Part 2 of 5 The McVay Files aka Re: Background info on Kenny McVay
Doc Tavish
CAVEAT: Numerous allegations made against Ken McVay are, to put it bluntly,
false. There is no evidence that he is gay or a male prostitute, for example
(!). He makes a lot of enemies on the Internet and some have limited
intelligence. They respond to his smears by smearing him back but not
particularly competently. Some post forgeries in his name, which means that care
needs to be taken to distinguish genuine McVay posts from fakes, although this
is generally not too difficult and all of the material prior to about 1994
appears to be genuine. Nevertheless, Ken is not an honourable, moral , or a
particularly competent man, and he has made several easily verifiable gaffes in
his life. Some are hilarious. Others are rather sickening.
5.1 Sexual sleaze
5.1.1 The Alice in Wonderland gaffe
In 1990 Ken McVay really did post the following to the Usenet newsgroup
alt.sex:83
From: kmcvay@oneb (Ken McVay)
Newsgroups: alt.sex
Subject: Erotic Lit. (was Re: sex ves. violence)
Message-ID: <2686f4a0-2.6alt.sex-1@oneb>
Date: 26 Jun 90 06:52:07 GMT
References: <137...@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <9655.2...@amherst.bitnet>
Lines: 8
Posted: Tue Jun 26 07:52:07 1990
>> restrictions are generally in force anyway. Aside from pornography
>> being deadly dull, it doesn't bother me.
I once enjoyed an exception to the 'deadly dull' rule - a delightful movie
entitled 'Alice in Wonderland' which bore an, er, superficial resemblance to
another movie of the same name....I've been trying to find a copy for years,
or at least to rent one....last time I viewed it was around 1983....
Bring on the Dancing Nurses! :-)
This may be found in the Google archives. It was posted before Nizkor appeared
and before McVay had made any revisionist enemies, so it is certainly not a
fake. It appears, from online film reviews, that the uncut version of this Alice
in Wonderland film involves a 'youthful' adult actress depicting a child
engaging in certain indecent acts, including, inter alia, a '40-second BJ with
the mad hatter' [sic]. (Apparently a 'very fat, naked Humpty Dumpty' also
becomes involved in proceedings at some stage - we will leave our readers to
speculate for themselves how a man who would have been married with children at
the time came to be watching this sort of thing in 1983.)
It should be noted that current Canadian legislation outlaws the viewing of
child pornography, which it (Section 163.1 of the Criminal Code of Canada)
defines 'child pornography' thus:84
1.In this section, "child pornography" means
a.a photographic, film, video or other visual representation, whether or not it
was made by electronic or mechanical means,
i.that shows a person who is or is depicted as being under the age of eighteen
years and is engaged in or is depicted as engaged in explicit sexual activity,
or
ii.the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose,
of a sexual organ or the anal region of a person under the age of eighteen
years; or
b.any written material or visual representation that advocates or counsels
sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years that would be an
offence under this Act.
(my emphasis)
It should also be emphasized that we do not know whether the version of the film
viewed by Mr McVay in 1983 showed the scenes mentioned above in their entirety,
or whether they were cut in the version that he saw, or whether Ken McVay viewed
the film in its entirety, nor am I sufficiently familiar with Canadian law to
know what restrictions on child pornography were in force in Canada in 1983.
Certainly, McVay appears to have been sailing rather close to the wind.
It should be noted, for posterity, that the Alice in Wonderland post was not Mr
McVay's only contribution to alt.sex.85
5.1.2 The 'I fail to see harm' in child pornography gaffe
In an interview with The Ethical Spectacle, 1(6) June 1995, Ken McVay
inadvertently admitted to downloading photographs of naked children from the
Internet and expressed rather unconventional views about it:86
I am weary of seeing the issue of "child porn" blown out of proportion (I've
been on and around the Net since 1988, and have yet to come across anything I'd
consider "child porn." I've seen photos of naked children, but then I've got
some of those in my family photo album, and fail to see the harm, or any great
moral danger to our society).
There are many campaigners against the exploitation of children who might differ
somewhat with Mr McVay on this particular point.
