According to a post made by The Southern Poverty Law Center on Wikipedia, VT (known by WIKI as “Veterans Today”) is an American anti-Semitic and conspiracy theory website. It describes itself as a “military veterans and foreign affairs journal”, but the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) had said, “the anti-Israel bent on VT can slide pretty quickly into overt anti-Semitism.”
Over our 18 years online, lots of crazy things have been said about VT; some are correct, and lots of it incorrect. But since there is a new recent wave of anti-Semitism charges being lobbed all over the place in the US cancel culture, I feel compelled to address these issues directly.
In the Wikipedia case, they have completely mislabeled VT on almost every level. Whether ignorance or nefarious agendas by its editors, it is time to address it head-on.
To be 100% clear, I have NOT yet addressed this directly with WIKI so they have NOT yet had an opportunity to respond and course correct.
This OPEN PUBLIC LETTER serves as an opening effort for them to review and reconcile with what they have put on their site about VT. So let’s give them fair time to course correct.
Nevertheless, here we go go go
Anti-Semitic? Are they crazy?
No freaking way is VT anti-Semitic. We are 100% pro-Semitic, pro-human rights, pro-people, and pro-everyone! So how could they get VT sooooo wrong?
My first angry thought is how dare they equate being anti-Semitic with criticism of the State of Israel! This is shameful and disgraceful on every level and does a massive disservice to the good people of a democratic Israel and the rest of humanity who care about human rights and the welfare of all peoples no matter color, creed or origin.
Yes, it’s 100% true that many writers on VT, who are 100% independent and uncensored, critic Israeli state policies. So what! That does NOT mean VT is Anti-Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or Anti-Israeli Anti-Arab.
It just means we critic policies like The Occupation of the indigenous People or we critic the policies of collective punishment that bulldozes the homes of the indigenous peoples to push them out and murder Americans who protest them ie. Rachel Corrie, the young American lady who was mowed down trying to stop a bulldozer from knocking down the home of an indigenous person.
We are pro-human rights NOT anti-Israel. If Israel respected the rights of the indigenous peoples and stopped their settlements and included the 6 million indigenous peoples in the West Bank and Gaza as full citizens with full human rights OR if they supported the indigenous peoples to have their own state, we would praise Israel.
But what in the heck does criticism of Israel have to do with being an “Anti-Semite”?
Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “Semite” as follows; a member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs; a descendant of these peoples
This means all ARABS are Semites including but not limited to Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Pagans.
But since European Jews are NOT descendent of the Ancient Hebrews but descendants from Italy and most being converted to Judaism through military conquest, then this means, they are NOT, in fact, Semites.
This SCIENTIFIC FACT has been documented by Anthropologists around the world using modern DNA testing.
According to the autosomal polymorphisms the investigated Jewish populations do not share a common origin, and EEJ are closer to Italians in particular and to Europeans in general than to the other Jewish populations. The similarity of EEJ to Italians and Europeans is also supported by the X chromosomal haplogroups. In contrast, according to the Y-chromosomal haplogroups EEJ are closest to the non-Jewish populations of the Eastern Mediterranean. MtDNA shows a mixed pattern, but overall EEJ are more distant from most populations and hold a marginal rather than a central position. The autosomal genetic distance matrix has a very high correlation (0.789) with geography, whereas the X-chromosomal, Y-chromosomal and mtDNA matrices have a lower correlation (0.540, 0.395 and 0.641 respectively).
This scientific fact, that the ADL and others know, does NOT give the right to anybody to discriminate against Jews, Christians, Muslims, or Pagans. It just means that European Jews are NOT Semites. They are Europeans. It’s really no big deal except to those who want to use the phrase “Anti-Semite” to propagandize an issue for their own political and power gains.
Nevertheless, this all-encompassing use of “Semite” to describe Europeans is absolutely ridiculous. It insults and offends Semites and completely hurts the intelligent discourse on the issues for everyone. In fact, I charge the ADL and others with using it inappropriately hurting their own commitment to exposing actual racism against those who practice Judaism, to which we support. Are you listening ADL? Get your act together!
This bullshit hurts the prospects for actual Semites in the Middle East to unify and help one another as it works to divide.
As most of you may know, I argue for a Middle East Union to replace Sykes-Picot and the failed jaundiced well-intentioned visions of Herzl and the nasty political movement of modern Zionism who have, with the English and French, carved up the Middle East to control its oil and control the world. But that’s another issue…..
I only mention it to buttress the idea that Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Pagans should live freely together, travel, and worship in peace with the right to worship their religions of choice without any government interference.
