Machiavelli, Strauss, & PNAC

Does anyone find the connections here disturbing? PNACers don't have a problem being called Strassian, Strauss didn't have a problem being called Machiavellian, but the only thing missing is the hoax document--the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Why has THAT never been mentioned? Now, I'm not against Jews and I DO think Protocols WAS a hoax, but the current crew of "Straussians" seem more "Protocolian" than Machiavellian.

Please don't judge me as a nutbag--the "Protocols" were only an update of Machiavelli's stuff, seems to me (with the aim of getting people to hate Jews), and Strauss taught the shit (Machiavelli) in Poli/Sci, yet, if you READ the Protocols, it seems to follow that very exact plan in Protocols down to the last DETAIL for controlling America, and perhaps the world, ala PNAC, who were all Straussian Machiavellians. Bleh. What's so confusing is they seemed in the past (Nazi Germany) to USE Machiavelli as an excuse to destroy the Jews ala MACHIAVELLI (via the Protocols).

I dunno. I read the Protocols some time ago, because they said it was a hoax, and I guess I was seeing if they could do better hoaxes back then, dig? Then I see links to Machiavelli, and the PNAC crowd jumps to mind cuz all the Neocons were STRAUSSIANS. I keep going in circles, wondering what the fuck is going on, I mean REALLY. I can't even explain myself properly cuz I'm so confused.

Machiavelli AND the Protocols apply to ANYONE who wants power--the Protocols are just slightly more updated (so forget about the Jew angle--it applies to ANYONE who wants power!). Anyone know about Strauss? Did he ever mention the Protocols, or did he attribute owning of the press and the banks and shoving religion down everyone's throat as his OWN idea--or were those ideas originally from MACHIAVELLI?

I am very curious. I deleted Protocols out of my title because I didn't want to be deleted as inciting race hatred or something. I really want to know!

LET ME REPEAT, I think Protocols was a HOAX used to kill Jews. It also seems like a MASTER PLAN for a group to gain power--ANYONE, not just Jews.

I hope you can see why I'm confused. I just talked to my dad about this, and he can't get past the Jew thing, saying I'm fucked up, IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE JUST ONE GROUP, i.e., the Jews, who are doing this. At the same time, most of the PNACers ARE Jewish. I just keep going round and round in my head. Any help, DUers?

btw, I don't have links or anything. Sorry.

So, I'll do the shameful thing and kick my own post so it don't majorly SINK. Sorry, folks.

The Protocols were plagiarized from a 19th century satire called Dialogues in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, written by Maurice Joly. Joly himself appears to have lifted his material from a serial novel called Les Mysteres de Paris, in which Jesuits were the plotters.

Two excellent links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion
http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/Writings/ProtocolsHistory.html

--bkl

them in his newspaper, The Dearborn Independent in the 1920's in installments. He also published essays that criticized the Jews as a community that would have been compatible with Mein Kampf as well.

The ironic thing about all this is Ford started this campaign because he needed a zinger of an issue in order to get people to buy his newspaper.

I recommend a book more about this called Henry Ford and the Jews by Neil Baldwin.

Thank you. I guess I will have to read Mein Kampf and the Neil Baldwin book too. I always shied away from reading MK cuz I really didn't want to dip into the filth, but wasn't it one of Newtie's favorite books? Know thine enemy, and all that crap, I guess.

anyway, it's the PLOTTING part that interests me. But you're saying that Protocols DOESN'T come from Machiavelli? Interesting. I was under the impression that it was lifted from "The Prince". Do the Protocols and Machiavelli espouse the same kind of things?

I KNOW that Protocols is a HOAX! I've said that. BUT, I actually READ them at some point, and someone seems to be following them, at least in this country.

His form of statecraft was purely manipulative and based on cynicism. Naziism and Fascism, on the other hand, are idealistic political movements ("idealistic" in this case being the monstrous and corrupt version).

The Protocols are manipulative in the sense that they are disinformation, but they don't comprise a political philosophy (like Naziism) or even a handbook of political practice (like Machiavelli's works).

I'm not sure where your interest in plotting lies, but you might want to check out books on martial philosophy, especially works on samurai warriorship. David Hackworth's site also provides a comprehensive reading list of modern military doctrine, theory, and criticism.

James Carville, Paul Begala, and several other Democratic strategists have written many good books on modern politicking.

Reveille for Radicals by Saul Alinsky is also a classic of political action.

Good luck with your ongoing "social studies homework"!

--bkl

during many of the later pogroms

If his theories were explicated in plain English, he would
be hooted out of the room.

Plato was an interesting guy and smart enough for his time
and place, but is way over-rated as a thinker, at least in
a modern context. Bertrand Russell has a nice debunking of
him in "Unpopular Essays".

Machiavelli is a much smarter guy, but he cribbed most of his
ideas from Polybus, a greek historian who was sent as a hostage
to Rome and became attached to Scipio, and got to hang around
with him during the Carthaginian wars. So basically you have
Roman realpolitick updated for the Italian Renaissance.

