Trois: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as Presented in Behold a Pale Horse pp. 314-316

Protocol 17

A good start is what you call a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the sea. And fortunately, the Elder agrees…sort of. This protocol is a strange one, it is more evidence that the Protocols are not meant to be read like a normal book. We are supposed to cherry pick sections of it as evidence of the conspiracy while making the assumption that the rest of the book offers support for the part we cherry picked. I’ll spoil the surprise now, this protocol contains three distinct subjects, which are unrelated narratively from each other. 

I] The practice of advocacy produces men cold, cruel, persistent, un-principled, who in all cases take up an impersonal, purely legal standpoint.

The elder is going to discuss lawyers and the legal profession. I know that hating the lawyers is as old as the legal profession. We have Shakespeare’s Dick the Butcher and Jack Cade discussing the formation of a new society and Dick the Butcher suggests, “First thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers (Henry VI Part 2 Act IV Scene 2).” The lament of Dick and Jack is that it seems like that lawyers do more damage with the skin of the lamb (the parchment that the law is written on) and the wax of a bee (the official seal) than the lamb or the bee does and it seems like magic. This is the motivating force behind the Sovereign Citizen/Freemen on the Land, movement which I have discussed throughout this book. 

The Elder describes lawyers as being cold, impersonal, and being so focused on the law that they have no conception of the public benefit. So far, this strikes me as Golovenski (our plagiarist) as having a personal problem with a particular lawyer, or perhaps this is Joly’s beef with the lawyers defending the legality of Napolean III without understanding the damage that enabling him can cause. Either way this is playing on the stereotype that even Shakespeare is using in the Henry VI. 

The elder further suggests that the law become more impersonal. The lawyers (he uses the term “Advocates”) must be completely separated from their clients and only confer with the judges and each other. This way the lawyers will be more reporters of the law than those with an interest in the outcome, or so it will seem to the clients. 

Further lending credence to my hypothesis that this is personal: “This will also, by the way, remove the present practic of corrupt bargain between advocates to agree only to let that side win which pays most…”

That ellipses is not mine, it’s in the text, and that means it is time for a subject change. 

II] The very next sentence, “We have long past taken care to discredit the priesthood of the goyim, and thereby to ruin their mission on earth which in these days might still be a great hindrance to us.” 

The word “goyim” is what we are supposed to read as “cattle” according to Cooper’s attempt at making this chapter not seem to be as anti-Semitic as it is. This excuse never works because it’s not the word that makes it anti-Semitic it’s the context. Christians call their religious leaders “priests” and while the term can be generic, to a European audience it’s not. Further, two sentences later, the Elder discusses that they’ve been specifically attacking the “Christian religion.” 

The rest of this subsection attacks the Catholic Church. This is an interesting take because I’m not quite sure who it is for. Modern believers in the Protocols are anti-Catholic. It’s easy to forget, but one target of groups like the Ku Klux Klan were Catholics. The Elder attacks the Papal Court because, during the time of the Russian Revolution the Vatican is the last feudal society left in Europe. It has some esteem earned solely from age and even those who dislike the Catholic religion have a certain respect for the institution itself. Attacking that shows the immorality of the Elder and his people, which is why they will rush to defend it after their proxy forces have broken it down. 

The religion of the elder is the only thing that will be practiced and only by the elite. Yet I don’t quite understand why this would even be necessary. If only the Elder’s people can practice the true religion, do they even need the true religion? Perhaps it’s my atheism, or even the incapacity of the plagiarist to conceive that there could be a people without religion. The rest of the religions of the world will be debased to vulgar and unprincipled expressions because the true religion can only be “practiced by the genius of our gifted tribe…”

III) This third topic is unfocused, er, more unfocused than usual. It discusses that the population will keep itself under surveillance, the Elder will impart a sense of duty so that 1/3 will feel obligated to report the rest for any infractions. It will be an honor to be a spy and informer, but they will quickly and severely deal with any unfounded denunciations. We wouldn’t want a recreation of the Inquisition or the witch-hunts in our dystopian society. The irony of this is that Golovinski, the plagiarist, was an agent of the Russian secret police who planted stories in the press–so this section was very familiar to him. 

The rest of the protocol describes who they will control and if you think we’ve read this before–we haven’t. In previous protocols he’s described controlling the advisors to rulers who can blackmail them. Now he’s going to control the administrative state, but also those people who spend their time in, “amusements, editors, printers, and publishers, booksellers, clerks, and salesmen, workmen, coachmen, lackeys, etcetera.” 

So, the question we should be asking is, “who is left out?” That list covers everyone. If everyone is in on the conspiracy than it’s not a conspiracy, it’s just society. The elder is describing a society that is authoritarian for sure, but everyone knows about the conspiracy. He just listed every profession and then capped it off with an “etcetera” so that if we can point out a missing profession it’s in there. 

Finally, the protocol closes by reminding us that it’s explicitly anti-Semitic, “Such an organisation will extirpate abuses of authority, of force, of bribery, everything in fact which we by our counsels, by our theories of the superhuman rights of man, have introduced into the customs of the goyim…”

Again, with these ellipses. Anyway, the point here is that all the problems that we see are really the Jews’ fault. Bribery, abuse, force, etc.. these crimes may be committed by the good Christian leaders but they do so only because the Jewish Kabal has introduced them into the world. To repeat from earlier, the point of this book is not to read it, it’s to skim it and then find whatever you need to justify your worldview. 

Individualism: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as Presented in Behold a Pale Horse pp. 312-314

Depression saved me. I had a roommate one that was very into Ayn Rand, and he kept telling me that I needed, NEEDED, to read the Fountain Head. I took one look at the size of the book, and in my depression spiral, said ‘no.’ It was too big, too long, and my depression wasn’t going to let me read it. I should also explain that at this time I was reading the History of Florence by Niccolo Machiavelli; and a history of Rome that argued that the fall of Rome was due to the change in the Legions from different forces to one large mobile army (I’m not exactly convinced of that argument). Still my brain took a hard pass on Ayn Rand. 