Yes, it’s a bold statement, a bold vision but it’s far better than the division and racist policies that exist today not only in Israel but in Arab countries too. It’s weak and has NO future. We can do much better for our fellow man.
So again, how is that racist and bigoted? Sell me! I am listening!
Ok, so what the heck is Wiki talking about?
Well, in my view, what the powers in the West really mean when they say one is “Anti-Semitic” is that one is actually “Anti-Jewish”.
However, for their own political agendas, they have successfully conflated the phrase “Anti-Semite” to mean “Anti-Jewish”. This is stupid, ignorant, and frankly, outrageous! This nonsense hurts everyone because their definitions are confusing and cause chaos.
To keep it simple, let’s use an analogy…
Coffee! Ask a layperson, especially in the USA, where does coffee come from? 9 out of 10 will say Columbia!
Columbia? WTF? The coffee plant originated in Ethiopia in Northern Africa and the drink originated from Mocha in Yemen thousands of years ago! It only made it’s way to the Americas in the 1500s vis a vis a French Military Man who stole the plant from the French King who brought it from Arabia. So where did Columbia come from? Well, there was a corporate commercial in the USA advertising Folgers Coffee and how “Juan Valdez” picked his coffee beans in Columbia, and boom, the coffee drink is from Columbia NOT Yemen. Propaganda?
But let’s continue on…
Wiki uses footnotes to prove their assertions from their editors. So let’s take them one by one.
On January 6, 2011, Evelyn Schlatter writes in her “Buyer Beware: Veterans Today and Its Anti-Israel Agenda” article from the Southern Poverty Law Center saying we are Anti-Israel.
Of course, that’s complete bullshit.
Again, what the heck does being Anti-Israel, which we are not, have to do with being Anti-Semitic or Anti-Jewish?
Plain and simple, we are NOT anti-Israel, we are anti-racist policies by Israel. We don’t care what Israel is called as long as it respects its own people and does NOT treat the indigenous peoples as dirty cannon fodder for its racist agenda! Not only is this article complete bullshit but VT demands that wiki remove his nonsense from its site and issues an apology for allowing this racist misinformative garbage on their site.
Normally, we are with the Southern Poverty Law Center, especially on civil rights issues in the USA. But how lost are they when it comes to the rights of the indigenous peoples in Israel and its territories of the West Bank and Gaza?
They are either ignorant, propagandized by 100 years of Zionist nonsense or they are willfully going along with this racist garbage. Whatever it is, I demand they review this and explain themselves publically.
On Wikipedia, it also says…
According to British journalist Oliver Kamm, Veterans Today “promotes conspiracy theories, including Holocaust denial”.
It is true that many VT writers question the validity of the Holocaust assertion; mostly the numbers who were murdered. The Nazis clearly did horrific things to their citizens who did NOT agree with their policies. And they definitely scapegoated their Jewish citizens. There is no question about it.
But the numbers do seem off. I suppose since no one knows the real exact numbers of how many actually died at the hands of the Nazis, they came up with the 6 million number. OK, but to question it is NOT a denial of the Holocaust, it’s merely a questioning of the facts of the Holocaust and searching for the truth. So let’s be 100% clear.
I have done the #s myself and cannot find 6 million European Jewish citizens living under Nazi rule during that time. The best I could come up with reviewing their own census data is about 3 million. But does that even matter? 6 million, 3 million? Geez us, people were treated like animals, murdered, executed, and families destroyed. It’s terrible no matter how many were actually murdered and I agree with the mantra NEVER AGAIN!
But that also has to apply to all genocides, not just some. Whether it be the Armenian genocide 100 years ago, the murders in Rwanda, or the Palestinian Al-Nakba of 1948! All of it sucks and none of it is okay!
Now, it’s true that some older VT writers wrote about the Holocaust and went over the conspiracy edge. That would be true. Those people no longer exist on VT and are long gone.
With over 70,000 articles on our site over 18 years, it’s NOT simple to ID anything that violates policy unless it’s brought to my attention. But that’s not an excuse, it’s just a fact of real life in the way-too-much-data-out-there-world.
While it’s not on the same scale as the challenges Social Media faces in identifying dangerous violent content, it’s essentially the same challenge. In short, when readers bring this to my attention, I take action on it. And when I find it myself, I take action.
The Holocaust Was Horrific! Are You Listening?
Nevertheless, on my end, to be 100% clear to all reading this, I find the Holocaust a terrible event in the history of humanity. To me, whether 6 million European Jews or 1 European Jew was murdered by the Nazis in gas chambers, it’s all bad and nothing good.
What the Nazis did was absolutely horrific and I stand with my fellow man including all Jews and their families who have suffered from that tragic time in our human history.
