where the criticisms of Soros turn into full blown unfounded conspiracy theories, they depart from the anti-semitic model to resemble something more like the James-Bond-Blofeld/Spectre model. Which while ludicrous, is not inherently antisemitic.
Actually, quite the opposite.
Have you heard of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? It is the archetypical anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, first published in Russia in 1903, distributed by Henry Ford, taught by German school teachers in 1933, and still advocated by some groups today.
Velcro, I have a master's degree in Rhetoric and Technical communications, and I did my thesis on political discourse (Hazlitt's Spirit of the Age). So obviously as someone to whom "never again" means "never again to anybody," I've read Protocols, seen Triumph of Will, read Will Shirer's rise and fall, visited Auschevitz and Birkenau frequently when my family lived in Poland. Every time we went from Warsaw to Malbork castle or to Gdansk (formerly Danzig), I stopped and spent half a day at Auschevitz and Birkenau, reading the journals on display and speaking to locals who were children when the camps were active. spent probably a solid 60,000 hours pondering the question of how the holocaust happened and how we can stop it from ever happening again to anyone. My grandfather spent a good half of my mom's toddlerhood hanging out in one of Hitler's little camps after he was captured at the Battle of the Bulge. And while I regretfully cannot find a single drop of Jewish blood in my genealogy, my ex wife had a Jewish grandparent so my own children would have gone to the camps had I lived in Nazi germany. I also have a severely disabled son who the Nazis would have been put to death even before Kristalnacht.
I don't say this to get anyone to "respect my authoritee" (I'm more of a frack authority kind of guy if you haven't noticed.) I do hope to convince you that I'm a gentile who has checked his privilege in this sensitive matter, that I approach this matter with particular humility and hunger for answers.
(((If we can get through this discussion without anyone becoming uncivil, then I'd love to debate Henry Ford I with you. I regard him as a great man who was brainwashed by historical forces beyond his control) but nevertheless ended up doing far more good than harm in the world.)))
Quote
The Protocols purports to document the minutes of a late-19th-century meeting attended by world Jewish leaders, the "Elders of Zion", who are conspiring to take over the world. The forgery places in the mouths of the Jewish leaders a variety of plans, most of which derive from older antisemitic canards. For example, the Protocols includes plans to subvert the morals of the non-Jewish world, plans for Jewish bankers to control the world's economies, plans for Jewish control of the press, and – ultimately – plans for the destruction of civilization.
So the crazy conspiracy theories about Soros fit quite well.
1. The "crazy conspiracy theories" really don't fit Soros near enough as they fit Blofeld. As you cited:
Foreseeing World War II, Blofeld made copies of top-secret wires and sold them for cash to Nazi Germany. Before the German invasion of Poland in 1939, he destroyed all records of his existence, then moved first to Sweden, then to Turkey, where he worked for Turkish Radio and began to set up his own private intelligence organisation. During the war, he sold information to both sides. After the defeat of Erwin Rommel, he decided to back the Allied war effort, and was awarded numerous medals by the Allied powers after the war's end. Blofeld then moved temporarily to South America before founding SPECTRE.
2. I regard John Birch literature as softcore antisemitism partially derivative from Protocols, and I only mention them in this paragraph because they evolved *after* the watershed Nuremberg trials. [It's only at Nuremberg that (IMC&HO) continuing belief in Protocols became a "crazy conspiracy theory."] Bircher Protocol Revisionism narrows the focus to a handful of Jewish bankers who the birchers accuse of working with both sides.
3. If Fleming didn't base Blofeld on Bircher revisionist screeds (which are not inherently or overtly antisemitic and can only be shown so in their rhetorical and historical context) then I submit that Fleming may have come across an earlier similar piece of revisionism in his postwar intelligence work or via his US intelligence contacts. (Fleming personally trained a shocking number of men and women who later became the CIA's first generation and John F Kennedy actually used the Bully Pulpit to promote Fleming work in a manner without precedent except for President Wilson's promotion of some white supremacist cinematic piece of crap).
4. I put "crazy conspiracy theories" in disagreement quotes because Protocols isn't "crazy" but an appallingly well-constructed blood libel. The Tsar's intelligence services used espionage and state of the art sophistry to make Russia inhospitable to Jews. They accomplished their objective. Just as "Triumph of Will" represented a triumph of modern cinematic art as well as documenting a collapse of human will against Nazi brainwashing. (look at the tears in the eye of the worker who speaks in the beginning of Hitler restoring the "dignity" of the german worker).
5. I don't say anything here to defend the Nazis or to praise antisemites but rather to know our enemy like Ender knew the buggers. If we take "never again" seriously we need to stop throwing around the word Nazi like it's some dumb thing we made up in our nightmares, and recognize how so many intelligent and decent people like Ford were deceived. And words like "hate" does not sum it up; if anything they dumb things down.
6. I used numbers on these points to help myself cover my arguments while reducing my word count. Should I have taken them out before posting? Do they come off as hostile or overly pedantic? Thank you and feedback welcome.
