Reply #30: And the Leo Strauss influence [View All]

[Sophree]

http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp05242003.html

Who felt justified in using Nazi techniques and anti-democratic methods:

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Strauss's point of departure is Socrates, who in Plato's Republic denounces Athenian democracy (the rule of the untutored masses) and instead promotes government by "philosopher-kings." Strauss had experienced the Weimar Republic (one of the more democratic experiments in modern history) and seen Germany fall into the hands of the Nazis. He understandably opposed the latter, but he derived some lessons from their methodology. The failure of the Weimar regime to prevent the rise of fascism, in his view, resided in its failure to put power into the hands of the strong and good, who inevitably, unable to acquire popular support through honest methods, should (like their Nazi adversaries) have cleverly used Big Lies (towards good ends) to nudge the people towards those ends. Only wise men, acting in secrecy, can do that.

As Hersh points out, the neocons (just about a dozen officials---including Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Bolton, Abrams---operating in concert with the oil-baron contingent in the administration-Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, Bush---and providing them with intellectual guidance) refer to themselves (with smug amusement) as a "cabal" (a word with an interesting etymology). They have contempt for the masses, and feel utterly justified in wisely misleading those masses into a roadmap for global peace on their terms. That meant, initially, using 9-11 to produce support for the seizure of Iraq. That seizure is still in progress, messily, untidily, brutally and illegally, and with results no cabal, however wise, can really predict. Among the results might be a growing revulsion among the American people themselves at the neocons' misanthropic arrogance, and perhaps (much though it should be regretted and fought) anti-Semitism. The latter might be provoked by the fact that persons inclined to embrace the most extreme factions in the Israeli political apparatus are disproportionately represented in the neocons' cabal, and while the general movement of U.S. foreign policy is driven by broad geopolitical concerns, rather than the alliance with Israel, the neocons' allegiance to what they perceive to be the interests of Sharon's Israel is highly conspicuous.

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