A new David Cole interview and scrutiny of the middle ground
Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2025 6:35 pm
https://rumble.com/v3j5vxo-mirror-david ... ew-mp.html
I watched this interview which I thought was fairly interesting, not in terms of historical insight, but rather discussions of a middle ground position, between orthodoxy and denialism.
I've referred to the posters on this forum as revisionists, and they are in a sense, though it's also true they definitely deny the most important Holocaust claim, the killing of 5-6 million Jews. They go further than this (one could call Reitlinger a denier by this metric), basically saying that there was no organized killing program to speak of, rather justified and rather equanimous targeting of some Jews for purposes of partisan suppression. Germar Rudolf didn't deny any of the orthodoxy's claims re SS police killings in occupied USSR, but if I had to ping the "revisionist" members here how many Jews they thought were shot I'm sure none would go over a few hundred thousand, and none would claim this was part of a genocidal program meant to reduce Jewish population as an end unto itself.
The "middle" position, as practiced by Cole, and apparently Martinez is an adherent now as well (this is different from what I heard from him a few years ago), is actually mere degrees away from orthodoxy. It might be fair to call it a 5 or 10% revisionist position. They make no claims about any "unknown" mass resettlements. Cole denies mass gassings at Majdanek, but most historians take this view now as well. He doesn't deny gassings at the bunkers of Auschwitz or at the demolished Cremas. He speaks of the Hungarian Jews as a population that was transferred for work purposes, but apparently hasn't even read revisionist scholarship on this https://codoh.com/library/document/the- ... july-1944/ which has documents from Auschwitz reporting only 1/3 of the deported Hungarian Jews were employable, and that most of them disappeared (to which his own arguments about Unicornville https://hooverhog.typepad.com/hognotes/ ... -cole.html now apply).
Even the 5% revisionist position seems barely tenable, I don't think Cole or Irving or Weber or any proponents of that position have even responded to such criticisms.
So what can we say to the absolute revisionists here (who I will just call deniers for shorthand)? I think something to think about it is why so many people who are antisemitic by the conventional definition, already ostracized and denigrated by mainstream society are either 5% revisionists or have abandoned it completely. From what I've heard from people on the forum, the debate is totally lopsided, no reasonable person could ever view the orthodox position as having any legitimacy. I want to push back on this with the example of people like Cole (who produced more or less denier material as you can hear about in the interview) and especially Martinez who has actually received criticism from his audience for taking such a stance. There may be incentives for moving on from denial, but there are also incentives to keep practicing it, clearly there's a large audience clamoring for it, and these days expression is more permissible making it a profitable enterprise to be honest. So there's something amiss here that deniers should square with. The point I would make, is based on these facts, a neutral observer couldn't label the debate as being one sided, at the very least.
The one final insight from this interview are the areas where denial is tenable. It's clear that on the basis of witness, documentary, and physical evidence, orthodoxy is well favored (physical evidence you might be able to make an argument about but deniers haven't been able to answer elementary questions about grave inspections https://codohforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=107&start=225) So as Cole says what remains are questions of implausibility - the Germans couldn't have destroyed so many bodies so quickly, it would have required too much fuel. But as I've pointed out before, implausibility can also be leveled at the denier position - the ABSOLUTE absence of direct evidence for their claim of what happened "mass resettlement". And unlike, orthodoxy, no mechanism as been offered to explain this absolute (not partial) absence.
I watched this interview which I thought was fairly interesting, not in terms of historical insight, but rather discussions of a middle ground position, between orthodoxy and denialism.
I've referred to the posters on this forum as revisionists, and they are in a sense, though it's also true they definitely deny the most important Holocaust claim, the killing of 5-6 million Jews. They go further than this (one could call Reitlinger a denier by this metric), basically saying that there was no organized killing program to speak of, rather justified and rather equanimous targeting of some Jews for purposes of partisan suppression. Germar Rudolf didn't deny any of the orthodoxy's claims re SS police killings in occupied USSR, but if I had to ping the "revisionist" members here how many Jews they thought were shot I'm sure none would go over a few hundred thousand, and none would claim this was part of a genocidal program meant to reduce Jewish population as an end unto itself.
The "middle" position, as practiced by Cole, and apparently Martinez is an adherent now as well (this is different from what I heard from him a few years ago), is actually mere degrees away from orthodoxy. It might be fair to call it a 5 or 10% revisionist position. They make no claims about any "unknown" mass resettlements. Cole denies mass gassings at Majdanek, but most historians take this view now as well. He doesn't deny gassings at the bunkers of Auschwitz or at the demolished Cremas. He speaks of the Hungarian Jews as a population that was transferred for work purposes, but apparently hasn't even read revisionist scholarship on this https://codoh.com/library/document/the- ... july-1944/ which has documents from Auschwitz reporting only 1/3 of the deported Hungarian Jews were employable, and that most of them disappeared (to which his own arguments about Unicornville https://hooverhog.typepad.com/hognotes/ ... -cole.html now apply).
Even the 5% revisionist position seems barely tenable, I don't think Cole or Irving or Weber or any proponents of that position have even responded to such criticisms.
So what can we say to the absolute revisionists here (who I will just call deniers for shorthand)? I think something to think about it is why so many people who are antisemitic by the conventional definition, already ostracized and denigrated by mainstream society are either 5% revisionists or have abandoned it completely. From what I've heard from people on the forum, the debate is totally lopsided, no reasonable person could ever view the orthodox position as having any legitimacy. I want to push back on this with the example of people like Cole (who produced more or less denier material as you can hear about in the interview) and especially Martinez who has actually received criticism from his audience for taking such a stance. There may be incentives for moving on from denial, but there are also incentives to keep practicing it, clearly there's a large audience clamoring for it, and these days expression is more permissible making it a profitable enterprise to be honest. So there's something amiss here that deniers should square with. The point I would make, is based on these facts, a neutral observer couldn't label the debate as being one sided, at the very least.
The one final insight from this interview are the areas where denial is tenable. It's clear that on the basis of witness, documentary, and physical evidence, orthodoxy is well favored (physical evidence you might be able to make an argument about but deniers haven't been able to answer elementary questions about grave inspections https://codohforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=107&start=225) So as Cole says what remains are questions of implausibility - the Germans couldn't have destroyed so many bodies so quickly, it would have required too much fuel. But as I've pointed out before, implausibility can also be leveled at the denier position - the ABSOLUTE absence of direct evidence for their claim of what happened "mass resettlement". And unlike, orthodoxy, no mechanism as been offered to explain this absolute (not partial) absence.