Yep, The Neocons and Machiavelli
The current US leaders' actions are so clearly sabotaging the very system that sustains them that an explanation is in order. What motivates these people? Is it mere thirst for wealth and power? Perhaps we can gain some insight by examining the philosophies they espouse.
Neoconservatism, the political movement to which most of the current administration belongs, is widely attributed to be the intellectual offspring of Leo Strauss (1899-1973), a Jewish scholar who fled Hitler's Germany and taught political science at the University of Chicago. According to Shadia Drury in Leo Strauss and the American Right (Griffin, 1999), Strauss advocated an essentially Machiavellian approach to governance; he believed that
• a leader must perpetually deceive those being ruled;
• those who lead are accountable to no overarching system of morals, only to the right of the superior to rule the inferior;
• religion is the force that binds society together, and is therefore the tool by which the ruler can manipulate the masses (any religion will do);
• secularism in society is to be suppressed, because it leads to critical thinking and dissent;
• a political system can be stable only if it is united against an external threat, and that if no real threat exists, one should be manufactured.
(WOW, Does it GET any clearer than this?)
Drury writes that, "In Strauss's view, the trouble with liberal society is that it dispenses with noble lies and pious frauds. It tries to found society on secular rational foundations."
Among Strauss's students was Paul Wolfowitz, one of the leading hawks in the Defense Department who urged the invasion of Iraq; more distant followers include Newt Gingrich, Clarence Thomas, Irving Kristol, William Bennett, John Ashcroft, and Michael Ledeen.
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