On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 10:29 PM, K. Peachey p858snake@yahoo.com.au wrote:
Full Article: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1082777.html
It would be interesting if they did any research and published it, along with any arguments they might have for why they think something should be such. I'm not too impressed with the notion of sticking a label like "Holocaust-denier" on anyone, just as I would advise against using any other "denier" labels we might think of...
And the real point here is that someone like Mahmoud is not so much a "denier" as he is an 'Iranian conservative Islamic theocrat politician' who for merely geographic reasons alone, has to pander to the local anti-Israel blame-game. Just as Israeli hawks do successfully with their own pet issues. And moreover people aren't really ever "deniers" anyway, as much as they are just "people who reject certain concepts, for certain reasons," and "people who think and say really stupid things."
So anyway while the labels make for pleasant and efficient stigmanyms, they ultimately only piss decent people off, and demonstrate a concept of ill-will on the part of the labeller(s). And anyway it's more important to just accurately quote the idiotic things certain people like Mahmoud and others sometimes say, and let such speak for itself.
A label can be quite heated. And what more does one need to know but that heat is not light.
-SV