From: Ron Hopkins
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 1:30 PM
Subject: Holocaust denial....
Please do not see this email as an invitation to start bombarding me with emails again, but I do feel the need to write to you about something. It has long been clear to anyone with any degree of discrimination that the 'New World Order' nonsense that you peddle has, to put it mildly, a dark side, and that your supposed 'research' bears little resemblance to actual research, as I have pointed out to you before (how's that research about Transition running workshops on eugenics coming on by the way?!).... for example, your stuff about BP and the 'green agenda' which you talked about on Talk Sport (which someone else pointed me to with great hilairity) is absolutely ridiculous, bearing no resemblance to anything like the green movement I have been part of for 20 years (oh, and the 1992 summit in Rio wasn't called the 'Earth First Summit' by the way... do your homework... .
Anyway what prompted me to write was that I recently saw pointed to a film on YouTube of a talk you gave in Wales, in Part 4 of which you say "the equivalent we've got in this country is to question the Holocaust. It's a non-subject... no point in going there because all you're going to do is bring the whole weight of the Jewish community and you're going to present your head on a platter". So now Holocaust denial is on your agenda is it? What's the next DVD Ian, 'The Holocaust Agenda'? I am absolutely disgusted (but not surprised). Firstly with you for coming out with such nonsense, and secondly that no-one in your audience said "er, excuse me... what?". It is clear that what you present in your talks is based on a complete absence of critical thinking, but that you should now be questioning the historical basis for the extermination of 6 million Jews is revolting. Of course questioning the Holocaust is a 'non-subject' and so it should be, indeed in Austria it is a criminal offence... I presume you might leave that comment out of any talks you get invited to do there?
Absolutely and profoundly disgraceful.
Rob Hopkins
www.transitionculture.org
An Evolving Exploration into the Head, Heart and Hands of Energy Descent.
Available now from Transition Culture: The Transition Handbook: from oil dependency to local resilience published by Green Books.
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Some points to consider:
1). I received this unsolicited Email from Rob Hopkins on 23rd Sept. At the time I was not aware that the video of my Corwen presentation had been posted on YouTube and at the time had been watched by 23 people! How did Rob Hopkins become one of the first people to review this video ... is he stalking me on the internet?
2). Hopkins casual dismissal of the 'New World Order' as 'Nonsense' speaks volumes!
3) A common thread running through Hopkins' Emails are such comments as ' ... your supposed 'research' bears little resemblance to actual research...'! However, although I have offered Hopkins the opportunity to expose the inadequacy of my research in public debate, he seems strangely reluctant to take me up on this offer!
4). Hopkins facetious question, "how's that research about Transition running workshops on eugenics coming on by the way?!" refers to an Email I sent him a year ago asking him to confirm a report that Julia Middleton (CEO of Common Purpose) had given a presentation Eugenics at a TT Conference. Hopkins denied that this had been the case. However, there is an uncorroborated reference to this event HERE - page down to post submitted on Weds 29th July 2009.
5). The Eugenics comment rather backfired on Hopkins when 10:10 Global released their pornographic promo video, featuring the summary execution of 'Climate Change deniers' just one week later. See my post HERE.
6). Note the footer at the bottom of Hopkins Email. Although the Email was sent from Hopking gmail account, the Email was sent during normal business hours, from the Transition Town offices,on a Transtion Town Computer.
My response....
From: Ian R Crane
To: Rob Hopkins
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 2:52 PM
Subject: Re: Holocaust denial....
Dear Rob,
congratulations on taking my statement so utterly and completely out of context! The point being that 'Truth' needs no protection from Law and/or demonisation of those who hold an alternative view. Next you'll be claiming that 'Anthropogenic Climate Change' and 'Peak Oil' are 'Non-subjects'! Your Email serves only to demonstrate your unwilingness (or inability?) to apply any degree of critical thought ... such is your attachment to self-serving political dogma!