5.2 The 'anti-racist' who uses racial abuse
Although Mr McVay is often described as an anti-racist campaigner and a
campaigner against 'hate speech', there are documented instances of him using
precisely the sort of racially abusive language against white people that would
get him a jail sentence under the Public Order Act 1986 if used against a black
person in the United Kingdom. Specifically, Mr McVay is rather fond of calling
his debating opponents 'white trash'.
Thus in 1999:
'Vangel's just more white trash walking... cannon fodder for the William
Pearce's of the world, so don't be too hard on him....'87
The following year, Mr McVay gave us this:88
Only the bravest, most Noble Aryan Heros have the courage required to intimidate
women and children, Sara... the generic white trash we usually find spouting
racist drivel don't have the balls for it... after all, if they were men, they
wouldn't do things like that.
And in November 2002, Mr McVay did it again:89
'He has one thing going for him. He's a perfect example of White trash.'
In the normal course of events I would regard such comments as unremarkable.
However, when an anti-racist campaigner uses racist language, I think I am quite
entitled to point out the hypocrisy therein. After all, if anti-racists do not
take their anti-racism seriously, why should anyone else?
5.3 The man who gives advice on drug prices
In 1993 a gentleman posted a message to Usenet asking 'What is the street price
of pot?' Mr McVay provided the following information in a Usenet post to
alt.drugs:90
What kind? In this neck of the woods, hydroponic Indica is commonly sold for
$400 an ounce - some folks call it "green heroin." At the same time, it is
undoubtedly possible to purchase the evil weed at half that price
Whether Mr McVay acquired that familiarity with drug prices through work for the
Vancouver Police or as a result of criminal behaviour is unclear.
5.4 Willingness to engage in murder
Ken McVay has admitted in a Usenet post that he offered to kill his own father,
who was dying of cancer, and would not hesitate to do the same for his mother.91
The last two months, when the disease really exploded, he was ashamed of his
condition, and degraded by his inability to control his bodily functions. During
this period, he often spoke of suicide, and I often offered to help him, if that
was what he really wanted . . . I understand the concerns expressed over this
issue - many of them are valid and serious - but I believe that there are many
cases where the issues are very clear, and absolutely supportive of assisted
suicide. I would not hesitate to provide that assistance for mom, regardless of
society's position.
Mr McVay has stated elsewhere his willingness to kill people:
I am not a "group," old son, I'm just someone who has lived most of his life
with a clear and unshakeable vision of what the nazis did to the world. Am I an
"extremist?" If you consider that I would not hesitate for an instant to make
good use of my double-barreled 12-gauge to blow some nazi prick to hell rather
than sit back and watch him burn a church to the ground while beating Jewish
folks to death in the process "extremist," then I plead guilty. There will be NO
"krystalnacht" in this neck of the woods.92
Hardly the sort of respect for the law that one would expect from a policeman,
but quite the sort of thing we have grown to expect from the CIA.
5.5 The man who has a history of squabbles with other anti-revisionists
5.5.1 Cecelia Clancey/Mueller/Plechinger
Cecelia started off as a revisionist. She then became a very passionate
anti-revisionist and maintains an anti-revisionist Web site93 as well as an
anti-Ku Klux Klan site.94
She was always critical of Ken McVay and his colleagues. She described her
position in a long Usenet post dated 9 March 1994, an extract from which makes
it clear why she moved from revisionism to anti-revisionism and the nature of
her reservations about Ken McVay:95
. . . begining in 1990, I have been going to certain, let's say "experts" and
"tireless workers" in the areas of Holocaust education and memorialization to
ask what I can do and where and how for precisely this end. And I got
pigeonholed. I guess that anybody who happens to have a long and strong
REVISIONIST background, who has come to the opinion that she made a mistake in
disbelieving in gas chambers, etc, had already in her own, decided to give it a
try at believing in them to decide on more solid grounds than mere "speculation"
that it was true, and was asking to learn more and do more, etc.
But since, to my back not to my face, I was "not to be trusted" (at least this
is what I assume), I was never given the chance to learn, interact, etc.
