Counter-Currents
David Cole
1,439 words
In his recent essay “Suicide (Final) Solution” at Taki’s Magazine, David Cole aired some extraordinarily trenchant criticisms of Jews. Despite his seemingly philo-Semitic baseline (i.e., he vigorously criticizes Jews because he vigorously wants what’s best for them), his observations are almost identical to those coming from a more counter-Semitic baseline. When two people with antithetical agendas arrive at the same conclusion, you know there has to be some truth to that conclusion.
Below, I paraphrase Cole’s major points. See if there is anything here with which Andrew Anglin, Kevin MacDonald, or David Duke would disagree:
- Jews made up most of the authority figures in the Soviet Union in the 1930s when it was committing its greatest atrocities.1
- FDR’s Jewish advisers war-mongered against Germany in the 1930s, “knowing quite well that a full-blown war would be disastrous for Jews living under Nazi rule.”
- Jews are “the intellectual and organizational backbone, and the financial lifeblood” of the Left.
- Leftist Jews advocate for the mass immigration of non-whites in order to “transform the U.S. into a Third World hellhole.”
- Leftist Jews have a “nasty nihilistic streak” which leads to them to excuse black and brown people when they attack Jews.
- Leftist Jews feel they are in “permanent revolution, perpetual war” against the West, particularly against white Christians, as payback for the Holocaust.
Translate this list into language used by hardened anti-Semites and you have the following hateful yet common tropes:
- Jews are guilty of genocide.
- Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves.
- Jews are radical Left-wingers.
- Jews are duplicitous.
- Jews are Satanic.
- Jews hate white people.
Of course, I believe that David Cole’s view is both fair and correct. I also believe that the second list goes a bit too far in its characterization of Jews. However, I just find it amazing how similar these two lists really are. Now compare these lists to one describing the same phenomena but from a philo-Semitic perspective:
- Jews succeeded in the Soviet Union because they were competent and talented.
- Jews fought against the perpetrators of the Holocaust, which makes them innocent.
- Jews are committed to equality and human rights.
- Jews find natural sympathy with other oppressed races.
- Jews are so moral and high-minded they are quick to forgive those who wrong them.
- Jews stand against racism and oppression.
While both the anti- and philo-Semitic perspectives are tendentious and incorrect, and I can’t help but think that the extreme anti-Semitic perspective is closer to the Truth. This might sound tone deaf to a person still ensconced in the mainstream narrative of history, but once one realizes how a heavily Jewish Soviet system killed at a minimum 20 million people between 1925 and 1940 (during peace time) and how strenuously Adolf Hitler tried to avoid war with the western allies, a different view of history emerges. The more one studies this period, the more the philo-Semitic arguments seem like spin.2
The first point above was not Cole’s but Ambassador Bill Bullitt’s in his 1936 letter from Moscow to President Roosevelt (see footnote 1 below). Cole cleverly finds a parallel between Jews attempting to keep a lid on Russian resentment during the early Soviet period to American Jews today trying to masochistically manage the recent spate of violent non-white anti-Semitism—and he uses the fascinating case of William Bullitt (a half-Jew himself) to tie it all together.
Just as fascinating is how Cole not only recognizes the truth and justice behind counter-Semitic positions, but he fails to take that final step to become counter-Semitic himself or to at least advocate for some form of white advocacy in the face of the Great Hebraic Nemesis. I know this is a touchy topic for him—nearly every article of his makes reference to either his own Jewishness or the Holocaust. Being a Jew seems to be a big deal for him. Yet he himself correctly admits that Jews on the Left wish to “transform the U.S. into a Third World hellhole.” What are white people supposed to do about this? Just let it happen? Cole talks about the suicidal tendencies of Jews who wish to excuse the anti-Jewish behavior of non-whites. But wouldn’t a philo-Semitic attitude on the part of white people be equally suicidal? Wouldn’t that be playing directly in the hands of their enemies?
