What in the World is a 'Neo-con'?

Re: Good company? Nein!

I know you're kidding, Carl.

But I have to tell you, even when you like a Republican (saying Eisenhower puts you in good company) we cannot agree, ha!

I think Ike was one of our nation's worst presidents.

 

Well, I've always thought of myself as a flaming liberal, but this thing says I'm a neo-conservative. Well, you know you're getting old when ...

 

As horrible Presidents go, Ike was about average. He did make the decision to ruin public intercity passenger travel by spending HUGE amounts of wealth on the Interstate Highway System but really, on balance, I think it was a better decision than I want to admit.

His "do nothing" attitude about civil rights after Brown v. Board of Education looks awful in hindsight but I don't know whether at the time a wait-and-see attitude was so foolish. No one really knew what would happen in the wilds of Kansas.

True, he was responsible for the "Atoms for Peace" front behind which he hid "Atoms for War" and he did much to create our horrendous and horrendously expensive nuclear arsenal but at the time, the Russians really DID seem bent on spreading a particularly vicious form of communist totalitarianism world wide.

He didn't do ANYTHING to counter the antics of the junior Senator from Wisconsin, but then, who did? The Red Scare had this country in a panic.

I don't think that his administration was overwhelmingly dishonest like the present kleptocracy.

He was over all a damned sight better than his V.P.!

 

I agree

I agree with Khan, labels S*ck. It seems like lately, anyone who opposes the President or his party is a flaming leftist liberal. Not all Democrats are liberals, yet the Republicans seems to use the term Liberal Leftist over and over again, as if the label will stick. It is starting to get old! This would be like labeling every Republican a Right Wing Conservative. Karl Rove's tactics are so easy to read!, although I despise him, I got to admit, he is very good at what he does.

Just my two cents,


Abner

 

Hummm I am a realist
Interesting. Well as Jimmy knows, FDR is my man...although my resepect for Lincoln is growing every day. Close behind him is Washington then Jefferson.

 

I PREFER..

I prefer DTechBA's more concise definition to the holistic one above. And even this one leaves out essentials that the left has charged with a conspiratorial cabal - The Project for The New American Century, see
http://www.riprense.com/antiwarzone.htm

This group was small in the early 90s, but were - members point out, hardly conspiratorial: they're lister on theor website! They already public intellectuals! - nothing secret here!
http://www.newamericancentury.org/

WHAT really deserves publicity now is the fundamental ideas that Bush pulled off the shelf after 9/11: Democratic Peace Theory:

"he democratic peace theory or simply democratic peace (often DPT and sometimes democratic pacifism) is a theory in political science and philosophy which holds that democracies—specifically, liberal democracies—almost never go to war with one another. Scholars have proposed a number of explanations for this this phenomenon. Many believe that democracies tend to find alternatives to violent conflict (such as negotiation or arbitration); whereas others believe that the accountability of democratic governments makes leaders less likely to engage in armed conflict."
MORE and LOTS OF HOTLINKS HERE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory

THIS - a robust finding from political science - is what caused Bush to listen to socalled neocon ideas. But DPT is what Dems, ironically, need to catch up on.

The issue now confronting all partisans is how this apparently viable - if not (yet) successful theory - can be better put into foreign policy action!

Waking up in Europe, are we?

-Orson

 

You´re hillarious, Uncle. What a good laugh!

 

I think you got it right, jugador. There is no direct relationship between neoconservatives and pro Israel tendencies. It is a mere corollary of the ideology: support and promote democracy everywhere in the world, a moral obligation (something like the British Empire in the XIX century to spread "civilization"). Wolfowitz is definitely the key name here. It remains to be seen if one of the central points (the military might can be used to spread democracy) is successful. Last elections in Iraq point in this direction but it is too early to say. And one more thing that might not be too obvious over there. One of the dangers of allowing neocoms to design the Foreign Policy of the US is that the popularity of the country declines by the day. That´s the price.


Regards

 

Re: In general...

I'm not sure what's particularly 'neo' about that. Or 'con' for that matter. The AFL-CIO argues for trade policies that it believes further the interests of American workers.

Perhaps, but that's probably not 'neo'. The British Conservatives had that kind of policy in the 19'th century. (Their Liberals were more skeptical of foreign responsibilities and often favored diplomacy over military expeditions.) American conservatives were activists during the Cold War.

So how did it come to pass that old-style or traditional conservatism (whatever that means, I'm just drawing a contrast with 'neo') became identified with international passivity? I'm not sure that's historically accurate.

 

Hi Bill,

Honestly it is such a pleasure to read you over here. Thanks for the challenge you provide to this discussions.

I think the affix "neo" surges to differentiate themselves from Kissinger´s realpolitik politic strategy where (American) public interest prevailed over any other disquisition (whether ethic, moral, social, etc,..). Neoconservatives start by asserting their moral superiority over other conservative methodology so to speak (to spread democracy is an idealistic taks, in the purest Wilsonian tradition - Tocqueville as well???). The different foreign policies by Reagan (with a cabinet dominated by neocons), and Bush Sr. (in my opinion one of the best prepared man ever to be president of the US) illustrate this idea.


Should we take it now on postmodernism? That´s really a tough one.

 

BTW, in light of this moral superiority, terms like axis of evil appear. In the Cold War, different terms were used. That´s part of the neocon jargon (and ideology).

Remember how Reagan used to describe the Soviet Union? The Evil Empire, wasn´t it?

 

Isn't post-modernism the acknowledgement that science and the scientific method cannot encompass all possible knowledge? That's why there's this sudden efflourescence of "sprirtual reality" and other esoteric thinking?

 

We'll know you're up to that when your sentences contain sufficient subordinate clauses to be both impressive and incomprehensible.

 

JLV,

Are you suggesting the Soviet Union was not an evil empire?

Forcibly collectivized reluctant peasants and deported kulaks to Siberia; Great Terror; religion abolished; millions of peasants in the Ukrainian Republic starved to death when the state deliberately withheld food shipments; gulags; Stalin and Adolf Hitler in partitioned Poland; Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; “iron curtain”; Berlin Wall; invasion of Afghanistan.

 

Not at all, Charles. I wasn´t making any political analysis of that kind. I was just underlining the different approach that conservatives and neoconsevatives took against the Soviet Union.


Regards

 

Impressive and incomprehensible? Aren’t those synonyms?

 

From the last issue of The Economist

[...] Times are very good for America's least-loved foreign-policy makers. But their apotheosis may not last......

 

I enjoyed taking the quiz. Great link! According to my answers, I am "most likely a neoconservative".

 

Impression is situational and comprehension contextual, in neoconstructive paradigm, obviating any differentiating symbolism.

 

Here's an article that should clarify things:

http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern/