3rd November

I wrote a couple of days ago that the “sins of capitalism ended up being paid by the Jews”.

Perhaps I should add that the Jews to an even greater degree ended up paying the price for the turmoil caused by socialism as well.

If the story of Europe since the French Revolution centred about the dissolution of the Feudal regime and the citizen taking power, then you can justifiably say that the mass of people were not ready for political power.

Power is heroin.

If you want a taste of it, try singling out someone on social media and conjure up a wave of anger against that person.

The power to command armies.

4th November

Sometimes people remind me that the CIA was involved with the Ukrainian diaspora with the aim of fostering national aspirations for geopolitical purposes.

One of the reasons I reject explanations like these is not related to their historical factuality. Many such CIA programs existed.

Deferring ideological analysis to “brainwashing” is not going to cut it.

By rejecting that explanation, I can also in good conscience say that I find Marxism appealing not because I have been brainwashed by Jews, but because I think the mentality is an efficient counter-weapon against one ideology ruling the planet.

There is no shortcut to political philosophy.

Likewise there is no quick way to reduce a person to a few simple rules. (I know I do that myself, but I always return to the written word to demolish my own summaries).

You have to read in earnest what the person is saying all the way down to becoming that person whose narrative you are reading. You have to become Theodor Herzl.

And don’t add an escape hatch like “then I have to think according to the Jewish nature”.

You are not Sherlock Holmes who must first adapt his intelligence level to the person he is investigating.

5th November

What the Protocols realises, but The International Jew misses is the similarities between aristocracy and the Jew as perceived by TIJ.

According to the myth, both belong to an unproductive class who can only survive by rent on loans or by taxing roads and waterways.

Both feel they belong to a superior species (again, as the myth will have it).

6th November

When I read TIJ, I constantly compare with present times. Repeating the fallacies would be quite the embarrassment.

I am not sure the conspiracy theories directed against the Jews can be compared to any modern political movement. But the jury is still voting.

As a conspiracy theory it sounds batshit crazy. That becomes evident in the coming chapter eight, when TIJ provides further points of contact with a factual world. They directly quote Theodor Herzl’s AJS and the refer to the sixth Zionist Conference.

In essence, the nationalist Zionist movement is read as typical of Jewish nature to form an impromptu and informal government in “secrecy” (by speaking Hebrew, German or Yiddish), rather than being understood as identical to similar nationalist movements.

It was the Kishinev pogrom that prompted the Uganda program as a temporary solution. The whole conference was steeped in desperation.

Given my position that I have read AJS and am aware of the main issue at that conference, I was gobsmacked at seeing them being misread like they are.

And it got me thinking along lines I have traced before.

Kishinev Pogrom

Say a theory about an ethnical type is nothing but a rationalisation of an animosity. That rational explanation will be in the vocabulary of and using the mental framework of the person holding that theory.

Can the same animosity resurface decades later under more palatable forms, for instance in a scholarly form which is more nuanced and balanced?

The question is perennially relevant to the Jews because they have garnered a lot of negative attention since the October 7 attacks, to the effect that the Jewish population can once again gather around the flag and say that they are the undesired of the world, hence they must be able to defend themselves.

No power in the world can switch off these reactions. Not in Ukraine, not in Russia, not in Palestine and not in Israel.

At the other end of the speculative spectrum it is said that pogroms arise out of material circumstances.

Count Cassini defended Russias insufficient actions during the Kishinev pogrom against Western accusations using these words:

(Link provided by the lexicon) Current Opinion

Count Cassini, the Russian Ambassador to the United States. In an interview on May 18, he said: “There is in Russia, as in Germany and Austria, a feeling against certain of the Jews. The reason for this unfriendly attitude is found in the fact that the Jews will not work in the field or engage in agriculture. They prefer to be money lenders. The situation in Russia, so far as the Jews are concerned. is just this: It is the peasant against the money lender, and not the Russians against the Jews. There is no feeling against the Jew in Russia because of religion. It is as I have said - the Jew ruins the peasants, with the result that con- flicts occur when the latter have lost all their worldly possessions and have nothing to live upon. There are many good Jews in Russia, and they are respected. Jewish genius is appreciated in Russia, and the Jewish artist honored. Jews also appear in the financial world in Russia. The Russian Government affords the same protection to the Jews that it does to any other of its citizens, and when a riot occurs and Jews are attacked the officials immediately take steps to apprehend those who began the riot, and visit severe punishment upon them.”

A statement should never be discarded. In the West we would summarily throw his excuse into the bin as political propaganda. What then when we ourselves commit to similar explanations and stand accused by Eastern citizens of talking like The White Conqueror?

I myself don’t know what to do with Cassini’s statement. I am willing to entertain the thought that he at least speaks out of personal conviction and not just a propaganda line.

