Smokey wrote:We memed a reality tv star into being president of the United States.
It's both cute and sad that you probably genuinely think that.
Smokey wrote:We memed a reality tv star into being president of the United States.
EAllusion wrote:Smokey wrote:We memed a reality tv star into being president of the United States.
It's both cute and sad that you probably genuinely think that.
DarkHelmet wrote:What I find funny is the "people voted for Hitler" memes are essentially saying Trump is Hitler. Maybe the Democrats created this meme, but I don't think they're that clever.
Smokey wrote:(A) Hitler = (B) Bad
so if they say (C) Trump = (A), it logically follows that (C) gets the daily 2 minutes of hate that you are expected to give (A).
These people can’t even articulate why you should believe (A) = (B), let alone why (C) = (B)
Smokey wrote:Leftist propaganda states
(A) Hitler = (B) Bad
DarkHelmet wrote:Smokey wrote:Leftist propaganda states
(A) Hitler = (B) Bad
That's "leftist propaganda"? It's the conventional wisdom of normal, decent human beings. But the right has never been a big fan of human rights, so take away the human rights abuses and Hitler maybe wasn't that bad.
Chap wrote:Do you think people really do have difficulty articulating why Hitler should be considered to have been, on the whole, bad?
They will explain it to you.
Smokey wrote:Who? People like Meyer Levin?
Are there really entries in the diary in ballpoint pen?
No, that is not correct. All the diary entries are written in various types of ink and (coloured) pencil, not in ballpoint. The document analysis by the Netherlands Forensic Institute showed that the main part of the diary and the loose sheets were written in grey-blue fountain pen ink. In addition, Anne also used thin red ink, green and red coloured pencils and black pencil for her annotations: not ballpoint.Nevertheless, the allegation can still regularly be seen on extreme right-wing websites and elsewhere that the diary of Anne Frank is written in ballpoint pen. Sneering remarks are made about “A. Frank the ballpoint girl”, and it is pointed out that the ballpoint pen only came into common use in Europe after the Second World War. The conclusion forced by this allegation is that the texts in the diary could not have been written by Anne Frank herself.
The origin of the “ballpoint myth“
The origin of the “ballpoint myth” is the four-page report that the Federal Criminal Police Office (the Bundeskriminalamt or BKA) in Wiesbaden, which was published in 1980. In this investigation into the types of paper and ink used in the diary of Anne Frank it is stated that “ballpoint corrections” had been made on some loose sheets. The BKA’s task was to report on all the texts found among the diaries of Anne Frank, and therefore also on the annotations that were made in Anne’s manuscripts after the war.However, the Dutch investigation by the Forensic Institute in the mid-1980’s shows that writing in ballpoint is only found on two loose pages of annotations, and that these annotations are of no significance for the actual content of the diary. They were clearly placed between the other pages later. The researchers of the Forensic Institute also concluded that the handwriting on these two annotation sheets differs from the writing in the diary ‘to a far-reaching degree.’ Photos of these loose annotation sheets are included in the NIOD’s publication (see The Diary of Anne Frank: The Revised Critical Edition, 2003, pages 168 and 170).In 1987, a Mr Ockelmann from Hamburg wrote that his mother had written the annotation sheets in question. Mrs Ockelmann was a member of the team that carried out the graphological investigation into the writings of Anne Frank around 1960.In short: the “ballpoint myth” is easy to disprove. The careless wording of the BKA report from 1980 – a report that for the rest in no way challenges the authenticity of the diary – or at any rate its openness to several interpretations, has taken on a life of its own in extreme right-wing circles.The “ballpoint myth” is based on the simple fact that, around 1960, two annotation sheets with ballpoint writing were inserted between the original pages. These texts were written by a graphological researcher, and are not included in any edition of the diary (apart from the Critical Edition, where photos of the annotation sheets are reproduced). In July 2006, the BKA found it necessary to state in a press release that the 1980 investigation cannot be used to call the authenticity of the diary into doubt.
Who claim that the diary of Anne Frank is a forgery?
Apart from a few deluded eccentrics, all the people (and groups of people) who seriously claim that the diary of Anne Frank, or parts of it, are a forgery fall into the category of Holocaust deniers.They are people who, by means of an attack on the diary, attempt to sow doubt about the fact that the Holocaust truly took place, that six million Jews were murdered during the Second World War, and that the Nazis ever built any gas chambers. They are people with a political aim: by denying or trivialising the Holocaust, they try to prove or make it appear reasonable that Nazism was (and is) a much less malevolent system than everyone thinks. Because it forms an accessible introduction to the Holocaust to people all over the world, and is often used in schools, the diary of Anne Frank is a popular target for these old and new Nazis.
Historical revisionism
Holocaust deniers – also called negationists – come in all shapes and sizes. There are some who wrap themselves in a scientific cloak: they call themselves revisionists or historical revisionists. Using pseudo-scientific arguments, they try to revise the history of the Second World War. One of the most widely translated and distributed revisionist texts about the diary of Anne Frank is the “study” by the French scientist Robert Faurisson, published in 1978 under the title Le Journal d’Anne Frank est-il authentique? (The Diary of Anne Frank: Is It Authentic?). Faurisson has repeatedly been sentenced to fines and prison terms for spreading the libellous claim that no gas chambers existed in the Second World War, and for incitement to discrimination and racial hatred.
Anti-zionism
Holocaust denial does not only take place in the western world, but also – and in recent years increasingly – in the Middle East. There it is mainly used as a weapon in the struggle against the state of Israel. Sowing doubt about the fate of the Jews during the Second World War, and proclaiming that the diary of Anne Frank is not authentic, is done primarily to ‘prove’ that the Holocaust is “Zionist propaganda”. In this way, people try to undermine the state of Israel‘s right to exist. In Iran, the denial of the Holocaust is even official state ideology, but in the Arabic world too – and increasingly in Turkey – Holocaust deniers are presented in the media as serious scientists. It is striking how many of the revisionist texts that circulate in the Middle East (on the Internet and elsewhere) are of European or American origin.