The late Carl Sagan got annoyed one time with contemporary
earthlings who thought they were seeing a message from space aliens in
representations that were left behind by what seemed to be ancient earthlings.
And so Carl Sagan decided to show how improbable these claims were.
Apparently, what the contemporary earthlings used to do was
identify a number of points on ancient representations, and claim that they
showed the position of stars – not when looked at from the Earth's position
today, but from where the Earth was in the past, or where it will be in the
future. This, in their view, indicated from where and when the space aliens had
visited Earth. They left messages for us to discover and decipher when we'll be
advanced enough to understand what they mean, said those annoying contemporary
earthlings.
What Sagan did, was input into a computer the position in
three dimensions of the stars as they appear from Earth today. He could command
the software to move forward and backward in time, thus show how the stars
would appear from the Earth's position or from various angles in space. The
result was that you could spot any image you desired to see by picking the
right time and the correct angle from which to look. Thus, Sagan concluded that
what the contemporary earthlings thought they were seeing was an improbability
with no real significance to it.
To the astronomer that he was, the demonstration he put on
was just another lesson in astronomy. What he did not realize at the time,
however, was that he had created a metaphor we can use today to explain what
happens when we embark on endless discussions that go on forever, that mean
nothing now and mean less and less as time moves on.
An example of that is the article which came under the
title: “With Iran
it's strictly business” and the subtitle: “Just as with the Nazis, the big
companies line up to trade with the purveyors of evil.” It was written by Cal
Thomas and published on January 27, 2016 in The Washington Times.
What the author does is draw a parallel between the way that
the West is treating the Iranians today, and the way that the Allies treated
the Nazis in an earlier era. He put it this way: “the four days of meetings
involving Iran 's
President, European leaders and businesses should remind people we have seen
this show before.”
Cal Thomas goes from there to show how today's big companies
are eager to do business with Iran in the way that the big companies of
yesteryear were eager to do business with the Nazis. What happened next, he
says, was that the Nazis were responsible for the “slaughter of an estimated 11
million people. Six million of these were Jews.” As to Iran 's President, our author claims that he
“referred to Israel
as 'an old wound' that 'should be removed.'” And he saw a resemblance in these
two positions.
The problem is that Thomas does not say when, where and in
what context, the Iranian President said those words. Nor does he explain what
the President meant by 'old wound' and 'removed.' What is also missing is an
account as to who translated the Persian words into English? Were there other
translations? Where is the link that could have taken the readers to the origin
of those sayings? Even if we attribute the worst explanation to those utterances,
can they really be equated with the slaughter of 11 million people?
Cal Thomas is so distraught, he laments: “Have they learned
so little from history that they are willing to repeat it?” Well, listen Cal , to learn from
history, there must be an accurate account of it. For this to happen there must
be references and documentations that will satisfy all those who will look into
them. If and when that is established, a vigorous debate must follow to make
sure that the image we are painting is not of the kind that can be created on
command by a Carl Sagan type software.
In fact, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the
production of literary and audiovisual material on the Holocaust, as well as
the construction of memorials commemorating the event, are having a savage
effect on the people who become addicted to them. The worst part is that the
damage done to the perceptive abilities of youngsters who get exposed to that
kind of material, increases with every new generation.
Today, you see young men and women who are filled with so
much hate, fear and self-pity, they become walking time bombs. If they cannot
forge a career for themselves in the media; a place from where they have the
chance to pour their venom and get paid on a regular basis, they seek relief by
going to occupied Palestine, settle in the West Bank and live their criminal
existence there.