Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion: Protocol No. 11...
The word "freedom," which can be interpreted in various
ways, is defined by us as follows:--
Freedom is the right to do that which the law allows. This
interpretation of the word will at the proper time be of service
to us, because all freedom will thus be in our hands, since the
laws will abolish or create only that which is desirable for us
according to the aforesaid programme.
We shall deal with the press in the following way: What is
the part played by the press today? It serves to excite and
inflame those passions which are needed for our purpose or else
it serves selfish ends of parties. It is often vapid, unjust,
mendacious, and the majority of the public have not the slightest
idea what ends the press really serves. We shall saddle and
bridle it with a tight curb: we shall do the same also with all
productions of the printing press, for where would be the sense
of getting rid of the attacks of the press if we remain targets
for pamphlets and books? The produce of publicity, which nowadays
is a source of heavy expense owing to the necessity of censoring
it, will be turned by us into a very lucrative source of income
to our State: we shall lay on it a special stamp tax and require
deposits of caution-money before permitting the establishment of
any organ of the press or of printing offices; these will then
have to guarantee our government against any kind of attack on
the part of the press. For any attempt to attack us, if such
still be possible, we shall inflict fines without mercy. Such
measures as stamp tax, deposits, of caution money and fines
secured by these deposits, will bring in a huge income to the
government. It is true that party organs might not spare money
for the sake of publicity, but these we shall shut up at the
second attack upon us. No one shall with impunity lay a finger on
the aureole of our government infallibility. The pretext for
stopping any publication will be the alleged plea that it is
agitating the public mind without occasion or justification. I
beg you to note that among those making attacks upon us will also
be organs established by us, but they will attack exclusively
points that we have pre-determined to alter.
Not a single announcement will reach the public without our
control. Even now this is already attained by us inasmuch as all
news items are received by a few agencies, in whose offices they
are focused from all parts of the world. These agencies will then
be already entirely ours and will give publicity only to what we
dictate to them.
If already now we have contrived to possess ourselves of the
minds of the goy communities to such an extent that they all come
near looking upon the events of the world through the coloured
glasses of those spectacles we are setting astride their noses:
if already now there is not a single State where there exist for
us any barriers to admittance into what goy stupidity calls State
secrets: what will our position be then, when we shall be
acknowledged supreme lords of the world in the person of our king
of all the world....
Let us turn again to the future of the printing press. Every
one desirous of being a publisher, librarian, or printer, will be
obliged to provide himself with the diploma instituted therefor,
which, in case of any fault, will be immediately impounded. With
such measures the instrument of thought will become an educative
means in the hands of our government, which will no longer allow
the mass of the nation to be led astray in by-ways and fantasies
about the blessings of progress. Is there any one of us who does
not know that these phantom blessings are the direct roads to
foolish imaginings which give birth to anarchical relations of
men among themselves and towards authority, because progress, or
rather the idea of progress, has introduced the conception of
every kind of emancipation, but has failed to establish its
limits... All the so-called liberals are anarchists, if not in
fact, at any rate in thought. Every one of them is hunting after
phantoms of freedom, and falling exclusively into license, that
is, into the anarchy of protest for the sake of protest.
We turn to the periodical press. We shall impose on it, as
on all printed matter, stamp taxes per sheet and deposits of
caution-money, and books of less than 30 sheets will pay double.
We shall reckon them as pamphlets in order, on the one hand, to
reduce the number of magazines, which are the worst form of
printed poison, and, on the other, in order that this measure may
force writers into such lengthy productions that they will be
little read especially as they will be costly. At the same time
what we shall publish ourselves to influence mental development
in the direction laid down for our profit will he cheap and will
be read voraciously. The tax will bring vapid literary ambitions
within bounds and the liability to penalties will make literary
men dependent upon us. And if there should be any found who are
desirous of writing against us, they will not find any person
eager to print their productions. Before accepting any production
for publication in print the publisher or printer will have to
apply to the authorities for permission to do so. Thus we shall
know beforehand of all tricks preparing against us and shall
nullify them by getting ahead with explanations on the subject
treated of.
Literature and journalism are two of the most important
educative forces, and therefore our government will become
proprietor of the majority of the journals. This will neutralize
the injurious influence of the privately-owned press and will put
us in possession of the tremendous influence upon the public
mind... If we give permit for ten journals, we shall ourselves
found thirty, and so on the same proportion. This, however, must
in nowise be suspected by the public. For which reason all
journals published by us will be of the most opposite, in
appearance, tendencies and opinions, thereby creating confidence
in us and bringing over to us our quite unsuspicious opponents,
who will thus fall into our trap and be rendered harmless.
