From: Damien Broderick (thespike@earthlink.net)
Date: Wed Dec 11 2002 - 01:05:06 MST
I wrote:
>more remains to be said. (And of course it has been said, but it's late...)
But what the hell--let's throw in an url, and a fragment. Christopher
Hitchens reviewed all this back in 1985. Search at
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/index.cfm
for `Holocaust' and you'll find the essay.
======
In the early stages of this process, Chomsky received a request, from his
friend Serge Thion, that he add his name to a petition upholding Faurisson's
right to free expression. This, on standard First Amendment grounds and in
company with many others, he did. The resulting uproar, in which he was
accused of defending Faurisson's theses, led to another request from Thion.
Would Chomsky write a statement asserting the right to free speech even in
the case of the most loathsome extremist? To this he also assented, pointing
out that it was precisely such cases that tested the adherence of a society
to such principles and adding in a covering letter that Thion could make
what use of it he wished. At this stage, only the conservative Alfred
Grosser among French intellectuals had been prepared to say that Faurisson's
suspension by the University of Lyons set a bad example of academic courage
and independence. Chomsky's pedantic recitation of Voltairean principles
would probably have aroused no comment at all had Thion not taker rather
promiscuous advantage of the permission to use it as he wished. Without
notification to Chomsky, he added the little essay as an avis to Faurisson's
pretrial Memiore en defense.
[...]
I wouldn't accuse any of the critics listed here of deliberate
falsification. But it is nevertheless untrue to describe Chomsky's purloined
avis as a preface, as Fresco does on almost a dozen occasions and as Mayer
does twice [...]
=======
and so on...
Damien Broderick
[not a Holocaust denier either]
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