Power of Nightmare

[Kris Williams]

"[...]Strauss professed to teach other men's work; he had nothing of his own but commentaries and an attitude about himself and his own mind that infected the youth gathered around him.  His disciples in turn methodically infected and then corrupted the most powerful nation on earth.  They have done so not only recently but since first touching the Regan Administration a quarter of a century ago - in social policy and politics initially, then more particularly in the Department of Defense, until now there appears to be no end to the damage that is being done in the name of Leo Strauss[...]"

"Ignoble Liars: Leo Strauss, George Bush, and the philosophy of mass deception" Earl Shorris, Harper's Mag, June 2004

"[...]The Power of Nightmares began as an investigation of something else, the rise of modern American conservatism. Curtis was interested in Leo Strauss, a political philosopher at the university of Chicago in the 50s who rejected the liberalism of postwar America as amoral and who thought that the country could be rescued by a revived belief in America's unique role to battle evil in the world. Strauss's certainty and his emphasis on the use of grand myths as a higher form of political propaganda created a group of influential disciples such as Paul Wolfowitz, now the US deputy defence secretary. They came to prominence by talking up the Russian threat during the cold war and have applied a similar strategy in the war on terror[...]" 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1327786,00.html






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