"---"GALILEO GALILEI, a notorious denier that the earth is the center of the solar system, was arrested recently and is being held in isolation lest his hateful ideas be heard by others. A spokesman for the Inquisition has said that the sale or possession of Galileo's book is banned and anyone found reading it or discussing its ideas will be arrested. 'Let everyone be cautioned by the experience of the hater Galileo,' said the spokesman. ' We will not tolerate such intolerance in our community.'"
"'Free speech is fine, but Galileo went too far,' said an Anti-Slander Organization spokesman. 'His venom and bigotry are beyond the pale. We all know that the earth is the center of the solar system and anyone who denies it is just spewing hate.'"
That's what could have been written back in the 1600s, and pretty much was. Today, we're much more enlightened and we certainly wouldn't have been part of such nonsense -- would we?
[...]
The real difficulty, when you're actually living through history, is being able to see the repression right in front of you. And, if we don't see it and if we don't speak out against it, aren't we showing thereby that we are no better than the people of Galileo's day?
In truth, very few of us would have defended Galileo. How do I know this? Because very few of us are defending the victims of similar persecution in our own day. We allow repression and bigotry to flourish by our silence.
We are no brighter in this regard than those who allowed Galileo to be persecuted or those who allowed the witches to be killed in Salem. We have not really progressed as living beings. We are as cowardly and ignorant as those in the past.
To keep things simple, consider just one example from the news this week of what we are allowing to happen.
Ernst Zundel believes that the Holocaust is not as it has been presented. He has written and spoken out about this. For this, he has been hounded by some Jews, the way Galileo was hounded by some Catholics.
This past week, Zundel was deported from Canada to his native Germany where he was promptly arrested for the crime of "Holocaust denial." That's his crime: Holocaust denial. That's as ridiculous a charge as "the earth is the center of the solar system denial."
He'll now go on trial in Germany and he'll be found guilty. You can count on it because that's the way the corrupt system, controlled by tyrants, works. They have phony charges and a show trial and then they find the person guilty. It's all a sham so the Stepford People can smile and say, "See, justice was served he had a trial."
Zundel did nothing but use his inalienable human right to speak out on his belief that the Holocaust couldn't have happened as we're all supposed to believe. He didn't deny that Jews died. Lots did. There was a war going on. He didn't deny that there were concentration camps. There were plenty. In fact, and as an aside, we even had some in the U.S., but instead of Jews, we put Japanese-Americans in ours. War is hell.
The problem is that the Holocaust, as generally put forth, has become like religious dogma. One is not supposed to investigate or question various dogmatic "truths." Zundel didn't buy it. He had questions. He sought answers. He told others what he had discovered. For this, he was smeared and persecuted.
[...]
It is a sad commentary on the human condition that so many people are unable to see through smears and hate to what is essential and that so few people understand that it is the right of every human being to be able to express and hear ideas that some others may not like.
The Zundel case is about human freedom. Period.---"
Men så var det ju också Channel4. 
