RUTHFULLY YOURS

Debra Lipstadt’s scholarly analysis of the Holocaust and its ugly denial industry in her prize-winning 1993 Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, spurred a libel suit by one of the chief soi-dixit ‘historians‘ of anti-Semitic and Nazi-affiliate lineage, the rancid David Irving.

The Irving v. Penguin Press Ltd trial caused a sensation not only in its natal Great Britain, but occasioned intense interest and shudders too in the United States, where Lipstadt lives and writes.

Historians, ethicists, and scholars alike feared the verdict, which could have cast a cruel shadow over future such cases and the reliability of history itself, were it to go in a direction that did not accord acknowledgment of the horrors to future investigators, remaining survivors and their offspring.

Though there is only fact and history behind all Holocaust witness, there is now, as Lipstadt chronicles, a growing shelf of denial that threatens to increase as Endlösung witnesses die out. The thesis of the book’s author is that such denial is simply pure anti-Semitic diatribe scarcely varnished by the not-even-gossamer of truth, veracity or historicity.

Irving sought to diminish and denigrate the claim of six million dead, the genocidal intent on the part of the Nazis, and indeed the very existence of gas chambers in the infamous death camps kitted out by the Germans and their brethren haters.

It is painful to experience the trial at the start, where the barristers determine that testimony at trial from survivors and even Lipstadt herself would be deleterious to winning, rather than a help, to the defense. This runs contrary to what most people instinctively want, so the film generates a tension of continuous “Unfair!” that adds to the fine legal arguments on both sides that stretch the tension taut for the defendant. Richard Evans’ brief played a major role in convicting Irving.

The climactic images of an American flag rippling against darkness and fire in the brilliant new film Deepwater Horizon recall many a war film, or indeed the writing of The Star Spangled Banner itself, near Fort McHenry as the War of 1812 raged. But this is not a war film. Or is it?

The civilians who populate the Deepwater Horizon rig off the coast of Louisiana are military-like types — practical engineers, men who solve problems in real time under immense pressure, some of it literal and lethal. They make their living with their hands, wear casual clothing, drink bad coffee out of paper cups, and power America.

In short, these are manly men, played by manly actors like Mark Wahlberg and Kurt Russell, as two of the many technically savvy guys who keep America’s oil flowing. As we flick on a light switch or pump gas into our cars, rarely do we think about how our carbon-based energy system works, or the ingenuity, skill, and courage of those who bring us cheap, abundant fuel. Deepwater Horizon urges us to spare a thought for these people, most of them men, who make the country work, often at huge risk to themselves. Until the world figures out a way to operate on puppy dog dreams and unicorn sighs, carbon-based fuels will remain the foundation of our existence, the sine qua non without which earth-mother poets, sullen America-hating vegan performance artists, and the private jets that shuttle Al Gore to ecological conferences would find it difficult to operate.

Eleven men died in the explosion of the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 26, 2010, and dozens more were lucky to escape with their lives. And yet the media simply shrugged at the human toll of this event and rushed off to cover the damage to marine life in the resulting oil spill of 210 million gallons. Today, the media reaction looks like a bit of an overreaction –nature has a way of erasing even man’s biggest mistakes, and life in the Gulf of Mexico has largely bounced back — but such topics are outside the scope of the movie.