What I’d rather spend my time thinking about is whether poverty drives antisemitism. My old textbook on international relations dispels the direct connection between poverty and totalitarianism. James C. Davies’s J-curve theory and B. Zawadzki’s and P. F. Lazarsfeld’s studies on resignation following poverty, not extremism are just a few example.

Note another thing from Cassini: The use of the word “genius”.

I an starting to suspect that the very invention of a people’s “genius” may have contributed negatively to the events of the world.

I do it. Historians do it. We all try to summarise an entire people by their spirit, their essence. Or in 1920s language: Their blood and their genius, although I sense that those words posses a more permanent character.

I can say that the spirit of the English people were such as such under the Hanoverian kings and by that mean a temporary behaviour for a brief period, whereas the genius of the Germanic peoples refer to something unchanging. Their blood.

7th November

This quote from Vladimir Jabotinsky’s autobiography interests me. I stumbled upon it trying to find sources for the 6th Zionist Congress which according to TIJ should contain damning material against the Jews.

The 6th congress turned out to be the one where the Zionists split over the Uganda plan — an offer given to Theodor Herzl by the British Government following the Kishinev pogrom mentioned in this chapter of TIJ.

Your Time Is Up: Jabotinsky at the Sixth Zionist Congress

I wondered myself at the motive hidden deep within my soul that prompted me to vote against, in spite of what I had told my electors. I had no romantic love for Eretz Yisrael then — I am not sure that I have it now — nor could I have known whether there was a danger of a split in the movement. I did not know my people, I saw my delegates for the first time, and I did not yet have time to approach any of them; and the great majority of them, among these many who, like myself, came from Russia, raised their hand to vote “for.”

Reading about Jabotinsky reveals how fractured and fumbling zionism was. Somehow attributing the unfolding events to either a “Jewish genius” or to a master plan is inane. Jews are defined by a level of constant alertness, a mix of desperate people and middle class disbelievers. Most people I have met in my life could easily have fitted into at least one of the possible categories of zionists represented by Jabotinsky or Herzl or others.

TIJ only manages to smear the Jews by holding them up against standards taken from the realm of romantic fiction.

When Jews - like anybody I personally know of - switch jobs to a higher paying one, TIJ complains his Zionist ideal does not fit his nature. If a zionist proposes armed fight, it proves how willing they are to shed blood to be the masters of the world.

TIJ hopes for the Jews to fulfil the biblical prophecy of once again becoming a moral beacon for the world.

By saying that, the writer demands compliance by the Jews to our fictional universe because our bible and their Tanakh shares paper. We treat that as an open door into their cultural universe and presumes agreement on moral and ethical norms.

8th November

It is instructive to witness TIJs slow induction into a full-fledged member of a believer in the Jewish world council.

Everything the Jew in the Protocols mock about the mob and its mentality, they gulp up as living proof of the Jew’s nature and the victimhood suffered by the gentiles.

These people needed the Protocols to focus their resolve.

TIJ - Ch. 8 - Does A Definite Jewish World Program Exist?

● The Jewish Question has a political element (euphemism for “secret council exists”). ● Herzl even talks of a Jewish nation as already existing. ● Many agrees with TIJ’s conclusions. Many. ● Jews will either establish themselves in Palestine or tear down the entire world to adapt it to their needs. ● Herzl: A nation defined by its enemies. ● For Jews: The gentile is the enemy. ● The Protocols will not die. Written by a mastermind. ● Transcends Russian background.

Once they had the Protocols in their hands, they could afford to dispense with all the small grievances and focus on the big ones.

Notice the last argument: “We cannot ignore the fact that we just don’t like these people. They must have a character trait to provoke our dislike.”

TIJ can now, with the Protocols in hand, elevate the matter to a political level: A select handful of super-Jews are plotting to take over the world, and there is proof in the form of a comic book.

Perhaps they should have stuck with the many small grievances.

Soliloquy

I am not saying any of this to ridicule TIJ long after the fact. Frankly I don’t think the TIJ’s arguments are inferior to today’s arguments.

Today the same spectrum exists: In one end, the scientific, almost philosophical arguments. Those are sensitive to the question of the scientific method. And admittedly, those have changed (or aged) from 1920 to 2020.

In the other end, a gathering of people using those arguments to further their own little prejudice. They haven’t changed much since 1920.

Werner Sombart represent a 1920’s sociological perspective. Today we have a plethora of post-modern perspectives. All of these have valid and tangible points, but they ought to be bounded by their method (and very often they are, e.g. Sombart often tries to argue against his conclusions be used in a broader sense, antisemitism in particular).

When people start to use deconstruction as a method to dig out a “truth”, they have really misunderstood the process.

