GRGR: Todorov and Buchanan on the Holocaust

[rj]

Dear Derek

I answered your misinterpretation of the reviewer's quote almost
immediately, by providing the full context of the sentence you had taken
umbrage at:

Tue, 21 Sep 1999 03:21:54 +1100
> "... The bulk of this superb book is concerned with Auschwitz,
> Treblinka, and the other death factories of Hitler's Reich.
> 
> "It would be a grave mistake, however, to regard it as merely another
> book about the Holocaust. It is far more than that -- and for that
> reason it is likely to provoke some distress and more than a few
> objections."

I assumed you read and understood this, because you did respond to it. I
followed this up with further clarifications and additional excerpts,
and an admission that I had summarised the review for the sake of
convenience. I found a brief biography of the reviewer and posted it to
demonstrate that it is highly unlikely that he is a Holocaust-denier, as
you had implied. Despite this, the steady stream of abuse and personal
hate from you has continued unabated.

I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you
misunderstood or didn't continue to read the review excerpts, or that
you got carried away and the reviewer and I became your scapegoats. I
don't believe you to be one of the minority of attention-seekers, bigots
and weirdeaux on this list, whose potshots and tirades are designed to
impede discussion or thwart the opportunity for a diversity of opinions
to be expressed. The abuse and insults do nothing for your case,
however, and make you appear foolish. 

This will be my last post on the matter. 


ps Thanks to davemarc and others for their coherent and considered
responses. I hadn't intended provocation with my summary of the review,
and do apologise for my negligence if I made it sound more controversial
than it is. I also hadn't intended to post quite so much of it as I did,
or disclose it over time, but found myself and the reviewer being
accused unfairly. I did misinterpret davemarc's bitter reminiscence of
the Iris Chang episode, and was possibly over-sensitive in responding to
his call for "more focus". As another poster did, I also began to think
that his request for the url of the review referred to that of
Buchanan's book rather than the Todorov one. In my most recent post I
was paraphrasing attitudes rather than citing attibutions, but the
methodical persecution of various academics in the last few years has
been both vicious and career- and life-wrecking for some of those
targeted. It became important for me to ensure that the mud being flung
didn't stick in this instance.

Now, let's get back to that competition to find the world's wackiest
phonetic misspellings of the names of oversized champagne bottles.
That's what we're all here for isn't it, and what GR's *really* about
after all? <joke>