This part of why I struggle a little with writers like Cole, Pat Buchanan, John Derbyshire, and to a lesser extent Jim Goad. I read them, I enjoy them, I learn from them—and I certainly want them to keep writing. But it seems to me these guys are better at documenting the problem than they are at prescribing real solutions. It’s as if they are operating under the assumption that a solution is not possible unless our enemies read their articles and change sides the culture wars. Like that’s ever going to happen.3
White Nationalists tend to take the problems of whites as a given and focus mostly on solutions. This is both a strength and a weakness. In the latter case, it can make us seem at worst unhinged (“Right Wing Death Squads, now!”) and at best naïve and out of touch (“I’m a White Nationalist running for president!”). Cole himself ridiculed such separatist ideas in his essay “The Day Reagan Yelled at Black People,” in which he wrote (emphasis, mine):
Look, you wanna spend your days dreaming of the Northwest Territorial Imperative, you wanna devote your time to electing future gauleiters to administer Nueva Germania in the Rockies, knock yourself out. As long as you don’t go Buford Furrow on anyone, you’re only harming your own ability to have real-world impact. Because none of that North American white-homeland hogwash is ever going to happen.
In the former case, however, the closer whites get to majority-minority status in the United States, the more we are going to require workable solutions rather than reiterations of problems we already know exist. I have yet to read anything better than Greg Johnson’s “Slow Cleanse,” and if anyone on the Right or Left has a better suggestion, I am all ears.
One final point about David Cole. Brilliant as he is, I can’t help but feel melancholic when I read him. I sympathize with his frustration regarding his own people. I have the same with mine. Perhaps by acting on our natural ethnocentric instincts and calling for a peaceful breakup of the United States roughly along racial lines we can ease the pain and come to a solution that doesn’t involve war or suicide.
Notes
1. This first point was made by Ambassador Bill Bullitt in his 1936 letter from Moscow to President Roosevelt in which he stated:
The Russians have always been and are bad bureaucrats. In consequence, extraordinary numbers of Jews are employed in all the Commissariats. Only one out of each sixty-one inhabitants of the Soviet Union is a Jew; but twenty of the sixty-one Commissars and Vice-Commissars are Jews. The upper bureaucracy in nearly all Commissariats is Jewish.
Bullitt also explains in his letter that the Soviets believed in mass murder on a genocidal scale and describes communism as a “militant faith determined to produce world revolution and the ‘liquidation’, (that is to say, murder), of all non-believers.”
2. A great example of the philo-Semitic spin of history can be found in how leftist Jews will quickly condemn French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen as an anti-Semite for stating that the Holocaust was “just a detail in the history of the Second World War.” Then they will deny or simply ignore the Jewish complicity in the far-greater atrocities committed by the Soviets between the wars. My 1989 edition of the Harcourt Brace textbook The Mainstream of Civilization Since 1500 dedicates six pages to this period and mentions men such as Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Yagoda but not their Jewish origins. At least two of the five authors, Stanley Chodorow (the lead author) and Conrad Schirokauer are Jews. My 2008 edition of The Western Heritage is even more dishonest. In the seven-odd pages dedicated to the early Soviet atrocities, the authors keep Jews entirely out of it and lay everything at the feet of Stalin while mentioning only two of his gentile henchmen, Bukharin and Yezhov. Of course, Donald Kagan, the lead author of the book, is Jewish. At least with Le Pen, the Jewish Holocaust counts as a detail in history. For these mainstream Jewish historians, Jewish genocidal complicity doesn’t amount to even that.
3. This means no disrespect for any of these writers—they put their real names and faces out there, and I don’t. I owe them a debt of gratitude because without guys like them, you wouldn’t have guys like me.
18 comments
Mr. Quinn,
Is there a difference in meaning between the words “anti-Semetic” and “counter-Semetic”? The latter is a term I almost never come across in my reading.
I assume that ‘anti’ implies aggression whereas ‘counter’ implies self defense – the implication being that it is the Jews who are the true aggressors and the reaction to their actions is justified.
Hi Jud
I don’t think there is an official difference. I basically agree with commenter Archie Bunker on this. Counter-Semitism is more about undermining Jewish hegemony and mainstream narratives in the West, and not about opposing all Jews all the time as a race. Also, I think it’s a way to separate the new right from the old right.
Others, however, may have different definitions or uses for the terms.
When someone tells me that “hogwash” won’t happen, I know I’m dealing with a defeatist, a coward or a Jew. In Cole’s case, the Jewishness is well established. Why any White person would listen to a Jew regarding the racial future of whites is beyond me.
Quitting porn was the #1 thing I’ve ever done to improve my mood.
Diet, exercise, religion… all of those things, while great, PALE in comparison.
This point absolutely CAN NOT be over states.
I agree with Mr. Quinn’s assessment of Mr. Cole. However, the best reason to read Cole is that he is sometimes very funny. Like Buttercup (above), it is unwise for Whites to take any advice regarding the survival and flourishing of the White Race from non-Whites.
