PROFESSOR MAGRASS is one of the people who got things going. I met him at a Holocaust Conference at Boston College. He took the initiative and wrote to me and asked me to publish his essay and promote his book. I was happy to do so. Then he wrote to me again; and again. Most academics are too laid back; they don't take the initiative to get their work out into the world and convey their ideas.

 Magrass is on the cutting edge of this project.
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JEWISH GERMS INFLICT THE GERMAN BODY

The Nazis believed Jews orchestrated an insidious plot to dominate the world--using whatever tactic was convenient. They initiated a life against death struggle between the Aryan and Jewish race--based on the belief that Jews were germs infecting the German body (politic)

Jews were conceived as the ultimate international cosmopolitans who had wandered the world without a state for 2000 years.

Whereas most Europeans were rural farmers, Jews were thought to be urban money-lenders. The Nazis believed that international finance capital had brought urbanization to destroy the serenity of the rural village; to undermine tradition, and dedication to race, community and nation.

The German peasant, according to the Nazis, felt a commune with nature such that he and it were inseparable. The Aryan ingrained within the dark cold forests of Northern Europe experienced depth, intensity, a yearning for the sun. His physical make-up, light-skin, blonde, blue-eyed--reflected this yearning.  All Germans shared in this essence, constituting an organic community.

The disruption of the natural order brought on by industrialization and urbanization could not lie within "the volk”--a spiritual quality shared by all true Germans. It must have been an alien imposition. No one could have been more responsible than the representative of the trans-European nation, the Jews, within Germany’s borders.  The Jew was seen as violating volkish norms in having no organic ties; he was primarily concerned with pecuniary.  The transience of urban life was a reflection of his transiency. German volkish identity was defined in contrast to the Jew.

The Nazis were certain that although Jews didn't care about glory--they encouraged wars because it brought them profit. Jews, the Nazis believed, were cowards and let others do their fighting for them. They were accused of avoiding military involvement in World War I--in spite of the fact that 12,000 Jews had died fighting for Germany.  

One tactic used by Jews used to fit into the German ideal of the volk was to argue that they constituted a volk with an identity of their own. In response to the charge of urban transiency, there was a movement among Jews to return to the land, out of which grew Zionism and the kibbutz movement.  This may seem contradictory, but it seems they felt the way to prove they were German was to form a separate nation and leave Germany.

Although ancient Israel, the kingdoms of David and the Maccabees, were aggressive warrior states, the Jews, especially the Ashkenazic Yiddishkeit Jews of Germany and Eastern Europe, evolved during two thousand years of wandering in the diaspora into a culture which regarded soldiers in an extremely negative light.

Their very existence challenged the militaristic ideals the Nazis wanted for Germany. Yiddishkeit values developed as a means to survive in a hostile environment when one lacked power. This was especially offensive to Nazis. Yiddishkeit regarded admired intellectuals more than warriors.

Finding it advantageous to seem unthreatening when doing business with Gentiles, Ashkenazic Jews developed a self-effacing style.  Humor was a weapon they would resort to far more readily than arms. Behind this seeming passivity was something Walter Waskow calls "God-wrestling:"

Skeptical and angry. It shrugged its shoulders a lot, distrusted all authority, and learned to laugh at the absurdity of things...Its heroes are the angry mockers of authority who conform reluctantly because they have to.

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GLORIOUS CAUSES: The Irrationality of Capitalism, War & Politics, Yale R Magrass & Charles Derber

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Introduction: Not Such A Wonderful Life

Chapter 1: An Irrational Cultural Divide: Cosmopolitans and Traditionalists Battling Over the Real and The Ideal

Chapter 2: The South Shall Rise Again: Finding Glory in the Defeat of an Indefensible Cause

Chapter 3: Stabbed in the Back: The Master Race Shall Be the Master

Chapter 4: America Becomes Exceptional But Europe Prospers

Chapter 5: Weimar America: Vietnam, the Left, the Right & Reagan

Chapter 6: Make America Great Again:  The Reagan in Trump and the Failures of Anti-Trumpism

Chapter 7: We Can’t Afford Glory: Turning Toward Equality and Human Survival

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 "Yale Magrass and Charles Derber’s study of 'glorious causes' is an in-depth discussion of why people act against their interests. They provide readers with a comprehensive, multidisciplinary analysis of a subject which has been frequently overlooked. Their chapters on the rise of the right, with popular support, and the failure of the left to come to terms with it, is particularly relevant to politics today. It is a book to be read and debated in classrooms and public meetings throughout the US and abroad."- James Petras, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Binghamton University.

"In an era of upheaval and political confusion, how can we understand the emerging world and still have hope for the future? Glorious Causes provides insightful answers. It not only explains the roots of America's deep trouble, but points to ways that we can re-imagine our country and make it once again a beacon for humanity." - Stephen Kinzer, Author of Overthrow, All the Shah's Men and Poisoner in Chief

"Another way of looking at history -- provocative, original, progressive." - Oliver Stone, Hollywood director of Platoon, JFK, and Born on the Fourth of July.

"Fascinating, provocative and very timely! I found it very hard to stop reading, and when I had to momentarily, I was eager to get back to it. On every page, there's something startling to be learned about the past that is crucial to understanding our vertigo-inducing present. Highly recommended!" - Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower and author of The Doomsday Machine