Last year, I was in Austria and toured all the terrible sites in Vienna where Hitler stood and had Nazi offices. I cried seeing the plagues of lost Jewish families on the stoops of where they once lived. Those people were taken away from their homes and put in concentration camps never to return. There are no real words to describe that horror. So sell me, people. How the heck is that Anti-Jewish or as they say “Anti-Semitic”?
The Times of Israel describes VT as “a clearinghouse of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories”.
Oh, Bullshit! Again with the use of failing Anti-Semitic tropes to smear critics of Israeli failed policies.
It’s true that some of the VT articles can go overboard. But that’s what you get when you don’t censor. VT is NOT mainstream media. It’s alternative and some VT writers, many of whom I personally disagree with, have their theories. Personally, I don’t subscribe but that’s the break on an open-source website. So I would partly agree with the “conspiracy theories” part of his statement.
According to The Jerusalem Post, the website has published “articles defending Hitler and promotes Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and the anti-semitic musician Gilad Atzmon”.
Defending Hitler? WTF?
We don’t defend anyone! And Gilad Atzmon is an Israeli, he’s Jewish! Geez us! Now he’s anti-Semitic too? This is getting way too silly.
In my view, the Holocaust was the worst of Hitler’s crimes. But go ask Germans, and when they are honest with you, they will tell you the truth that they believed Hitler saved them from extreme poverty. And the facts prove it true. This is NOT the place to discuss Germany after WWI and its rise economically from those ashes. But the truth is the truth. Just Google it and get legit sources that document the facts.
Nevertheless, when the rest of the world was suffering during the Great Depression, Germany was thriving. This is the reason why so many Germans loved and supported Hitler. It’s the same reason Austrians welcomed him in the War of the Roses when he conquered Austria without resistance. He promised a better future and, for the most part, he delivered, at least for his non-Jewish citizens! But that’s like saying The Confederacy was doing well! Well for who? African American Slaves? No, it’s not so good, is it?
Look, the West wants us to cringe at the name Hitler. I get that. And we should cringe! But the truth is the truth. He lost the war and his Holocaust policy was a total evil calamity, a human disaster, and a tragedy for the ages. There’s no excuse for it and no justifying it under any circumstances. Period.
But it was America’s war ally, Josef Stalin that actually murdered more than Hilter. Yet, western history won’t mention him in the same breath as Hitler? Why? He was far worse than Adolf Hitler. But it was Stalin’s Army that got Hitler in Berlin! He was America’s ally… so no bad press for you! Until, the 1950s when we needed to fight the Soviets for control, then it was EVERYONE is a Communist! Ask Sen. McCarthy, he would have told you VT is a Communist Front! Geez us!
I see this weird position simply as a truth-when-convenient issue. Power brokers on all sides need to tell a story that fits their agenda and truth is NOT always the best course of action. All are guilty of this crime against humanity.
As for defending, KKK David Duke, I certainly don’t. I condemn the KKK, Jim Crow, Trump’s Neo-Racism and his army of racists, Slavery, The Confederacy, and more. Don’t get me started!
But VT is an open source uncensored media. It was never meant to be a U.S. Mainstream anti-septic news channel.
VT writers are 100% independent and we denote in the green box at the bottom of every single post. They own their words as their own and VT does NOT necessarily agree with the writers. In fact, I disagree with 50% of the stuff on VT. But so what? That’s the price we must pay to engage in discourse. Fascism, by definition, is only allowing one point of view. And VT is against Fascism.
Even though it makes me sick to my stomach, I defend the right of commenters on the site to express racism.
As for VT writers, I am NOT aware of any outright support for David Duke and his policies by VT writers. However, a cursory scan of our 70,000 articles on VT only pulls up a few articles on David Duke.
Here are a few examples;
- Arguments Can Only Go So Far: Why I Have Permanently Given Up on David Duke
- David Duke Gets It Wrong About So-Called Khazar Theory—Again
Certainly NOT Pro-David Duke! Sooooo what I am supposed to respond to?
All the rest of the non-sensical complaints on Wiki are basically the same thing written in a different way; in that VT is anti-semitic, anti-Israel, and denies the Holocaust, to which I say bullshit!
VT is pro-people! We condemn all violence and all policies of every government that are oppressive, anti-human, and anti-people. We respect the rights of all people around the world to worship any and all faiths including Judaism. But we don’t accept using any religion as a tool for violence or an excuse for imperialism or to take other’s land and assets to further their racist exclusionary visions. NO WAY!
