--- Sponsor's Message -------------------------------------- Gator is FREE software that fills in forms and remembers passwords with NO TYPING. Plus Gator comes with $100 in coupons just for trying it! Fast download. Grab the Gator. http://click.topica.com/aaaavlbz8SnrbAjwjxa/Gator ------------------------------------------------------------ __________________________________________________________________________ The Internet Anti-Fascist: Friday, 28 July 2000 Vol. 4, Number 61 (#446) __________________________________________________________________________ Web Sites of Interest: United Against Hate Obituary: Bill Alexander -- British commander in the international brigades Book Reviews: Norman G. Finkelstein's "The Holocaust Industry" -- His people cast aside What's Worth Checking: 12 stories -------------------------------------------------------------------------- WEB SITES OF INTEREST: http://www.unitedagainsthate.org/ United Against Hate: A Campaign Seeking to Strengthen the Federal Hate Crimes Law On June 7, 1998, the dismembered body of 49 year-old James Byrd, Jr., an African American male, was found in a wooded area in Jasper, Texas. The assailants chained Byrd alive to the back of their pickup truck and dragged his body along a rural dirt road. When found, Byrd's head and right arm were missing. On October 12, 1998, Matthew Shepard, an openly gay 21-year-old University of Wyoming student, was savagely beaten, tortured, tied to a wooden fence in a remote area in Laramie, Wyoming and left to die in freezing temperatures. Since this grisly event, our national conscience has been shocked with wave after wave of hate-motivated violence. Some of the incidents have received widespread national attention - such as the death of Matthew Shepard in October 1998 - while others have not. Legislation, known as the Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA, has been introduced in Congress to strengthen federal law. Last month, the Senate passed hate crimes legislation in overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion. To date, however, the House of Representatives has refused to pass hate crimes legislation. United Against Hate is a campaign of individuals and organizations who recognize that while bigotry cannot be legislated out of existence, a forceful, moral response to hate violence is required of us all. We are children and children's organizations; We are young adults and student organizations; We are parents and we are parent associations; We are local religious leaders and we are national religious organizations; We are local community leaders and we are national civil rights leaders; We are workers and we are the unions representing working families; We are teachers and we are education associations; We are local and state police officers and we are national police organizations; We are local and state elected officials and we are federal elected officials; We are athletes, we are musicians, we are entertainers; We are Democrats, we are Republicans, we are Independents and other party affiliations; But most of all, we are voters who are United Against Hate. Tell Congress that the time has come to pass the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- OBITUARY: Bill Alexander -- British commander in the international brigades Bill Alexander: British commander in the international brigades whose concern for his fellow veterans outlived the Spanish civil war Richard Baxell (The Guardian) 14 Jul 00 Bill Alexander, the last commander of the British battalion that fought for the republican government against General Franco's fascists in the Spanish civil war, has died aged 90. Fifteen years ago, in October 1985, he was present at the unveiling, on London's South Bank, of a memorial to the more than 2,200 men and women who left Britain and Ireland to serve in the international brigades. The South Bank memorial to the volunteers is now one of more than 55 in Britain, many of which owe much to the efforts of Bill Alexander in his role as honorary secretary of the International Brigade Association, a position he held for more than 30 years. Bill was born in Hamp- shire, one of seven children of a rural carpenter. Despite a poor upbringing, education was encouraged in his family and, like most of his siblings, Bill went to university, studying chemistry at Reading. Influenced by his mother's free-thinking philosophy - and the sight of hunger marchers - he joined the Communist party in 1932. He found work as an industrial chemist, where, unwilling to be seen as "manage- ment", he repeatedly turned down offers of promotion - devoting his efforts, instead, to the Print Workers' Union and the party. He also took part in the battle of Cable Street, which prevented Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists from marching through the East End of London. In July 1936 came the Spanish civil war, an event that was to have a profound and lasting impact on Bill. Angered by the British government's duplicitous policy of non-intervention - Whitehall turned a blind eye to the huge levels of material support given to Franco by fascist Italy and Nazi Germany - he volunteered for the international brigades in the spring of 1937. Arriving in Spain soon after the murderous battle of Jarama, in which two-thirds of the British battalion were killed or wounded, he joined the newly-formed anti-tank battery, which was equipped with modern, high- velocity Soviet guns. Described by a comrade as "a strict disciplinarian, but fearless", Bill soon showed that his military efficiency matched his political resolve, and was