So I one day had myself another Rude Awakening upon reading something by Lucy
Dawidowicz in which she misquoted a primary source (a primary source that I was
very familiar with) so badly that she made it apprear that the source was saying
the OPPOSITE of what she protrayed. UH, people have been known to get their
tenures revoked for such things - even when the mistake was not intended - maybe
a little "academic unfairness", but that is the way it works - ask Herb
Needleman here at Pitt, the lead industry tried to "persecute" him by making it
look like he fudged research data, but thank goodness the lead industry lost. So
if that was an unintentional mistake of Dawidowicz's, then I forgive her for
throwing me right back into being what Deborah Lipstadt calls "a committed
denier".
Well, a little later, IN SPITE of the "expert" Holocaust educators and
memorializors, I learned some things from some of the Jewish Auschwitz survivors
that convinced me that there really WERE gas chambers, etc. Other Revisionists
do not have to agree with me on this, but I do hope they will respect my having
this as my own historical opiinion. I have no intentions of shoving this down
other people's throats.
But this is STILL not good enough for the "experts" and the Ken McVays and the
ADL people, etc, etc. I guess my "failure" to want to be thier little Ex-Denier
Poster Girl or my "failure" to give them the name and address of every "denier"
I know so that so-and-so can be added to thier crap-list or to "confirm" every
pre-conceived notion of thiers of what terrible NeoNaziAntiSemites "the deniers"
all are was why I was "not to be trusted" while another Revisionist, Jean-Claude
Pressac, who like me also came to the belief that there really WERE gas
chambers, etc, is put up on a pedestal because he wants to destroy, utterly
destroy all of the people who "are deniers" and to "confirm" every last
pre-conceived notion that Beate Klarsfeld and Shelly Shapiro's got - be those
notions consistent with his Revisionist experience or be they very inconsistant
with it.
On 23 March 1994, Cecelia wrote:96
Ken McVay, If you were posting things meant for me to respond to, and I have
been ignoring you, it is because you have been in my local kill file for the
past few months. I will take you back out in a few minites.
By 30 March 1994, her frustration at her lack of acceptance was growing
strong:97
I too need to morn[sic] and grieve the Holocaust in company of other Holocaust
BELIEVING people just like you big bad Holocaust Heros and Promoters do. But no,
I am forced to face it all alone because your prejudice and discrimination bids
you to "not trust me" (Hear Hear, Ed Overman!!!) or to assume that "I am up to
tricks." Or that I am crazy - my assurtions that all Revisionists are not (and
do not want to be, but are being driven towards it by YOU all) Jew-Haters - are
too far beyong the realm of your own personal constructs of reality to be true.
You therefore deem ME delusional instead of yourselves. I know how to get some
people OUT of "deep denial" (the Twelve Steppers, Anna Freud's, and my use of
the term, not Lipstadt's or the ADL's hateful and derisive usage, which the ADL
STOLE off of me after I wrote the ADL in 1990 "a lot of Revisionists are just
simply in denial, not seething anti-Semites." See how they have twisted my
intended usage of the term . . .
ALL I was doing was trying to PUT AN END TO REVISIONISM, you idiots, but you
could not accept MY personal testimony as to what happens and does not happen
"beyond its walls" - but of course if Ross or Gannon DARED to doubt the personal
testimony of Elie Wiesel or Mel Mermelstein, then they are evil, but MY personal
testimony can be scoffed at at will by you Heros.
On 18 May 1998, at which point our Cecelia was Cecelia Plechinger, McVay made a
somewhat dismissive remark about her. When asked whether he knew her, he
responded:98 'I have never met her, but know who you mean. Are you suggesting
that you are not a liar because she asserts I label liars as liars?'
A few days later, on 24 May 1998, came the now famous explosion from Cecelia:99
. . . Ken, it is spelled "Cecelia" not "Cecilia." You and I go back to 1991,
before you founded Nizkor, Ken. You should know how to properly spell my name.
And I am part of the history of Nizkor, Ken, yet you pretend to have just barely
heard of me.
I sent you in materials and you used them, but did not credit me as the source.
These concerned much material on Willis Carto and some key information on Fred
Leuchter's patents, engineering ethics, chemistry (to refute Fred Leuchter's
claims) etc.
In fact, you ignored my material on Carto for many e-mails until one day, one of
them clicked something in you. *then* you posted a request to your
<hl...@oneb.almanac.bc.ca> mailing list (to which I was one of the original
subscribers) which went defunct long before the founding of Nizkor asking for
info on Willis Carto. Then after a while longer, due in significant part, to the
info *I* sent you on Carto, you then made him a very big project of yours, the
topic of a whole long FAQ even.
