Rain Storm -- an online journal of opinion and culture

Yes, give the wealthiest a huge tax cut by repealing the estate tax. Screw the middle class by cutting their future social security benefits. Typical BushCo approach.

What strikes me most about the Straussians – and by extension, the neocons – is that they’ve pushed the traditional liberal/conservative dichotomy of American politics back about 150 years, and moved it roughly 4,000 miles to the east, to the far side of the Rhine River. Their grand existential struggle isn’t with the likes of Teddy Kennedy or even Franklin D. Roosevelt, it’s with the liberalism of Voltaire, John Locke and John Stuart Mill – not to mention the author of the Declaration of the Independence.

Strauss, in other words, wasn’t a neo anything. He was a conservative in the original European sense – fond of hierarchy, tradition and religious orthodoxy; deeply suspicious of newfangled ideas like egalitarianism, rationalism and a political theory based on enlightened self interest and the social contract. Nor was he impressed by Mill’s utilitarian adding machine – constantly calculating the greatest good for the greatest number.

To the Straussians, rationality does not provide an adequate basis for a stable social order. To the contrary, the Age of Enlightenment has ushered in the crisis of modernity, in which nihilism – the moral vacuum left behind by the death of God – inevitably leads to decadence, decline and, ultimately, genocide.

That logical leap from Jefferson to Hitler might seem like the intellectual equivalent of Evel Knieval’s outlandish attempt to jump the Snake River canyon on a rocket-powered motorcycle. But it’s essential to the Straussian world view – just as it provides the crucial angst that gives neo-conservatism such sharp political edges.

When Newt Gingrich equated feminism with the destruction of Western civ, he was echoing (in his dumbed-down way) Strauss’s lurking fear that the liberal American state would steer the same course as the Weimar Republic – a political Titanic on a collision course with a totalitarian iceberg. Deprived of the moral certainty provided by religion and tradition, the masses are vulnerable to crazed political adventurers who would fill the nihilistic void with their own crackpot ideas – like, say, the international conspiracy of Communists and Freemasons. They might even be worse than Tom DeLay. Or, as Drury laconically puts it:

Strauss . . . does not disagree with Marx that religion is the opium of the masses, he just thinks that people need their opium.

What gives Straussian thought its special flavor – a bitter blend of hypocrisy and cynicism – is the fact that Strauss himself didn’t believe in the eternal “truths” he championed. He was a nihilist, in other words – but one who believed only the philosophical elite could be trusted to indulge in such a dangerous vice. In exchange for this privilege, this elite has a special obligation to uphold the “noble lies” the ignorant masses must live by if society is to survive.

WASHINGTON - House Speaker Dennis Hastert, leading a Republican retreat, said Wednesday he stands ready to scrap controversial new ethics rules, possibly by day's end.

[ . . . ]

Democrats charge that rules changes pushed through the House by Republicans earlier this year were designed to shelter Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and have stopped the ethics committee from conducting business in retaliation. The powerful Texan was admonished by the panel three times last year and faces scrutiny this year over overseas travel.

Hastert drew little dissent from members of his rank and file at the closed-door meeting.

Rep. Ray LaHood (news, bio, voting record), R-Ill., said the speaker told fellow Republicans it was important to resolve the ethics committee deadlock because it was becoming a distraction for the party at a time when it is attempting to accomplish its legislative goals.

He praised Hastert for being willing to "pivot" on the issue.

Democrats are the party for people who work for a living.


This includes our core labor constituency, obviously, but also small businessmen and women who have been shamefully ignored by our party. It includes our men and women in uniform. It includes anyone who depends on their paycheck to make ends meet.

Call Your Senators

Tell them No Nukes in the Senate

Via Atrios, the majority of Americans say they don't want the Senate to change its rules so Bush-Cheney, Inc. can push through fundie-fascist federal judge appointments.

If this previously mentioned WaPo poll is not a serious statistical outlier it's really stunning. Only 26% of the country support "changing the Senate rules to make it easier for the Republicans to confirm Bush's judicial nominees?"

I'm one who pegs Bush's base support at about 35%. By base, I mean "would rather eat shit and die than oppose dear leader." So, to get anything falling below that is truly stunning.