The Noble Lie: LEO STRAUSS; the neo-conservatives and the March 14 Leadership,

[GMA forever]

Originally Posted by Joumana Gebara

Romans 1:22, "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools."

Joumana, day after day, I realise how arrogant and foolish in general we are becoming when debating politics.

Instead of learning from people who we know that they are more and better informed than we are, we just go on the attack against them to try to hide our ignorance about stuff.

Today you can find all kinds of misleading articles and news on the net, not every article what you find on the net is genuine. Not only Amirkani, even I found a lot of mistakes in the news you posted, whether about Bejjani or Aaraysi, or about the work in the US with the congress.......

I advise you out of respect and care, to cool down, and try to widen your vision a little. There are people who were in the core of the process, and some that just did research about it. We have to try to get our news from the ones who were there, and not the ones that fantasised about it. And believe me, Amirkani knows very well what he is talking about.

My only blame on you here is that you brought up General Aoun in a thread where he doesn't belong, and when you bring him up in a false way, you should understand the reaction and the answers you will get. Now here, either you learn and correct your infos about the matter, or you go on walking the wrong path, it is your decision after all.

Wish you choose the right one at the end.

[Jerry]

Originally Posted by Joumana Gebara

Romans 1:22, "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools."

in arabic :

الحسود لا يسود

[Joumana Gebara]

[]

I invite you to reread what I posted:

Before tackling the "Noble Lie", let me highlight the first part concerning Eliot Engel (the Jew leading the Christian Right) who also had diverse encounters with General Aoun.

"Two months ago, MP Michael Aoun paid a visit to the USA where he met with congressmen Eliot Engel and Eliana Ross-Leithnen. At this meeting, Aoun requested to address the US Congress, but his request was rejected. Congresswoman Ross-Leithnen's rejection of Aoun’s request was based on the fact that he has too many opponents in Congress due to his latest treacherous positions in Lebanon, especially his relationship with Hizbullah and Syria. Prior to the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, Aoun was praising the US Administration’s stance regarding its backing of Lebanon's freedom and for its calling on Syria to end its occupation of its tiny neighbor-Lebanon. Aoun went to the extent of portraying himself as a partner of the US Congress where he assumed responsibility for the passage of the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003, and later considered himself behind the issuance of the United Nations Resolution 1559. This was Aoun’s position before his suspicious return to Lebanon on May 7, 2005 and before striking new alliances. Following his return, Aoun has distanced himself from the US and the March 14th independence group and allied himself with Hizbullah and the Syrian/Iranian/Hamas adding to the influence of the Shiite Crescent."The Shiite Crescent and the treacherous politics of a madman - International Analyst Network Written in 2006, Author is Pierre Maroun who is Kataeb member and compagnon of Garry Gambill (Pro-Israeli) and Elias Bejjani (Ex-radical-FPMer)


Also prior to 2006, General Aoun met with Engel and had his full support as you can read [] as reported by Annahar from a homepage which was common between Elias Bejjani and Sami Assayli, however they went apart after the MOU, Bejjani quit FPM, Assayli who is Sunnite and served in the army stayed loyal to the General. You can read under this link that Eliot Engel gave Aoun all his support.

We can simply conclude that per se the US policy whether Democrats (Engel) or Republicans both had one target: Elimination of Hizbullah and stand with whomever fights Hizbullah.

Why does the US adopt this policy?

Hizbullah was an American threat since 1982 (Marines attack which led to New Jersey to leave after a blood bath killing 300 Marines), the kidnapping of US citizens, and of course because Hizbullah represents a threat to the very existence of Israel beside being the factor which supports all radical parties fighting Israel.

Additionaly, the US worked on arising "moderate" Sunnite in order not to be short-visioned and have as a result of cancelling the Shia, the rise of Sunnite radicalism. To sum it up in short, the US is trying to cut a cancer by substituting it with another as it did during the cold war with Russia, during the war with Russia in Afghanistan by supporting Bin Laden against the Russian, then against when one has cancelled the other, the US supports another organization to eliminate Bin Laden, and etc...

This is a practice going back to 1942 during the WWII when Roosevelt publicly announced: We will not get involved in the German Russian war, let them eliminate each others then we have to deal only with one fraction.

And this is what occurred, Russia was weakened by the Germans (although Germany lost in Russia), however the US only bombed Germany (Dresden, Berlin etc...were irradicated from the map...).. this is the US plot also in the ME.

(1)Actually I was doing FPM a big favor by stating who the sources are. In order to highlight the extent of credibility of those sources.

(2) Neither FPM nor Aoun can hide to anyone this connection between Engel and Aoun and here again I was taking away all counter arguments of anyone trying to defame Aoun by highlighting that the US uses anyone in order to achieve its own interests. On the other hand with what I wrote it was obvious that Aoun was fighting for the interest of the country even if he had to use the devil to achieve his goals.

Let us stop those “Nobel Lies”. Each individual trying to marginalize Aoun from the whole process would be the lying to himself. If there would have “wise men” between you, they would have highlighted that indeed while those 14 of today were passive in the past, Aoun was active, cost whatever it wants to get Syrian occupation out of Lebanon and today Aoun has still a strive for Lebanon’s independence while the 14s are falling in the US arms which I reiterated a million times. So instead of just closing the circle of facts and developing the discussion, you preferred to discredit me and thus discredit also the arguments which led to Aoun’s behavior.