The stuff on Leuchter's patents also received no ack from you. Yet, one day long
past, I was browsing the Jerusalem1 server in Israel and noticed there was a
section on Revisionism there. It was mainly or perhaps solely a mirror of your
pre-Nizkor anti-Revisionist website. I forget what you called it. THERE, under a
subdirectory on Leuchter, was verbatim my e-mail to you on Leuchter's patents.
But the header was stripped off. See, Ken, you saw value in this information,
but you did not see value in me as the source. It was only after I complained to
your webmaster, Jamie McCarthy, that you revised that page to include the
original headers of the msg. For other e-mail msgs I saw on the Jerusalem1
mirror such as ones from Danny Keren, you left the headers intact. But mine? Oh
well.
And the chemistry and physics material I sent you to refute Leuchter's claims,
you totally ignored, so I gave up sending you additional material. Yet, later,
the same information appeared in your site with a Brian Harmon being given great
accolades by you for providing it to you. Brian did indeed provide the info to
you at a later date than I did, but it was the same info I had offered to you.
From Brian, it was not only worth your repeating, but you also saw fit to give
im credit. Yes, his was in more detail, but I think when he sent in the initial
stuff, you encouraged him to send in more, so he did. I was not so fortunate to
get encouraged.
Oh, and medical information I sent you to refute specific claims of deniers you
also ignored.
One time, I and Jamie McCarthy sent you material together (the I obtained
alone). This was concerning what "Murungu" means in Shona (a southern African
Bantu language - an Internet National Socialist used the nickname of "Murungu"
so that was why I offered to Jamie an explanation of what this word means).
*This* you put on your Nizkor site. But the fact that Jamie was the one I
approached with the info instead of you made a difference.
Jamie eventually resigned from Nizkor. It was soon after that that
soc.culture.jewish.holocaust went dead. Jamie was doing the technical work for
you while you over-moderated the content. Without Jamie's technical help, you
could no longer run soc.culture.jewish.holocaust, so you let it lie fallow
rather than let some other moderator take over to keep it active.
Recently, soc.culture.jewish.holocaust came back to life. And guess what. It is
back under the care of one or more of the original founders -- that is, the
people who ran it out of a University of North Carolina server before they no
longer had time to devote to it (and when you then took it over).
Why, Ken, do you treat me like such dirt? I think it had a lot to do with the
fact that I want to empower and enable people while you want to dominate and
control. And the fact my learning style is to get varied info from a variety of
sources rather than just mindlessly learn from just one (and one on your exact
wavelenght) has also a lot to do with it. And the fact that I do not want to bit
the head off of every Revisionist I meet or see has much to do with it too.
My approach is far different than yours. I seek to understand and elucidate
while you seek to punish and reek revenge. I seek to prevent future Revisionism
before it starts by elucidating *why* people become Revs in the first place and
providing viable alternatives to satisfy the same needs such people seek and
find in Revisionism. You, by contrast, seek to hunt them down, "expose" them,
discredit them and equate each and every one of them with hard-core Jew-haters.
I seek to humanize whilst you seek to dehumanize them.
Oh, and the fact that I know what Revisionism is (and is *not*) from the *inside
out* instead of from the outside letting my prejudices dictate to me what is
inside --- that has a lot to do with it too.
I was potentially a very valuable resource to you, Ken. But you did not want
elucidation and alternatives and causes of Rev that do not fit your preconceived
notions.
(According to you, each and every person who becomes a Rev does so out of evil
motives, specifically, Jew-hating motives -- but I posited motives like trying
to find relief from a Shoah that is too hard to bear and further posited that
Germans both American-born and European-born are at much greater risk to become
Rev's due to a need to seek shelter from the guilt -- guilt which is big enought
as it is, but gets amplified further by anti-German bigots. THIS vital info YOU
did not want to HEAR.)