In conclusion, this Wikipedia attempt at character assassination is weak, pathetic, and cries foul as it aims to cancel VT and its writers and hide the fact that Zionism, a political movement, has hijacked the word “Anti-Semitism” and is using it as a weapon to attack others that simply don’t accept their anti-humanity racist non-sense.
The good news is that, in my 50 years involved on this issue, I am finally seeing the world wake up to this and seeing through the clouds created by the 19th century jaundiced well-intentioned vision of Austrian Theodore Herzl and the World Zionist Council who strategically hijacked the British and Americans during World War I to eventually create the State of Israel in 1948 and the use of Skyes-Picot Agreement in 1916 to carve up the Ottoman Middle East into the intentional dysfunctional mess we have today.
While it created our 20th-century western successes, it also condemned over 400 million people to live poorly in Middle Eastern puppet states controlled by the Western powers. But that’s another issue to engage at some other time.
The bottom line is that we ought not to accept false charges by anyone including men in suits or with big names like Wiki when they are simply NOT TRUE. I don’t accept it, neither should you and neither should the good workers at WIKI who, are probably unaware of this and/or their intellectual ignorance.
MOVING FORWARD WITH A REMEDY
This article is part of this remedy. In addition, I will be doing several VT Radio podcasts with VT writers to allow them to tell their points of view on this anti-semitism issue. And I will be contacting Wiki to request they post the facts and reject this nonsense. So stay tuned.
My personal hope is that, soon, this mistake by Wiki will be rectified and we can, together, with like-minded Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Pagan brothers in the U.S. and around the world, get over this hate bump and bring peace to the world with freedom, liberty, and justice for all… a tall order but that’s what we need to LET FREEDOM RING for everyone!
PostScript
If anyone from Wiki, ADL, or anyone wants to have an intelligent public discussion on this issue, just contact me directly at support@veteranstoday.com. Let’s do it!
oh, on their VT Wiki page, there are clearly other charges posted ie…. we are Russian agents of the Kremlin and fake news. I am NOT ignoring it. But one thing at a time. I will address this bullshit very soon. So stay tuned.
UPDATE JAN 17, 2023: I, Johnny Punish, on Jan. 17, 2023, in good faith, signed up on Wikipedia as an editor to correct the record and the obvious misinformation posted about VT on Wikipedia. I also attempted to respond to the obvious attacks by others with political agendas who are making false claims on about VT on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, my factual corrections and response to the accusations were denied and I was told by one of their reviewers named Doug Weller the following;
“I noticed that one of the first articles you edited was Veterans Today, which appears to be dealing with a topic with which you may have a conflict of interest. In other words, you may find it difficult to write about that topic in a neutral and objective way, because you are, work for, or represent, the subject of that article. Your recent contributions may have already been undone for this very reason”.
So, according to this person, I am NOT allowed to correct misinformation written about VT on Wikipedia and not allowed to actually post facts. In addition, I am NOT allowed to respond to false accusations made by organizations ie… SPLC, ADL, and others posing as “editors” with political agendas.
And when I asked Wiki Editor Doug Weller how best to fix the misinformation and get the actual facts posted, he said
“You need to use the talk page to persuade other editors.”
Persuade? Gosh, I hope he does NOT mean that others are “persuading” meaning paying off these editors whereby the facts and political attacks go to the highest bidder. I truly hope he means this in the most “moral” and “innocent” way.
So I can’t tell the facts about VT but others are allowed to post nonsense about VT as long as they “persuade”?
I realize Wikipedia has a tough job and to get it right and I make no joke about this. It is NOT easy. I get it! But OMG, how much other incorrect and false data on Wikipedia is allowed like this that is complete and utter nonsense posted by haters who can”persuade”?
And how were this WRONG information and false accusations about VT allowed on Wikipedia? Who did these people “persuade”? What gives them such rights?
What’s worse, the better part of the world holds Wikipedia in high esteem with search engines giving it clout putting atop of searches. OMG, this is absolutely terrible for truth and the world. A sad day for the internet.
Johnny Punish is the founder and owner of VT. He is also a writer, global citizen eco-activist, visionary, musician, artist, entertainer, businessman, investor, life coach, and syndicated columnist. Punish was educated at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (1980-81) and California State University Fullerton (1981-1984) with studies in accounting and business. Before the “internets” had been invented, he owned and ran (5) national newspapers in the United States of America from 1987-1998
Punish has over 100 original songs written. He records and produces music. A member of ASCAP, Punish has several songs placed in feature films. His music is promoted worldwide and played on all digital networks and net radio.
Resources: YouTube – Apple Music – SoundCloud – Spotify – Instagram – Twitter
Read Johnny’s Full Bio at JohnnyPunish.com >>>
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