Finally one more word, so far except for the misspelling of Arayassi no one was able to offer counter-evidence proving me to have had “lots of errors” or to have been misinformed.

Let me tell you this: It is not the majority which makes the truth but the truth which makes the majority.


Have a good day and come down to Earth, you are debating your fellowmen by carrying a Katyosha against him/her, maybe this was influenced through your “resisting society” alliance and appeal, but I assure you I am carrying a white flag and whoever reads what I wrote knows exactly that there was no intention whatsoever to open a war. Only those with bad intentions think others are bad as they are.

[]

[J. Abizeid]

Dear Mirka and Jouma,
Now that the dust has settled down, I decided to take a chance (I live dangerously you all know!), tip toe in the room and whisper in you ears:
I learned many things I didn’t know from your dynamic interaction; at times I was even turned me on but the most positive think I must admit is that there is absolutely no shortage of energy on this forum. We must appreciate that!
For now, I hope we can all kiss and make up; the drinks on me!
Thank you guys; please don’t turn that dial or go away… We have work to do!
Next,

[J. Abizeid]

Originally Posted by J. Abizeid

Danny Postel: In the Straussian scheme of things, there are the wise few and the vulgar many. But there is also a third group – the gentlemen. Would you explain how they figure?
Shadia Drury:There are indeed three types of men: the wise, the gentlemen, and the vulgar. The wise are the lovers of the harsh, unadulterated truth. They are capable of looking into the abyss without fear and trembling. They recognize neither God nor moral imperatives. They are devoted above all else to their own pursuit of the “higher” pleasures, which amount to consorting with their “puppies” or young initiates.
The second type, the gentlemen, lovers of honor and glory. They are the most ingratiating towards the conventions of their society – that is, the illusions of the cave. They are true believers in God, honor, and moral imperatives. They are ready and willing to embark on acts of great courage and self-sacrifice at a moment’s notice.
The third type, the vulgar many, lovers of wealth and pleasure. They are selfish, slothful, and indolent. They can be inspired to rise above their brutish existence only by fear of impending death or catastrophe.
Like Plato, Strauss believed that the supreme political ideal is the rule of the wise. But the rule of the wise is unattainable in the real world. Now, according to the conventional wisdom, Plato realized this, and settled for the rule of law. But Strauss did not endorse this solution entirely. Nor did he think that it was Plato’s real solution – Strauss pointed to the “nocturnal council” in Plato’s Laws to illustrate his point.
The real Platonic solution as understood by Strauss is the covert rule of the wise (see Strauss’s – The Argument and the Action of Plato’s Laws). This covert rule is facilitated by the overwhelming stupidity of the gentlemen. The more gullible and unperceptive they are, the easier it is for the wise to control and manipulate them.

I like to share a true story about an elderly woman who lived by herself. Suddenly, she inherited a huge sum of money and a shortly after, a young “gentleman” entered her life and made her the happiest person she had ever been… Her relatives became suspicious about that man and concerned about her security. They hired a private investigator who found out that the man is a member of a criminal scam that tracks down inheritances and targets the recipients to defraud them and possibly kill them. The con artist was eventually arrested.
What do you think the old lady’s reaction turned out to be after the truth was uncovered?
To everyone’s surprise (except for the con artist possibly), she became incredibly furious and attacked her relatives for finding out the truth; she told them: “You spoiled the best dream I’ve ever lived all my life.”
Is that the Noble Lie that the vulgar wants to embrace while the gentleman is struggling to expose?
I wonder if people rather live fat dumb and happy than educated and angry about the sad truth.

The three categories Leo Strauss talks about: The gentleman, the vulgar and the wise can be translated into simpler terms: The good, the bad and the ugly, respectively.
The ugly and the gentleman both know the truth but have different objectives. The bad doesn’t know the truth because he doesn’t want to know it (he doesn’t want to see). The good (gentleman) wants the bad (vulgar many) to see wile the ugly (wise few) whose power derives from the bad is counting on the bad to stay bad because that’s his characteristic.

If we form a geometric (uneven) triangle using the above three categories as its edges, most people will fall inside the triangle. Those who fall in the center are what we call odorless and tasteless; others fall in areas closer to one edge or the other. If we looked at ourselves individually and located our coordinates on the triangular map, we might feel less frustrated and more accepting to our imperfect existence.

[punkgirlie16]

my god, why am i wasting my time reading this junk. it is not even funny.

[J. Abizeid]

Originally Posted by punkgirlie16

my god, why am i wasting my time reading this junk. it is not even funny.

You might want to try the lounge for funny entertainment.

[J. Abizeid]

The Power of Nightmares, the rise of the politics of fear,

Is a three volume BBC documentary production that exposes the neo conservative artful use of fear and seduction to control the masses minds steering them the same way a few cowboys riding their horses steer a herd of thousands of cows into specific directions that eventually delivers them to the slaughter house.
If you take the time to watch the whole documentary you’ll find that the March 14 political machine used the same technique, even the same terminology such as the (veil scare) to achieve its purposes.

[J. Abizeid]

[J. Abizeid]