- “We have taken good care long ago to discredit the Gentile clergy.”—Protocol 17.
- “It is for this reason that we must undermine faith, eradicate from the minds of the Gentiles the very principles of God and Soul, and replace these conceptions by mathematical calculations and material desires.”—Protocol 4.
Two possible views are open to choice: one, that this constant caricature of representatives of religion is simply the natural expression of a worldly state of mind; the other, that it is part of a traditional campaign of subversion. The former is the natural view among uninformed people. It would be the preferable view, if peace of mind were the object sought. But there are far too many indications that the second view is justified, to permit of its being cast aside.
The screen, whether consciously or just carelessly, is serving as a rehearsal stage for scenes of anti-social menace. There are no uprisings of revolutions except those that are planned and rehearsed. That is the most modern fruit of the study of history: that revolutions are not spontaneous uprisings, but carefully planned minority actions. Revolution is not natural to the people, and is always a failure. There have been no popular revolutions. Civilization and liberty have been set back by those revolutions which subversive elements have succeeded in starting.
But if you are to have your revolution, you must have a rehearsal. In England, the whole process of sovietizing the country has been set forth on the stage, as in vivid object lessons. In this country they have rehearsals by parades, by starting marches through factories and up to the offices, by importing lecturers who tell just how it was done in Russia, Hungary and elsewhere. But it can be done better in the motion pictures than anywhere else: this is “visual education” such as even the lowest brow can understand, and the lower the better.
Indeed, there is a distinct disadvantage in being “high-brow” in such matters. Normal people shake their heads and pucker their brows and wring their hands and say “we cannot understand it; we simply cannot understand it!” Of course they cannot. But if they understood the low-brow, they would understand