By: Charlie Buckreis
This work is a lot. As the introduction states, it seems to be a string of truisms that together lay out a system of beliefs that is completely different from anything I’ve heard of. It is completely against giving power to the people; indeed, the speaker has an incredibly pessimistic view of the ability of the masses to govern themselves, as evidenced by this quote, “[It is not] possible for the mass to discriminate quietly, and without jealousies to administer the affairs of state, which they must not confuse with their personal interests.” It is similar to what our Founding Fathers feared, that the masses might not vote well because they were uneducated, but the Founding Fathers believed in educating the people so they could vote rather than taking away the choice entirely.
Additionally, some of the core beliefs are very Machiavellian. The speaker states things such as, “the ends justify the means,” a paraphrase of Machiavelli, “this evil [cunning and hypocrisy] is the only means of attaining the goal of good. therefore, we must not stop before bribery, deceit and treachery, if these are to serve the achievement of our cause” and, “from this I am led to deduct that by the law of nature, right lies in might.” All very Machiavellian beliefs, and all very much opposed with the teachings of Judaism. That fact alone, to me, is enough to make me question the truthfulness of claims that this document is outlining a great Jewish world domination plot.
Quick shout-out to the statement, “our strength under the present shaky condition of the civil powers will be stronger than any other, because it will be invisible till the moment when it becomes so strong that no cunning designs will undermine it” cause it reminds me of Sun Tzu’s, “let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt” which is one of my absolute favorite of his quotes. The inclusion of that quote does help me see why the theory of an international Jewish world domination plot is so popular; to properly carry out a plot like that it would need to be incredibly well-hidden, and it would need to be executed extremely quickly. Think blitzkrieg, but with politics instead of guns (although there probably would be guns, let’s be real here).