E. Michael Jones on Jews and Usury, Part 2

In my view, the climax of Barren Metal comes toward the end in the chapter on the Vatican-approved, Jesuit-run periodical Civiltà Cattolica that in 1890 forthrightly addressed the Jewish Question. Far more than modern America, the European financial scandals of the era were directly and openly linked to Jews, as Jones notes. In 1882, for example, the Union Generale bank collapsed and Jews were explicitly blamed for it. Its former head, for one, fumed that the Jewish financial power of the day was “not content with the billions which had come into its coffers for fifty years . . . not content with the monopoly which it exercises on nine-tenths at least of all Europe’s financial affairs.” This power, the man claimed, had “set out to destroy the Union Generale.”

Famed writer Emile Zola also published a novel at the time in which a fictional young Catholic banker seethed at Jewish deceit. The character, Zola writes,

is overwhelmed with an “inextinguishable hatred” for “that accursed race which no longer has its own country, no longer has its own prince, which lives parasitically in the home of nations, feigning to obey the law but in reality only obeying its own God of theft, of blood, of anger .  .  . fulfilling everywhere its mission of ferocious conquest, to lie in wait for its prey, suck the blood out of everyone, [and] grow fat on the life of others.” (1169)

(See my column “Culture of Deceit” for more on such European scandals of the day.)

The Catholic periodical Civiltà Cattolica traced Jewish influence back to the French Revolution, employing Abbe Augustin Barruel’s Memoirs Illustrating the History of Freemasonry in its description of Jewish financial power. The argument, in short, is that the French Revolution allowed the emancipation of the Jews, who were then able to foist their immoral ways (according to Christian mores) onto European society, and “the main way that the Jews achieved their hegemony over Christian societies was through ‘their insatiable appetite for enriching themselves via usury’” (1178). The verdict? “The source of Jewish power is usury.”

From this central fact rolled well-known consequences:

Once having acquired absolute civil liberty and equality in every sphere with Christians and the nations, the dam which previously had held back the Hebrews was opened for them, and in a short time, like a devastating torrent, they penetrated and cunningly took over everything: gold, trade, the stock market, the highest appointments in political administrations, in the army, and in diplomacy; public education, the press, everything fell into their hands or into the hands of those who were inevitably depending upon them. (1179)

With control of gold came control of Christian society, particularly through the public press and academia, since “journalism and public education are like the two wings that carry the Israelite dragon, so that it might corrupt and plunder all over Europe.”

How little things have changed in our own day.

In the same chapter as Civiltà Cattolica, Jones discusses how the writings of one German, Father Georg Ratzinger, informed discussions in the Vatican-approved periodical. As the name suggests, Fr. Ratzinger was indeed related to Joseph Ratzinger (his great-nephew), who became Pope Benedict XVI. The elder Ratzinger pointed directly to Jewish usury as the bane of Christian culture, which, when left unchecked, resulted in the enslavement of the surrounding non-Jews. Previously, of course, traditional Christianity forbade usury, meaning that the popes thus “deprived [Jews] of their ability to occupy the choke points in the culture.”

Further restrictions kept Jews under control:

Jews were not allowed to employ Christian servants in their houses . . . Jews who defamed Christ or Christians were punished.  . . . Jews couldn’t live wherever they pleased, but were confined to specific districts. It was also forbidden to sell houses or real estate to Jews, or to rent to them, as was living under the same roof with Jews. Similarly, Jews were forbidden to hire Christian nursemaids, servants or day laborers.” (1184-5)

Ratzinger insisted it was foolish to abandon these tried and true Christian practices because Jews learned from their Talmud that “cheating the goyim was a virtue.” Linking free trade, capitalism and Jewish methods of conducting business, Ratzinger concluded that it was “to be expected that the Jews, who with centuries of practice became skilled in the deceptions of economic warfare and acquired the arts of exploitation to perfection, would take center stage under the regime of free competition” (1187). It was not knowledge or ability, in Ratzinger’s opinion, that “makes the Jew rich and admired in society” but, rather, “deception and exploitation of others.”