For a class I had to read her “Anthem,” which is significantly shorter, but, somehow just as preachy. I found her prose to be trite and terrible. The idea, that some force prevented people from saying the word “I” (this is the revelation at the end of the book) was absurd. If the word “we” is used in the singular enough it adopts the same meaning. The metaphor is bad. 

Conspiracy theorists on the right of politics laud individuality as a virtue. They claim that groups like the World Economic Forum, the UN, the Tri-Lateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Illuminati are working to subvert the very concept of individuality. Our Elder is, oddly, doing the opposite. He wants to destroy collectivism, “In order to effect the destruction of all collective forces except ours we shall emasculate the first stage of collectivism–the universities, by re-educating them in a new direction.” 

I, was not prepared for this. So much of this book is a blueprint for conspiracy tracts that follow it–that  I was entirely expecting the collectivism to be the goal. The Elder wants to demonize Universities because they teach working together, so we, as the reader, are supposed to want this. Mind = blown.

Then again…this protocol seems to be all over the place. He wants to destroy collective education in order to drive a wedge between the established order (the monarchy of the Russian Empire) and the people. Ok, fine, I get what the goal is there, but then he argues that “when we are in power we shall remove every kind of disturbing subject from the course of education and shall make out of the youth obedient children of authority, loving him who rules as the support and hope of peace and quiet.” 

Golovenski is having a difficult time “writing” this section. On the one hand the Elder is going to demonize the established order, but on the other hand he’s not going to teach anything which goes against the authorities in charge. Previously, the Elder has argued that he would make puppets of the established rulers, so how does driving the wedge between them and population serve that plan? Again, I don’t think that the audience of this book has really read the content of the book. They’ve skimmed it, and I would certainly doubt that very few of them have made it this far. 

The Elder then makes a curiously ironic declaration, “Each state of life must be trained within strict limits corresponding to its destination and work in life.“

His edict is that people will be educated in hyper-specific categories. People will only be educated in the spheres that will serve them in their lives. This is interesting because the current conspiracy crowd is in favor of this kind of thinking. Ever since William F. Buckley’s “God and Man at Yale” it has been a mantra amongst the conspiracy crowd to demonize higher education, especially of the generalize liberal arts variety. If you’ve ever encountered someone arguing that people ought to be in trade schools, this is the fruit of that tree. Yet, here the Elder is arguing pro-specialized education so that we are supposed to hate it. 

Then, of course, the elder entirely contradicts himself, “daring these assemblies, on holidays, teachers will read what will pass as free lectures on questions of human relations, of the laws of examples, of the limitations which are born of unconscious relations, and finally, of the philosophy of new theories not yet declared to the world.”

He wants the people to read speculative philosophy–which I am interpreting as the socialist literature of the day given the context of the protocols. So, at first the elder wants to ban collective education but then he wants us to embrace the most theoretical of it. This game is getting tired at this point because it’s hard to really pinpoint what it is that the conspiracy wants. Normally, I would say that this is the point of the contradictions and obfuscations–so that the reader can fill in whatever they want as being the tool of the conspiracy and the solution to it. I won’t do it here because our author does not appear to be clever enough to accomplish that. 

The entire Protocol is really concerned with “thought control.” This is what Orwell was trying to warn us about in 1984–not the mis-characterized version that pundits bring up but in the actual reading of 1984. The point was to control the thought process of the population, so that the word “knife” would mean six different things thus restricting the ability of the people to express themselves. The Elder is short on details because those don’t really matter in this fiction, what matters is that anytime someone criticizes the authority of the people in charge, they can be demonized as being brainwashed by “them,” which in this case is the “Jews.” 

The Elder closes with an ellipses that is complete nonsense; then he writes, “In France, one of our best agents, Bourgeois, has already made public a new programme of teaching by object lessons.” 

What? “Bourgeois” is a person? I have to guess that the point of this comment is to get people to analyze the French educational system, but to make comparisons against a stereotype of the French from all of the problems they’ve encountered since their Revolution. Even if that’s the case, we should be given longer than a single oddly constructed sentence about it. As I said in the Gary Allen book, the Robison book, and even in the larger Cooper book: these conspiracy theorists could use an editor. 

Anti-Masonry: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as presented in Behold a Pale Horse pp. 305-12

Protocol 15

I remember as a kid being fascinated by a book cover that transformed step by step the symbol of the Freemasons into the Star of David. I didn’t know precisely what it meant, I was sitting in the corner of the Waldenbooks at the local mall (because I’m old). I don’t remember the title of the book but just remembering the cover can tell me what the book was about. Here the elder makes an explicit reference to other secret societies and names the Masons. It leads to an interesting problem. 

First off, the Elder claims that there will be a coup d’etat which has been “prepared everywhere” for the “the same day” that will usher in the world government. It’s a plan, and it’s one that has been done before. Given that the original work is French in origin this has to be a reference to the arrest of the Templars. The Knights Templar (who I brought up last post as well) were arrested in one day in simultaneous raids whereever the French King had influence. It was done in this manner so that the Templars could not flee to other strongholds to warn the others. Still, this did not work, because the word “simultaneous” is going to have a bit of difficulty working in all of Europe in the 14th century. Clocks aren’t even a thing yet. In the original work, this universal coup d’etat, is actually a reference to what Machiavelli writes in “The Prince.” He writes in Chapter VIII that a ruler ought to perform all of their brutalities at once in order to get them over with, rather than prolong the people’s awareness of methods that may seem vicious or excessive so that the people forget.

The Elder then makes a pronouncement concerning what he will do with the secret societies, “Every kind of new institution of anything like a secret society will also be punished with death; those them which are now in existence, are known to us, serve us and have served us, we shall disband and send into exile to continents far removed from Europe.” 

I feel this is reasonable. Remember a “secret society” is just a private club that does not publish its membership. Because of books like Robison’s though, this has taken on a more sinister meaning. I suppose that because they have served they will continue to serve, just somewhere else. The Elder doesn’t say where they will be sent, only out of Europe. Given that this work is being written for a Russian audience, they could mean America, China, or Japan. I admit that wanting this detail is odd, but the practicalities of these conspiracy theories is a source of amusement to me. Do colonial areas count? Would Ethiopia or India count as “non-European” to the Elder? 