If I had offered to name you names of all the in-the-closet Revs I knew and to
give you private personal information on the publicly-Revisionist people I know
(I mean information they would want kept private), maybe then you would have
seen me as a valuable resource, Ken. But this too is not my style. I would
relate other Revisionist's experiences to you but with all identifying
information expunged. You did not like that Ken. Names, addresses, employers you
would have wanted. Traumatic anti-German childhood and young adult experiences
you did not want.
Along the same lines, you once put out a call for any information anybody knows
about Arthur Butz (a Revisionist who is also an engineering prof). I offered you
lots of info about what he has done engineering-wise and professor-wise. I also
has publicly-available family background info to submit once I saw how you
responded to the engineering and professor info. But you just e-mailed me back
with a rude letter saying you are not interested in the engineering aspects of
Butz. See, Ken, you only wanted DIRT on Butz. You did not want NORMAL
information that is essential for a full and complete understanding of Arthur
Robert Butz.
Interestingly enough, I later read Deborah Lipstadt's chapter on Butz in her
_Denying the Holocaust_. Some of it was *wrong.* The correct info was in the
stuff I sent you and you pooh-poohed and in the stuff I was waiting to send you,
but did not. Seems like Lipstadt would have been interested in seeing the stuff
*before* her book went to press -- it would have saved her errors.
Have you been in contact with Lipstadt as she as still working on _Denying the
Holocaust_, Ken? See now how you could have received all the info I had on Butz
(not just the dirt) and then alerted Lipstadt about it. Lipstadt could have then
contacted me (that is, if you would have been decent enough to credit me as the
source) and seen what I had for herself and then go and review the direct
sources from whence I got the info in the first place. These were not insider
Revisionist sources. These were publicly available sources. She could then have
written the final draft of _Denying_ to reflect this all. Now, she has gone on
record as making some basic errors on basic biographical info on not only Butz,
but also on App (to whom she also devotes a whole chapter).
I then e-mailed you for advice on how I correct these errors without making
Deborah Lipstadt sound foolish. You pooh-poohed the notion that I could be right
and Lipstadt be wrong. To bad, Ken.
Actually I was wrong to have ever tried to seek such advice from you in the
first place. I already knew what you were like, but at the time, you were for
all practical purposes, all I had.
So, you unilaterally decided that my massive, but "normal" information on Butz
was not worth knowing and not worth passing on to scholars researching Holocaust
denial. But, I suppose, in addtion to thinking you speak for each and every
participant of <can.politics, van.general, can.general, and bc.general> (such as
by posting "Knoll speaks for none of us" with the "us" meaning all the
participants of the said NGs), you think can speak for Lipstadt and also but
make her decisions for her. Too bad.
So I had little value to you, Ken. Too bad. What I know, in the right hands, is
invaluable for the very same "combat the Holocaust deniers" work you so
sincerely and diligently devote yourself to. But you methodology is so different
from mine that I even had to put your phrase "combat the Holocaust deniers" in
quote marks because it is so different from what I feel when I think of reducing
the phenonomon of Holocaust denial. I do not want to "combat" Holocaust deniers
who are sincere disbelievers of the Shoah. I just want to provide viable
alternatives and to combat the *causes* of people seeking solace or an outlet in
Revisionism.
Thanks to people like you, Ken, there is at this time a dire poverty of viable
alternatives to Revisionism. Thanks to you and your ilk, people like me and
Werner Knoll are faced with two extremes -- yours (which actually deserves the
label "Holocaust Lobby") and radical Revisionism's.
At the very same time you and your ilk seek to suppress the truth about why we
turn to Rev, some of those who run radical Revisionism (Carto, Mark Weber, Hans
Schmidt) understand *very well* the needs of people like me, Werner Knoll,
hundreds of thousands of American and Canadian Germans to include Ernst Zu"ndel.
And they meet our needs and lure us into Revisionism (Zu"ndel was so lured in
Toronto years ago) with these met needs. Once there, an effort is on to lure us
into hard-core Jew-hating circles (they so lured Zu"ndel).
With me, all the further they got me was Revisionism. The "Holocaust Lobby" then
did much to drive me towards hard-core Nazism. It is only to my credit I did not
go. Don't say if I resisted anybody could. I am made of some pretty tough stuff.
If most people, including Ken, were subjected to what "the Holocaust Lobby"
subjected me to since 1990 when I first "came out," they would be neo-Nazis.