In a charge that finds immediate resonance in our time, Jones includes a quote from Civiltà Cattolica about “the voracious octopus of Judaism.” Compare that with Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi’s brilliant quote about Goldman Sachs following the 2008 sub-prime meltdown: “The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” George Ratzinger and countless other Europeans of the latter half of the nineteenth century felt the same way, as evidenced by their writings, and we owe Dr. Jones a debt for bringing this to our attention.

Of course Ratzinger did not think that only Jews were blameworthy in these cultural and economic wars, for at a time “when Jews stand by even their own criminal element, we see Christian politicians and legislators betraying their own Christian faith on a daily basis and vying with each other to see who has the privilege of harnessing himself to the triumphal car of the Jews. In Parliament,” Ratzinger wrote, “no Jew need defend another Jew when their Christian lackeys do that for them.”

Another fascinating topic Jones covers concerns the relationship between landed English gentry and Jewish moneylenders. “Stated in its simplest terms, the Jewish Problem involved the inverse relationship between debt and political sovereignty” (1079). This antagonism toward growing Jewish power was common among the British aristocracy as well as politicians. For example, in 1891 Labour Leader, a socialist newspaper, denounced the money-lending Rothschild family as a

blood-sucking crew [which] has been the main cause of untold mischief and misery in Europe during the present century, and has piled up prodigious wealth chiefly through fomenting wars between the States which ought never to have quarreled. Wherever there is trouble in Europe, wherever rumors of war circulate and men’s minds are distraught with fear of change and calamity, you may be sure that a hook-nosed Rothschild is at his games somewhere near the region of the disturbance. (1081)

An exemplar of this which fell into the clutches of Jewish moneylenders was the extended Churchill family. Randolph, born in 1849, grew up in an era in which “spectacular bankruptcies” would plague aristocrats for much of the century. Much of this suffering was, of course, brought on by shameless profligacy among landed aristocrats, and Jones offers the Churchills as an exemplar of the blight. “In every generation, among his [Winston’s] relatives, there were too many debts, too much gambling, too much drinking.” Informed opinion was that “there was an above-average amount of infidelity, divorce, erratic behavior, sexual scandal, social ostracism, and court disfavor.” Randolph  —  and in turn Winston  —  were very much in this mold  and fell straight into the hands of Jewish moneylenders, with profound consequences for Britain and all of Christendom when Winston became an influential politician advocating war with Germany.

As far back as 1874, the Churchill family was forced to sell wide swaths of land along with livestock to Baron Rothschild in order to settle a serious debt. Randolph, who had grown up amidst rich Jews with opulent tastes, made the mistake of thinking that he could indulge such a lifestyle without the necessary funds to back it. What he didn’t understand was that “he was on the wrong side of compound interest and they [his Jewish friends] on the right side.”

What followed was predictable. Randolph eventually contracted syphilis and lost large sums of money while gambling in Monte Carlo. In this instance, a Rothschild came to his rescue  —  but at a price. “The Jews who were supporting Randolph’s syphilitic fantasies and the extravagant lifestyle that went along with it . . . [were] willing to write off 70,000 pounds in bad debt because [Natty Rothschild] needed a friend in high places who would share Cabinet secrets that could be turned into hard financial gains” (1087). In time, “the British Empire would become an essentially Jewish enterprise over the course of the 19th century.” By the end of the century, Jones concludes, “The British Empire had become one huge, Jewish usury machine, administered by impecunious, extravagant, perennially indebted, morally depraved agents like Randolph Churchill.” Far worse was to come.

