RNC + Q: Tracing the origins of an anti-Semitic hoax

Mary Ann Mendoza was supposed to speak at the Republican National Convention, until someone noticed that she had endorsed a Twitter thread which compiled many obnoxious anti-Semitic tropes. Here's the thread. It was posted by a QAnon cultist called "War Nurse," who may not be a native speaker of English, since She Habitually Capitalizes Every Word.

War Nurse, whoever the hell she is (presuming that "she" is even a she), did not create this text from scratch. My research proves that her rant was stitched together from previous sources.

Her work abounds with examples of what I call "false quotation syndrome." Here's an example:

"...The Wealth Of The Rothschilds Consists Of The Bankruptcy Of Nations." — Frederick Morton

If you plug those words into Google, all of the links go to anti-Semitic writers, most of whom state that the quote appears in the preface to Morton's famous 1962 book on the Rothschild family. That book (which I read many years ago) has always annoyed Jew-haters because it does not say what Jew-haters want it to say. Fortunately, Morton's book is now online at the Internet Archive. The quote is not in the preface -- nor, I suspect, is it anywhere else in that volume.

The first thing you must understand about anti-Semites is this: They make things up.

"War Nurse" also offers this alleged quote from Nathan Mayer Rothschild:

"I Care Not What Puppet Is Placed Upon The Throne Of England To Rule The Empire On Which The Sun Never Sets. The Man That Controls Britain's Money Supply Controls The British Empire, And I Control The British Money Supply." — Baron Nathan Mayer Rothschild

This is a baroque expansion of a false quote which I wrote about in 2006. The earlier form was simpler: "Give me control of a nation's money supply and I care not who makes its laws.” You'll find those words, or similar words, attributed to Rothschild on many websites and in many books. An "in-between" version may be found here.

No version is accurate. All are spurious.

In my earlier post, I said that this bogus quote was probably inspired by something Carlyle once wrote: "Let me make a nation's songs and I care not who makes its laws." Terry Melanson pointed out that similar words had been uttered earlier, and may trace back to Plato. I have no idea which anti-Semite first decided to twist this innocuous sentiment into something odious.

Here is the meat of the War Nurse conspiracy theory:

In 1773, A Wealthy Goldsmith And Coin Dealer Named Mayer Amschel Bauer Summoned Twelve Wealthy And Influential Men To His Place Of Business In Frankfurt, Germany.

Amschel Bauer’s Purpose For The Meeting Was To Impress Upon These Men That If They Pooled Their Resources, It Was Possible To Gain Control Of The Wealth, Natural Resources, And Manpower Of The Entire World.

"Bauer" was the original name of the Rothschild family.

The 1773 event never happened. (If you want the real history of the Rothschilds, I've already given a link to Morton's book.) After plugging the text into Google, I found that something similar appeared in a piece written by Ken Matto, a preacher who passionately believes that the 1611 King James Version of the Bible is the only authentic translation. As we shall see, the story did not originate with him. Matto uses the name Rothschild, as do all other sources for this tale.

War Nurse goes on to outline the 25 point plan of action:

Mayer Amschel Bauer Outlined A 25 Point Plan On How To Accomplish This. Those 25 Points Were…

1. Use Violence And Terrorism Rather Than Academic Discussions.

2. Preach Liberalism To Usurp Political Power.

3. Initiate Class Warfare.

4. Politicians Must Be Cunning And Deceptive As Any Moral Code Leaves A Politician Vulnerable.

5. Dismantle Existing Forces Of Order And Regulation. Reconstruct All Existing Institutions...

And so on. Fascinatingly, some of these 25 points (especially points one, four and five) reflect the actual tactics employed by QAnon, by the Accelerationists, and by the "Dark Enlightenment" theorists. I've discussed this "projection" phenomenon in previous posts, and will probably talk about it in the future.

No legitimate source attributes these 25 points to anyone named Rothschild. I doubt that anyone in 1773 would have used the terms "terrorism" or "class warfare." "Liberalism" meant something quite different at that time. Point 7 refers to "mob psychology" -- an obvious anachronism. In sum: This 25 point plan is clearly of a recent vintage.

So where does it come from?

