#straussians

[kramlabs]

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

—Karl Rove

[kramlabs]

Written by Victoria Nuland’s husband and founder of PNAC

Checkmate in Iran

Washington can’t reverse or control the consequences of losing this war.

Avoid paywall: https://archive.ph/2026.05.10-122126/https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/05/iran-war-trump-losing/687094/

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. https://x.com/rnaudbertrand/status/2054040365561426205?s=61&t=W4qhULZPKylo1GX1_Lt6fA

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Kagan Strikes Again: Calls US Paper Tiger Checkmated by Iran

For the second time in two months, neocon godfather Robert Kagan has penned an urgent denunciation of Trump’s ill-fated Iran war.

[kramlabs]

is Mitch McConnell (and Lindsey Graham) the last influential neocons representing the MIC?

Will technocrats from the TIC like JD Vance and Vivek R replace them?

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Any guesses on who funded and backed Mitch the most? (MIC)

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[kramlabs]

[kramlabs]

[kramlabs]

[akividu]

Strauss, who died in 1973, believed in the inherent inequality of humanity. Most people, he famously taught, are too stupid to make informed decisions about their political affairs. Elite philosophers must decide on affairs of state for us. In Washington, Straussians exert powerful influence from within the inner circle of the White House. In Canada, they roost, for now, in the so-called Calgary School, guiding Harper in framing his election strategies. What preoccupies Straussians in both places is the question of "regime change." In 2003, he delivered an important address to a group called Civitas. This secretive organization, which has no web site and leaves little paper or electronic trail, is a network of Canadian neoconservative and libertarian academics, politicians, journalists and think tank propagandists. Harper's adviser Tom Flanagan is an active member. Conservative MP Jason Kenney is a member, as are Brian Lee Crowley, head of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies and Michel Kelly-Gagnon of the Montreal Economic Institute, the second and third most important right-wing think tanks after the Fraser Institute...

[alyssabornhorst]

"They [great books and thinkers] have bearing on your life because they affect how you live, even if you’re not aware of it. If there is a lot of relativism and materialism in your society, that will produce consequences for the way you live and the kind of life you make for yourself and your children—people who live for pleasure will not stand up for their principles…Your idea of what affects you is only you as you know yourself right now, but if you read books that give you new ideas and enlighten you and elevate you—and make you think not just about yourself but about the whole country and the whole human situation—you’ll be a freer person and have a more open mind." --Harvey C. Mansfield