TIJ Chapter 7

Mon Dec 22, 2025

30th October

The further I dive into the social movement aspect of the world around 1920, the more I see the outlines of a frightening prospect: That we have never learned to hate nazism or any other totalitarianism, at least not when we are presented with its flowering early forms. They imbue hope.

What we hate is the caricature, the wrinkled petrified monster that the youthful movement grew into.

Against that we have the petrified church of liberalism. The cold refusal to be enamoured with anything, owing to a cynical premonition that the monster will arise again. Garnished with a whiff of human rights.

But politics is and remains a room full of people of power. Elected or won by force, it changes little. The masses rarely constitute a body politic who sufficiently appreciates that their leaders represent a liberal alternative to passionate social movements. They rarely understand that we should help the coolest and most cynical heads to prevail or our society could succumb to a love that will likely turn into hate. That we should always opt for selfishness lest solidarity should get the better of us.

Society is a game that cannot be won.

31st October

Far-right is an odd misnomer.

Lumping national-socialism into the same shelf as conservatism is a problematic way to think.

One is about change, the other is about rallying around cultural values. Unless of course we mean the old aristocracy.

1st November

What frustrates me is that the sins of capitalism ended up being paid by the Jews.

Social upheaval and revolution were brewing and possibly underway in Germany, Russia and even America too.

Ironically, even within capitalist America, a fracture opened up between the world of finance and that of industry. Thus people like Henry Ford can sit at his desk and condemn the speculative branch of capitalism while stating that:

HENRY FORD - TODAY AND TOMORROW, p.33 - CHAPTER 3: BIG BUSINESS AND THE MONEY POWER

Money does not control wheat, coal, and other essentials of life. How can it? It does not create them.

[…]

The true course of business is to follow the fortunes and pursue the service of those who had faith in it from the beginning — the public. If there is any saving in manufacturing cost, let it go to the public. If there is any increase in profits, let it be shared with the public in lowered prices.

Money with a human face unlike the (Jewish?) speculative finance; faceless money, behind which stand a decrepit, disfigured moral hunchback full of hate and envy for the industrialists’ moral vitality and conscientious public spirit.

Such is the underlying religious system at least.

TIJ - Ch. 7 - Arthur Brisbane Leaps To The Help Of Jewry

● Brisbane! ● Phoenecians… Super Jews or not Jews at all? ● Their success. ● The peace conference thwarted by Jews. ● The benefits of an investigation.

This time TIJ is disturbed by another journalist who dares to defend the Jews. Arthur Brisbane, who appears to be a strange, theatrical fellow.

I read some of his editorials (Arthur Brisbane). According to both TIJ and the lexicon, he did acquire a readership of some size, though by today’s standards, he would approximate a revivalist.

The author in this article in TIJ is visible annoyed that he cannot hammer it into Brisbane’s skull that the problem is systemic capitalism, not the presence or absence of a few praiseworthy individuals.

I think this may be Brisbane’s article

The International Jew, Ch. 7
Of course, Mr. Brisbane has not studied the Question. He would probably admit in private conversation … that he really knows nothing about it.
He knows, however, as a good newspaper man, how to handle it when the exigencies of the newspaper day throw it up to him for offhand treatment. Every editorial writer knows how to do that.

So Brisbane hurriedly throws something together that ought to defuse the frenzied feelings, which TIJ is not at all happy about. Brisbane himself ought to know better:

The International Jew, Ch. 7
And yet, having lived in New York for a long time, having had financial dealings of a large and obligating nature with certain interests in this country, having seen no doubt more or less of the inner workings of the great trust and banking groups, and being constantly surrounded by assistants and advisors who are members of the Jewish race, Mr. Brisbane must have had his thoughts.

Brisbane and Ford lash out against each other and the whole matter is hardly interesting.

ARTHUR BRISBANE, QUOTED IN THE JEWISH VOICE, 3 NOVEMBER 1921

There is no place in American public life, of course, for a man that causes an entire useful race, faithful representatives of an ancient religion, to be slandered systematically.

[…]

Mr. Ford, presumably willing to learn, should study with open mind, as he studies gas engines and transportation, the history of the Jewish people.

And on it goes, as they go around arguing if the Phoenicians are “Jews” or merely “semitic” and whether those and other famous people can elevate the Jews out of the accusation of being exploiters of other people’s bravery and skills.

What about the Phoenicians? They were of the Semitic race. They were the first to sail from the Mediterranean through the Straits of Gibraltar out Into the wild Atlantic.

TIJ answers:

The International Jew, Ch. 7
“What about the Phoenicians?” he asks. He should have looked that up while his mind was opened receptively toward the subject, and he would not have made so miserable a blunder as to connect them so closely with the Jews. He would never find a Jew doing that.

Jews and Phoenicians are closer than just that, but even monozygotic twins will develop wildly different when raised under different circumstances.

But that argument (in favour of TIJ’s view) also incidentally speaks against the focus on blood over culture, i.e. a different tenet of TIJ.

