Michael A. Hoffman II

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Michael Anthony Hoffman II
Born 1954
New York
Occupation novelist, revisionist historian
Genres History
Official website

Michael Anthony Hoffman II, (born 1954, New York), is an American historian and writer. Hoffman has been characterised [1]as a conspiracy theorist, Antisemite and Holocaust denier; he has questioned the accuracy and legitimacy of the latter term.

Hoffman is the managing editor of the newsletter Revisionist History, and describes himself as a "heretical writer." He has produced many books and articles.

Contents

[edit] Education and employment

He was educated at the State University of New York at Oswego. He is a former reporter for the New York bureau of the Associated Press and is the author of several books and articles (including for the UK-based magazine Fortean Times). Hoffman moved from New York to Idaho in 1996. Hoffman now writes mainly on World War II revisionism, current affairs, and the occult roots of freemasonry.

[edit] Views on cryptocracy

Hoffman's self-described vocation is "researching the occult cryptocracy's orchestration of American history." He believes that this cryptocracy runs American history, controlling culture and thought via ritualistic psychodramas and killing sprees. A detailed explanation of this hypothesis is found in Hoffman's Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare. Examples of such "psychodramas," in Hoffman's view, include Route 66 (which connects various centers of Satanic importance), and the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, in which Hoffman sees ritualistic elements.[2].

Hoffman also argues that the gnosis of this ruling cabal are slowly being revealed through movies such as They Live and The Matrix and other forms of symbolic and subliminal communication which Hoffman terms twilight language.[3]

[edit] Views on Jews and Judaism

In his book Judaism's Strange Gods (2000) Hoffman argues that modern-day Jewish Orthodoxy has little to no relation to the Tanakh (the Jewish sacred texts that also form the basis of the Christian Old Testament), but on the Talmud and the Mishnah. Hoffman cites[4] the Karaites, a Jewish sect who reject the Talmud, as "a group which, historically, has been most hated and severely persecuted by orthodox Jewish rabbinate."

Hoffman also contends that the British Empire might have achieved its power via a pact John Dee made with Kabbalistic Judaism [5]. He has characterized Jews as "Khazars" and "Edomite parasites" and Ashkenazi (Central and Eastern European Jews) as "Ash-ken-nazi". [6]

[edit] Views on the Holocaust

Hoffman doubts that execution gas chambers existed in the Nazi camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, and claims that the term "Holocaust" is Orwellian Newspeak [7] imposed beginning circa 1978 in order to confuse and distract from debates about the numbers of Jewish deaths that can be attributed to Nazis. Hoffman doubts that six million Jews were killed by the Nazis and asserts that most of the Jewish deaths in WWII were from typhus, malnutrition and shootings perpetrated by some units of the SS on the Eastern front.

Hoffman believes that Hitler did indeed have as a goal, at least philosophically, the extermination (Ausrottung) of the Jewish people, but Hoffman also argues that the primary means of extermination -- the execution gas chambers of Auschwitz -- have not been scientifically proved to have existed or been operable, and that "eyewitness" testimony failed under cross-examination at the 1985 "Great Holocaust Trial" of Ernst Zündel in Toronto.

Hoffman points to German eyewitnesses such as Thies Christophersen who maintained there were no execution gas chambers in Auschwitz. Hoffman has been influenced by the research of Charles D. Provan, Carlo Mattogno, Germar Rudolf [8] and Brian Renk.

Hoffman rejects the label "Holocaust denier," and argues[9] that the label is applied unfairly, and with an emotional rather than empirical basis, to those who research controversial issues related to WWII and Judaism -- according to Hoffman, applying the same partisan logic, those who doubt the Roman Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception would be stigmatized by journalists and academics as "Immaculate Conception deniers."

