Posted under NeoCons
Check out this video from our friend, the Southern Avenger, and the long but interesting discussion that follows.
I engage in a debate with a few others on the nature of the neocons and the utility of hyperbolic neocon demonization. There are two seemingly conflicting characterizations of the neocons. One is that they are true-believing ideologues blind to reality, profoundly misguided but not necessarily base in their motivations. Utopian maybe. Cavalier about the use of force certainly. But not base. (War for oil. That type of thing.) The other that they are ruthless manipulators who may hide behind ideology but who really are just self-interested and whose primary motives are base. (Power, enriching Halliburton, making the world safe for global capitalism, etc.) I lean toward the former explanation. The later strikes me as more Michael Moore territory.
While long, I think the discussion is worth wading through, if I do say so myself.
It is certainly possible that both characterizations could have elements of truth, but taken as a whole they seem rather mutually exclusive to me. Either the neocons actually believed their own ideology and misstepped because of it, or the ideology is pure window dressing and the missteps were calculated. What strikes me as odd, is that both characterizations seem to have equal currency on the anti-war right, and I haven’t really seen a lot of discussion of the inherent contradiction. I think a lot of anti-war conservatives become a bit irrational when discussing the neocons. But if Claes Ryn is right, for example, that neocons are modern day Jacobins, then they can’t also be purely self-interested Machiavellians and vice versa. They could be Machiavellians in the services of Jacobinism. They could even feel that Jacobinism serves their own self-interests. (I accept this characterization.) But that isn’t really what is often argued. What is being argued is that War was pursued for the advancement of purely base and self-interested motives.
Thoughts? Harrison, our resident expert on the neocons, any thoughts?
roho on 24 Oct 2008 at 12:11 am #
I’ve yet to see the movie, but believe that Jack Hunter’s perspective is 100% accurate! (And still wonder why Daddy did not advise, and protect his offspring from vultures?)………As for the “Intersanctom Of Neocons”, as well as the “Wallstreeters” that have created our economic disaster; they should be hunted down like dogs in the tradition that NAZI hunters did their work post WWII!…………..Something like 20 people have destroyed our 200+ YEAR Nation, and the world should be too small for them to hide in!
The GOP is gone in my lifetime as well.
Frank Griglonis on 25 Oct 2008 at 7:31 am #
global/international, capitalism/communism are a
symbiotic, misanthropical collusion… with the
neocons being, merely, representative (and symptomatic) of one of the more recent (and virulent) strains…a nation (and people) of considerable beauty, culture, and moral decency has been diminished and degraded… but, hopefully, will not succumb to these conspiratorial (and collectivist) ememies of this nation’s (and of history’s) faith, freedom, and constitutional integrity…
Weaver on 27 Oct 2008 at 6:23 am #
What about the onion theory: those at the core create the ideology for their own purposes while those on the outside grow to believe in it?
Weaver on 27 Oct 2008 at 6:53 am #
Have the neocons been a failure?
The US has lost in power while the rest of the world has gained due our free trade.
The US is now more diverse and ideological and thus less resistant to globalism.
The “right wing” has been discredited and blamed, and Obama-Messiah is stepping up to save us from the “right” – this includes capitalism, nativism, and religiosity. Also, the US “going it alone” has been discredited in favor of heeding the UN.
The US is now blamed and hated by the rest of the world which has thus become united against a common enemy – a “right wing” enemy I might add.
The real conservatives in the US have become ideological and thus harmless.
Islam, the greatest threat to globalism, has been demonised, colonised, and some of its power centers broken.
The Constitution has been voided and those defending liberties and a check on federal power have been labeled “left wing” when this is truly a right wing issue. The stage has been laid for a left wing dictator.
—
Neoconservatism then has been a huge success for globalism. I’m of the mind that Kristol is largely still a Trotskyite.
If they can manage to prevent a reaction against Obama, they win in destroying the US.
The strategy of creative destruction: destroy everything and blame the “reactionary” traditionalists (and blame the “capitalists” for the creative destruction resulting from sudden free trade). For a Trotskyite, ultimately every ethnic and religious tie must be broken and then the world united against some common threat and in favor of some guiding alternative, and this doesn’t happen without a struggle.
——-
Whether or not there’s any truth to this theory, the results of the neocons have been favorable to globalism and follow an “end justifies means” philosophy. That most of the neocons are incompetent doesn’t undermine this theory if placing them on the outer edges of the onion. Kristol and Podhoretz (the so-called “godfathers of neoconservatism”) are rather brilliant though.
—
Consider this: how was the BNP discredited? A camera was sent in and left wing plants were filmed making outrageous comments. The entire thing was a hoax, but it worked to discredit the BNP.
This is just what the neocons have done to the right-wing: they’ve gone berserk as “conservatives” in carrying out a Trotskyite agenda. And now we get Obama-Messiah to save us. Let’s just pray he doesn’t find a right-wing scapegoat too.