Required Reading Material

Required reading material for the course American Society II, subject Jazz (how it was received):

Many people have wondered whence come the waves upon waves of musical slush that invade decent homes and set the young people of this generation imitating the drivel of morons. Popular music is a Jewish monopoly. Jazz is a Jewish creation. The mush, slush, the sly suggestion, the abandoned sensuousness of sliding notes, are of Jewish origin…

Is it surprising that whichever way you turn to trace the harmful streams of influence that flow through society, you come upon a group of Jews? In baseball corruption – a group of Jews. In exploitative finance – a group of Jews. In theatrical degeneracy – a group of Jews. In liquor propaganda – a group of Jews. In control of national war policies – a group of Jews. In control of the Press through business and financial pressure – a group of Jews. War profiteers, 80 per cent of them – Jews. Organizers of active opposition to Christian laws and customs – Jews.

Nice huh? You can read more at my own blog.

16 Responses to “Required Reading Material”

1. Rudi says:

   May 12, 2007 at 9:17 am

   MvdG – Your site takes forever to load on my paleo-PC. Please explain why matertial from a FRINGE Australian church relates to American history. The link is to an anti-Semitic book, please give the title of this book. In another chapter they claim the Jews were behind Columbus after the Jews were evicted from Spain. Jazz origins were in the Missippi Delta and elsewhere performed by black musicians, were did the Jews come in?
2. Holly in Cincinnati says:

   May 12, 2007 at 9:30 am

   Michael is commenting that this piece was assigned reading for a college course he is taking. I have forwarded some less-bigoted source material that he can show his instructor.
3. Holly in Cincinnati says:

   May 12, 2007 at 9:31 am

   Now we know where Mel Gibson gets his ideas, right?
4. Rudi says:

   May 12, 2007 at 9:39 am

   Maybe Michael could do some research instead of giving us this passage to incite conterversy. Only neo-Nazi groups would have this on their site. His link is ti “Bible Believers” in Australia. Are RR fanatics anti-Semites?

   It took all of a couple minutes and a Google search to link this to Dearborn Michigan – Henry Ford and “The International Jew”. This is from our favorite capitalist and Nazi sympathiser Henry Ford.
5. Rudi says:

   May 12, 2007 at 9:41 am

   Wiki – Henry Ford
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford

   In 1918, Ford’s closest aide and private secretary, Ernest G. Liebold, purchased an obscure weekly newspaper, The Dearborn Independent. By 1920, Ford had become publicly antisemitic and in March of that year, began an anti-Jewish crusade in the pages of his newspaper.[8] The Independent ran for eight years, from 1920 until 1927, during which Liebold was editor. The newspaper published “Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion,” which was discredited as a forgery during the Independent’s publishing run by The Times of London. The American Jewish Historical Society describes the ideas presented in the magazine as “anti-immigrant, anti-labor, anti-liquor, and anti-Semitic”. In February 1921, the New York World published an interview with Ford, in which he said “The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on”. During this period, Ford emerged as “a respected spokesman for right-wing extremism and religious prejudice,” reaching around 700,000 readers through his newspaper.[9]

   Along with the Protocols, anti-Jewish articles published by The Dearborn Independent were also released in the early 1920s as a set of four bound volumes, cumulatively titled The International Jew, the World’s Foremost Problem. Vincent Curcio writes of these publications that “they were widely distributed and had great influence, particularly in Nazi Germany, where no less a personage than Adolf Hitler read and admired them. Hitler, fascinated with automobiles, hung Ford’s picture on the wall; Ford is the only American mentioned in Hitler’s book. Steven Watts writes that Hitler “revered” Ford, proclaiming that “I shall do my best to put his theories into practice in Germany,” and modeling the Volkswagen, the people’s car, on the model T.”[10]

   Wiki – The International Jew
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_International_Jew

   The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem is a four volume set of books originally published and distributed in the early 1920′s by Henry Ford, an American industrialist, automobile developer and manufacturer. It consisted of a collection of articles serialized in The Dearborn Independent, a newspaper owned by Ford. Many of the texts were inspired by antisemitic plagiarism of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.[1]
   …
   Vincent Curcio wrote that these publications “were widely distributed and had great influence, particularly in Nazi Germany, where no less a personage than Adolf Hitler read and admired them. Hitler based several sections of Mein Kampf on his writings: indeed, Ford is the only American mentioned in Hitler’s book. It can probably be said, as Lacey does, that no American contributed as much to the evils of Nazism as Henry Ford.”[3]

   Does being a Ford employee or owner make one a Jazz hater and anti-Semite?
6. Michael van der Galien says:

   May 12, 2007 at 9:42 am

   Rudi: perhaps you should keep your mouth shut. I link to an article because I have to use it for an assignment, as I explain. Funny how anti-semitism always makes you react, and not in the way most people would welcome. If I post something about anti-semitism, attacking it, or someone else, you always immediately take the offensive. Why is that Rudi?
7. Holly in Cincinnati says:

   May 12, 2007 at 9:48 am

   BTW, here are the TRUE Protocols:
   http://www.shechem.org/torah/avot.html
8. Rudi says:

   May 12, 2007 at 10:20 am

   MvdG – You misunderstood my response, I wondered how a study of American jazz could link to an Australian anti-Semitic website. By posting this without any backround info you leave open anything.