Biblical psychology

For anybody who has spent time on Theodor Herzl’s or other zionist writings, there is little doubt that the Jews were in a defensive position.

On another planet TIJ spends energy on a psychological profile of the Jew based on his history.

Historical in its essence. Compare with Werner Sombart, who also pinpoints historical developments:

WERNER SOMBART - THE JEWS AND MODERN CAPITALISM, p.34 - CHAPTER 4 THE FOUNDATION OF MODERN COLONIES

No. What I have in mind is the special service which the Jews rendered the North American colonies, one peculiar to the American Continent — a service which indeed gave America birth. I refer to the simple fact that during the 17th and 18th centuries the trade of the Jews was the source from which the economic system of the colonies drew its lifeblood.

As is well known, England forced her colonies to purchase all the manufactured articles they needed in the Mother-country. Hence the balance of trade of the colonies was always an adverse one, and by constantly having to send money out of the country they would have been drained dry. But there was a stream which carried the precious metals into the country, a stream diverted in this direction by the trade of the Jews with South and Central America. The Jews in the English colonies maintained active business relations with the West Indian Islands and with Brazil, resulting in a favourable balance of trade for the land of their sojourn. The gold mined in South America was thus brought to North America and helped to keep the economic system in a healthy condition.

Language is a sensitive thing. When Sombart writes this, he simply means that thanks to the historical circumstances (which involved the Jews because of their habits, which were shaped by previous historical circumstances), USA managed to survive economically and outpace the motherland.

If we dial up to eleven on the sensitivity scale, we can say that Sombart by his self-confident statement invents an aura around the Jews. He sketches them with their superpowers and their cape, as it were, making them instantly recognisable.

Sombart has no intention of locking them into anything resembling unalterable stereotyping. They could change tomorrow.

Sombart adds his 1 out of 20 argument:

WERNER SOMBART - THE JEWS AND MODERN CAPITALISM, p.35 - CHAPTER 4 THE FOUNDATION OF MODERN COLONIES

But how comes it that American culture is so steeped in Jewishness?

[…] twenty families went forth into the wilds to begin their life anew. Nineteen were equipped with plough and scythe, ready to clear the forests and till the soil in order to earn their livelihood as husbandmen. The twentieth family opened a store to provide their companions with such necessaries of life as could not be obtained from the soil […].

Very often the store had a kind of agricultural loan-bank as its adjunct, perhaps also an office for the buying and selling of land. […]

Accordingly, it may be said that American economic life was from its very start impregnated with capitalism. And who was responsible for this? The twentieth family in each village. Need we add that this twentieth family was always a Jewish one, which joined a party of settlers or soon sought them out in their homesteads?

Note that 1) the cooperation was friendly. The portrayed Jew was doing the remaining 19 a service. And 2) Sombart spends considerable energy finding out that the storekeeper was often Jewish. Furthermore, 3) the purpose is to show that there is a harmony between Jewish habits and the primitive capitalism of America.

The factuality of his claims is another matter. I assume Sombart to be a serious person. (Side note: He does write that “But what caps all — Columbus himself is claimed to have been a Jew. I give this piece of information for what it is worth, without guaranteeing its accuracy.”)

From Sombart to Ford, something has happened. Now the Jew is causing disaster doing what he was once thanked to do. Imagine twenty children playing “village”. They hand out roles, and one of them fancies that of the storekeeper. Is he capitalist by nature? Should he be condemned for picking that role, or even for not desiring the remaining ones, or even perhaps just being too slow to opt for the quickly dissipating chances to become a gold digger?

In both cases, we as readers must accept being engulfed in Sombart’s and Ford’s perspective. They both establish reality (erroneous or not). One is friendly, the other is not.

What has changed? Capitalism at the scale of a store in a small town can seem like a great solution. But it is the same capitalism that eventually grows into an international enterprise.

Sombart’s conclusions are today labelled antisemitic by scholars. No wonder, given his influence on the world in subsequent years. And yet, his arguments are as alluring today as they were when The Jews and Modern Capitalism was published.

Facts are claimed to be wrong. Sweeping statistical observations are claimed to be wrong. But how much is debated.

It shows how much something can seem real one day and vanish in thin air the next.

TIJ delves a lot further into these apparent connections. When they talk about how the “genius of the Jew himself has always put these spokesmen’s zeal to shame”, their language presupposes the existence of such a defined “genius”.

Our western dichotomy: One of our perennial complaints about Russia and China is a supposed oppression of ethnic minorities, Crimean Tatars, Uighurs.

Russia (or Russians?) tries to take away the cultural peculiarities of these societies.

In Europe, as soon as the talk is on integration in the western societies, we demand complete assimilation ourselves. Arabs must eat pork and celebrate Christmas or be frowned upon, and countless other examples.