Like I said, this included Ken. I will not say all the things they put me
through here. Maybe I will publicly say it another time or in another venue and
maybe I will not.
With Werner, I cannot tell from just the few posts I read if he had been lured
as far as actually into Revisionism or not. But I can see that he is "at risk."
But Ken, with your posts, you are increasing the risk. "At risk" does not mean
"evil" either, Ken. Do not blame the victims. We too are victims and survivors
of the Shoah.
And I myself am also a victim from a Jewish point of view, Ken. But you were so
busy trashing me the ways the Germans part of my heritage made me 'at risk' that
you never even let me tell you I am also Jewish and very much like a Hidden
Child first generation Jewish Shoah survivor and very much like a Second
Generation Jewish Shoah survivor. It is your own prejudice which did not let you
see THESE traits in me, Ken. That plus the fact you are a Goy. The JEWISH rage
in me never spoken about a huge portion of my people cut off, my JEWISH
mourning, you never heard. Had I gotten a different e-mail account and showed
you the Jewish rage and mourning within me, you would have liked that other
persona, huh, Ken.
But stuff like this (stated before the above paragraph) Ken, you do not want to
hear because according to your preconceived notions, we START OUT AS hard-core
Jew-haters and then pretend to be like normal people to assimilate out and
infiltrate normal society to inject our poison into it with our "tricks of the
deniers." This is actually true for some people who *claim* to be Revisionists
such as Willis Carto. But for many of us, the exact percentage I do not know due
to lack of formal academic studies I would like to see done, the truth is just
the opposite of what you presuppose.
Lots of people start off with a pre-conceived notion, Ken, including myself. But
real scholars and real researchers and real advocates do not selectively cleave
to or selectively ignore new information that confirms or denies respectively
our preconceived notions and initial hypotheses. (If you are such a great and
wonderful real researcher and educator of the Shoah, Ken, then how come you did
not last very long on the academic holocaus mailing list on a server at the
University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), where many real Shoah scholars and many
real Shoah survivors participated? (The list is now called <holocaust> and is on
a different server.) Either you got unsubscribed by the owners or you
unsubscribed yourself in disgust that that real Shoah scholarship forum did not
gobble up your polemics.
But you refuse to see many of the critical points I make in this post. You have
seen most of them in the 1991 to 1997 timespan (with a gap) many times, so you
have had opportunity to consider them. And due to your refusal, you actually
drive more people into Revisionism or deeper into Revisionism or into hard-core
Jew-hatred with the very efforts you expend to "combat the Holocast
deniers/neo-Nazis."
Such is a travesty. But such is also reality. People like you are part of the
real world we all have to deal with.
Cecelia Plechinger
In another, less well known post on the same day,100 she said:
Ken, in other NGs, you tried and perhaps still try (I have not visited
alt.revisionism and such in quite a while) to appoint yourself as the
spokesperson for all "correct" Shoah education, research, advocacy, and such.
Yet, you represent only a portion of all Shoah educators, researchers,
advocates, etc.
However, Ken, we are a varied bunch, Ken. You do not speak for all of us, yet
you put yourself forth as doing so.
Notice I said you do not speak for *all* of us. You do indeed speak for and
reflect the views and methods of *some* people who are in the Shoah ed,
research, and advocacy field, but *only* some. Forsteh? (Yiddish for "Get it?,
Capice?, Understand?"). But, only *some.*
As much as I disagree with your tactics and attitude, I did not have the
chutzpah (Yiddish for "audacity") to assert that you speak for *none* of us. Yet
you have the chutzpah to assert that Werner Knoll speaks for nobody, not a
single soul, in this NG <can.politics> other than himself. Tsk tsk tsk, Ken.
Cecelia Plechinger
There appears to be no record of any response from McVay.
On 8 November 1998, John Morris commented of Cecelia:101
'But I don't think Ken ever trusted her.'
On 22 May 2000,102 Ken responded to a protest from Cecelia that material that
she had written 'is not "utter bullshit"' with the terse response: 'Yes, it is,
and was, utter bullshit <PLONK>'.
On the same day (22 May 2000), a much calmer Cecelia wrote:103
I certainly agree that some of Ken's methods are counterproductive. But Ken will
be Ken, just like Pat will be Pat, and Cecelia will be Cecelia.