In the front rank will stand organs of an official
character. They will always stand guard over our interests, and
therefore their influence will comparatively insignificant.
In the second rank will be the semi-official organs, whose part
it will be to attract the tepid and indifferent. In the third
rank we shall set up our own, to all appearance, opposition,
which, in at least one of its organs, will present what looks
like the very antipodes to us. Our real opponents at heart will
accept this simulated opposition as their own and will show us
their cards.
All our newspapers will be of all possible complexions --
aristocratic, republican, revolutionary, even anarchical -- for
so long, of course, as the constitution exists... Like the
Indian idol Vishnu they will have a hundred hands, and every one
of them will have a finger on any one of the public opinions as
required. When a pulse quickens these hands will lead opinion in
the direction of our aims, for an excited patient loses all power
of judgment and easily yields to suggestion. Those fools who will
think they are repeating the opinion of a newspaper of their own
camp will be repeating our opinion or any opinion that seems
desirable for us. In the vain belief that they are following the
organ of their party they will in fact follow the flag which we
hang out for them.
In order to direct our newspaper militia in this sense we
must take especial and minute care in organizing this matter.
Under the title of central department of the press we shall
institute literary gatherings at which our agents will without
attracting attention issue the orders and watchwords of the day.
By discussing and controverting, but always superficially,
without touching the essence of the matter, our organs will carry
on a sham fight fusillade with the official newspapers solely for
the purpose of giving occasion for us to express ourselves more
fully than could well be done from the outset in official
announcements, whenever, of course, that is to our advantage.
These attacks upon us will also serve another purpose,
namely, that our subjects will be convinced of the existence of
full freedom of speech and so give our agents an occasion to
affirm that all organs which oppose us are empty babblers, since
they are incapable of finding any substantial objections to our
orders.
Methods of organization like these, imperceptible to the
public eye but absolutely sure, are the best calculated to
succeed in bringing the attention and the confidence of the
public to the side of our government. Thanks to such methods we
shall be in a position as from time to time may be required, to
excite or to tranquillise the public mind on political questions,
to persuade or to confuse, printing now truth, now lies, facts or
their contradictions, according as they may be well or ill
received, always very cautiously feeling our ground before
stepping upon it... We shall have a sure triumph over our
opponents since they will not have at their disposition organs of
the press in which they can give full and final expression to
their views owing to the aforesaid methods of dealing with the
press. We shall not even need to refute them except very
superficially.
Trial shots like these, fired by us in the third rank of our
press, in case of need, will be energetically refuted by us in
our semi-official organs.
Even nowadays, already, to take only the French press, there
are forms which reveal masonic solidarity in acting on the
watchword: all organs of the press are bound together by
professional secrecy; like the augurs of old, not one of their
numbers will give away the secret of his sources of information
unless it be resolved to make announcement of them. Not one
journalist will venture to betray this secret, for not one of
them is ever admitted to practise literature unless his whole
past has some disgraceful sore or other... These sores would be
immediately revealed. So long as they remain the secret of a few
the prestige of the journalist attracts the majority of the
country -- the mob follow after him with enthusiasm.
Our calculations are especially extended to the provinces.
It is indispensable for us to inflame there those hopes and
impulses with which we could at any moment fall upon the capital,
and we shall represent to the capitals that these expressions are
the independent hopes and impulses of the provinces. Naturally,
the source of them will be always one and the same -- ours. What
we need is that, until such time as we are in the plenitude of
power, the capitals should find themselves stifled by the
provincial opinion of the nation, i.e., of a majority arranged by
our agentur. What we need is that at the psychological moment the
capitals should not be in a position to discuss an accomplished
fact for the simple reason, if for no other, that it has been
accepted by the public opinion of a majority in the provinces.
When we are in the period of the new regime transitional to
that of our assumption of full sovereignity must not admit any
revelations by the press of any form of public dishonesty; it is
necessary that the new regime should be thought to have so
perfectly contented everybody that even criminality has
disappeared... Cases of the manifestation of criminality should
remain known only to their victims and to chance witnesses -- no
more.
...Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion: Protocol No. 13.
And please, keep in mind... this is a hoax.