The Elder makes this strange comment, “In this way we shall proceed with those goy masons who know too much; such of these as we may for some reason spare will be kept in constant fear of exile.”

It’s more of the same, but I don’t get why the Elder says “for some reason” they will keep them in fear of exile. He’s the omnipotent ruler of the secret cabal which controls the world. Shouldn’t he know why? The problem with this book is that it’s poorly written while its source material is not. It’s very clear that the Golovinski did not understand Joly’s work nor the Philosophical work that inspired Joly. 

Most of this protocol is a justification for absolute authority. It’s rather uninteresting in that vein because we should understand that the Elder is just trying to inscense the readership. However, they’re not trying to incense the reader against autocracy, but the steps prior to it. They can’t ban the secret societies until they’ve taken power, so in the meantime the Elder is going to do the opposite, “we shall create and multiply free masonic lodges in all the countries of the world, absorb into them all who may become or who are prominent in public activity, for in these lodges we shall find our principle intelligence office and means of influence.” 

Did the Elder forget the earlier part where all of these people are going to be exiled? It seems that such organizations would be useful in maintaining the absolute power of the cabal. He later writes that such authority over these lodges means that any plots that arise against them will, in actuality, be their own plots by their own agents. Disbanding this, according to every fictional world that I ever read like this, just means that they will find their own places. The entire diatribe against secret societies is very reminiscent of the complaints that Robison had of “New Masonry” in his book. There were too many new lodges and too many people in them that talked about forbidden topics (religion, politics, women). 

The elder then writes, “though it be nothing more than the stoppage of the applause they had, and to reduce them to a slavish submission for the sake of winning a renewal of success…”

This isn’t the first time we’ve ended a paragraph on an ellipses, but it’s just as infuriating. Is there a thought that this is meant to hold the place of? Or is this just supposed to leave an impression? I think the latter, but the problem being we have to guess. The story of the Protocols is that this was an intercepted document of instructions to the rest of the Cabal. If that is the case then there is no justification for the ellipses. It makes as much sense as the ellipses and rhetorical questions in “Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars.” 

This protocol concludes with the worst attempt at self-justification I’ve read outside of a business ethics’ student’s final paper, “As you see, I found our despotism on right and duty; the right to compel the execution of duty is the direct obligation of a government which is a father for its subjects.

No, the Elder has not done any of this. All the elder has done is listed a series of actions that he will take: get rid of the secret societies, exile the membership of those that he found useful, abolish legistlature, replace the judiciary at the age of 55, and abolish the right of appeal. Those are things that he will do, but he’s only justified them as the path toward power there has been no reasoning at all. 

Philosophically the argument is nonsense. A right is that which the government has a duty to protect. We have a right to free speech thus the law has a duty to protect it. Rights are claims that individuals make against others. Duties are obligations, you do not need a special right to perform a duty. Duties must be performed, that’s the ontological nature of the word “duty.” 

The entire section (that doesn’t concern secret societies) reinforces my belief that the plagiarist knows what political philosophy sounds like but doesn’t understand the words. 

Persecution Complexities: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as Presented in Behold a Pale Horse pp. 304-305

This week’s post is late because I had to have an emergency appendectomy this week. I’m recovering well. 

Protocol 14

I cannot to say that I’ve come across any real atheist globalist conspiracy theories. Sure, atheists (of which I consider myself) have some irrational beliefs. There is the Sam Harris problem of blending Islam with Islamic nationalism; there are some martyrdom issues (of which some are exaggerated, some fabricated, but there are legitimate causes of concern); but once we get into a large scale conspiracy theories they evolve (devolve?) into a weird religious position. Cooper has got his version of Christianity throughout this book. The Flat Earth conspiracy theory is fundamentalist Christian at its center (I should note that there might be a version of fundamentalist Islamic flat earth since it is flat in a literal reading of the Koran); and only the 80s and 90s UFOlogy circuits were non-religious. Cooper comes out of the circuit so I may have to revisit those writings to see if the religious stuff is just better hidden. 

The Protocols are explicitly religious. There is no way around it. It’s plagiarized by extremists looking to absolve the Christian Russian monarchs of the problems in Russia. It’s using a historical bias against one group by another group based solely in religious differences so that Western Russians will ignore that the Tsar is starving them to fund a war in the East that they will eventually lose. So far, the book has been oddly blase about anti-Semitism. It’s been littered throughout the previous protocols but Cooper’s idea that we can just swap out the word “Goyim” for “Cattle” and “Zion” for “Sion” isn’t that absurd. It’s just a standard super-conspiracy. Now we get right into the blatant and dangerous anti-Semitism.

“When we come into our kingdom it will be undesirable for us that there should exist any other religion of the One God with whom our destiny is bound up by our position as the Chosen People and through whom our same destiny is united with the destinies of the world.”

I will repeat how we are supposed to read this book. We’re supposed to hate the recommendations of the Elder, as good Russians (or Christians) this claim on the one true faith is supposed to inflame our anger. Who is this elder to claim that they are the chosen people when clearly Jesus died to free of us of the old ways (except the ones we like)? These are the thoughts that we are supposed to feel when reading these claims. 

The elder then adds that they will use the press (which they control from two posts ago) to publish all of the faults in the non-Jewish governments so that the people will turn to the Elders for their historically beneficence. I don’t like to nitpick conspiracy theorists on the details of their theories, but as of 1910 do the Jewish people have a history of beneficent rule? I’m not trying to say they were terrible rulers, but that they have a neutral presence. The history of Jewish political influence in European royalty was that of running the finances–it’s where our stereotype of the “Jewish Banker” comes from. The Elder can highlight the problems of the Christian governments all he wants, but there is no replacement that he can offer. 