Winston Churchill inherited a mountain of debt when his father died, so, in Jones’ words, “the only tangible asset inherited was Randolph’s relationship with the Rothschilds  and other wealthy Jewish financiers.” Not an auspicious beginning. Not surprisingly, when writing about his late father, Winston left out mention of the Rothschilds completely. He also fell into the orbit of wealthy Jew Sir Ernest Cassel, followed by Sir Henry Strakosch, who “took responsibility for all [Winston’s] debts.” This occurred by 1938; could it have affected Churchill’s decisions vis-a-vis Germany during the ensuing years? One wonders. Of course, such discussions of Jewish influence over the lives of powerful gentiles such as Winston Churchill are rarely present in modern discourse, so it is to Jones’ credit that he discusses it intelligently and in depth.

At this point, Jones still has over one hundred and fifty pages of text to go, but it amounts to passing footnotes to what has come before. The founding of the Federal Reserve gets a chapter, the Depression gets a few pages, World War II is mostly ignored, Keynes makes an appearance and so on.

Readers of the Jones’ monthly Culture Wars will know that Jones has diligently covered Jewish economic (and moral) misbehavior over the last century, but Barren Metal glosses over it, though we’re fed some nice quips. For instance, Jones writes that “The Jewish usurers’ Utopia which Milton Friedman promoted under the name of Chicago School economics was the mirror image of Communism, another Jewish Utopia, because both claimed that if their programs were implemented heaven on earth would follow.” Friedman’s advocacy of transferring public works projects into private hands “was another looting operation.” Properly read, this translates to “another Jewish looting operation.

Jones addresses a similar looting operation which we know as the leveraged buyouts of the 1980s, where Jewish actors such as Michael Milken and Henry Kravis patted themselves on the back while presumably mumbling that “[Jewish] greed is good.” Scholar Benjamin Ginsberg alluded to this theft when he wrote that “It apparently did not go unnoticed in executive suites across the country that virtually all the takeover specialists and their financial backers were Jews.” Read James B. Stewart’s excellent account of this “transfer of wealth” in his Den of Thieves.

Speaking of “virtually all,” how many readers remember Yale Law School professor Amy Chua’s 2003 book World on Fire? There she wrote about the attempt to implement free markets in Russia:  “Instead of dispersing ownership and creating functioning markets, these reforms had allowed a small group of greedy industrialists and bankers to plunder Russia, turning themselves almost overnight into the billionaire-owners of Russia’s crown jewels while the country spiraled into chaos and lawlessness.” Here’s where the “virtually all” comes in: Chua correctly noted that “six out of the seven of Russia’s wealthiest” oligarchs were Jewish. When her Jewish husband heard about this, naturally he had to ask, “Just six?  So who’s the seventh guy?” Jones would never miss such a point either, which is why he wrote of the period that “the looting of Russia was a Jewish operation from start to finish.”

Moving ahead in time, we get to the Crash of 2008, where Goldman Sachs was described as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.” Situating this within the framework of his usury thesis, Jones writes how “the Jewish bankers at places like Goldman Sachs” practiced usury with no restraint once fellow Jews such as Greenspan, Summers and Rubin succeeded in removing the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act.

Using a play on German words, Jones writes that this is “the trajectory Capitalism always takes when moral considerations are removed from economic exchange. Usury (Wucher) like cancer (Wucherung) always ends up destroying itself by destroying the economic host which supports it.”

Why don’t we Americans know more about this largely Jewish campaign to usurp our labor and wealth, a cancerous process which is ongoing? Perhaps we can use a phrase Jones employs when chastising fellow Catholics such as Michael Novak and Robert Sirico for supporting what Jones sees as anti-Catholic capitalist policies. Jones writes that such people are employed to “produce economic fairy tales for the goyim to keep them in ignorance of what is really going on.” Likely Jones would approve of me extending this charge to cover the all of the Jewish behavior he so assiduously describes in Barren Metal. In my view, Jews use their (usurious) ill-gotten gains to get journalists, academics, filmmakers and many others to constantly “produce fairy tales for the goyim.”