Cecelia
5.5.2 Sol Littman
The disagreement between Ken McVay and Sol Littman, Canadian spokesman for the
Simon Wiesenthal Centre, concerns strategy. Littman favours censorship - denying
people the right to be heard. McVay seems to favour smears and intimidation. The
two strategies are incompatible insofar as McVay needs his opponents to be heard
in order for him to identify them and misrepresent them as part of the smearing
and intimidation process. It might seem an odd sort of disagreement, but these
are odd people.
The disagreement, which had been simmering for some time, apparently began to
surface in a Usenet post by McVay dated 23 June 1996:104
I do not believe in banning books. Is that clear enough for you? The 7,000
people I have spoken to will probably tell you that, if you ask; Bernie Farber
will certainly tell you that, if you ask, and so will Karen Mock; So will Sol
Littman and Abraham Cooper, men with whom, I suspect, there is no common
agreement on anything, other than the monstrous reality of the Holocaust and a
patent a dislike for Nazis. Does that help?
McVay's attack on Littman intensified with an article by McVay in Electronic
Frontier Canada, dated 23 July 1996.105
Sol Littmann suffers from Ostrich Syndrome
by Kenneth McVay, OBC (kmc...@nizkor.almanac.bc.ca) Tuesday, July 23rd, 1996
The July 19 article in the Vancouver Sun, "B.C. Internet provider is the largest
Canadian site for racist material" is alarming.
It is not the material found on the websites mentioned, nor the fact that the
host server is Canadian - nor indeed that the server is physically located in BC
- which give cause for alarm.
It is alarming because - either by deliberate design or by abject ignorance -
Sol Littman (and the Simon Wiesenthal Center [SWC] whom he represents in Canada)
is fostering and promoting the spread of the "Ostrich Syndrome."
Their actions represent a counter-productive denial of reality - akin to the
Ostrich burying its head in the sand.
Littman is quoted as saying:
"We found the longer you leave these groups unexposed, the longer they fester
and the more they infect others and the only way to deal with them honestly and
forcefully is to expose them to the light of truth."
Yet the article concludes,
"Littman said he wants to see if Klatt will remove the groups from Fairview
voluntarily before the centre takes any other action."
The only truth that seems to emerge from such a veiled threat is that Littman
has no understanding of the Internet. One is at a loss to determine how removal
of the "groups" from one Internet Provider's server would in any way "expose
them to the light of truth."
If Littman had any knowledge of the Internet, he would know that the Nizkor
Project [http://www.nizkor.org/] is an award winning website that is accessed
daily by hundreds. In addition to being a source for those who seek information
about the facts of the Holocaust, it is used as an electronic resource for those
who wish to "deal with [these groups] honestly and forcefully" thereby exposing
Lemire and many others - of whom Littman may not even be aware.
Nizkor is arguably the "host" to more hate literature than any other website.
Since we also include a link to the Zundelsite amongst others, will Littman next
be targetting Nizkor and demanding that we remove such links? Or that we hide
from public view the mountains of archived material which meticulously documents
and uses the "arguments" put forward by these groups as instruments of their
refutation and exposure?
If Littman and the SWC prefer to bury their heads in the sand while engaging in
this futile exercise in darkness, let them do so. But the martyrdom they hand on
a platter to Lemire and others whom they find offensive stands in marked
contrast to their failure to use the Internet on their own website.
Conspicuously absent on the SWC website are links to the increasingly growing
number of useful resources for those who truly do wish to participate in the
battle to expose racist and anti-semitic groups on the Internet.
The Ostrich syndrome is far more dangerous to society than any white supremacist
group on the Internet. Such groups will fester in darkness, but wither in light.
McVay launched another attack on Littman in a Usenet post dated 18 January
1998:106
Subject: Re: Free Speech is a dangerous thing.
From: kmc...@nizkor.org (Kenneth McVay OBC)
Date: 1998/01/18
Message-ID: <69t15v$8vg$1...@news.trends.ca>
Newsgroups: van.general,bc.politics,bc.general,can.politics,can.general
[In article <885078642....@dejanews.com>,
Jason Black wrote:
Free Speech is a dangerous thing.
