Bush inauguration speech "informed by Leo Strauss"

I just came across this very important mention in a Guardian article today:

For them, Bush's rhetoric about "eternal hope that is meant to be fulfiled" was a sign of their triumph. The speech, crowed neocon William Kristol, who consulted on it, was indeed "informed by Strauss" - a reference to Leo Strauss, philosopher of obscurantist strands of absolutist thought, mentor and inspiration to some neocons who believe they fulfil his teaching by acting as tutors to politicians in need of their superior guidance.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1399444,00.html


I find this extremely important, for two reasons. One, there's been a lot of talk about Leo Strauss on this board, but few provable ties to the top of the Bush administration, except for some link to Paul Wolfowitz. This is a smoking gun showing how deep his influence goes. Second, the fact that William Kristol, founder of PNAC, consulted on the speech, is very disturbing in and of itself, and further shows just how deep the neocon and PNAC influence is right now.

I think this is very disturbing. Maybe someone can post some links about Leo Strauss. He's basically Orwell's 1984 come to life.

obscurantism = opposition to the spread of knowledge : a policy of withholding knowledge from the general public.

That's our Bush.

I believe his antidemocratic, amoral philosophy is just what this craven bunch uses to avoid any regret at lying to us.

Time and time again, Bush and his allies say whatever they need to say to get their goals accomplished. The press calls it "discipline",. but in fact it is just an agreement to follow the WH lead on lies.

He is after all a 'cowboy'

http://www.straussian.net/

It tells you a good deal about these people that they think this sort
of obscurantist drivel is DEEP.

The philosopher who, transcending the sphere of moral or political things, engages in the quest for the essence of all beings, has to give an account of his doings by answering the question 'why philosophy?' That question cannot be answered but with a view to the natural aim of man which is happiness, and in so far as man is by nature a political being, it cannot be answered but within a political framework."

Leo Strauss
(1899-1973)

And just in case anyone needs a little more info re the Straussians, here's a start:
NEO-CONS
One more time: LEO STRAUSS AND THE NEO-CONS
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/du...
WAKE UP! - Strauss / Neocons and Terror PLUS dire warnings
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

Leo Strauss and the Noble Lie: The Neo-Cons at War
http://www.logosjournal.com/mason.htm

Straussian.net -- Leo Strauss and the History of Political Thought
(with Discussion Forums! Book Reviews and a News Blog)
http://www2.bc.edu/~wilsonop/strauss.html

Leo Strauss' Philosophy of Deception
By Jim Lobe, AlterNet. Posted May 19, 2003.
http://www.alternet.org/story/15935
linked to from this thread: Has Straussian ideology permeated the GOP?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

Eurolegal Services - Neoconservatives
http://www.eurolegal.org/useur/usneocon.htm


on edit: I guess the DU links don't work. :shrug:

Strauss once wrote, “ he has to be governed. Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united – and they can only be united against other people.”

And Dury adds that this means: “ If no external threat exists then one has to be manufactured.”

http://rense.com/general62/nocmp.htm


"This so-called ill treatment and torture in detention centers, stories of which were spread everywhere among the people, and later by the prisoners who were freed were not, as some assumed, inflicted methodically, but were excesses committed by individual prison guards, their deputies, and men who laid violent hands on the detainees."

Can anyone tell me who said that? Was it:

A) George W. Bush
B) John Ashcroft
C) Donald Rumsfeld
D) Someone else

If you answered 'Someone Else' you'd be right. It was Rudolf Hoess, SS Kommandant of the infamous Auschwitz camp.

Conservatives, who love to call Liberals whiny, get whiny as hell when the Bush administration is compared to Nazi Germany, or to fascism in general. Guess what, though? The comparisons are beginning to come through more and more.

Scott Horton wrote in the LA Times:

Consider the memorandum written by Alberto Gonzales - then the president's attorney, now his nominee for attorney general. He wrote that the Geneva Convention was "obsolete" when it came to the war on terror. Gonzales reasoned that our adversaries were not parties to the convention and that the Geneva concept was ill suited to anti-terrorist warfare.

In 1941, General-Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the head of Hitler's Wehrmacht, mustered identical arguments against recognizing the Geneva rights of Soviet soldiers fighting on the Eastern Front. Keitel even called Geneva "obsolete," a remark noted by U.S. prosecutors at Nuremberg, who cited it as an aggravating circumstance in seeking, and obtaining, the death penalty. Keitel was executed in 1946.

Hitler was installed, then re-elected.
Bush was installed, then re-elected.

that is alien talking....