by NewKid » Sat Jul 22, 2006 7:48 pm
<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I mean, instead of 9/11's alledged foriegn perpetrators, why not use regular 'Americans' with a small army of MK's to make the argument that Martial Law is needed in this country? It would seem to me that they'd be perfect agents for inplementing problem/reaction/solution endeavors, but I don't see that happening here.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>You're getting ahead of the plot here. <br><br>Seriously, I think that could ultimately be a possibility, and there may very well be folks within certain rightwing and leftwing dissident who fit that description. As to why you would use foreigners for 9-11, I think it's mainly because there was a widespread consensus that we needed an external enemy to start the clash of civilizations. Although there's probably huge internal disagreement on which Muslim countries should be targetted, I think you had a broad coalition ready to make them the new boogeyman every since the cold war ended. I think the Brezinski, Kissinger, Schultz, Poppy, Neocon, etc. factions all pretty much agreed that you needed a new enemy image. And if you don't have one, go out and create one. Sam Huntingdon and Bernard Lewis talk about this stuff. So do Strauss and Carl Schmidtt and the NeoCon intellectual godfathers. <br><br>Running parallel with that in the 90s I think were people like McVeigh and those within the rightwing patriot movements (not necessarily MK zombies or anything though). Certain elite factions seemed to be quite worried about the rise of militias and patriot movements in the US during the 90s, and I think those people were viewed (whether rightly or wrongly) as a much greater domestic threat than any left-based activists. What I see in OK city is some sort of fight over who the real patsies for that were supposed to be. McVeigh and Nichols got the prize, but the Neocons keep claiming that Iraqis in Oklahoma or Yamsi Youssef types were responsible. (And I think there is evidence that those groups may have mixed at one point.) The problem is that narrative makes no sense in the public mind. So I don't know, but I think the fact there were those other bombs in the building and the fact that the initial story said it was muslims may mean that there was some game playing going on with who the patsies were going to be. <br><br>The other thing is I think there is no consensus at this point about bringing martial law to the US. I think a great number of people within what you would call the ruling faction or whatever very much value the illusion of legitimacy that the US democracy has (or had pre-Bush) and don't want to see the windowdressing torn down. (DLC democratic party types, wall street democrats, George Soros, democratic foreign policy crowd, etc.) At least not yet. Other factions probably see the windowdressing as not worth the price (Bush factions). Once they've seen how little the public reacted (with any real action) to 9-11, Iraq, the expansion of govt power, etc. I think there's a feeling among some of these people that they don't need to keep up the pretense of being a great democracy. Hell, the afterdinner speeches and commencement addresses were boring anyway. Frank Zappa hit it on the head. <br><br>(See here for Harvard neocon who's quite outspoken about the direction he thinks the country should go in.) <br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/563mevpm.asp" target="top">www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/563mevpm.asp</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br><br>edit: I thought this was pretty cute. This is from an interview with Shadia Drury, a Strauss critic at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan:<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Danny Postel: Finally, I’d like to ask about your interesting reception among the Straussians. Many of them dismiss your interpretation of Strauss and denounce your work in the most adamant terms (“bizarre splenetic”). Yet one scholar, Laurence Lampert, has reprehended his fellow Straussians for this, writing in his Leo Strauss and Nietzsche that your book The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss “contains many fine skeptical readings of Strauss’s texts and acute insights into Strauss’s real intentions.” Harry Jaffa has even made the provocative suggestion that you might be a “closet Straussian” yourself! <br><br>Shadia Drury: I have been publicly denounced and privately adored. Following the publication of my book The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss in 1988, letters and gifts poured in from Straussian graduate students and professors all over North America – books, dissertations, tapes of Strauss’s Hillel House lectures in Chicago, transcripts of every course he ever taught at the university, and <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>even a personally crafted Owl of Minerva with a letter declaring me a goddess of wisdom!</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> They were amazed that an outsider could have penetrated the secret teaching. They sent me unpublished material marked with clear instructions not to distribute to “suspicious persons”. <hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-3-77-1542.jsp" target="top">www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-3-77-1542.jsp</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=newkid@rigorousintuition>NewKid</A> at: 7/22/06 6:53 pm<br></i>