HT
Thanks. Yes, Cole can be very funny. He also has tabs on popular culture much better than most. He’s reliably anti-anti-white whenever Jews are not in the equation. His article about the poor white guy who caught a (I think Barry Bonds) homerun baseball and what happened to him later was wonderful.
Have you seen this essay by Cole: https://www.takimag.com/article/the-holocaust-is-not-the-pill-to-die-on/
The second to the last paragraph is a doozy:
And don’t expect more from Holocaust revisionism than it can give you. Revisionism has enriched and strengthened World War II historiography, and if you truly want to learn about it, read David Irving, Mark Weber, and me. But you’re not gonna get “Holohoax” from any serious scholar. You want a “victory”? Okay—Auschwitz wasn’t an extermination camp, the 6 million figure is too high, and the Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Dachau “gas chambers” are phonies. There, you got your victory. Yipidee-doo, go out and celebrate.
Over the years, Spencer Quinn’s take on David Cole has largely paralleled my own. Generally admiring, but wary (and increasingly weary) of a slipperiness he has when “criticizing” his fellow Jews. For example, in this Taki’s post Cole says he’s “not saying Jews didn’t have a legitimate reason to hate [Hitler]”. Typical of him, it ends there. Never balanced with a “or he, they”. When writing about Jewish shenanigans—which are always downplayed in terms of malice and perfidy—I don’t recall him ever once saying non Jews might have legitimate reasons to hate Jews. But, as Mr Quinn points out, he’s clearly aware they exist.
Don’t wait for David Cole, no ally of ours, to advocate for White advocacy. His criticisms of his fellows don’t come from his sympathy for Whites. He’s saying, don’t push it. He likes the world just as it is. Why wouldn’t he?
As a nonpracticing Jew who agrees with dissident right and White Nationalist ideas, I’m interested in what Spencer Quinn or other Counter Currents writers/commenters would see as legitimate Jewish support for the cause, or if such a thing is possible. After reading this article I agree that while he’s done a lot of good in his writings, David Cole isn’t willing to admit enough of the truth.
I’ve noticed that the more actually Jewish the Jew—religiously observant, orthodox, Hasidic, Haredi—the more their political ideas openly mirror those of White Nationalists. So there might be a useful distinction between culturally conservative religiously observant Jews and non religious culturally promiscuous lefty Jews.
In either case it’s clear that mainstream western Judaism is a murder suicide that I want no part of. I just haven’t figured out what to do about it. If the White ethnostates, when they come about, decide there’s no room for Jews of any kind regardless of their agreement with the underlying principles of ethnonationalism in general, I can’t say I’d blame them and it’d be quite hypocritical of me to argue for special status. A hundred times burned, a hundred and second time shy and all that.
Hi Jewanon,
Thanks for the comment and your support. We are in similar situations in that if we in our normie lives were to speak out about our true beliefs we would catch grief from our own kind first. All I can say is that being a dissident is tough and you have to be prepared to catch flak. I, personally, have lost numerous family members and friends over my politics–of which I have presented race realism and a certain level of Judeo-skepticism on top of the usual right-wing stuff one would find on the Ace of Spades. This is a small price to pay compared to what others in the movement sacrificed, but there it is.
As for supporting the movement as an outsider, you seem to have the right attitude. First, you would have to determine how much you are willing to sacrifice. If the answer is ‘not much’ then keep quiet about politics in your life and donate to whichever white-conscious organizations you choose. Those folks don’t have to know that you’re Jewish and you don’t have to share that with them. But *be careful* when you do this–donate cash if you wish to remain anonymous.
If you feel friskier than that, then, on top of financial donations, speak up about pro-white stuff among your friends and family and don’t be afraid to point out Jewish hegemony or double standards. You will catch flak, but console yourself that you have the truth on your side. Majorities have a right to remain majorities, and people, especially a people as accomplished as the white race, deserve homelands. Jews seem to oppose this for whites and only whites and not themselves in Israel. This, sadly, makes them the bad guys (not that whites are 100% innocent, but Jews, especially the secular liberal ones, are clearly less innocent when it comes to this.)
You could consider contributing pro-white essays. I know TOO and Amren has Jewish writers. If you’re good, maybe they will run your work. Just make sure not to use your personal or professional email accounts when contacting them if you want to remain anonymous. One of my favorite Jewish authors is Marcus Alethia of TOO. “Jews and Immigration: Time for a Change” is a great article to start with.
