By Badger Herald Board of Directors

An open letter to the UW campus

By Badger Herald Board of Directors

Friday, March 12, 2010 1:03 a.m.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve wrestled both ethically and emotionally with our decision not to remove Bradley Smith’s Holocaust denial advertisement on our website. The advertisement, as this paper has stated repeatedly, is an affront to history, an insult to this campus’ intelligence and a veiled attack on the Jewish students who attend the University of Wisconsin. Given the nature of Smith’s website and its borderline content, we’ve debated in meeting after meeting whether to take the advertisement down.

We have decided to leave the advertisement up for the duration of its term, which will end on March 17. This paper defended the continued run of this advertisement on the grounds that this campus was strong enough and educated enough to expose such lies and do more damage to them than they could do to us. And this campus proved us right. The Holocaust deniers certainly made their presence obvious on our comment boards, but the student body was ready to combat their message and use the tools Chancellor Biddy Martin and the UW community has armed them with: The truth. To that degree, UW students proved us right — our community was rational enough to rebuke this alternative reality as it crept out of its extremist corners and into the light of day.

However, as this ordeal comes to an end, we want to make a few things clear.
More>>

Herald wrong in free speech argument

I had rather thought the story at UW-Madison was finished. Sunday last I submitted a Letter to the Editor for publication, thinking that after having been the target of so much scandalous language that they might, possibly, publish it. Doesn't look like it. Still, the Badger did publish an OP Ed by a philosophy student arguing against the Badger's free speech argument.

I think after all the heat a seven-word ad has caused at UW-Madison that some at the Badger would think that not publishing a letter by me and publishing yet another piece criticizing the Badger is a way to apologize yet again. I may be wrong. Anyhow, here are a couple paragraphs and a link to a yet another statement that does not address the issue of my ad, implicit charge that it is taboo to question any significant element of the Jewish Holocaust narrative.
=================================================

Herald wrong in free speech argument

By Max Manasevit

Thursday, March 11, 2010 12:03 a.m.

Michael Schwalb, b.1901; Rachel Brat, b.1910; Szlomo Gross, b.1920; Avram Curitki, b.1895; Chana Zommer, b.1915; Frymed Due, b.1896; Jchiel Rubinstein, b.1912; Eljasz Jurysta, b.1912; Podlaski, b.1942; Chaja Bialostocki, b.1919; Jakob Keitl, b.1884; Julijus Flachs, b.1904; Yakov Gelbert, b.1912; Mindla Polska, b.1904; Mosze Sztajn, b.1912; Rachel Grynszpan, b.1900

These 16 names are from Yad Vashem’s Israeli Holocaust Memorial database of Holocaust victims. In order to place a name in the database, the surviving family and friends of the exterminated must fill out a page of testimony. If the Holocaust did not happen, are millions of people inventing lost loves ones and mourning mere fantasies?

This is exactly what Bradley Smith of the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust contends. More>>

Demonstration Tonight (NYC)!

The Examiner (the NY Israel Conflict Examiner, to be exact) reports that there will be two demonstrations on Park Avenue tonight on the occasion of the annual dinner of the Israeli Defense Force at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The report mentions a demonstration against the IDF to occur on one block of Park and a counterdemonstration to occur a block or two up the street. The rest of the article is about the counterdemonstration, and mentions fully eight organizations taking part in it (e.g., Zionist Organization of America), and three luminaries, including our own Dov Hikind, who led the campaign to deny David Irving the means to accept payment for his books and videos over the Internet (all the organizations gladly accept your donations over the Internet).

Organizations behind the demonstration (remember the original demonstration? It's against the IDF and its recent despoliation of Gaza and the West Bank) are not named, and as for luminaries, how could anyone opposed to the IDF even be a luminary in the first place?

Two demonstrations. Don't mix 'em up.

U Wisconsin: Ethics, Journalism and Sensitivity: Initial debate

Ethics, Journalism and Sensitivity: Initial debate from The Badger Herald on Vimeo.

This video, produced on 04 March, is the full hour examining the academic defense of the taboo that protects Holocaust orthodoxy from a free exchange of ideas on the U Wisconsin campus. We will keep in mind that only those who profit from taboo defend it. Or?

Also -- I have not had time to watch this video. I would like to know if after all the complaint if anyone here addresses one thing that I have ever written or said and points out where it is wrong. I have not had time to watch the video that follows. I would like to ask the same question about what goes on there.

U Wisconsin: Ethics, Journalism and Sensitivity panel: Question period

Ethics, Journalism and Sensitivity panel: Question period from The Badger Herald on Vimeo.

This video, again, is the full hour. Take note of the scripted questions, the scripted answers.