[edit] Views of Slavery

Another of Hoffman's subjects of study is indentured servitude and slavery in America; he claims that a widespread history of white slavery has been overlooked by most historians. In his book They Were White and They Were Slaves, Hoffman describes a social structure situating poor whites as holding the lowest post in colonial and post-colonial America, even to the point of citing a quote from Eugene D. Genovese in "Toward a New View of America" (pp. 79, 81-82, 84, 90-91), in which a former black slave in South Carolina, Ella Kelly, refers to the poor whites as the bottom rung, black slaves occupying the middle, and the white planters as the ruling stratum. {cf. Hoffman, pp. 43-44}

Hoffman has summarized his thesis as follows: "The de facto enslavement of whites began with the enclosure acts (privatization of formerly public grazing lands known as commons), which made paupers of the English yeomanry and created an army of homeless and unemployed citizens demonized by official history as England's fabled 'criminal underclass' (the criminal overclass escapes this withering scrutiny). The history of white slavery in Britain is found in the practice of 'kid-nabbing' (kidnapping) and the laws and customs that permitted enslavement aboard ship of abducted farmers and laborers taken from such notorious "crimping" ports as Glasgow. Malthusian scarcity paradigms were later invented out of fear of the insurrectionist potential of whites dubbed 'surplus poor,' who, in the seventeenth century, were shipped to British America and the West Indies as slaves, to toil unto death (not seven years) on sugar and tobacco plantations as soon as colonies were established (Georgia was envisioned as a white slave dumping ground and Virginia initially had more white slaves than black ones)." ("Movie 'Amazing Grace' Makes a Hero out of an Oppressor of White Slaves").

Hoffman's book "They Were White and They Were Slaves" was cited heavily in Jim Goad's "Redneck Manifesto" as part of a larger discussion of race and the white underclass in America.

[edit] Criticism

Political scientist Michael Barkun has characterized Hoffman as a "Holocaust denier and proponent of multiple conspiracy theories"[10], while Mattias Gardell contends that Hoffman is "one of the counterculture's more original conspiracy researchers"[11] Robert Jan Van Pelt calls Hoffman a Holocaust "negationist."[12]

All such criticisms, allegations and labels should not automatically imply wrongdoing, (although holocaust denial is a criminal offence in 13 countries), but are generally perceived as such. Natural confusion between 'historical revisionism' (which tends to be reasonable re-evaluation based on newly-discovered facts) and 'historic negationism' (whereby logical fallacies and ignoring, denying or downplaying undesired facts are employed in distorting history rather than re-assessing it) only adds to this confusion. Indeed, some individuals, topics and critiques can drift alarmingly between the two extremes.

Furthermore, the label 'conspiracy theorist' has become a shorthand insult implying ONLY innacurate or fanciful beliefs, conflating all theories which take a contrary position to received research, wisdom or 'fact' with the fringe-elements who believe the unsubstantiated and unlikely. Some so-called "conspiracy theories" are later - via historical revisionism - shown to have some basis in reality, just as others are soundly shown to be wholly fabricated. Moreover, even amongst those labelled 'revisionist theorists', 'conspiracy theorists' and other critics of academic belief there is little consensus. Academic critique is sometimes said to be mere absurdist criticism, and while some critiques are more valid than others, some allegations made against such critiques (e.g. "Holocaust denial", "Conspiracy Theory") can be used to make implications that are designed to stir up emotions rather than stimulate reasoned debate.


[edit] References

  1. ^ Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America, University of California Press:2003
  2. ^ Hoffman, Michael A. King Kill 33 URL accessed February 14, 2007
  3. ^ Gardell, 99
  4. ^ Hoffman, Michael A. "The Truth About the Talmud" excerpted from Judaism's Strange Gods URL accessed February 14, 2007
  5. ^ Shofar FTP Archive File: people/h/hoffman.michael/british-pact-with-devil; URL accessed February 14, 2007
  6. ^ [http://ftp.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hoffman-michael/in-his-words-9410.html In His Words The Mouth and Mind of Michael Hoffman II, October 1994] URL accessed February 14, 2007
  7. ^ Hoffman, Michael A. "The Psychology and Epistemology of 'Holocaust' Newspeak" URL accessed February 14, 2007
  8. ^ Rudolph, Germar "The Rudolph Report: Expert Report on Chemical and Technical Aspects of the 'Gas Chambers' at Auschwitz" URl accessed February 14, 2007
  9. ^ Hoffman, Michael A. "The Psychology and Epistemology of 'Holocaust' Newspeak" URL accessed February 14, 2007
  10. ^ Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America, University of California Press:2003
  11. ^ Mattias Gardell, Gods of the Blood, Duke University Press:2003, p. 98
  12. ^ Robert Jan Van Pelt,The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial, Indiana University Press:2002, p. xi

[edit] External links