I found a version of it in a 2008 text written by an anti-Semitic writer named Deanna Spingola. The similarity of the wording strongly suggests that War Nurse pilfered from Spingola. Could the two be one and the same? Possibly -- although War Nurse's strange writing style suggests that her native tongue is not English.

What kind of person is Deanna Spingola? Well, here's the description of her 2014 opus, The Ruling Elite.

Author Deanna Spingola discusses how the diaspora-distributed international bankers living and prospering in Britain, France, and America influenced greedy, compromised, and complicit politicians in those nations. The Ruling Elite explains that through deceptive propaganda, those politicians persuaded naïve citizens to wage war against Germany, a peace-loving nation whose leaders were uncooperative with the bankers, which led to World War I...

The book goes on to argue that Jews started World War II. In other words, we're dealing with a rewrite of William Dudley Pelley's Dupes of Judah, an anti-Semitic diatribe written by a leading American fascist of the 1930s.

Since Spingola is obviously not capable of writing anything truly original, I decided to look for an earlier source for the "25 points" fantasia.

And here it is: Secrets of the Federal Reserve, by Eustace Mullins. Mullins was a (very closeted) gay Nazi intellectual who became a student of Ezra Pound, the brilliant -- and quite mad -- poet who broadcast fascist propaganda from Mussolini's Italy throughout the war. After the war, Pound ended up in a mental institution, and Mullins became a regular visitor. I once saw a video interview with Mullins, who claimed that his work on the Federal Reserve was undertaken at the behest of Pound himself.

Eustace Mullins went on to join the National Renaissance Party, the first post-war pro-Nazi party in America. He was notorious for inventing slanders against the Jews. If you have the stomach for such things, look up his The Curse of Canaan, probably the most revolting book I've ever illegally downloaded.

(Mullins became something of a bete noir with me back in the 1990s, when a few of his books attained a weird popularity on the left, at least in Los Angeles. His works were also sold at UFO conventions, and rumor had it that he attended a few. Whenever I said "But he's a Nazi!", his fans would either disbelieve me or offer threadbare rationalizations.)

In the online version of Secrets of the Federal Reserve, a discussion of the 25 points begins on page 57, although not all 25 are listed. Mullins may have been a fiend, but he was also an educated man, and thus he avoided the more obvious anachronisms.

So what was his source?

If you were expecting him to cite an actual document from the 18th century -- a document on yellowed paper in which the letter s looks like f -- you would be disappointed. Instead, Mullins cites Pawns in the Game by William Guy Carr.

Carr was a particularly bold Canadian anti-Semite, not as well-educated as Mullins but with a stronger imagination. Carr pioneered the use of the term "international banker" as a euphemism for "Jews." Political Research Associates summarized his career thus:

Carr promoted the anti-Semitic variant on conspiracism with books such as Pawns in the Game and Red Fog over America. Carr believes that an age-old Jewish Illuminati banking conspiracy used radio-transmitted mind control on behalf of Lucifer to construct a one world government. The secret nexus of the plot was supposedly the international Bilderberger meetings on banking policy. The anti-Semitic Noontide Press distributed Pawns in the Game for many years.

Noontide Press belonged to Willis Carto, magnate of a neo-Nazi publishing empire and the originator of The Barnes Review, a magazine devoted to made-up history. Readers may recall that, until recently, I theorized that Q came out of the Barnes Review writing stable. (The main problem with this theory is the fact that the Barnes writers are all pretty old by this point.)

Online copies of Pawns in the Game are easy to find: See here and here. The "25 points" myth appears in section 3 of the book, "The Men Who Caused the French Revolution 1789."

In 1773, when Mayer Rothschild was only thirty years of age, he invited twelve other wealthy and influential men to meet him in Frankfort. His purpose was to convince them that if they agreed to pool their resources they could then finance and control the World Revolutionary Movement and use it as their Manual of Action to win ultimate control of the wealth, natural resources, and man-power of the entire world.

After the general introduction to build up an enthusiastic reception for the plot he was about to unfold, Rothschild turned to a manuscript and proceeded to read a carefully prepared plan of action. The following is what I have been assured is a condensed version of the plot by which the conspirators hoped to obtain ultimate undisputed control of the wealth, natural resources, and man-power of the entire world.