appointed the battery's political commissar. This was a position of great responsibility and equal danger, for, in addition to being expected to lead from the front, political commissars were invariably executed if captured. Bill was cited for bravery at the battle at Belchite in September 1937; four months later, at Teruel in January 1938, he was promoted to captain and commander of the British battalion. The following month he was injured in the chest and shoulder by a bullet, adding another injury to the loss of hearing in his left ear, which had been caused by standing too close to one of the anti-tank guns. He was invalided home at the end of June 1938. Back in Britain, Bill continued to campaign for the Spanish republic, and was involved in numerous demonstrations outside the Spanish embassy. He also became Merseyside area secretary of the Communist party, which he remained until the outbreak of the second world war. In 1940 he was recommended by the "red" Duchess of Atholl for a commission at Sandhurst, where he finished top of his year. He served in north Africa, Italy and Germany, rising to the rank of captain in the reconnaissance corps, even though the promotion board made it clear they knew his history and political background. (Many of his comrades from Spain were not so fortunate, and suffered persistent discrimination.) After the war, Bill resumed his political activities in Britain, and, in addition to becoming Coventry secretary of the Communist party, stood unsuccessfully against Richard Crossman at Coventry East in the 1945 general election. From 1947-53, he was party secretary for the Midlands area, and, following a six-year period as secretary for Wales, became assistant general secretary of the party in 1959, a position he held until 1967. He later taught chemistry in south-east London until retirement. Between 1989-96 Bill was was president of the Marx Memorial library in Clerkenwell, London, to which he became a frequent and well-known visitor. The library holds the International Brigade archive, where Bill researched a number of works on the international brigades, including the official history of the volunteers from Britain and Ireland, British Volunteers For Liberty (1982), No To Franco (1992) and, with others, Memorials Of The Spanish Civil War (1996). He also wrote articles and letters challenging what he felt to be the mythology of the Spanish civil war. He was always strongly critical of the perception of the Spanish war as "the poets' war", and recently condemned Ken Loach's film Land And Freedom. He accused it - with some justification - of presenting a narrow and partisan view of the war that exaggerated the role of the British volunteers with the POUM (the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification) at the expense of the international brigaders, of whom he was justifiably proud. He once said: "I regard everyone who went there as a hero or heroine." In that view, he was not alone. For many years, Bill was tireless in his efforts for the International Brigade Association, which he ruled with a rod of iron. He represented the organisation at numerous events, and led a group of surviving volunteers and their families on an emotional journey to Spain in 1986 to revisit the sites of the British volunteers' exploits. (The visit was filmed by the BBC for a television documentary, Return To The Battlefields.) Bill regularly gave impassioned talks about the Spanish "anti-fascist war" and what he felt to be its lessons; the importance of "strength and unity". He always turned up with numerous pamphlets and books in aid of the International Brigade Association, which he would promote with unabashed alacrity. It will not be the same without him. Bill Alexander died as he lived, a deeply committed volunteer for liberty. He is survived by his wife Lena, and a son and daughter. William 'Bill' Alexander, communist and soldier, born June 13 1910; died July 11 2000 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- BOOK REVIEW: His people cast aside reviewed by Anthony Julius (The Times [of London]) 19 Jul 00 The Holocaust Industry By Norman G. Finkelstein Verso, £16 ISBN 1 85984 773 0 Norman Finkelstein has a simple thesis. The Nazi Holocaust has been hijacked by special interests; the memory of those who died is being exploited for wicked ends. "American Jewish elites" have set up the "Holocaust industry" to defend a predatory, oppressive Israel, and to blackmail German and Swiss institutions into paying compensation in respect of a largely fictitious body of "survivors". The billions thus extorted are then passed not to genuine survivors but to greedy Jewish bureaucrats who squander the money on suspect projects. They get rich at the expense of gullible, vulnerable Gentiles who fear bad publicity and are intimidated by accusations of anti-Semitism. The members of these Jewish elites care for nobody or nothing but themselves. Their avowed concern for Holocaust memory, Finkelstein remarks, is as contrived as their avowed concern for Israel's fate. Parallel to the activity of these fraudsters, and sustaining them, is the activity of writers and academics who have converted the Nazi Holocaust, which was one crime among others, into "the Holocaust", a unique crime. A specious victimhood is thereby conferred on the Jews, even though they comprise the most successful ethnic group in the United States. These fraudsters need to be unmasked, and Finkelstein believes that he is the man to do it. In 150 short pages he sets out to expose their machinations. If his indictment is a true one, it should