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ROBERT Incognito's avatar

Oh, and best wishes to your wife for safe and successful surgery(s) and rapid recovery

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Mark Wauck's avatar

Thanks. By all accounts hip replacement is much easier rehab than knee. Since my wife took so well to the knee replacements (but has been hampered by sciatica and arthritic hip) we have hopes that the hip replacement will make a difference. Progress on the sciatica has been slow. Yesterday we did one of our favorite outings, taking our grandson to the Botanic Gardens, while I push the wheelchair. Around the house and for shorter outings my wife can use the walker.

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ROBERT Incognito's avatar

10 years ago my mom (then 86) was walking 3 days after hip replacement surgery. I hope it goes that well for your wife.

The botanical gardens is a choice. My parents took my young daughters to the Queens NY botanical gardens frequently and it is one of their favorite memories. You are doing everything right. God bless you

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Mark Wauck's avatar

Thanks for the encouragement. We went to have a root canal done this afternoon and the endodontist had a similar story to tell about his mother.

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Amanda R's avatar

My Mum recovered from a hip replacement at age 90. The trick is to get moving as quickly as possible. I hope Mrs Wauck will recover well. I do hope the sciatica will get sorted as well. Bless her.

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Mark Wauck's avatar

Thanks. Through her two knee replacements and the sciatica she has done here therapy very determinedly. The sciatica has improved, but very gradually. Ways to go.

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ROBERT Incognito's avatar

Wow. That Danny Davis-Doug McGregor video was totally worth watching. Thank you for suggesting and sharing grandpa ☺️

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Mark Wauck's avatar

On fire.

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Meredith Hobbs's avatar

This part:

Americans are bystanders to the debate between Neocons and Revisionist Zionists. We get no say. Our elected “representatives” collect the money and send the weapons.

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Jeff Martineau's avatar

Interesting post Mark. Full disclosure, I did my doctoral studies at Claremont where Strauss/Jaffa was/still is in influence. Though I held some heretical views among that crowd.

What was Strauss’s “battle?” He was brought over by the Rockefeller $, as were many Germans of that era. Rockefeller $ was spread around among many foundations and ideas regarding the medical and social sciences. What were the social sciences supposed to do? Social engineering./construction. Plain and simple. Though ultimately failed.

Strauss was an advocate of Socrates/Plato, not Aristotle. Why? It is often said because of the need for a civic society and the need for philosophy. Bur this is incorrect. Socrates was viewed as describing the need for a full articulation of politics forming the society. The Republic and the Laws should be read together. Philosophy becomes a fig leaf of sorts.

Strauss’s job was to offer a view of “modernity” (think ELECTRIC) that had gone too far and the way to tame humans became the many ideas of early modernism or PRINT, thus his emphasis of Great Books programs. He wrote on Spinoza, among others, as trying to bring about peace by separating religion and politics: the fracturing of man that happens in the PRINT era.

The irony becomes that PRINT is the ground of Protestantism. The Book! Luther becomes Calvin and sinful Man must adhere to the Law of the Book to be saved, and the technology of the Modern either keeps the peace, Nukes, or it brings on the End Times.

Strauss, and others, including Jaffa, made the Protestant Reformation, and thus America, the City on the Hill in the post WWII era and Israel it’s child: a tame version of Globalism that will bring peace by making “religion” a threat or dagger at the heart of democracy. With the return of religion signifying the “end” to be avoided or wished for depending on one’s perspective.

As for Judaism being “archaic” recall that the first books of the Old Testament are written not in the archaic times, but in light of captivity and a return to Jerusalem out of a fear that Jews would not have a memory of what it meant to be Jewish.

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Mark Wauck's avatar

"Strauss was an advocate of Socrates/Plato, not Aristotle. Why? It is often said because of the need for a civic society and the need for philosophy. Bur this is incorrect. ..."

Yes.

"Strauss, and others, including Jaffa, made the Protestant Reformation, and thus America, the City on the Hill ... With the return of religion signifying the “end” to be avoided or wished for depending on one’s perspective."

See my earlier MiH for the distinction between faith and religion. For Eric Voegelin Protestantism signifies the breaking in of Gnosticism to the social institutions of the West--the return of religion and the ousting of faith (The New Science of Politics). Voegelin was a lifelong Lutheran, of sorts. IOW, the Lutheran, and generally Protestant, concept of "faith" is not a Christian concept. Again, cf. Voegelin. Of course, Catholic thinking has devolved into a variant of that in its modernist form, and even so-called traditionalist forms suffer from that influence. Judaism in its modern form is very much under that influence.

"As for Judaism being “archaic” recall that the first books of the Old Testament are written not in the archaic times, but in light of captivity and a return to Jerusalem out of a fear that Jews would not have a memory of what it meant to be Jewish."