If historical circumstances shapes a people, then a people of Fords (plural) going through the same events as the Jews would become the same kind of people. On the other hand, if genes matter, then the Phoenicians and the Jews can be roughly equated. No two ways about it.

The fact that somewhere in the country a small club of boys feels deeply in their gut about the Jew and his nature is obviously insignificant.

Identity

There is a comment, I’d like to return to:

The International Jew, Ch. 7
Did he [Brisbane] really feel that the Jews are being "persecuted" when an attempt is made to uncover the extent and causes of their control in the United States and elsewhere?

One must remember that this was written before Holocaust, (but certainly while pogroms were known).

We cannot get around the evident truth that these people feel they are under attack.

All the rationalisations aside, the situation is starting to blow up as soon as a certain percentage of a crowd starts to fight for their world for some perceived reason.

Unable to see that perhaps among Jews there also is a striking percentage of people fighting for their way of life, events unfold systematically towards calamity, usually a small civil war, but in real bad cases, genocide.

In all my studies so far, the only real driver for genocide I have come across is this fight for “our lives”. Some kind of animal fear is built into human that is triggered by social circumstances.

Enslave or be enslaved, seems to be the cultural modus operandi.

Success

The International Jew, Ch. 7
“Jews numbering less than one per cent of the earth’s population possess by conquest, enterprise, Industry and intelligence 50 per cent of the world’s commercial success,” says Mr. Brisbane.
Does it mean anything to Mr. Brisbane? Has he ever thought how it will all turn out? Is he willing to absolve that “success” from every quality which humanity has a right to challenge? Is he entirely satisfied with the way that “success” is used where it is supreme? Would he be willing to undertake to prove that it is due to those commendable qualities he has named and nothing less commendable?

The fear is of course the secret introduction of a caste system in which these people will belong to the lower classes.

On the other hand, the only demand I have seen so far is the requirement that the Jews use their skills to the benefit of all, not just Jews.

The game of counter proof is a sorry one. If I maintain that this is exactly what the rich Jews are doing when they lend money to expeditions, building projects, even armies (arguably a lopsided benefit for humanity), then my argument is taken away from me and used as proof that Jews have the means to control the world or else they could not offer such gifts.

At least among Zionist there is a clear understanding that the rich Jews probably aren’t interested in helping their religious compatriots.

Suggesting Brisbane to write about the Jewish problem, …

The International Jew, Ch. 7
One of the articles might be entitled “The Jews at the Peace Conference.”- His men should be instructed to learn who were the most prominent figures at the Peace Conference;

Sometimes I am surprised how many people from Ivy League universities hold top positions in society. Given how alike they are and their secret societies that bind them together, I consider these a menace that needs to be managed.

All we are asking is that Ivy Leaguers think a little less about themselves and either 1) relinquish their control or 2) starts to include more non-Ivy Leaguers in their staff. When we can see the percentage of their share of top positions fall, we know one of these options has happened.

TIJ has many suggestions to articles that Brisbane could spend time on.

For instance, I cannot confirm that a Jew owns Alaska.

The International Jew, Ch. 7
Does Mr. Brisbane know who owns Alaska? He may have been under the impression, in common with the rest of us until we learned better, that it was owned by the United States. No, it is owned by the same people who are coming rapidly to own the United States.

Though I am not sure I can spare the time to investigate.

Is antisemitism friendly?

Along comes this paragraph, which induces a feeling of honest sincerity from these people.

The International Jew, Ch. 7
Prejudice and hatred are the very conditions which a scientific study of the Jewish Question will forestall and prevent. We prejudge what we do not know, and we hate what we do not understand; the study of the Jewish Question will bring knowledge and insight, and not to the Gentile only, but also to the Jew.
The Jew needs this as much, even more than the Gentile. For if the Jew can be made to see, understand and deal with certain matters, then a large part of the Question vanishes in the solution of ideal common sense. Awaking the Gentile to the facts about the Jew is only part of the work; awaking the Jew to the facts about the Question is an indispensable part.
The big initial victory to be achieved is to transform Gentiles from being mere attackers and to transform Jews from being mere defenders, both of them special pleaders for partisan views, and to turn them both into investigators. The investigation will show both Gentile and Jew at fault, and the road will then be clear for wisdom to work out a result, if there should perchance be that much wisdom left in the race.

As humans, these people are really deep down very decent! They don’t want gas chambers and railroad wagons ferrying marked men, women and children to the other side. They just want to be able to talk civilised about an area of reality that simply is constituted in a different way than what sensitive people claim it is.

The International Jew, Ch. 7
Tolerance is first a tolerance of the truth. Tolerance is urged today for the sake of suppression. There can be no tolerance until there is first a full understanding of what is tolerated. Ignorance, suppression, silence, collusion—these are not tolerance. The Jew never has been really tolerated in the higher sense because he has never been understood. Mr. Brisbane does not assist the understanding of this people by reading a “simply written” book and flinging a few Jewish names ‘about inasea of type. He owes it to his own mind to get into the Question, whether he makes newspaper use of his discoveries or not.