The Protocols are utter horseshit, not worthy of serious discussion.

"If his theories were explicated in plain English, he would
be hooted out of the room."

That's what I figured.

" Bertrand Russell has a nice debunking of
him in "Unpopular Essays".

I shall read that. Thanks.

"Machiavelli is a much smarter guy, but he cribbed most of his
ideas from Polybus, a greek historian who was sent as a hostage
to Rome and became attached to Scipio, and got to hang around
with him during the Carthaginian wars."

This bears looking into on my part. Thanks for the leads.

"The Protocols are utter horseshit, not worthy of serious discussion."

I disagree. SOMEONE seems to be following them. I KNOW they are a hoax, but they very specifically lay out the plan to control the world. Step by step easy.

It is one thing to have a plan to control the world,
there have been many of those, and God knows there are
enough that have such simple ambitions, viz. the
popularity of Superman(tm).

It is another thing entirely to have such a plan and
know what you are about, and those people are few and
far between, and even then their results vary widely.

The name is "Polybius", mea culpa.

not the Renaissance magical tradition named neo-Platonic, though it seems to have drawn more from Pythagoras

He has always been popular as near as I can tell, and enjoyed
a considerable revival during the Renaissance. He has been almost
as handy as an ancient authority figure as Aristotle.

I am referring more to the admirers of his political "thought",
which boiled down to the idea that people like him and his
friends and people that agreed with him ought to run things
for the good of everybody.

Others became fascinated with his idealism and the various
consequences of that. The connection to Pythagoras is more
sensible in that regard, as he (Pythagoras) was genuinely a
mystic. So I agree. I am not much fond of Plato's idealism
either, but it is not so patently ludicrous as his politics.
Many later and better philosophers have made strong defenses
of the transcendental and the world of ideals, in one form or
another.

The connection with Machiavelli and realpolitik and so on I
find a bit of a stretch. What we know of Plato does not suggest
that he was good at politics. He seems to have been more of an
bruised academic type like Strauss.

Polybius hung out with Scipio, who made a good run at the
philosopher king sort of thing, and Polybius also saw the coming
rise of Rome, one of his major credits, so he found Plato's ideas
congenial, but elaborated them in a more realistic context, or so
I gather.

Just my 2c.

:D

Somewhat more of a dilettante I'm afraid.

I have read "The Prince" fairly recently and have been
reading Moses Hadas on classical literature, and Russell
of course, so it's all still somewhat fresh. Thinking of
tackling Plutarch, but it's a bit daunting.

But thanks for the compliment, I'm not really worthy of that
comparison. My regards to you too.

Wolfowitz and Perle are ideologues, not princes. They broke every rule in the Prince when they invaded Iraq, for example.

..you're saying that the Protocols, forgeries though they may be, do appear to be a blueprint for a group - any group - to obtain power.

I think you're basically right. Except that the members of this group would necessarily have to be members of whatever power stucture it is that they hope to take over.

For any group OUTSIDE the power structure, the blueprint would necessarily follow a different model. The organizing principles of Saul Alinsky come to mind. He wrote a book back in the 60's entitled Rules for Radicals. It might be worth a read. Here's a link to an excerpt.

http://www.e911.com/exacts/EA051.html

You've just clarified my confusion. Thank you.

Thanks for the link.

those rules have been hijacked by the Repubs.

In mid-century, the success of Roosevelt's New Deal and Keynesian economics combined with the monstrous blossoming of European fascism to send American conservatives scurrying for the shadows. There, the few remaining right-wingers not shamed into admitting the error of their ways gave birth to the modern conservative movement that now threatens the world.

Five books, dubbed "the conservative Pentateuch" by political scholar Ted McAllister, form the core, foundational documents of this movement. They are Richard Weaver's ironically titled Ideas Have Consequences, Natural Right and History by Leo Strauss, The New Science of Politics by Eric Voegelin, The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk, and Robert Nisbet's The Quest for Community. All were written during conservatism's mid-century nadir.

Today, after a half-century of evolution, the conservative movement is a broad coalition of absolutist ideologues and their respective devotees. That these disparate groups work so well together is astonishing, considering their often contradictory beliefs. Machiavellian neoconservatives and their corporatist underwriters walk hand in hand with wild-eyed Reconstructionists and Armageddonists, heedless of intellectual and/or spiritual inconsistencies. Each faction, in turn, is comprised of smaller factions. It's a mad stew of counterintuition. And yet, all differences are set aside when they gather in think tank boardrooms to hammer out their plots and plans.

Of course, each faction believes it has all the others under its cunning control. These multiple alliances of convenience are pragmatic only in defense of their unbending absolutism, and the only belief they all have in common is that democracy - the idea that a government's power is only legitimately exercised insofar as it relates to the informed consent of the governed - is a perverse mockery of "natural law."