I’ve covered this in depth in my writing for The Occidental Quarterly and specifically in writing about the orchestrated campaign in Hollywood to divert attention from Jewish economic misbehavior onto their innocent non-Jewish counterparts. If I ever write a book, perhaps this is the proper topic, for over a number of years I described a remarkable celluloid pattern of deceit, beginning in early 2012 with my review of “How They Lie to Us: the Film Margin Call,” followed by The Wolf of Wall Street (see the book review here), Other People’s Money, The Richard Gere Film Arbitrage, The Big Short: Film and Book and finally “Money Monster.” We are talking here about a list of the biggest (non-Jewish) names in Hollywood: George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Tim Roth, Jeremy Irons, Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, Gregory Peck, Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale and Steve Carell. And these names were employed in a campaign to convince the goyim that Wall Street miscreants were Gentiles. If someone ever makes a DVD of clips from these films, it could be pasted inside the back cover of Barren Metal to give a modern version of what Jones is writing about.

Conclusion: Capitalism and Catholicism are Irreconcilable

Jones, a Catholic traditionalist, is no fan of capitalism. In the great conflict between capitalism and Catholicism, Jones accepts the view of those who believe that “there is an unbridgeable gulf between the Catholic and the capitalist conception of life.” In fact, Jones concludes his book with this short paragraph:

Capitalism and Catholicism, far from being compatible, are antithetical. Capitalism is state-sponsored usury; Catholicism, the traditional foe of usury, believes in the priority of labor. There is no way to resolve this dichotomy. One system must prevail over the other.

At this point in history, does it seem even remotely possible that Catholicism, long rooted in Europe but a fading memory there now, can somehow triumph over capitalism? To most rational observers, the possibility seems laughable, but then again, at the end of The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit, Jones concluded that “judging from appearances, the conversion of the Jews did not seem imminent. The Jews had never been more powerful; the Church was weak. But appearances can be deceiving. . . . Reversal was in the air.”

Any signs of the Jewish stranglehold over our money, economies and cultures being reversed? If so, please let us know.

Final Thoughts

I have long thought that if someone could somehow reconcile E. Michael Jones’ Catholic interpretation of The Jewish Question with the social science perspective offered by Kevin MacDonald, a thrilling new synthesis might be achieved. MacDonald, of course, very much believes in the salience of race, but Jones’ views are militantly aracial, by which I mean he is insistent that race is not a factor in the struggle between Jewry and the rest of humanity. Rather, in his view, it is a religious story in which God plays the leading role and the Catholic Church is the agent of God’s work on Earth. Jews are, to Jones . . . well, read the opening of The Gospel of St. John, where Jesus says, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do.”

I’ll be honest: I’m hugely disappointed that E. Michael Jones refuses to see race as an issue. It’s pretty obvious that the organized Jewish community and vast numbers of influential Jews are entirely on board with importing millions of non-Whites, a program that is aimed at destroying the power of White people. It’s a race war, and people who don’t play it will surely lose.

Prior to WWII, it could be argued, Jews were more parasitical and seemed content to keep their host alive. After the war, this seems to have changed into a war to eliminate Whites, which is being done through promotion of replacement-level non-White immigration, feminism, multiculturalism, homosexuality and stirring low-IQ non-Whites to commit low-intensity murder of Whites at the street level. All the while, Jews have been in the forefront of discouraging and attacking White attempts at kindling White identity and group action. At this late date, how can Jones deny the racial nexus of this war? Is he convinced God has plans for the White race one way or the other and we should simply trust in Him? If so, I humbly wish God would show us some favor during our time of need.

Still, it remains edifying to think that Jones’ theological account can so well mirror and add to evolutionary psychologist Kevin MacDonald’s scientific (and racial) discussion of a Jewish “group evolutionary strategy.” Whichever version you accept as “getting to the root of the matter,” either will oblige you to take seriously the effect Jews and their movements have had on the modern world. And that story is far from over.