ASPEN — A controversial Holocaust denial film is raising questions about free speech at GrassRoots TV, the Aspen community-access station.The newspaper itself is firmly on the side of the oxy-moronic "truthers":
Steve Campbell, founder of Citizens for 9/11 Truth, asked the station to air “Judea Declares War on Germany: A Critical Look at World War II” on Monday, but GrassRoots TV board members stopped the screening.
The one-hour program features Dr. Frederick Töben, an Australian national and member of the Adelaide Institute, an organization that denies that the Holocaust ever happened.
“This film is offensive not only to Jews in the world, but to any sensible person,” said GrassRoots TV Executive Director John Masters.
But the question of airing the film he called “like an homage to [Joseph] Goebbels” has stirred a “healthy debate” at the station, Masters said.
Our local television station, GrassRoots TV, this week faces a tough question of whether to air a video that’s offensive to many of its board members and viewers. The video takes a “critical view” of the Holocaust and goes so far as to suggest that Hitler’s Germany was under attack by an “international Zionist elite,” and not the other way around.This has nothing to do with free speech.
We urge GrassRoots to run the video, “Judea Declares War on Germany: A Critical Look at World War II” — not because we agree with it but because Aspen shouldn’t be frightened of a dissenting viewpoint.
The GrassRoots board meets Thursday to discuss not only what to do about this video, but what to do with other questionable material. We hope the management and the board choose a path of openness rather than censorship; it’s in keeping with democracy and the spirit of public access television....
This video shows the Holocaust deniers for the crackpots that they are. If viewers wish to see it, then let them. Suppressing this stuff only gives it power.
TV stations, and newspapers, (and university daises for that matter) have limitations on what I'll call "bandwidth." By choosing to allow hate to be broadcast, printed or otherwise spewed, no matter what the context, they give it legitimacy. Choosing what to allow in bandwidth-limited media is not censorship, it is editing, and it necessarily happens all the time.
The only media that has no limitations on bandwidth is the Internet. As a result, people who want to see this video are free to do so. Nobody's free speech is limited in the least.
Would the enlightened editors at the Aspen Times allow the publication of an op-ed that argues for the re-establishment of slavery?