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"…neoconservative defense [sic] intellectuals… call their revolutionary ideology 'Wilsonianism'
(after President Woodrow Wilson), but it is really Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution
mingled with the far-right Likud strain of Zionism". -- Michael Lind, New Statesman ...The real problem today is the ignorant, narcissistic and lazy generation of Western leaders who are aggressively conformist in their views and unable to think things through. We get what is an almost 100% agreement on the neo-liberal economic policies, are the neo-conservative foreign policies. There has been a mindless revival of all the worst aspects of the West: late 19th century Victorian like "winner"-take-all economies and "human rights spreading" imperial policies. At least 100 years ago there wasn't the incredible hypocrisy. Today the likes of Hague, Kerry, Holland,.... are so unable to generate a fresh thought, they are so beholden to the dominant elite narrative, that are able to lie like little children caught stealing. Media is also much worse. Whether it is a reflection of their irrelevance, their existential struggles, or the same ignorant self-righteousness that has conquered the rest of the Western elites, they are simply a bullhorn for their government policies. Scared, predictable, one-sided. Half a story reporting is really not reporting, anyone can do half-story. Actually even Nazis or communists covered their half of the story adequately. It is the full story that real journalism should be about. How did Western media simply abandoned their own proud standards? Neoconservative. Criminally insane spenders that believe in killing brown people for the new world order. Huge Orwellian government, unfathomable amounts of spending, bomb tens of thousands of people to death to rearrange the globe. Take the worst aspects of the liberal and conservative positions and combine them into one and you would have a NeoCon. Neocons are the greatest threat to life, liberty and property this country has ever known. by Author June 30, 2006 Neocons are neo-Nazis in pinstripe suits. the Demagogue Survival Syndrome - when in doubt, start a war. |
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Yet another response [ to globalization] is that I term 21stcentury fascism.5 The ultra-right is an insurgent force in many countries. In broad strokes, this project seeks to fuse reactionary political power with transnational capital and to organise a mass base among historically privileged sectors of the global working class – such as white workers in the North and middle layers in the South – that are now experiencing heightened insecurity and the specter of downward mobility. It involves militarism, extreme masculinisation, homophobia, racism and racist mobilisations, including the search for scapegoats, such as immigrant workers and, in the West, Muslims. Twenty-first century fascism evokes mystifying ideologies, often involving race/culture supremacy and xenophobia, embracing an idealised and mythical past. Neo-fascist culture normalises and glamorises warfare and social violence, indeed, generates a fascination with domination that is portrayed even as heroic. |
Neoliberalism is not a single pseudo-religious, cult-like version of globalized corporatism. It has several flavors, sub cults and sects. One of them, is exclusively USA phenomena: so called Neoconservatism. Neocons are much like school bullies acting on international scène and they managed to made the US one of the most hates nations on the globe, destroying the prestige it acquired after WWII. And they created a strong backlash in such countries as Russia (who initialed a huge rearmament program because of bulling and attempts to partition the country) and China (which tried to balance the US military might in view of constant meddling of the US in other nations).
Simplifying neocons are neoliberals with a gun, firmly believing in Al Capone maxim: "You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone." Kind of attack dogs of neoliberalism.
As an ideology, neoconservatism is a mixture of Trotskyism (the idea of "Permanent Revolution" which was transformed into idea of "Permanent democratization") and elements of far right nationalism (American exeptionalism). Jingoism is the visit card of any neocon: for neocons "war is the health of the state" (Randolph Bourne) and leading neocons openly advocate attacking other countries which are guilty of having "not democratic enough" (note the level of hypocrisy) regimes, which means not enough neoliberal and subservient to the the USA regime without nuclear weapons. Of course they themselves determine which regime is "not democratic enough")
Neocons (who are godless atheists ;-) are closely allied with fundamentalist Christian sects (American Taliban). And there are some Islam inspired overtones (which came not directly but via Trotskyism) in neocon doctrine itself. Like Muslim fundamentalist want to get rid of influence of corrupt West in their countries, neocons want to prevent decadence of the USA by imposing on the population war mobilization, fear of powerful enemy, religion , constant brainwashing about the US being shiny city on the hill. In best Trotskyite tradition they idealize the USA as the "hope of all progressive mankind". The stress in on fighting decadency and moral decay of the society is an important common feature of neocons and Islamic fundamentalist of Dr. al-Zarqawi flavor; which is somewhat similar to Paul Wolfowitz doctrine. The first author who convincingly showed this was Adam Curtis in his BBC three part documentary The Power of Nightmares (watching of which is more important then reading this page ;-)
This series powerfully showed that neocon use old as Earth methods of controlling population
Neoconservatives, which like Bolsheviks in the past are mostly Jewish intellectuals, are frequently described as ideologues with pro-Israel and anti-Russian bent, but the truth is that they are far more interested in gaining access to money and power. Most of them are useless smacks with degree in journalism or history and they would starve if not fed by military industrial complex. Being a lobbyist of military industrial complex is the only job they can get. Add to that that most of them are personal cowards and chicken hawks and you get the picture: they are just bottom-feeders. "National security parasites" is a very apt definition for this category of people.
