Blowing one's own trumpet

Well sort of. This first link merely mentions me: the Boss remembered as I, shamefully, did not that EUReferendum is now 10 years old. Happy Birthday to you, EURef. He is also kind enough to mention that the blog, one of the more important political ones at the moment, was started by the two of us. Ah those halcyon days when blogging seemed such a good idea. The Boss, as he explains, has gone on to various other projects and has one or two in hand now. Meanwhile, I am still deliberating.

As my last posting indicated (a few days ago, ahem) I am reading, among other books, David Satter's It Was A Long Time Ago And It Never Happened Anyway, whose theme is the reluctance with which Russia, its state and its people, face up to the Soviet past. Those who try to break through the official and popular wall are accused of re-writing history and of besmirching the good and great name of the Russian people and of the heroes who died for the country and for the world in general. These heroes, obviously, do not include the millions murdered by the Soviet state or the Soviet soldiers who died from the hail of bullets from SMERSH agents as they tried to retreat or the Soviet POWs who, having suffered intense privations in German camps, survived to return (often very reluctantly under prodding from Western allies) and were promptly thrown into Soviet camps. Well, some people have to be left out.

The point here is that "re-writing history" is not only not a bad thing but is often a necessary thing. I raised this argument in a discussion on another forum (just get off those forums and get on with your own writing, OK) about yet another attempt to teach in an American educational district that the Holocaust was really a hoax. There is re-writing history, which is a necessary progression, and then there is blatant lying in order to avoid difficult arguments and to appease certain sections of society. In fact, the Holocaust is one of the best documented series of acts and events in modern history.

It did, however, remind me that some years ago I wrote two postings with which I was rather pleased, on the subject of Holocaust denial, freedom of speech, Communist crimes and anti-Semitism. Here is the first one that deals with David Irving, Professor Eric Hobsbawm and related matters.

Here is the second one, which deals with McCarthyism (accusations thereof) and the anti-Semitism that lurks behind a good deal of the Holocaust talk.

All in all, I'd say a nice and easy way of writing a blog and blowing one's own trumpet at the same time. Somehow I don't think I can keep doing this.