Bush Jr. came to power surrounding himself with far right “neo-conservatives” that his daddy called “crazies in the basement.”

Who are the crazies? A militant, anti-communist group of mainly Jewish intellectuals who studied the Trotskyite, Machiavellian political philosophy of Prof. Strauss at the University of Chicago. Wolfowitz, Ashcroft, Perle, Abrams, Chalabi, Bennett, Ho, Shulsky, Khalilzad, Schmitt, Kristol, are a few of the invasion architects, intelligence crafters, torture lawyers, Iraq ambassadors and U.S. puppets who studied under Strauss.

Together with Straussian devotees at neocon and pro-Israeli think tanks, they now control all powerful positions in our government.

What do neocons believe and want? They are anti-democratic, authoritarian, and they want power. Straussianism provides the intellectual framework and personal justification for their actions.

Strauss taught that an elite, wise ruling class must rule the unsophisticated masses by telling them noble lies for their own good.

Strauss loved Plato, interpreting his teachings to mean, “... true democracy is an act against nature and must be prevented at all costs.”

He wrote leaders must use religion to control the masses.

“Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed,” Strauss wrote. “Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united - and they can only be united against other people.” Leaders must always provide an enemy.

Straussian teachings spark delusions of grandeur in neocon intellectuals, who imagine themselves as the wise ruling elite, set free of the bonds of honesty and equality.

The Project for a New American Century think tank springs directly from this authoritarian power cult. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bolton, Abrams, Libby, Perle, and others signed PNAC documents in 1997 advocating aggressive, militaristic world domination, domination of space, control of cyberspace (they don't want much), permanent bases in the Middle East, and employing troops in constabulatory (police) duties to enforce U.S. world empire, Pax Americana.

Neocon papers are thick with delusional paranoia like the following from Richard Perle, National Security Council: “No stages, this is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there. All this talk about first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq . . . this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war . . . our children will sing great songs about us years from now.”

Michael Ledeen, American Enterprise Institute Fellow, former NSC, State, and Defense Department consultant and influential White House advisor writes, “We can lead by the force of high moral example ... [but] fear is much more reliable, and lasts longer. Once we show that we are capable of dealing out terrible punishment to our enemies, our power will be far greater. "We are a warlike people and we love war.”

Perle, Wolfowitz, Bolton and others have a long history of calling for “winnable nuclear war.”

Henry Kissinger described the baffled response of established powers in the face of revolutionary challenge. “Lulled by a period of stability which seemed permanent, they find it nearly impossible to take at face value the assertion of the revolutionary power that it means to smash the existing framework. Those who warn against the danger in time are considered alarmists: those who counsel adaptation "are considered balanced and sane.".

This movie will soon be over. Better wake up your congressman.

Jim Silva is a resident of Lompoc. He can be reached at: http://mysite.verizon.net/jazzyjim. “The Forward View” is a progressive look at local issues that runs every Monday. For information, call 736-1897 or e-mail at: howerton62@aol.com.