> By Ernest & Elvena Slump
>In a press release Sol Littman of the Simon Wiesenthal Institute called
>Oliver BC the Hate Crime Capital of Canada and said BC harbors this
>capital. What do they base this claim on? Well, it seems we have a man..
The fascinating thing about the websites in question is that they are already so
marginalized that one can only wonder that Mr. Littman wants to throttle them
further. Marc Lemire's "Freedom Site," for instance, averages under 100 hits a
day, while the Nizkor site and mirrors receive over 10,000 hits a day, about
1500 of them to the home page. Cybrary of the Holocaust now gets a million hits
a month. The contrast is interesting, and suggests that these sites are of
little interest to anyone except those who maintain them, and Mr. Littman, of
course.
Mr. Littman, however, appears to be a man who would throttle anyone who
disagrees with his worldview - he doesn't need "hate speech" to set him off.
At a recent international symposium dealing with hate on the internet, a
participant from Washington, D.C., having heard Mr. Littman's patronizing paper
on the subject of hate on the net, commented that Ingrid Rimland, Ernst Zundel's
American parrot, would have had to invent Mr. Littman had he not already
existed.
Mr. Littman, discovering that this comment had been reproduced by Ms. Rimland,
in one of her regular diatribes, then wrote to a prominent member of B'nai Brith
(no, I don't work for them, although Mr. Littman appears to think that I do) and
expressed the hope that I might be muzzled. Perhaps Mr. Littman thinks that my
comments were "hatespeech?"
It is fortunate that Canada's Jewish community does not reflect his desire to
censor those with whom he disagrees - Mr. Littman, as I told him at the Toronto
symposium, scares me more than Zundel does.
The following day, 19 January 1998, McVay posted to Usenet an item indicating
that Littman had also been sniping at him, specifically, by trying to undermine
him in the eyes of B'nai Brith Canada (Nizkor's fund 'collectors').107
Mr. Littman is an interesting man.... and he does indeed seem to favour
censoring not only hate sites, but indeed others who find his brand of work with
respect to the Internet distasteful.
I am reliably informed that the following letter was received at the national
office of B'nai Brith Canada in September of 1997, closely following the
international symposium on "Hate on the Internet."
The letter, written under the Simon Wiesenthal Center's letterhead, contained
the following text:
"Not only do we agree on almost all issues but we are also the subject of the
same opprobrium from those who disagree with us.
"What follows was originally put out on the Internet by Ken McVay flunky Michael
Stein and reissued by Zundel flunky Ingrid Rimland.
"Which brings me to the next question. On whose side are McVay and his cohorts
on? For some time I have wondered by B'nai Brith continues to give him a
platform when he avidly proposes policies which our respective agencies oppose.
His site provides automatic links with almost all of the major Holocaust deniers
- all in the name of free speech!
"Let's face it, McVay is a quirky loose cannon whose usefulness is almost over.
If it weren't for B'nai Brith he would be out of business.
"Sincerely, [signed] Sol Littman"
. . .
If Mr. Littman really believes that my work would come to a halt without the
help and support of B'nai Brith, he is equally misinformed. It would be
interesting to know if this letter reflects an official position of the Simon
Wiesenthal Center.
An abbreviated version of the Usenet post was was subsequently posted the Nizkor
Web site.108
On 10 February 1999, Ken McVay sadly observed:109
'Sol Littman doesn't seem to like me much... hey, I can live with that.'
In a Usenet response to Anthony Sabatini dated 13 June 1999, McVay again
attacked Littman:110
I think LIttman is out to lunch, and sensationalizes such cases in order to
promote his own agenda, but I also think that he has every right to stand up in
a free country and speak his piece. I gather you do not think he has this right
- granted in the Charter - is that correct?
As more than one Canadian jurist has pointed out, the issue of Canadian
"anti-hate" laws has already been settled - the Supreme Court has settled it,
and more than once. I still oppose those laws, but I don't pretend they aren't
constitutional when the SC has very clearly demonstrated that they are.
I oppose those laws, Mr. Littman does not. Why does that bother you, Mr.
Sabatini? Would you like to shut Mr. Littman up, and deny him his Charter
rights?
Would that wet your whistle?
With that the issue appeared to die down.
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