct peoples is a "hoax" exacted upon millions of unwary non-Jews.
Anti-racist and anti-fascist online activists continue to track Gannon and his pals around the 9,000-odd newsgroups. One such hunter is Canada's Ken McVay (kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca). McVay, 53, came to Canada in 1967 from the U.S. and is now a Canadian citizen (holds dual citizenship). He's Canada's foremost online anti-revisionist warrior.
I've been reading his stuff for years.
TRUE COLORS
"When I first got started on this, everyone was sort of out there on their own," McVay told eye in a phone interview from his Vancouver Island home. "Almost by accident, working groups started coordinating their efforts." McVay works closely with Danny Keren (dzk@cs.brown.edu) and Jamie McCarthy (k044477@hobbes.kzoo.edu), among others.
The goal is not censorship. "I am absolutely, unequivocally opposed to any kind of censorship," McVay says.
This is a real shift in McVay's thinking. I vividly recall reading McVay his posts from about two years ago, where he'd vehemently defend Canadian anti-hate speech laws.
"I don't anymore. I think it's the biggest possible mistake." What changed his mind? "Dealing with these guys on a daily basis for over two years. Seeing how easy it is to shoot them down. And it is. The most intellectual among them are stupid and completely inept when it comes to historical research. And, of course, they are liars. That being the case, why on Earth would anyone want to shut them up or force them underground? I want to know who I'm dealing with. I want to know where they are. And I want to know how their minds work."
To see their true colors, McVay and compatriots badger and prod revisionists until they drop the scholarly pretense by, say, calling McVay a "Jew-lover" or complaining Hitler unfortunately missed the parents of some Jewish netter. It happens regularly.
"These online discussions are not aimed at getting Gannon and his pals to change their minds," McVay says. "That ain't gonna happen. It's to reach the rest - - such as the new users that pop up every September in universities and stumble on this stuff. Many don't know how Nazis operate. Most racists don't go around with a little patch on their shoulder proclaiming: `I hate Jews, or blacks, or natives.' But it's there. We work to bring it out in the open."
A.R. AS TESTING GROUND
McVay and company are working on putting together a book, a primer on Holocaust-denial techniques. (He hasn't approached a publisher yet.) You often see the results of this ongoing research in alt.revisionism . McVay chuckles about having rabid anti-Semites ever at hand to help write it.
"We throw out a chapter when we think it's done, content-wise. If the revisionists ignore it completely, then we know it's finished. If they respond, we say, `Ah! We missed that trick, calling a maple tree a Porsche.' So we add that argument in." A month later, they upload the chapter again.
McVay says the "classic" revisionist tactic is misrepresentation of text. Outright lies.
"They'll cite a historical text: `K.K. Campbell says on page 82 of his famous book that nobody died at Auschwitz.' Then you go to the Library of Congress and look up K.K. Campbell, page 82, and what you find he really said was, `It was a nice day at Dachau.' They get away with this because they know goddamn well most people don't have time to rush off to the Library of Congress. But people read that and say to themselves, `Who would lie about such a thing when it's so easy to prove them wrong? They must be telling the truth.' "
The years of refutation have resulted in anti-revisionists transcribing mass amounts of death camp evidence and testimony into computer text files. McVay saved them. Soon netters requested the material. It began to take up so much time, he automated the process. You send an email request, the computer sends you back the file(s).
The archive is now maybe 60 megs and may swell to over a gig in 1995. Write email to listserv@almanac.bc.ca with the message GET HOLOCAUST/INDEX -- you'll be sent a huge index of Holocaust files (other files, too, on fascist racist-right groups). If you like the convenience of gopher, check out jerusalem1.datasrv.co.il .
Revisionists often assert McVay "secretly" gets operating funds from Jews.
"I don't," McVay says. "The hard-drives are spread out on a table with a Canadian Tire fan blowing right at them. I can't afford to replace things, if it breaks, it's gone. However, I'm upfront -- if I get support money, I'll take it, Jewish or not. The fact that a Jewish organization would offer several grand to help wouldn't change the value of the historical data." He'd like to put it all on CD-ROM.
"The Internet has to be a revisionist's worst communications nightmare," McVay says. "They can't ignore it, because, as you and I know, in 10-15 years everyone in North America is going to read stuff through the Internet.
"And that's the beauty of the Internet: once it's refuted in an honest and academic fashion, you can't run away from it," McVay says.
When the latest revisionist recruit charges in with the same old pamphlets, it's almost effortless for anyone to request a file and reply: "We covered this two years ago. Here is the massive refutation of that so-called scholarly report."
It's there. For everyone. Forever.
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