Proselytizing their own brand of global regime change is just a mean to sustain the access to fund. They know perfectly well which side of the bread is buttered and by whom. Access to good financiering from MIC and Israel lobby is the primary driving force. The latter also makes them a variant of traitors, because they do betray the USA national interests with ease, substituting them to the interests of MIC (and they can be defined as MIC lobbyists ) , transnational corporations interesting in opening new markets and Israel. In this particular order. They should probably be viewed as the lobbying and propaganda arm of military industrial complex. In now way they represent an independent political force. But they do have a separate distinct ideology. And there is nothing conservative in this ideology -- it is revamped Trotskyism, if not neo-fascism (Nuland's fraternization with Ukrainian far right nationalists despite her Jewish roots (despite the fact that this movement was hell-bent on killing Jewish people during WWII and serves as capos in concentration camps) is not accidental; this was a conscious political choice -- they are birds of the feather).
Ideologically they are flavor of neoliberals (neoliberals with the gun, so to speak and as such they are actually neo-Trotskyites in all major aspects of their foreign policy (they do not have a coherent domestic policy). In other words they are just "neoliberals with a gun".
Under Neoconservatism doctrine the new American far right nationalism (aka American exeptionalism) has become mixed up with a chauvinist and self-aggrandizing version of Israeli nationalism (Zionism) and neoliberalism imperial vision for the US role on the globe. Several (although not all) elements of neofascism are definitely present in this ideology. They really want their own version the Thousand Year Reich with economic Lebensraum that replaced third Reich quest for territorial Lebensraum. Recently USA paid 1.3 trillion in direct military expenses to maintain this neoliberal empire. And while after Iraq fiasco neoliberalism as an ideology is in decline it is still the dominant ideology of the US elite.
Of cause by using "the F-word" we invoke a variant of Godwin's Law, which states (with some justification) that anyone who invokes the F-word is a de facto alarmist and thus has questionable credibility. So be it. I stand my ground.
Actually the idea that any form of fascism in the USA will be in the form of "Extreme Americanism" aka far right nationalism is not new. It was voiced by several influential authors. And for any unprejudiced observer it is clear that Neoconservatism fits definitions of "Extreme Americanism" (or more correctly Amerocentrism) and "far right nationalism" pretty well. It is definitely "wrapped in the flag and wearing the cross" (despite being atheism themselves they forged alliance with fundamentalist Christian sects) as in famous quote: “When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and waving a cross,” (attributed to Sinclair Lewis or Huey Long.
You’ve probably heard some variation on this quote: “When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and waving a cross,” possibly attributed to Sinclair Lewis or Huey Long. The only problem: there’s no evidence that either men said it.
But Sally Parry of the Sinclair Lewis Society provides us with two similar passages written by Lewis:
From It Can’t Happen Here (1935): “But he saw too that in America the struggle was befogged by the fact that the worst Fascists were they who disowned the word ‘Fascism’ and preached enslavement to Capitalism under the style of Constitutional and Traditional Native American Liberty.”
From Gideon Planish (1943): “I just wish people wouldn’t quote Lincoln or the Bible, or hang out the flag or the cross, to cover up something that belongs more to the bank-book and the three golden balls.”
Also, the author behind the site What Shii Knows has done some research and found two other possible sources:
“It is a peculiarity of the development of American fascism that at the present stage it comes forward principally in the guise of an opposition to fascism, which it accuses of being an “un-American” trend imported from abroad.” – Georgi Dimitrov, in his report delivered at the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International in 1935.