prompt prosecutions, sackings, protest. The book shouts scandal. It is a polemic, communicated at maximum volume. The son of a survivor, Finkelstein repeatedly cites his mother as sanction for his own opinions. "In this book," he writes, "I attempt to represent my parents' legacy." His rhetorical stance is that of the Jewish prophet condemning the shortcomings of his own people. The question is: is he right? The book is, I think, a failure. It is a rant. Its arguments are overstated and simplistic. Finkelstein divides the world into nursery categories of the wholly good and the wholly evil. The vulgarity of his tone is matched only by the banality of his analysis. Finkelstein repeatedly displays an incapacity to recognise complexity of motive, reason or achievement. The people who campaigned against the Swiss banks for compensation, for example, cannot be written off as mere "hucksters". And the question that Finkelstein dismisses as "plainly unanswerable", namely, what constitutes fair compensation for Jewish (or other) slave labourers, is critical to any proper consideration of the claims campaigns. He dismisses anti-Semitism. In his view it barely exists and when it does, the Jews are blamed as the cause (and Jewish racism itself is "not far below the surface"). He mocks Edgar Bronfman for maintaining that it is not Jews but anti-Semites who cause anti-Semitism. And yet, Bronfman is right. What is anti-Semitism but the unjustifiable hatred of Jews as a people? What is more, even if Finkelstein is right that anti-Semitism is in abeyance (and I am inclined to think that it is), this is in part attributable to the efforts of the very organisations - such as the American Jewish Committee - which he disparages. Finkelstein ties himself up into knots on the question of what constitutes a Holocaust victim. He maintains that many claims by alleged survivors are fraudulent, either inflated or made up by people untouched by persecution. They were not victims. Nor were the Waffen SS buried at Bitburg cemetery. Finkelstein dismisses as "demented" President Reagan's assertion to the contrary, that they were "victims of the Nazis just as surely as the victims of the concentration camps". At the same time, however, he approvingly quotes his mother, whose credo was: "we are all Holocaust victims". This is in itself absurd; it is also inconsistent with what Finkelstein himself writes elsewhere. Not all revisionist (that is, Holocaust denial) literature is totally useless, Finkelstein asserts. And he cites the historian Gordon Craig's commendation of David Irving's work as an example. But this misses the point. Craig was praising (however over-generously) precisely that aspect of Irving's writing which cannot be characterised as "revisionist". This is typical of Finkelstein's method. He will rely on a quotation if it suits him, but will not take the trouble to investigate the facts behind it. If you only read one book on the Holocaust, this is not the one. On the other hand, if you want to commit the rest of your life to a study of the Holocaust, there are better books than Finkelstein's to occupy you until the end of your days. It is best understood next to Peter Novick's The Holocaust and Modern Memory (London, 2000); whatever slight merit Finkelstein's arguments have derives, when diluted and qualified, from Novick. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT'S WORTH CHECKING stories via <ftp://ftp.nyct.net/pub/users/tallpaul/publish/story6/> Paul Geitner (AP), "Contributions Slow for Nazi Fund," 28 May 00, "The German envoy to talks setting up a fund to compensate Nazi-era forced and slave laborers criticized the slow pace at which German firms were signing up to contribute Sunday, but said he remained confident the money would be raised. In an interview in the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, Otto Lambsdorff called for striking a clause from the law being drafted for the $4.8 billion fund, under which it would only come into effect once the full amount has been collected." <1539.txt> AP, "Southerners remember Confederate president, worry about future," 4 June 00, "He looked every bit the symbol of Dixie, standing there as he has for decades above the James River. His bronze face accepted men's salutes with a bold, impassive stare. Below lay the man he was meant to personify: Jefferson Davis. More than a century ago, in 1893, thousands followed the body of the Confederacy's only president to its final resting spot in famed Hollywood Cemetery. Ever since, sons and daughters of the Confederacy have dutifully visited to celebrate his birthday. But this year, the word on everyone's lips was survival. In May, South Carolina decided to take down the Stars and Bars from its State House Dome. And Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, responding to pressure from the NAACP, began to reconsider the state's tradition of honoring its Confederate history with an annual proclamation in April." <1540.txt> Zdenek Stefek (Czech Republic Communist union of Youth), "Creeping fascism in the Czech Republic.," 9 June 00, "The 'velvet' counter-revolution in Czechoslovakia began on November 17 1989. It was the signal for the restoration of capitalism -- 'wildcat' capitalism. In l990 a witchunt against everything progressive, and especially the communists, was launched. Discriminatory laws were passed which represented the onset of creeping fascism. Ultra-right organisations were in the forefront of the onslaught against the communists and democrats, and they have been supported by a repressive state apparatus and other institutions