CODOH is an Idea

The ADL's recent publication, "Fighting Holocaust Denial in Campus Newspaper Advertisements" casts the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH) as having one member, that is, Bradley Smith. CODOH however is not an organization with members or employees. It has no National Chair, National Director, no Deputies and certainly no assistant directors!

To better understand what CODOH is, I borrow the following with slight alteration from Rodrigo Mendoza:

CODOH is an idea. CODOH is every man who has ever stood up for what he has believed in. CODOH is every man who has taken a stand when he saw injustice-- regardless of the cost. CODOH is an idea and ideas, unlike men cannot be imprisoned.

CODOH is heroes of the past both from history and from fiction. CODOH is William Tyndale shouting at the fiery stake for the Lord to open the King of England's eyes. CODOH is Dietrich Bonhoeffer hanging in Flossenbürg for standing up to a dictatorial regime. CODOH is Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr.. CODOH stood up to the Pope at the Diet of Worms and said, "Here I stand." CODOH is an artist, but it's work has been called "degenerate."

CODOH is Winston Smith. CODOH is Howard Roarke. CODOH is Guy Montag with a hidden library. CODOH will not renounce it's values and accept slavery. CODOH will stand up for the principles that we were taught as children. As Americans, we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We have been taught to stand up when we see injustice. We stand with David against Goliath. We stand with the Jews against the Gestapo. We stand with the Communists against the McCarthyite witch-hunt. We stand with African Americans against the Klan. We stand with the soldiers who have died for propaganda and political lies-- on the fields of Flanders, on the USS Arizona, in Korea and Vietnam and in Iraq.

Today there is no group of people more villainized and defamed than revisionists. The governments of the world stand poised to root them out, to bring an end to their "insidious" ideas. Their jails can hold men, but they cannot hold ideas. Their fires can burn books, but not ideas. Their power comes by force. Our power comes from truth and freedom. We are willing to take the chance that you too might be stirred to action. If the battle is joined, we cannot lose. Of course, this is no battle of might but rather of ideas. CODOH's fight, our fight, is for that great value which if known, will set us all free.

Who is CODOH you ask? CODOH is that value and that idea.