“When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled ‘made in Germany'; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism'” – An uncredited New York Times reporter covering Halford E. Luccock in an article published September 12, 1938.
The problem is that it that while pretending to be American ultranationalist, neocons are actually wrapped in Israeli flag. In a way neocons promote view of Israeli Likud party.
There is no doubt the ideas of supremacy and exeptionalism of particular nation-state (although the US is an immigrant nations this thus the most virulent part of ethic supremacy is somewhat washed out) are central tenets of neoconservatism. Among common ideas:
Please note that the original neocons were a small group of Trotskyites who, in the 1960s and 70s, saw the overwhelming US military strength as a panacea to solving all world problems and objected to what they saw as the reluctance of the political establishment to endorse the unlimited "arms race" with the USSR. From the very beginning neocons were openly militaristic and allied with the military industrial complex.
Like classic fascist they rely on military force for establishing world hegemony. The idea of "Pax Americana" and German idea of liberstatum has a lot of common elements.
Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday compared Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggression in Ukraine to actions taken by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler outside Germany in the run-up to World War II.
Generally in Neoconservatism anti-Semitism was replaced with Russophobia
Like German fascists they are "socially progressive" in internal politics and accept elements of "welfare state" established by the New Deal (which distinguishes them from "classic" US republicans). Here we also can find similar elements in NSDAP program:
... ... ...
"Neocons, as ex-Trotskyites, are bad enough, but those who follow the pro-pagan Leo Strauss are deadly. He advocated the Big Lie.
Forgive me for all the gory details, but these people – with their other leaders like Bill Buckley and Irving Kristol and the help of the CIA – perverted the American right into loving the welfare-warfare state."
Lieven's book, among other elements, is also a summation of lots of minor observations--even personal ones he made as a student in the small town of Troy, Alabama--and historical details which reflect the grand evolution of America's nationalism. When he says that "an unwillingness or inability among Americans to question the country's sinlessness feeds a culture of public conformism," then he has the support of Mark Twain who said something to the effect that we are blessed with three things in this country, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and, thirdly, the common sense to practice neither one! Ditto when he daringly points out America's "hypocrisy," which also is corroborated by other scholars, among them James Hillman in his recent book "A Terrible Love of War" in which he characterizes hypocrisy as quintessentially American.
Lieven continues with the impact of the Cold War on America's nationalism and then, having always expanded the theme of Bush's foreign policy and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, examines with commendable perspective the complex and very much unadmitted current aspects of the U.S.'s relationships with the Moslems, the Iraq War and the impact of the pro-Israeli lobby. It is the sort of assessment one rarely finds in the U.S. media. He exposes the alienation the U.S. caused among allies and, in particular, the Arabs and the EU.
Tom Munro adds the following important observation:
The reason for American nationalism springs from a pride in American institutions but it also contains a deep resentment that gives it its dynamism. Whilst America as a nation has not lost a war there are a number of reasons for resentment. The South feels that its values are not taken seriously and it is subject to ridicule by the seaboard states. Conservative Christians are concerned about modernism. The combined resentments lead to a sort of chip on the shoulder patriotism which so characterizes American nationalism.
Keith Wheelock
Mr. Lieven boldly sets forth his book's message in a broad-ranging introduction:
- "The [U. S.] conduct of the war against terrorism looks more like a baroque apotheosis of political stupidity;"
- "Aspects of American nationalism imperil both the nation's global leadership and its success in the struggle against Islamic terror and revolution;"
- "Insofar as American nationalism has become mixed up with a chauvinist version of Israeli nationalism, it also plays an absolutely disastrous role in U.S. relations with the Muslim world and in fueling terrorism;"
- "American imperialists trail America's coat across the whole world while most ordinary Americans are not looking and rely on those same Americans to react with `don't tread on me' nationalist fury when the coat is trodden on;"
- "One strand of American nationalism is radical...because it continually looks backward at a vanished and idealized national past;"
- "America is the home of by far the most deep, widespread and conservative religious belief in the Western world;"
- "The relationship between the traditional White Protestant world on one hand and the forces of American economic, demographic, social and cultural change on the other may be compared to the genesis of a hurricane;"
- "The religious Right has allied itself solidly with extreme free market forces in the Republican Party although it is precisely the workings of unrestricted American capitalism which are eroding the world the religious conservatives wish to defend;"
- "American nationalism is beginning to conflict very seriously with any enlightened, viable or even rational version of American imperialism;"
- "[George W.] Bush, his leading officials, and his intellectual and media supporters..., as nationalists, [are] absolutely contemptuous of any global order involving any check whatsoever on American behavior and interests;"
- "Nationalism therefore risks undermining precisely those American values which make the nation most admired in the world;" and
- "This book...is intended as a reminder of the catastrophes into which nationalism and national messianism led other great countries in the past."