Once we can agree that the Jews have horrible traits and their culture out of arrogance keeps these alive, we are finally getting somewhere. There may even be hope. Perhaps the Jews themselves can see the futility of it all and will as a last act of decency build their own gas chambers and decimate themselves.

All it takes is a courteous conversation and some rational thinking. And the humility to admit that you are just plain wrong.

The peace conference

TIJ asserts a couple of hefty claims about the peace conference, probably the WW1 Paris Peace Conference.

This will take some extensive effort. I know that Woodrow Wilson (who is hardly a socialist) did not manage to effectuate his wishes as much as he had hoped.

I still have a lot of reading about WW1.

My hunch, though, is that TIJ may conflate leading Social Democratic representatives with Jewish ones, given how they see Marxism as a Jewish invention.

2nd November

Cultural heritage and systemic (dis)advantage

As is very clear by now, the discussion is about something that transcends our individual perspective but is not so universal as to constitute an eternal law. It is about what happens to a group of people given their historical circumstances.

TIJ and many of kindred spirit fixate on the ethnical aspect and blankly upholds that “no gentile would ever think like insert-horrendous-mentality-here”. Even while enumerating many of the financial inventions accomplished by Jews, they used the phrase “… were invented by Jews”, implying that nowadays everybody else is doing it too.

For comparison, let’s take a peek over the fence and see what Gramsci wrote about Fordism.

ANTONIO GRAMSCI - PRISON NOTEBOOKS, p.286 - AMERICANISM AND FORDISM

In America rationalisation has determined the need to elaborate a new type of man suited to the new type of work and productive process. This elaboration is still only in its initial phase and therefore (apparently) still idyllic. It is still at the stage of psycho-physical adaptation to the new industrial structure, aimed for through high wages.

However free and healthy Ford can imagine the average gentile American to be, according to this view, a marked alteration of the human condition is already taking place within Ford’s own factories.

The struggle taking place in America, as described by Philip, is still in defence of craft rights against "industrial liberty". In other words, it is similar to the struggle that took place in Europe in the eighteenth century, although in different conditions. American workers unions are, more than anything else, the corporate expression of the rights of qualified crafts and therefore the industrialists’ attempts to curb them have a certain “progressive” aspect.

Gramsci is comparing the mentality of worker’s union with the reactionary force of guilds in the 18th century. Against that backdrop, the industrialist comes across as a progressive force who have to struggle with backward thinking all the way.

We have already seen that in Ford’s incessant belief in the futuristic value of transforming the economy. The bonus is higher wages and increased living standards. The price is the “rationalisation” of the workers, i.e, their adaption to the new kind of capitalism.

Exactly how deep this transformation will penetrate our essence is posited without pulling his punches:

ANTONIO GRAMSCI - PRISON NOTEBOOKS, p.297 - AMERICANISM AND FORDISM

One should not be misled, any more than in the case of prohibition, by the “puritanical” appearance assumed by this concern. The truth is that the new type of man demanded by the rationalisation of production and work cannot be developed until the sexual instinct has been suitably regulated and until it too has been rationalised.

He makes it sound like a bad science fiction movie, but he is in earnest.

Of course, Ford would reflexively relegate those words to the ranks of Jewish Bolshevism.

From my childhood I remember those dystopian science fiction movies emerging out of the 60s and 70s, but I guess going all the way back to Metropolis. The Factory and the City as perverters of human instinct.

In Gramsci’s analysis, the matter is aggravated further, in that there is really no natural state that industrialist society modifies. We say it in the hidden hope that if left to one’s own devices, reality would return.

Gramsci knows that there is no origin, no axis mundi around which our personality revolves.

New trends transforms us and from then on, the social structure will be changed.

In the midst of the battlefield, entrenched in old ideologies, we find the orthodox, the religious, the zealots of yesterday clinging to truths that now appear to be little more than relics.

This is the irony of Ford’s little paper. That him, the man of Today and Tomorrow, surrounds himself comfortably with people who puts “gentile” values on a pedestal and wants Jews to swear an oath against the tides of speculative capitalism, in loyalty of yesterdays’s ethical system.

But but but …

But but but … can’t we simply decide that human beings have a core? That “gentile” values are intrinsic to our race?

That would be missing the point: The entire force of Gramsci’s writing is the very fact that it is perceptive as hell.

That doesn’t make it right, but this is writing! The divine sport. Being Right consummates itself with The Word and becomes Book, and the perspective can no longer be shed.

Does human have a core that it can revert to? Do gentiles have essential values? Do Jews? Is human reality a field that can be changed when the plough cuts new furrows? Is historical dialectics our mode of cognition?

Writing makes it so.

The religious version

I am not a religious person, but I have a vague conception of spirit.

The human world is a house full of furniture and lit by a diffuse light from windows obstructed by heavy curtains. As ages pass by, we erect new furniture, demolish some and move everything around constantly. On occasion we accidentally touch a curtain and let in the light and all hell breaks loose.

PARADISE LOST