   I am a big fan of Jazz and posting Henry Fords rantings without any context is your problem, not mine. I have spent many nights at Bakers Keyboard Lounge in Detroit enjoying local and national acts. I happened on to the ECM label and European Jazz ( Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny and Ralph Towner), in the 1970′s while listening to WDET free formats.

   Perhaps you could include this from the United Jewish Communities website before you call me an anti-Semite. Either you or your professor are the ones guilty of being like the Pretzel Man. Maybe your energies should be directed at your professor and university instead of me. Conflating Jazz with anti-Semitism ignores the rich history of blacks and Jews bringing this uniquie American music to the world. It was Europe and Germany which gave the world two wars and the Holocaust, look into your own backyard before you attack me. I am going to listen to Bela Fleck and old Weather Report, you can look for anti-Semitism under rocks in your own back yard.

   The site has a good article about Eastern European Jews bringing Jazz to the American white masses.
   Jazz greats: Artie Shaw(Abraham Arthur Arshawsky), Benny Goodman and Paul Whiteman
   http://www.ujc.org/page.html?ArticleID=957
   Jews and All That Jazz: Al Jolson, Florenz Ziegfeld, Fanny Brice, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Artie Shaw and more
   by Mark Levy
9. Michael van der Galien says:

   May 12, 2007 at 10:27 am

   It is used as an example of the negative response to Jazz. We have to analyze that response.

   And yes, I will tell my teacher what I think of it.
10. Rudi says:

    May 12, 2007 at 10:49 am

    Peace Michael – Maybe you should suggest a trip to a local club and experience actual jazz, maybe even hook up with John Sinclair for some local “coffee” before you go. As I said earlier, Deetroit is home to the oldest Jazz club in the world, I know I have their and mixed with those people that Henry Ford ranted about. Learning about Jazz from Henry Ford – LOL.
    A little about Bakers Keyboard Lounge:
    http://bakerskeyboardlounge.com/aboutus.html

    It all began in May, 1934, when Chris Baker opened a beer and sandwich restaurant. His son Clarence Baker began to work for him at the age of 15. Five years later, Clarence took over the management of Baker’s following his father’s stroke in 1939. Baker’s was located at the end of the bus line in a rural neighborhood, on Livernois at 8 mile, where cornfields were more common than houses. At that time he nor anyone knew that seven decades later it would claim to be the longest running jazz club anywhere in the world.
    In the late thirties, Clarence had installed himself as entertainment director, and began booking solo pianist into Baker’s. Suddenly, there were lines outside the door. What began as a neighborhood spot serving steaks and chops, now, was a little jazz club.

    Leave the keyboard and university and learn about Jazz in person. Maybe even dig up some old vinyl and listen to some ECM before Fusion spoiled Chick Corea – http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=14563.(Al DiMeola is the anti-Christ)
11. Michael van der Galien says:

    May 12, 2007 at 11:08 am

    Rudi, dude, I love Jazz, that’s not the issue. The issue is that we had to look at what OTHERS wrote about it, and that i had to take a closer look at this exact article.
12. Rudi says:

    May 12, 2007 at 11:10 am

    MvdG – Do you have a syllabus for the course, I am curious abiut the Jazz subject matter? Ken Burns did a show on Jazz, good for the masses, hated by some purists.
    http://www.pbs.org/jazz/
    http://www.allaboutjazz.com/birdlives/bl-94.htm
    J’Accuse, Burns And Marsalis
    If the Ford dementia base diatribe is supposed to be a negative response, your professor is either incompetent or worse.
13. Michael van der Galien says:

    May 12, 2007 at 12:01 pm

    We get our assignments from the Internet, only accessible for students and they are in Dutch. This is the third subject, “Popular Music,” one of four casus’. “The beginning years of the of ragtime and Jazz.”

    We have to use Irving Berlin, Alexanders Ragtime Band, an interview with Eubie Blake: here; Anne Shaw Faulkner, Does Jazz Put the Sin in Syncopation; and the one above. About the above article it says, “Het artikel wordt gekleurd door een virulent anti-semitisme, maar het geeft tussen de regels door ook aardige informatie over de vroege muziek-scene in de VS.” Which means something like “The article is colored by a virulent anti-semitism, but it gives nice information about the early music-scene in the US between the lines.”
14. Rudi says:

    May 12, 2007 at 5:32 pm

    LOL – That is old jazz from the 1920′s to 1940′s, it ignores the radical changes fro 1950-1980. it’s like stuying the US up untill FDR. Never mind the “cvold War” and other developements. Who is Miles Davis….
15. Elrod says:

    May 12, 2007 at 5:56 pm

    Michael,
    It was quite common for righ-wingers in the US and Europe to blame Jews for exploiting blacks and their supposed “lasciviousness” in order to corrupt white Christians.
16. domajot says:

    May 13, 2007 at 10:03 am

    After reading the additional information in the comments, the reaction to a school assignment strikes me as very odd.

    The assigned reading came with an explicit warning about the anti-semitsm, which is the exact opposite of pushing it or supporting it. The alternative would be to give sanitized or censored versions of history, which IMO is the best way to encourage repetition of the worst of it.

    There has always been bigotry in America’s and the world’s history. Bigotry is alive today.
    To pretend it doesn’t exist is the absolutely worst way of fighting it. This assignment is an excellent example of how warped minds think and how ugly and pernicious this thinking is. It’s a lesson in how not to be. To censor it would have meant there is one such needed lesson less in the world.

    This is the reverse of the reaction to suspicions being floated around that PBS censored a documentary film on Islamists. These dots have no connecting line.