I suppose that merely pointing out the issues in the Christian governments might work but then won’t people just point out the problems in the Elder’s government? No, because (and all-caps is in the original): “BUT NO ONE WILL EVER BRING UNDER DISCUSSION OUR FAITH FROM ITS TRUE POINT OF VIEW SINCE THIS WILL BE FULLY LEANRED BY NONE SAVE OURS, WHO WILL NEVER DARE TO BETRAY ITS SECRETS.” 

This is one of the most dangerous sentiments in the book. Judaism, as a religion, is easily available. Every Christian has most of it in their own book, then there’s the Talmud; but none of that is beyond reproach. The Abrahamic tradition mostly agrees with itself. The difference is the placement of the Messiah: Christians believe it happened, Muslims and Jews don’t. The rules are largely the same, and where they are different it’s fairly arbitrary. None of the three permit tattoos, homosexuality, and are fairly misogynist; Jews and Muslims can’t eat pork, but they are all supposed to pray daily. Muslims have a direction to pray in, but they all have a holy day, etc. What the protocols are claiming is that this isn’t Judaism, this the public face of Judaism. 

The hidden face of Judaism is the one that no one on the outside ever hears about. This is the religion spoken of in their weird strange language that no one can learn, or their secret books; and it’s xenophobia at its literal worst. Even the “good ones” aren’t excused because they are aware of the secrets. They will never tell you the secrets because of they are sworn to secrecy. There are parallels between this claim and what happened to the Knights Templar in 1312. There was no evidence that Jacque DeMolay was plotting against Philip IV of France, but the claim was that they were and they were sworn to keep the secret. Which is why there tortured into confession of everything but a plot against the French king. There was the same sentiment regarding Muslims shortly after 9/11; sure not all Muslims were responsible but they all secretly approved of it, and this accusation continues to the present day. The Mexican border, the caravans, etc. You’ll never find one confession but, as the Elder claims, they would never betray the secret true version of their religion. 

They are all part of the crime and this is why the Jewish population of the Western Russian Empire is going to pack up and flee into Poland.  

It took awhile, but we’ve gotten to the really bad parts of the book. It’s also the point where Cooper can no longer claim ignorance on the anti-Semitic content of this chapter. Either he knows and doesn’t care, or he doesn’t care enough to learn. 

Distractions: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as Presented in Behold a Pale Horse pp. 302-303

Protocol 13

The protocol continues the same idea that 12 focused on, the press as a means of control. This protocol is more in tune with the practicalities of this plan rather than the theoretical nature of “we must control the press.” I commented last week that 12 was unique in conspiracy theory literature because it had more specificity than all of the other stuff that I’ve read. Sure, “None Dare Call it Conspiracy” had names and dates, but it was all pretend. Business magnates went to Russia therefore Rockefeller was in charge of Communism is how the argument went there and it felt rather hollow. 12 wasn’t that, it was a single focus and a goal; 13 continues along that idea. 

My biggest complaint about 13 is that it is short enough that it should have been the final part of 12. I do not know if this to keep the reader engaged with constant section breaks or if the plagiarist just became tired. I know from years of blogging, that if I go over 1000 words I better have a good reason because people need a break from reading or they just kind of look at the text without reading. 

I’m of the opinion too that there is some antiquated phrasing. The elder admits that the press is an effective tool but it is limited. They cannot just say all of their plans, they will have to imply some of them, “Agents take on to our press from among the goyim will at our order discuss anything which it is inconvenient for us to issue directly in official documents, and we meanwhile, quietly amid the din of the discussion so raise, shall simply take and carry through such measures as we wish and then offer them to the public as an accomplished fact.” 

I think he’s talking about the opinion and gossip columns of the press. They cannot issue a proclamation about X but they can have their agents discuss X as opinions; then amidst the debates they will just do X, anyway. The plan here raises the question, why do they need to have the discussion? Just do the plan. This is like the phrase attributed to the Roman Philosopher Epictetus, “lead me fate and I shall follow willingly, and if not willingly I shall follow, anyway.”

If the Elder is this powerful, why even tell us about the plan? It’s a problem in every conspiracy theory of this scale: there seems to be need by the conspirators to inform the public. It’s why the Masons have to put all of their symbolism all over the world, the Illuminati celebrities have to the eye thing, and apparently the Jewish conspiracy has to place their plans in the local newspaper. Nixon didn’t place an editorial in the Washington Post that referenced his break in plan at the Watergate hotel. 

The answer to this should be obvious: it’s to let the believers think that they can help discover the conspiracy. It gives them a goal to tickle their endorphin receptors and keep them hooked on the conspiracy theory. There is also the effect of inflating the reputation of the creator of the conspiracy theory. We all digest the media, but these people can see the hidden messages in it; they can decipher what is really going on so we should listen to them. It is a good way of pretending that the thing they are making up isn’t complete made up. 

The writing goes downhill as it loses its thread. The elder claims that matters of politics, the common people will not be able to comment, but in matters of industry “let them discuss themselves silly!” The people need jobs, they need bread, so they must be allowed to discuss the means by which they attain the bread. However, this conflicts with the overall conspiracy in which everything is related and controlled. If we remember that this document is being plagiarized in order to buttress the Tsarist rule in Russia, then business is politics given what is coming. Even without knowing how the revolution would shake out, the theorist must know the power of the Socialist movement at the end of the 19th century. The whole problem was that the capitalists operated above the law. Business is political at the beginning of the 20th century when this document appears in Russia. Again, I don’t think people are reading this work as carefully as we are. 

What’s more mysterious is that the Elder drops the entire thing to begin talking about creating distractions with gossip columns, amusements, games, pasttimes, passions, and something called a “people’s palace.” The short of it is that the Elder is going to place enough distractions in the press that people never know anything other than who the latest Kardashian is married to. 

What’s the point of this? I think the point is to demonize the younger generation. The old press only had important news of things but this modern press has box scores of sports, celebrity news, and play reviews. If only the young people would pay attention to the real news they would know what is going on. It’s blaming Taylor Swift for the way young people pay attention to politics and not paying attention to the reason that young people reject the values of the old generation. It’s not that they have moved past it, the reason is that the Elder is manipulating them. The elder admits this in all-caps, “who will ever suspect then that ALL THESE PEOPLES WERE STAGE-MANAGED BY US ACCORDING TO A POLITICAL PLAN WHICH NO ONE HAS SO MUCH AS GUESSED AT IN THE COURSE OF MANY CENTURIES?”