As you seem so sure of your intellectual superiority, perhaps you would care to take up the long-standing invitation to debate 'The Green Agenda' in a public forum?
Of course you won't because you (and Transition Town in general) have already demonstrated that you are only able to present myopic political dogma to sympathetic audiences, who are effectively required to take your word at face value. As an avid viewer of my presentations, you will no doubt be aware that I always encourage people not to take anything I say at face value but to research the material for themselves. I sow seeds to encourage intellectual, political and spiritual curiosity ... as opposed to spouting forth emotive politicised dogma.
So Rob, as previously stated, any time you wish to subject the quality of my research to scrutiny via the medium of public debate, I would be more than happy to accept the invitation.
The great tragedy is that Transition Town could have had the potential to be a real force for community focus but your self-obsessed leadership has the effect of being inherently divisive. A situation you would be aware of if you had any capacity for self-reflection.
However, as you enter your early 40's, you may be blessed with the awakening of the serpent laying dormant at the base of your spine; as it starts the journey north the process of Metanoia may be revelationary!
Yours in 'Truth'
Ian
PS. Please feel free to share this Email with your fellow Trustees of Transition Town
However as you will see from my next post, Rob Hopkins has the bit between his teeth and is going for the jugular!
Read the next round of Email exchanges HERE
However as you will see from my next post, Rob Hopkins has the bit between his teeth and is going for the jugular!
Read the next round of Email exchanges HERE
3 comments:
just read the email and your response, where do they get these people from, so wrapped in the corporate game, this mans only defence is redicule, when you cant get to grips with whats going on in life you dismiss it and laugh at it. all will change soon and who will be laughing then, keep up the good work ian, great job
just had a talk with someone who had attended one of robs workshops. she loved everything about him. was shocked when i mentioned his repulsive private agenda. ian we are smart people but i am as conditioned as anyone through many many generations of slaves and i have to thank you, i have been "awake" for quite a while but tonight has been one of those major quantum leaps. mainly posing the question of conditioning stumbling blocks. i.e. the confusion and thus hesitation regarding "peaceful" and "defending oneself". IMHO one should be taught that it is right to and how to "peacefully defend ones-self against force using force." thank you once again. regards ritch
The issue for me here is that this is clearly only a continuation from an earlier set of emails, which aren't published. I think these would need to be published and read in whole before judgement on Rob Hopkin's position should be made.
Certainly, as far as i can see, Ian is using as much ridicule in his emails and comments (which are to us rather than Rob) as Rob is, so I'm not sure how we can point out one party over the other.
I really like some of the ideals behind Transition Towns and have been very involved in it over the years, but I don't necessarily sign up wholeheartedly to the ideas of Peak Oil and Climate Change. On the other hand, I keep an open mind as actually neither Rob nor Ian nor myself really knows any more than the next person about what the future holds. All rely on different accounts, different scientific records, different perspectives to put together their story.
And that, for me, says it all. They're both stories - Rob's and Ian's. I have listened to both of them and they're both fascinating. Both have some things right, and some things wrong, by my world view. Ian's tells us of what is wrong with the world, but offers very few solutions; Rob offers solutions but maybe has some of the reasoning for these wrong. Both draw together A-B-C-D and E and make a story out of it, drawing the lines between them in a certain way. They don't necessarily look at F-G and H in doing this, as it contradicts their story. Each is very keen to tell us that their version is right and seek new threads that will confirm it.
The fact is, all life is connected, and wherever we look, we can find connections. Knowledge, and the pursuit of it, is like the branches of a tree spreading out into eternity. Whatever way you choose to go down these branches, you will never find it all, just a path of it, a perspective. Stories make our world and we are the makers of those stories.
Rob and Ian can and perhaps should accept their differences on the world. In fact, they could even see them as mutually compatible. In the meantime, all readers would do well not to offer judgement on either party. Lets face it, if some of our more dirty laundry was aired like this, none of us would come out looking very good, would we?
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