and individuals using illegal methods -- like the late Pinochet loving Senator Vaclav Benda, a Charter 77 'human rights' signatory and former boss of the interior ministry's unconstitutional 'Office for the Documentation and Investigation of Conmunist Crimes'." <1541.txt> Pamela Constable (Washington Post), "U.S. and Russia Agree: Taleban Must Stop Exporting Extremism," 7 June 00, "Russia and the United States, which spent billions fighting for control of Afghanistan during the Cold War, have suddenly found common ground in urging its strict Islamic government to stop spreading religious extremism and violence in South and Central Asia. The United States, which once helped finance and arm Afghan fighters against occupying troops from the Soviet Union, has for years accused the ruling Taleban militia of exporting terrorism. It has been pressing Kabul to hand over Osama bin Laden, the Saudi fugitive now living in Afghanistan, whom Washington accuses of orchestrating the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa." <1542.txt> Suzi Parker (Christian Science Monitor), "In New South, a bid to redress old crimes: Today's prosecutors raise the priority of unsolved cases from the civil rights era," 7 June 00, "During his law-school days in Alabama, Doug Jones remembers cutting classes to watch the 1977 trial of Ku Klux Klan member Robert Chambliss, also known as 'Dynamite Bob.' Chambliss was convicted for a church bombing in Birmingham that killed four black girls. But Mr. Jones, like many Southerners who came of age in the civil rights era, always thought Dynamite Bob had not acted alone. Now a US attorney, Jones reopened the case and is set to try new suspects." <1543.txt> The Mirror-News [U.K.], "'Racists Will Release Me'," 9 June 00, "Nazi nailbomber David Copeland bragged to police he would be freed from prison in five years, the Old Bailey heard yesterday. He said an extreme racist group would take power paving the way for his release." <1544.txt> AP, "Civil rights charges filed in 1966 slaying," 8 Jun 00, "The latest effort to seek justice for crimes dating to Mississippi's civil rights struggle involves a murder that authorities say may have been part of a larger plot to kill the Rev. Martin Luther King. Ernest H. Avants, 69, was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury in the murder of black farm worker Ben Chester White on June 10, 1966. Avants, who is white, was acquitted of the killing in a Mississippi court in 1967. But federal prosecutors, who claimed jurisdiction because the slaying took place in the Homochitto National Forest, said the jury in that trial was never informed that Avants had confessed." <1545.txt> Council on American-Islamic Relations (press release), "Terrorism Commission Proposals May Target American Muslims," 4 June 00, "The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today expressed concern about proposals contained in a report to be released on Monday by the National Commission on Terrorism that the Washington-based Islamic advocacy group says may be used to single out Muslims. Media reports indicate that the commission will call for having the military take the lead in any response to domestic terrorism, the relaxation of CIA and FBI restrictions on cooperating with criminal informants* and opening terrorism investigations, tighter controls on suspected "terrorist" fundraising, and the monitoring of foreign students in the U.S. (See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/articles/A58275-2000Jun3.html) <1546.txt> African National Congress Daily News Briefing, "Known Neo-Nazi Arrested For Shouting Racist Slogans at S. African President," 8 June 00, "A man believed to be a leading neo-Nazi was arrested Thursday for shouting racist slogans at South African President Thabo Mbeki during a visit to northern Denmark. Mbeki was not injured or in physical contact with the man, who was quickly overpowered by two Danish police and one South African bodyguard." <1547.txt> Christopher Bell (Huntsville [Alabama] Times), "Group waves Rebel flags, gives Klan-like speeches: Speakers at Decatur rally criticize minorities and the federal government," 5 June 00, "Members of a group called Southern American Heritage waved scores of Confederate battle flags Sunday afternoon in an event with the makings of a Klan rally, minus white hoods and a flaming cross. Several speakers, giving only first names, criticized the federal government and minorities. Others handed out leaflets promoting a Klan rally Saturday in Fort Payne. <1548.txt> AP, "Suspect Said Sought a Race War," 5 June 00, "Prosecutors told a London court Monday that the British engineer on trial for murder had hoped to start a race war when he planted bombs in minority neighborhoods and a gay bar, killing three people. The court also heard during the opening day of the trial that David Copeland, 23, made his nail bombs from instructions obtained on the Internet, and got the idea for last year's attacks from a 1996 bombing in Atlanta. Copeland pleaded guilty to manslaughter, but denied the charge of murder." <1549.txt> AP, "Ex-Trooper Pleads Guilty To Arson," 9 June 00 , "A former state trooper, who sparked an internal affairs investigation of a 1988 party at which fellow troopers wore Ku Klux Klan hoods, has pleaded guilty to arson charges." <1550.txt> * * * * * In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. __________________________________________________________________________ FASCISM: We have no ethical right to forgive, no historical right to forget. 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