(There’s an ellipses at the end, but I don’t know what it is for.)

The Press: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as Presented in Behold a Pale Horse pp. 297-302

Protocol 12

Number 12 is unique in that it is a long protocol, but it stays on track and it actually contributes to a conspiracy theory. The entire protocol concerns the press and publishing, how the Elder controls it, and why it’s important to do so. Modern conspiracy theories can take inspiration from this part. It’s also very curious that Cooper hasn’t bothered to emphasize any of the points made in this particular protocol because of a very strange plan that Cooper tried to implement. 

Protocol 12 concerns the press, but in modern times we would just call this “the media.” The reasoning is that there is no other media than the press in 19th century France where the Protocols originally came from. Conspiracy theorists have a predictable and ironic relationship with the media. The most obvious relationship they have is to call everything a lie and that the media is the tool of “them.” In this case, it’s the Jews, which are obviously in charge of everything. Except when the media agrees with conspiracy theories and then it can be used to bolster their claims. 

Conspiracy theorists are shut out of the official halls of knowledge but they are like poor dogs scratching the door to get in. When someone like David Icke or Alex Jones cites a press report to back up their claim it is because they desperately want to be recognized by everyone else. When that doesn’t work they can use it as evidence that “they” are lying, but that line of questioning gets tired after a bit. The whole reason that anyone knows about Operation Northwoods (a proposal to get the US involved in a war with Cuba by shooting down one of our own planes) was because of CNN. The media isn’t always lying and it seems fairly arbitrary for these conspiracy theorists when the media is lying and when it is not. 

The elder asks us what the purpose of the media is, and then he answer, “It serves to excite and inflame those passions which are needed for our purposes or else it serves selfish ends of parties. It is often vapid, unjust, mendacious, and the majority of the public have not the slightest idea what ends the press really serves.”

For the most part, this is a fair criticism of the modern press. The noble truth of the fifth estate is to inform the public and keep a check on the officials. If that were the case, we’d have a much different press landscape that followed another adage other than the cliche, “if it bleeds, it leads.” 

In my own history I have worked in the press…as an intern at two different new stations. Generally speaking there wasn’t the level of cynicism that pervaded the room that the Elder is talking about now, but there were segments that might not have gotten the interest of the public but were in the public interest. Local newspapers have collapsed under an antiquated business model and the internet–but, local news agencies could concentrate on things that the internet doesn’t. Google isn’t going to cover the latest school board or city council meeting; but those meetings affect us much more than whatever dumb thing a former president said. We also know from the documents leaked from Facebook and Twitter that the companies artificially inflated posts that made users angry because that kept them engaged. The Elder/Machiavelli character isn’t wrong; it’s just that he’s committing the usual fraud of placing malice where incompetence if the most likely culprit. 

The story behind Protocols is that Maurice Joly had to publish his book in Belgium and then import it to France in order to get around Napolean III’s censors. He knew this before he began writing and this protocol, which is starkly more coherent and on subject than the others is lamentation about the state of the press in France at the time. 

The elder will cripple the press with taxes and fees, “we shall lay on it a special stamp tax and require deposits of caution-money before permitting the establishment of any organ of the press or of printing offices…For any attempt to attack us, if such still be possible, we shall inflict fines without mercy.“

This is the type of plan that works normally, but what the Elder never anticipates are media conglomerates which have no problem attacking governments but are reticent about attacking their corporate owners. Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent wasn’t going to run stories about worker abuse in the Ford owned plants. Twitter isn’t allowing posts by media critical of Twitter or its owner Elon Musk without being labeled as propaganda. It’s a problem that the early 19th century writer would have a difficult time foreseeing. 

The protocol gets a little repetitive as it describes, with surprising specificity, fines and penalties for various facets of the press. Periodicals are going to be taxed, because they “are the worst form of printed poison.” I imagine that Joly’s writing is personal here. 

The ultimate goal of the Elder is to make private press ownership so onerous and expensive that no one outside of the Elder’s grasp could do it; and if they do, they have to print what the cabal wants. The only other alternative is a state run press that is under the direct control of the cabal. In this respect the cabal will publish every kind of press with differing opinions and complexities. In one of my favorite passages so far he says, “Like the Indian idol Vishnu they will will have a hundred hands, and every one of them will have a finger on any one of the public opinions as required.” 

It’s probably the smartest thing that I’ve ever read from a conspiracy theorist, it’s not that pushing a single party line is the goal but to saturate the market so that no one knows what the truth is. It’s very Orwellian in that it would force the public to doubt the information that their own senses supplies. This serves an important second feature as well: it creates the illusion of freedom. So many public voices doesn’t give the impression of censorship, even if one hand controls all of those voices because most people have no idea that hand exists. In the US, we have four hands controlling all of the traditional media voices. 

Control of the media is nothing new, but what’s more interesting is what Cooper planned to do about it. In his radio show “Hour of the Time” he created a plan. This plan was to get his listeners to buy stock in a publicly traded media company, at first they settle on Time Warner, in order to become majority shareholders and then put Cooper as CEO. Cooper begins the episode by explaining, what he views as the current media landscape. In the episode at the 36 minute mark he states that the goal will be to purchase 10% of the shares and then have decision-making ability on the board with the opportunity to buy more later. There were a few problems with the plan but as a caller explains at 52:19, most of Cooper’s audience is the kind that keeps their money under a mattress rather than in a bank where they could actually purchase stock. 

Cooper’s plan would ultimately fail. Awareness of the problems in the media deflates the ability of the media to manipulate opinions. Media ownership is a problem, and monopolization of opinions is something that seems impossible today; but there is the opposite problem–too many voices that just become noise that we ignore in favor of those views that vibe with our feelings. 

