Conspiracies Upon Conspiracies

In my previous posting I wrote about the idiotic views expressed by the neo-Nazi Horst Mahler in his interview in Vanity Fair (German edition). In particular, Mahler outlines a vast Jewish conspiracy which is ruining Germany, and, indeed, the entire world.  His views have been roundly ridiculed by nearly every observer in Germany as the rants of a madman.

But, in truth, Mahler’s ideas are quite similar to those held by many "Christian conservatives" in the United States.  This week, Pat Robertson – the leader of the religious right – made headlines when he endorsed the candidacy of Rudy Giuliani for US President. I am surprised that hardly anyone in the press pointed out that Robertson espouses a worldview that is deeply anti-Semitic.  In 1991 Robertson published  The New World Order, mainly a prolonged attack on the United Nations as an instrument of Satan, but Robertson also gives a detailed outline of his understanding of modern history.  Robertson describes how dark forces have been working against God and his Christian people for centuries.  The conspiracy of evil was actually started in Bavaria by the German law professor Adam Weishaupt in the 18th century. Weishaupt founded a society of freethinking enlightenment intellectuals who formed a group which came to be known as the Illuminati.  According to the Giuliani-endorsing "historian" Pat Robertson, the Illuminati were actually in cahoots with Lucifer, and soon were able to instigate the French Revolution. But Lucifer has his followers were just getting started: by joining with influential Jews, the Illuminati were later able to bring about the two most insidious scourges of modern history: Communism and international monopoly capitalism.  You would think that these were two opposing systems, but Pat Robertson is able to connect the dots.  You see, the Jewish bankers – led by Rothschild – cleverly profited from Bolshevism:

In fact, is there not a possibility that the Wall Street bankers, who have so enthusiastically financed Bolshevism in the Soviet Union since 1917, did so not for the purpose of promoting world communism but for the purpose of saddling the Soviet Union with a totally wasteful and inefficient system that in turn would force the Soviet government to be dependent on Western bankers for its survival? (Pat Robertson, The New World Order)

The book is full of such insightful "historical analysis" – replete with examples of how Jews ("international financiers") conspire with secular liberals (at the behest of Lucifer) to destroy Christian America.  Substitute  "Germany" for "America" and you have nearly verbatim the ideology of Horst Mahler.  The difference is that Mahler has been forced to serve a prison sentence for openly advocating his views, while Pat Roberston has his own media empire and is celebrated as a king maker for the next president of the United States.