'Archaic' is a technical term for Eliade (Cosmos and History/Myth of the Eternal Return). Judaism as a development from Israelite religion breaks out of archaic thought in the direction of gnostic ideology. Thus its kinship to Protestantism, which avowedly embraces "OT religion".

Much more could be said.

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Jeff Martineau's avatar

Absolutely more can be said Mark. The ELECTRIC paradigm (1850 to 2000), particularly TELEVISION (1950 to 2000) retrieved the archaic (ORAL). Thus all the Gnosticism. Strauss’ study of Heidegger is instructive here. Voegelin tried to get a discussion with Strauss going on this and Strauss just stopped responding to his letters. McLuhan tried to talk with Voegelin about this and Voegelin stopped responding…

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Tamsin's avatar

That was a fascinating read from Crooke, thank you for your explication.

I had a couple of thoughts.

1. "The Clean Break Strategy [1996] advocated the elimination of Yasser Arafat; the annexation of the Palestinian territories; a war against Iraq and the transfer of Palestinians there." WHAT?

2. Did Strauss ever consider living between the polarities of Abraham and Socrates... by living in Christ? Or are we not supposed to notice that THAT option is not on their menu? We are to continue in the evangelical tradition of denominational indifference as we sympathize with Jews who employ esoterism. Nobody is lying to us. They engage in an esoteric exercise to assert political hegemony to guard against a new Shoah (holocaust). The ends justify the means.

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Steel's avatar

I wish people would stop going around suggesting Strauss & Co. are just guarding against a new holocaust. That makes them seem like lovable rogues. They are not lovable rogues; they are human darkness unleashed and ungoverned except at its own pleasure.

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Aug 21Edited
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Mark Wauck's avatar

That would involve questioning of basic identity concepts, cf. Lindemann's Esau's Tears.

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Mark Hazard's avatar

Otto von Bismarck: armies that invade Russia rarely, if ever, return.

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dissonant1's avatar

Big Serge came out with an extensive treatment of the Kursk operation today, including potential objectives of it and some military details:

https://bigserge.substack.com/p/back-to-the-bloodlands-operation?publication_id=1068853&post_id=147487790&isFreemail=true&r=rjj5o&triedRedirect=true

He, like other commentators, is scratching his head at what Ukraine must have been thinking to launch this operation.

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dissonant1's avatar

Thanks for the excellent post! Strauss' "Noble Lie" strategy certainly is being well employed by the Revisionist Zionists in their dealings with the West. I never grasped the extent of the interconnections between Strauss and the Neoconservative movement and the Revisionist Zionists before. It is interesting that there are Neocons (excepting Lindsey Graham) at some odds with the Zionists as regards expansion of the ME war.

For anyone interested, here is a (dated - 2008 I believe) chart I found a few years back showing the players, lineages, and organizations in the NeoCon movement. Strauss is prominent. The chart is from the WaPo archives:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2008/02/01/GR2008020102389.html

Interesting that they posit Trotsky as the intellectual forefather of the movement.

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Aug 21
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Tamsin's avatar

Channeling Carlin, it's a big cult and we're not in it.

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Aug 21
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dissonant1's avatar

Agreed. I don't doubt they are in alignment with the goals. Any differences between them would appear to be as regards the best way and the timeline to achieve them, given the limitations of the Israeli and U.S. militaries; and given Neocon designs on Russia and China.

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Aug 21
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Mark Wauck's avatar

To dilute the Christian heritage of the West, which is viewed as victimizing the Chosen.

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St's avatar

Most everyone today practices a cafeteria variety of those religions. We'd be in prison following it to the T. Problem is some Israeli Jews and some fundamentalist Muslims do not pick and choose so the conflict continues.

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St's avatar
Aug 21Edited

Because they hate the Christendom at least as much as the Ummah and more divided we are the weaker we are. A house divided can not stand. Its not just Muslims the Jewish orgs work diligently to import to the West. Any cultural disrupters will do -manchette wielding black Africans to sub-machine gun wielding south American gangs. Also, according the classic Plato and Aristotle theory of tyranny, the more heterogeneous a population, the less able it is to articulate itself and have a democratic say, and then Jewish oligarchs can then decide everything - as is the case today about any major issues in US and W Europe. Banking war etc. and most importantly Israel. The people are too consumed with cultural issues to pay attention to that stuff now.

Before, when we were homogeneous, 90% white Christian, we blocked Israel's craziness all the time. Settlement building etc...JFK blocking their nukes got him killed.. with James Baker probably being the last Western statesman who could/did in any significant way.

Finally, one day,, as they approach 30-50%, the Muslim immigrants in Europe, will inevitably lead to open conflict for cultural supremacy, where the native population will either prevail and reclaim their lands, or perish completely as a people. There will be "rivers of blood". That's suits them fine.

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Mark Wauck's avatar

That's essentially what appears to be in process. I've seen reports on that.

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