This is, notably, the best Protocol thus far and it’s because it has a very real problem in the control that Napolean III (and the Okhrana in Russia) exercised over the press. If we took this Protocol out of the book, there is no indication that it came from it. It’s not anti-Semitic on its own. Do not take my compliment here as endorsement for the Protocols. One last time so I’m clear, this protocol is well constructed because it’s plagiarised from Joly who dealt with censorship directly. 

Duma(ss): The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as presented in Behold a Pale Horse pp. 295-297

Protocol 10: I want to take one step back before we get into Protocol 11 to quote the end of 10. The Elder is pointing out the various methods by which you can divide the people against their government through the use of “torture, by starvation, BY THE INOCULATION OF DISEASES, by want, to the Goyim see no other issue than to take refuge in our complete sovereignty in money and in all else.”

The all caps section is out of place here because at no point in the ten protocols so far have we seen this. The method is, as we know, something the Cooper has used throughout the work. I had been working under the assumption that Cooper never read the Protocols, that he was just using to pad out his work, but now, we know two things: that he has read this book and that he’s anti-vaccination. He thinks vaccination was a tool to divide the government against the people. This, however doesn’t make sense within his conspiracy–if “they” truly want us to be slaves then they should not wish to sow this discord. It’s the first time we’ve seen an open hostility to vaccination and it’s added by him to this work. The phrase does not appear in the Joly book that this is plagiarized from, nor would it have been an issue in Pre-Revolution Russia for the Protocols to have adopted it. I think Cooper added this. 

Protocol 11:

The Elder has determined that a president that can be controlled is needed for the people to follow in the previous protocol, now we turn to the legislature in order to secure a revolution in the state. This section leaves the French under Napolean III and brings us to Russia under Tsar Nicholas II. 

Again, remember how to read this, what the Elder recommends is what we are supposed to hate. Here, the Elder is saying that there shall be a state legislature through which the people’s rights will be vacated. The recommendation, which is very confusingly worded, will take the rights and offer them as proposals to the legislature which will them become decrees of the President in words only–as per the last protocol–not in effect, thus guaranteeing the revolution.

Following? Good, because I’m pretty sure I understand. What I’m more confident about, is the attempt here to undermine the power and concept of the legislature. By framing the need for such a body as necessary to the Elder the effect is to make the reader dislike the concept. The Tsars did this toward the end of the Russian Empire. Both Alexander III and Nicholas II; established a body in the imperial court called the “Duma.” They did this in response to the clamoring of revolutionaries who demanded European style reforms, e.g. Democratic representation. Alexander establishes a Duma, then dissolves it, he does so again, Nicholas does it as well. Everytime the Tsar gives the people this inch, they take it back within a year or so. 

From a practical point of view, this is foolish. You could give the people their legislative body and then just neuter its authority–which was the case anyway. The Duma was the lower house in the Russian court, the upper house were all appointed ministers and thus beholden to the Tsar’s will. The Duma had no authority as anything other than advisory. They could claim that the people of Kamchatka desire something, but there was no compulsion for the Tsar to obey.

The Elder is claiming that the presence of the legislature allows the subversion of the people’s will because its recommendation to the president will be the thing that allows the ratification of the dreaded “constitution” which will then suck away everyone’s rights. The legislature must, according to the reader, be abolished. 

“The goyim are a flock of sheep, and we are their wolves. And you know what happens when the wolves get hold of the flock?…”

I did not add the ellipses. That’s from the document, and it’s lazy. 

I point out that Cooper’s original disclaimer: that we should read the word “Goyim” as “Cattle” as a way to pretend that the work isn’t anti-Semitic makes no sense here. We’re supposed to read this as “The cattle are a flock of sheep…”? I guess that’s better from a racial sense but now we’re mixing metaphors and confusing two animals; wolves can attack a herd of cattle. My point is that the covering for anti-Semitism only works in a pretend manner. 

The Elder than promises us that the plan can move forward now that the foundation is set. We shall see, because so far–there is very little foundation at all. Just the insinuation of control. 

Presidents: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as Presented in Behold a Pale Horse pp. 290

Protocol 10

The people that Cooper is writing for claim to believe in one thing above all: The US Constitution. It’s almost always clear that they have never read it, do not understand it, and think it says things that it does not. These are the people that think the Declaration of Independence is a legally binding document, are aware of something called the Federalist Papers but that’s about it, and they usually tip in favor of odd sovereign citizen positions. It’s important also to remember that this book was written in the 1990s and the right-wing militia movement hated Bill Clinton. To be fair, they didn’t like George H.W. Bush either, but nothing like their vitriol for Bill Clinton. 

In my opinion, there was nothing that Clinton did to earn their ire. I think that he took office in 1992 and it just coincided with right-wing conspiracism as a movement. Yet he’s the president, by default, he must be part of the conspiracy. The conspirators could not allow someone to wield that much power without being in their thrall. Protocol 10, actually makes this case. 

I’m actually surprised here because unlike most of the ambiguous bullshit we’ve been reading, Protocol 10 can be considered specific…well, comparatively. 

The Elder spends the first page of the Protocol discussing something that he’s covered before: keeping the people focused on ideas and concepts rather than specifics. Instead of enumerating specific rights to individuals, they’ll call it “liberty” or “freedom.” Let the conspiracy theorists talk about “the Constitution” rather than having discussions about the actual Constitution. The Elder explains, “The reason for keeping silence in this respect is that by not naming a principle we leave ourselves freedom of action, to drop this or that out of it without attracting notice; if they were all categorically named they would all appear to have been given.”

By not being specific they can do what they please. This is why it is foolish of a conspiracy theorist to make precise claims. It’s always, “They’re taking our freedoms” but never what freedoms those are. Their champions can help us gain more ground against “them” but because they are never specific we can never gauge success or not. Theorists like Alex Jones or Joe Rogan, can gain followers and money pretty effectively by doing this; as long as you have a talent for playing on the fears of an audience it makes no difference if Monday “they” are losing, Tuesday “we” are winning, and by Wednesday the “end of the world is just around the corner.” 