We try to invert the logic by stating that their cultural habits are really oppression that we want to liberate them from, but compared with TIJ’s statements, the hypocrisy stands out in all its glory.

Herzl like Herzl has never seen himself before.

The authors of TIJ was bound to stumble upon the quote from Herzl’s AJS which I could sense would stir trouble. In the context it of course made absolute sense - I would have used the same words as he had.

Starting from the beginning, TIJ uses AJS as argument that the Jews already think of themselves as nation.

TIJ of course swaps “people” with “nation-state”.

When Herzl uses the expression Jewish Question, it is in the sense of “what action should the Jews take, since they are most unwelcome in every country?”

When TIJ uses the expression, they mean “what action should each country take, since they suffer from the existence of Jews in that country.”

THEODOR HERZL - A JEWISH STATE, p.2 - 1: INTRODUCTION

The Jewish question still exists. It would be useless to deny it. It is a remnant of the Middle Ages, which civilized nations do not even yet seem able to shake off, try as they will. They certainly showed a generous desire to do so when they emancipated us. The Jewish question exists wherever Jews live in perceptible numbers.

Where it does not exist, it is carried by Jews in the course of their migrations.

Quote in line with both mentalities, Herzl’s comment before a commission hearing resonates in different ways:

And TIJ erupts with glee and fury. That common enemy must be the gentiles!

In fact, both happily agree on all but one account: Have the Western societies done anything to deserve this. Either we are innocent or guilty as hell.

Once you acquire a wonderful state of colour blindness towards our own macabre sins, anything can be true. Such as TIJ’s perception of this Herzl quote:

… which probably is also true in at least some sense, although it misses the precarious nature of the Jewish position, like the parakeet’s ability to annoy the cat. Not without dangers.

TIJ quotes a conservative British politician, Lord Eustace Percy:

I have been unable to locate the quote or the context. It would appear that TIJ has a friend out in the political fields.

It sets the tone quite well for the next round:

Herzl struggled with his plan as far as I can see. Funding was lacking.

The Jew must work out the budget for establishing a nation in Palestine versus the budget for demolishing the global political system across the globe. Then seek funding from both internal and external sources and commence work.

Herzl probably expected his words to be twisted out of proportions.

A political body before becoming a nation

Now that TIJ knows about the existence of the will to have a state, concluding that one exists comes rather natural.

Herzl must have known about those eventualities. If the Jews become too eager to establish a nation, they may inadvertently start before acquiring an actual piece of land. In zero time will they have departments of foreign affairs and a ministry of agriculture without soil to till and whose deputies are utterly without offices and secretaries and canteen.

The very fact that they are invisible (except when their limousines line up next to a barren field somewhere and they congregate in their suits for an ad-hoc meeting in their ad-hoc assemblies), now means they are automatically covert agents. The tone in Herzl’s AJS clearly reflects this aspect.

You are hearing the voice of the mob which the Protocols were busying themselves warning us about.

Professor Nilus outside his comfort zone

Nilus would be surprised to see that Henry Ford in America was also interested in hunting down the Antichrist.

Yes, there is nothing particularly Russian about lampooning liberalism, anarchy and socialism, praising the aristocracy and trying to sneak in the bonds of mutual devotion between peasant and monarch between the lines.

TIJ spends some time connecting dots from the Zionist conferences to the Protocol’s suggested world council.

Sigh.

TIJ takes the prize when they hungrily quote someone:

Missing pieces that make up a picture

When we blind ourselves from aspects of our fellow man’s (or woman’s) sufferings, we open the door for misinterpretation.

TIJ refuses to see that the Jew’s behaviour is a natural consequence of their historical position. (Well, more precisely, TIJ use the historical account to establish that the Jews are different, and ought to take responsibility for their difference, as their stark difference from the surrounding cultures makes us oppress them).

The implied answer is an uncertain “no”.

Nature alone seems not to be enough.

(As mention earlier, I have not been able to establish what in the Paris peace treaty is specifically related to Jews or anything a Jewish councillor might have advised).

TIJ is an endless fountain of insight into the Jewish psychology:

… which the aforementioned conservative Eustace Percy ought to be able to appreciate for its sheer disruptive force upon his ideological enemies.

The remaining part of the chapter adds little food for thought.

Mainly their suspicion suffer from the fact that it is amorphous. They seek out confirmation from many places, and the wealth of statements which alludes or outright confirms their idea is presented as the real proof.

We are all guilty of “seeing” things.

I see a pro-autocratic writer reveal himself in the Protocols. Others see their antisemitism first and foremost. Dearborn Independent sees the quintessential Jew reveal himself.

We all construct a picture out of those snippets of proof, we can find.

PARADISE LOST