A very full version of the 25 points follows. Some of the anachronisms which Mullins had smoothed over are glaringly apparent in the Carr version. As noted above, Carr was more imaginative and less scholarly.

Does Carr list a source? Yes, he does -- and if you know the history of anti-Semitism, you won't be surprised.

As far as can be ascertained the original plan of the conspiracy ended at the point where it terminated above. I am satisfied that the documents which fell into the hands of Professor S. Nilus in 1901, and which he published under the title ‘The Jewish Peril’ in 1905 in Russia, were an enlargement of the original plot. There appears to be no change in the first section but various additions disclose how the conspirators had used Darwinism, Marxism, and even Nietzche-ism. More important still, the documents discovered in 1901 disclose how Zionism was to be used. It must be remembered that Zionism was only organized in 1897.

This matter is referred to later, when the intrigue leading up to the abdication of King Edward VIII is explained. The translation Mr. Victor Marsden made of The Jewish Peril, was published by The Britons Publishing Society, London, England, under the title The Protocols of The Learned Elders of Zion in 1921.

Ah yes. Of course. It always comes back to the goddamned Protocols.

Carr has -- probably deliberately -- jumbled up the chronology. When the Protocols hoax originally appeared in Russia in 1903, the text was not attributed to any secret 1773 meeting hosted by Rothschild. Instead, readers were told that the text reflected the minutes of a secret Zionist conference conducted by Theodore Herzl in 1897. Since the text of the Protocols refers to the Panama scandal and other 19th century events, it cannot have an origin in the 18th century.

The available evidence strongly suggests that William Guy Carr -- and Carr alone -- came up with the idea of abbreviating and adapting a section of the Protocols, which he then falsely attributed to Mayer Rothschild in 1773. As noted earlier: If that yarn about the 1773 secret meeting were real, it would trace back to a book or document written in the 18th century. There would be an original source, a contemporary source. Since no such source exists, I can only conclude that Carr concocted the story in the 1950s.

Incidentally, Carr is also careless about the publication history of the Protocols: "The Jewish Peril" was the name of the 1920 British translation of the book, while the 1905 Russian edition published by Nilus bore the bizarre title The Great in the Small. A proper discussion of the origins of the Protocols hoax must wait for another time.

I've dealt with only the opening part of the War Nurse thread. The thing goes on and on, lifting anti-Semitic material from other sources. I could try to trace all of her influences, but the point is made. Like Deanna Spingola, War Nurse is not just a conspiracy-crazed bigot: She is an unoriginal conspiracy-crazed bigot. 

One final word about Mary Ann Mendoza: Republicans consider her an "angel mom" because her son, a policeman in Mesa, Arizona, lost his life in a car crash with an undocumented immigrant. I urge her to talk to another cop who lived in Mesa, although I don't know if he is still there. Her son might even have met him.

The cop's name is Robert Marinez. On November 6, 2001, he was shot in the head by Milton William "Bill" Cooper, the soused-and-psycho "conspiracy king" of the 1990s -- Alex Jones' predecessor.

Marinez survived, but just barely. His fellow officers returned fire, killing Cooper.

I am very sorry about Mrs. Mendoza's son, but the illegal immigrant who killed him did so accidentally. Cooper's act was quite deliberate. I, for one, am glad that Cooper was brought down.

I bring up Cooper and Marinez for this reason: The Protocols myth had largely vanished from public awareness until Cooper revived interest in it. By 1990, copies of Carr's book were rare, and one had to go to a large university library to find a copy of the Protocols. Then Cooper came along -- and suddenly, there was widespread interest in both William Guy Carr and the Protocols. (Cooper occasionally name-dropped Carr in his lectures.) The current QAnon madness owes much to Bill Cooper.

In a very roundabout way, Mary Ann Mendoza -- a well-meaning lady desperate to make sense of a tragic event -- could be considered another victim of Cooper's legacy. Right now, she is being reviled as an anti-Semite all across the internet. I don't think she is an anti-Semite. I think she was naive. And I feel horrible for her.