The Elder goes on a strange tangent about using Democracy to undermine the state. Again, we have to remind ourselves that everything the Elder says we are supposed to hate. His argument is that democracy destroys the aristocracy, and the aristocracy is the thing that keeps the state sovereign. The aristocrats cannot be swayed (as he said in Protocol 7) because they have land and means; no matter which king is in charge. Depose the current monarch, and replace it with another doesn’t mean anything. Democracy though can change everything because it gives everyone a voice and makes them all equal. The aristocracy disappears in authority and is rendered useless as a political power. Remember, the point is to hate this idea and want, instead, a tyrant supported by an elaborate hierarchy. 

The voting will elect a singular person, for which the Elder uses the word “President.” Another quick reference point, this is not an American document. This was originally plagiarized to support the Russian Tsar during the times before the revolution that would wipe them out. “President” can mean any head of state, but the French Revolution initially wanted something like the American system, and as the original document that the Protocols was plagiarized from is about the French, this is why the term is being used instead of “Prime Minister” or whatever (I’m aware that Prime Minister is usually a term for parliamentary style governments). 

The Elder’s plan is to appoint someone to be in charge that will be the focus of the people, but will largely be ineffective at doing anything. The primary reason is that no one will be elected to “President” without having some stain on their character, i.e. that they can be blackmailed into obedience. 

Then the Elder gets odd. Here is where the original document, Joly’s work, gets philosophical and the plagiarist (and Cooper) are unable to understand what is being said. The Machiavelli character in Joly’s work (page 60) makes two arguments. The first is that the power of the president can be guaranteed during a “state of siege.” This is an emergency situation that requires a suspension of rights and laws in order to secure the state. Montesquieu, his dialogue partner, remarks that this is what Augustus did to become Emperor of Rome thus destroying the Republic. There was, for instance, the consulship but there were no consuls. 

Machiavelli argues that such a move, is responsible as a leader. Here’s the problem: Machiavelli’s point concerns Cincinattus, Scipio, and Sullla; who took drastic actions to preserve Rome; but then that power was returned to the state. In the actual Machiavellian philosophical works, the philosopher makes the point that this is sometimes necessary but there is a great danger in the office of dictator. Montesquieu the character agrees but because the actual figure argues for a parliamentary style government he wonders if the legislative body can be used to restrict the head of state. Machiavelli, the character, argues that this is unimportant because the head of state can restrict or diminish the legislative body at will, to which there must be some protections. 

From a political philosophy standpoint this is a very interesting debate. In the Protocols it is less so because the plagiarist does not understand what is being said. The plagiarist seemingly ignores the fact that this is a debate between two characters and combines ideas ignorant of the back and forth between them. For example the elder writes, “we are compelled to introduce into the constitutions of States to prepare for the transition to an imperceptible abolition of every kind of constitution and then the time is come to turn every form of government into our despotism.” 

In the original  Montesquieu asks if there could be any guarantee of some basic rights for the individuals in the state. The Machiavelli character responds, “I see that philosophical sensibility returns to you. Be reassured: I would not make any modification of the fundamental basis of the constitution without submitting it for the acceptance of the people by means of universal suffrage.” 

The idea is similar in that there is no permanent basis for rights but the Elder misses the point that while Machiavelli would not guarantee protections against despotism, he also would not do so without the people’s vote. While the Elder also relies on democracy, here, Joly is making the claim that you would still need the people to want to give up their protections. The plagiarist does not comprehend the discussion, but it’s not important that he does. He’s just got to pepper his discussion with the word “Goyim” so that the reader knows its the Jews’ fault. What are they at fault for? That’s never specified, and this is why this book is so dangerous. The Jews through X ruined the Constitution, and that’s why the bad thing happened to you. It’s much more effective than naming the thing they did, which is why the Elder’s original point is important. 

Super-Legal: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as Presented in Behold a Pale Horse pp. 288-291

Protocol 9

Internal consistency is one hurdle that conspiracy theories like the one we see in the Protocols, and then in Cooper’s book cannot get over. The biggest problem with this theory is the one that Cooper has been unwittingly revealing in this book. It’s said outright by the Elder:

                 “De facto we have already wiped out every kind of rule except our own, although de jure there still remain a good many of them. Nowadays, if any States raise a protest against us it is only pro forma at our discretion and by our direction, for their anti-Semitism is indefensible to use for the management of our lesser brethren.”

And later in the next paragraph the Elder claims: “For us there are no checks to limit the range of our activity. Our Super-Government subsists in extra-legal conditions which are described in the accepted terminology by the energetic and forcible word–Dictatorship.” 

[I also note that this is a departure from the Joly book the Protocols almost entirely plagiarizes.] 

The first flaw in my own conspiracism, occurred when listening to a 9/11 “truther.” One of the big rallying cries of that movement was to have an investigation into the Building 7 in particular and the entire attack in general. The problem that I saw with this claim was that an investigation already existed, the 9/11 Commission report. The conspiracy theorists, of course, said the Commission was full of lies and bought off by the Bush administration (or whoever); and they demanded an independent investigation. What would that accomplish? Let’s give the “truthers” their investigation. Since the conspirators control everything there would be no different result. 

When Cooper claims that all patriots need to stand up and demand their congressman do/prevent the thing–there’s no weight to the claim. The Protocols are different in that there is no explicit call to action. This isn’t Cooper claiming that we can force a Senator to reveal the truth of the aliens at Roswell or that weird order he keeps focusing on when Nixon resigned. The Protocols are only a call to action if we are ignoring the literal words and instead focusing on the implied command to blame the “Jews” for the lamentable state of Imperial Russia. 

You can’t fistfight god, so the point is just to drum up general outrage and give readers a sense of how superior they, and their past, is to the current state of things. 

There’s another story in Protocol 9. The other story is how “they” will get support and I find this suspiciously similar to something that Wormwood claims in C.S. Lewis’ “The Screwtape Letters.” If you’re unfamiliar, the Screwtape Letters are a series of letters from Screwtape, a master demon; to his nephew Wormwood. They concern Wormwood’s task of divorcing a human, “The Patient,” from devout Christianity. 

