for the List [was neo-Nazis on the Net]

[Paul Murphy]

Alan Westrope writes:

>OK, since you asked, I'll point out that Pynchon also has long-standing
>anxieties over free speech, as illustrated by his support for that other
>reclusive novelist who wrote, "What is freedom of expression?  Without
>the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist."

Is there not a difference between 'offend' and 'incite to acts of
violence'? Is there not a qualitative difference between Salman Rushdie and
the 4skins?

>Ah Canada!  Ah irony!  Freedom of Speech for the Politically Correct,
>Denial of Postal Service for the rest.

I'm no knee-jerk nationalist -- I revile Canada Customs' interpretation of
obscenity laws as licence to persistently harrass gay and lesbian bookshops
-- but here is where I agree with the hate-speech law. The issue is no
longer political incorrectness when it comes to Holocaust deniers and
propagators of ethnic or racial hatred; the issue here is political
discourse antithetical in principle to democracy. The sole purpose of such
speech is to consolidate and channel irrational forces dedicated to the
systematic denigration, if not outright murder, of non-'whites' (be they
Jews or blacks -- Zuendel and the KKK traffic in the same genre of hatred).
This speech is utterly impervious to debate, to civilized discourse, to
noble enlightened attempts to demonstrate the manifest falsehood of what is
being said. As much as I applaud the attempts of organizations such as (the
Canadian based) Nizkor to counter these forces of destructive
irrationality, it feels to me like a lot of wasted effort -- Zuendel will
never change his mind, and his minions are psychologically incapable of
listening to anyone other than him. (If you don't believe Zuendel has as
much power as Vaska and I have been attributing to him, I recommend seeking
out the documentary _Profession: Neo-Nazi_, which carefully documents the
ludicrous yet appalling appeal the man exercises in Germany. It's difficult
to find it because of its incendiary content -- the one time I saw it, the
Ontario public network showed it on the condition of there being an
extensive post-film roundtable with a representative from the Canadian
Jewish Congress present).

In short, you can imagine the ultra-right to be a bunch of harmless
crackpots entitled to their liberal right of freedom of expression, but
they are not harmless, and they are not interested in edifying dialogue.
(And the rec.music proposal is otiose -- alt.revisionism has existed for
some time; the aesthetic merits of whitepower music probably deserves
precisely one word of appraisal: sucks).

(On a personal note, passing Zuendel's compound on Carlton St. fills me
with such total revulsion, I feel like shouting obscenities out the
streetcar window. I've visited Dachau and Sachsenhausen, and have expended
considerable energy on trying to repress the memories of the Nazi's notion
of solitary confinement -- throw a living human into a hole in the ground
without food or water, then shut tight the hatch  -- and of the Nazi notion
of medical experimentation -- and of so many other things I just can't
articulate).

Regards,
Paul