Posted under Culture
For some odd reason I have been unable to publish my comments on the topic E. Michael Jones’ “revolutionary Jews” comments at a press conference about Sam Francis’ new book. So I am posting them here:
“I remember Scott Richert shaking in head in disbelief at last fall’s JRC meeting describing a recent Culture Wars magazine that had an old White Russian propaganda poster with a devilish Trotsky lording over the Kremlin with the title “The Revolutionary Jew.” Needless to say messrs. Taki, Brimelow and Gottfried were upset that Jones hijacked the press conference to talk about “revolutionary Jews” rather than Sam Francis’ book because the press conference was held at the National Press Club and CSPANs camera were there. Because of Jones’ remarks, now CSPAN will never broadcast the press conference and all the canards about paleos being anti-Semitic are revived yet again.
So is Jones’ right and his conclusions logical? Is a coincidence that many of the leading revolutionary figures in the West have been Jewish? Are paleos obessed with Jews?
Look, Trotsky and Zinoviev were Jews but they worshipped Marx, not the Torah or the Talmud. George Mosse said it best: “For 19th Century European Jewry, Marxism was a new religion.” Exactly. Trotsky felt communism and socialism were the only way to save a persecuted European Jews if the working class could be weaned away from their nationalistic and religious bearings. Like it or not Christians drove many Jews towards communmism and socialism because of hatred and violence.
And as long as we’re dragging Betty Friedan into this conversation, remember that birth control and the ERA were popular among upper middle class Protestants long before she wrote the Femine Mystique. Traditional Judaism and Hasidism is a patriarchal as traditional Catholicism. Why lump the observant in with those whose sense of their own Jewish faith is as hazy at best?
As a young paleo it’s good that the culture wars are coming to a close so that we can explaion our ideas without having to answer for every E. Michael Jones’ comment or for the time Joe Sobran met with David Irving. Some obsessions are better left dropped.”
Filmer on 28 Apr 2007 at 10:24 pm #
Patroon, I have had times where it wouldn’t accept comments from me on a thread also. Weird. Gremlins, I guess.
Peter Gemma on 17 Jul 2007 at 11:58 am #
The shock-wave against Jones didn’t have as much to do with his comments on Jews or strange takes a “real” Catholicism or why all Protetstants (and zillions of others) are going to Hades. What upset Sam’s friends and fans was the idea that Jones’ tirade had anything at all to do with Sam’s worldview—as presented in the book, SHOTS FIRED: Sam Francis on America’s Culture War (the topic of the conference)—or in anything Sam ever wrote.
Jones’ rant, akin to SNL’s Church Lady on steriods, was inapproriate at a press event—it was something that could have been a lively and interesting debate over a lot of beer. Sam Francis was controvesrial and a wonderful provocateur, but he was a savvy enough not to associate with Jones’ goofy religious ideas/kooky political ideology in public or in print, although he could discuss them with wit and insight in private as he did with a variety of stimulating subjects, ranging from Edgar Cayce to the Thuggee movement.
E. Michael Jones was no friend or colleague of Sam Francis—as he proved in what he thought could be his 5 minutes of fame in front of the CSPAN cameras. Jones has crawled off back to the fever swamps. Sam’s invigorating ideas are still an important part of the mix of America’s relevant public policy debates.
Peter B. Gemma,
editor
SHOTS FIRED: Sam Francis on America’s Culture War
Filmer on 17 Jul 2007 at 7:34 pm #
Mr. Gemma,
Thanks for posting, but I think Jones obviously hit a nerve that was not just irrelevancy to the topic at hand. Had someone come in and given a speech on the national debt that would not have been appropriate, but I doubt it would have caused as much of a problem.
I think Jones’ invests too much theologically into the word Logos, and it leads to some bizarre speculations, but I think he is right that the Catholic/Protestant fault line still runs very deep. Just look at the threads at Chronicles when the Protestant/Catholic debate comes up. Multiple comments with charges of heresy all around are sure to follow.
Committed Protestants and Catholics have a common enemy in the left, but we remain farther apart than many are willing to admit, and one need only to scratch a little below the surface to find that out.