Even though I am an atheist, I find the arguments Lewis presents in these letters to be quite interesting. One letter focuses on symbolism. Screwtape, responding to Wormwood’s apparent attempt to blame someone else for his failure, explains what to do about prayer. He tells the apprentice demon that prayer is a serious problem when trying to get the humans to damn themselves, but it is not an insurmountable problem. Instead of getting the human to just stop praying, the demon advises that Wormwood should instead get the human to pray to the crucifix on the wall and not the meaning of it. Screwtape advises that the human should be made to pray to the composite object, to focus on the pedantic nature of the prayer, to the abstract notion of it; and never to the meaning underneath it. 

It’s relevant here because the Elder claims that they will shift the liberal concept of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” from being a demand or watchword into an expression of idealism. There will no longer by a demand for liberty rather “The’ right of liberty, the duty of equality, the ideal of brotherhood.”

The interesting thing about the idea is that people like Cooper entirely represent the final outcome. They speak of “Patriotism” and “Freedom” entirely as idealistic concepts without meaning. There’s an adage that the more a person references the Constitution/1984/the Bible the less likely it is that they have read it. Those three texts represent a concept to them, but it is a vapid concept because they have no idea what those names refer to. A person talking about fealty of the Constitution (like Cooper does) if largely unaware that most of the Constitution is a detailed construction of a how a government works. It’s merely a sentiment and this works of the conspirators because instead of actually focusing on a concept they get tripped up on the pedantic details of an idea that they are entirely unfamiliar with. 

Education: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as Presented in Behold a Pale Horse; pp. 287-288

Protocol 8

So far, the Elder, has been quite disappointing. This is, after all, a book which has done so much damage throughout the world. It was named dropped in the original Hamas Charter, it has been referred to in Mein Kempf, and fascist parties in Greece have read from it; but this book, it seems, is only giving a concentrated version of anti-Semitism. I guess, I expect more out of this (there is the possibility that I’ve read too much of these books to be surprised). 

Protocol 8 is one of those that diverge from the original source that it plagiarizes from. Protocol 8 follows an idea in Dialogue 8 (the numbers do not always match up), but the Protocols makes some shifts. Throughout our discussion of the Protocols I’ve mentioned that it is a plagiarism, and I’ve noted in the past that author Jonathan Kay argues that 60% of the Protocols is word for word (barring translation) lifted directly from the original source. I’ve referred a few times to that source and I’ve noticed that the divergence occurs because Joly understands his characters. Namely Machiavelli. 

Niccolo Machiavelli is the reason I have a PhD. I went to graduate school wanting to write about his political philosophy, I had read all of his works–minus his “Dialogue on Language” before starting. I did not get along with or have much regard for the political philosopher in my department and then…a bunch of odd things happened to get me where I am now. An aspect of Machiavelli’s writing is that he offers a hypothesis or a question (i.e. is it better to be loved or feared?); he analyzes the question a little and then goes into examples from both his time (Renaissance Italy) and ancient Rome. If one is unfamiliar with his examples, his writing comes across as boring. The Protocols mostly diverge when Joly’s Machiavelli does the historical analysis. This is important because the audience for the Protocols isn’t going to read it. 

This section of the book follows the same pattern. The Elder repeats his same schtick from Protocol 5 about taking over the administrative state. They’re not going to conquer the kingdoms and declare themselves monarchs; they’ll hide in the shadows and control every avenue of power that the official king needs to conduct business. In the Protocols, this is considered a bad thing, in the Dialogues, Machiavelli is making the point that you need jurists, administrators, diplomats, and publicists; to operate a state. They’re just important people who understand things. 

The Protocols frame this as evil. This is part of the plan, “These persons will have cognisance of all the secrets of the social structure, they will know all the languages that can be made up by political alphabets and words; they will be made acquainted with the whole underside of human nature, with all it sensitive chords on which they will have to play.”

What the Elder wants, and what the author of the Protocols wants you to despise; are educated people in charge of the various facets of society. The idea, which is a running theme throughout the Protocols, is that anyone educated in a specialized subject is part of the conspiracy. If the common rabble do not understand something it’s not because they lack education or lack curiosity, it’s because it is a secret they are prevented from learning by “them.” The sentiment is not an innocuous one either–the rebellion against advanced education continues to the present day. If teaching the kids something makes the older generation feel stupid/bad/guilty; then it needs to be banned and no longer taught. It’s part of the conspiracy that you do not understand advanced economic theory rather than the truth–that you didn’t study economics. 

The Elder claims the Goyim (which Cooper wants us to read as “Sheep”) cannot do these jobs because they are too stupid. They, “are accustomed to perform their administrative work without giving themselves the trouble to think what its aim is, and never consider what it is needed for.“

Wouldn’t it be better to have those people doing the tasks as opposed to people that do understand? The former cannot fathom the purposes and, importantly, also don’t care about it. The latter can use that information, they can try and carve out their own little fiefdom and become a challenge to the elder? In a normal conspiracy, this makes sense, but the endemic racism here claims that all Jewish people work together–they would never betray their own kind. 

The elder then claims that after some time this will establish an abyss between the elders and the common people so that this last point, about the possibility of betrayal, would never occur without the penalty of criminal charges or just disappearance. I don’t understand how this is supposed to work; if someone is going to betray the elders, they already understand the penalty for not being successful. 

In the original, the abyss language is used but it’s much different: “One must arrange things so as to give them to men whose antecedents and characters place an abyss between them and other men, each of whom only expects death or exile in case of a change of government or the necessity of defending all that exists to their last breaths.”

Machiavelli claims that special education and positions will weave themselves into the person’s character so that they will defend their state to the death. The secretary of defense, for example, will be so tied to their position in their state that by betraying it they will betray themselves. This is derived from an idea that Machiavelli had regarding the loyalty that Scipio Africanus extracted from the Roman nobility after their defeat at Cannae. Scipio made them so afraid to break their oaths that they would rather die, and then he defeated the Carthaginians. 

I still doubt that Cooper has read the Protocols with as much certainty as I doubt that many of the people who purchased this book never read past the first chapter. So far, the conspiracy is just, “they control everything” but it’s still very short on details.