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.