A step beyond this is outright counter-Semitism. The Unz Review is the place to go for that. Some of the Jewish writers there seem more focused on calling out Jews or Judaism than being explicitly pro-white. Of course, this is just my take and I could be wrong. In either case, Unz and his site are great.
I guess the extreme would be doing what Brother Nathaniel does, but you would need elephant-thick skin and extroversion off the charts to pull it off. I don’t think anyone would ask you to do that.
I hope this helps in getting you situated. I appreciate your interest. I think that whatever you do, you have to be prepared to possibly lose at least some of things that make your life comfortable and prosperous right now. Please check out Greg Johnson’s article about the Jewish physician Dov Bechhofer who was ‘outed’ for reading Counter-Currents a couple years ago. It’s a sad story, and I wish the best for Dov.
You should also always stress the importance of ethnocentrism for most of us. Most Jews are unsatisfied in gentile lands because gentile lands are a bad fit for them-not because gentiles are evil or racist. You can say the same about all racial diasporas–despite outliers like yourself that may actually identify with a particular out-group.
Finally, this is something that I wish a critical mass of Jews would understand. The Rising Tide of Color will drown us all if we let it, both in Israel and in white nations. If the vast majority of Jews were to return to Israel, maybe more of them would see that instead of using this rising tide as a weapon against white people like they’ve been doing for well over a century now.
Good luck.
I would like to see a European (to the Urals) homeland for white people instituted by a law of return for whites the world over. In the European offshoot societies I would like to see civil rights struggles for the whites who remain. Retaking America is not going to happen, at least this side of a caldera blowing somewhere which could conceivably reshuffle possibilities, for the better or worse.
It’s the age-old problem of ideas vs actions at work here, in regards to the reasons why these writers, beyond wishing to protect their own livelihoods, are incapable of outlining solutions to the problems they openly describe. They have a conviction that the ideas, once adopted, would solve the problems, little able to see that any amount of ideas will not change the base behaviour ‘operating system’ that comes pre-installed on certain peoples (weird analogy there, soz). “Look, Thomas Sowell! Ideas are universal!”. Faith, in other words. Faith in ignorance and opposition to the overwhelming evidence present for anybody with forthrightness and honesty to be able to address.
Why do blacks sent to Oxford and Cambridge on scholarships write articles for the Guardian complaining about racism and ‘systemic oppression’, while having the doors to the system’s fortress taken right off the bloody hinges for them. Why do all the so-called ‘reimaginings’ of classic works, like the current Three Sisters on at the National, have to take a pre-existing work of the European canon and simply transpose out the Europeans? Or the new David Copperfield film where David has magically become an Indian. Why do millions of Chinese study our music traditions from an early age, yet prove incapable of adding anything of similar value to the corpus? Of course, we know who helps this take place, but apart from a direct attack on our world, it is a stark indicator that the players are not interchangeable from seed to showpiece. There is a distinct lack of originative capacity which cannot be replaced as easily as switching the skin tones or phenotypes, and at which Europeans are the absolute pinnacle exemplars. These ‘talents’ that are foisted at us know, in truth, they cannot do better. Their capacities cannot extend to the production of world-spanning cultural paragons of genius; timeless, and truly universal. So they attack, having been given the privilege of a position to do so. To belittle that which they cannot better. There is no way to perform a diversity hire for genius.
Sorry, i’ve gone on a tangent again. TLDR you cannot swap people like spark-plugs and still expect the culture to function.
Is too much being made of these attacks on Jews in NY? I understand that the Jews attacked in NY are virtually all orthodox and therefore easily identified as Jews so an attack on them COULD be an attack on Jews in general. But I also understand that NY orthodox Jews are finding their traditional neighborhoods too expensive and are moving into and displacing blacks from their neighborhoods. In this case attacks on Jews would not be attacks on Jews per se.
“This part of why I struggle a little with writers like Cole, Pat Buchanan, John Derbyshire, and to a lesser extent Jim Goad. I read them, I enjoy them, I learn from them—and I certainly want them to keep writing. But it seems to me these guys are better at documenting the problem than they are at prescribing real solutions.”
I think it’s pretty obvious that they are on our side. Takimag is for political commentary with humour, not a manifesto.
Blacks own about six trillion in assets in the USA. Mostly real estate. Jews, many times more. As long as these numbers hold, I see no way to force them to leave. How much would white Americans be asked to pay to live in a Jew free, black free country? Cole is right, this is a pipe dream.
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