Event of 9/11 are pretty controversial. they include unexplainable collapse of 7 World Trade Center , which throw all the whole event under unusual and damaging for neocons and the government of Bush II scrutiny. People all over the world start thinking that may be that was Reichstag fire of neocons, a false flag operation designed to achieve their political goals. Clumzy and unconvinsing behaviour of the US goverment in investigation of this tragedy added to suspicious (Opinion polls about 9-11 conspiracy theories )
The first one was conducted in late August 2004 on 808 randomly selected residents of New York State. It found that 49 percent of New York City residents and 41 percent of New York state citizens believe individuals within the U.S. government "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act."[4] The margin of error for this poll was 3.5 percent.
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A poll from July 2006, sponsored by Scripps Howard and conducted by Ohio University, surveyed 1,010 randomly selected citizens of the United States, with a margin of error of 4 percent.[11] The survey found that 36 percent thought it somewhat or very likely that U.S. officials either participated in the attacks or took no action to stop them[12] because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East.[13] It made some statements relating to some of the 9/11 conspiracy theories and asked respondents to say whether they thought that the statements were likely to be true.
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A representative poll conducted in 2003 by the Forsa Institute for the German newspaper Die Zeit found that 31 percent of the Germans under 30 years of age believe that the U.S. government commissioned the attacks.[25]. In its January 2011 issue, the German magazine Welt der Wunder published the results of a poll conducted by the Emnid Institute on 1,005 respondents. The poll indicated that almost 90 percent of the Germans are convinced that the government of the United States is not telling the whole truth about the September 11 attacks.[26]
According to George Soros, the events of 9/11 renewed a "distorted view" of American supremacy that "postulates that because we are stronger than others, we must know better and we must have right on our side." In other words, conversion of the the USA state into National Security State which was completed by 9/11 simultaneously was another step in the direction in establishing new scapegoat in best traditions of Gorge Orwell 1984. Permanent war with Islamic terrorism really resembles permanent war depicted in the novel.
National security state is probably most common form of corporatism that exist in XX and XXI century and its main idea fit Neoconservatism view of society as something that needs to live in fear and have a scapegoat to channel the hate prtty closely. In his book "Brave New World Order" (Orbis Books, 1992, paper), Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer identified seven characteristics of a National Security State
The next step were events of 2008, which signified crisis of neoliberalism as an ideology which now can only be propagated by brute force, like classic colonialism using invasions, Coup d'état (aka color revolutions). As William I. Robinson noted in his article Global Capitalism Crisis of Humanity and the Specter of 21st Century Fascism
Yet another response [ to globalization] is that I term 21st century fascism.5 The ultra-right is an insurgent force in many countries. In broad strokes, this project seeks to fuse reactionary political power with transnational capital and to organise a mass base among historically privileged sectors of the global working class – such as white workers in the North and middle layers in the South – that are now experiencing heightened insecurity and the specter of downward mobility. It involves militarism, extreme masculinisation, homophobia, racism and racist mobilisations, including the search for scapegoats, such as immigrant workers and, in the West, Muslims.
Twenty-first century fascism evokes mystifying ideologies, often involving race/culture supremacy and xenophobia, embracing an idealised and mythical past. Neo-fascist culture normalises and glamorises warfare and social violence, indeed, generates a fascination with domination that is portrayed even as heroic.
It does deviates from classic neoliberalism is some derails (the role of state, etc) As such Neoconservatism is closer to national socialism -- extremely jingoistic and aggressive ideology of enforcing the USA supremacy over the world. It believes in military force as the mean to resolve all the problems. The essence of Neoconservatism can be succinctly depicted by two quotes of Madeleine Albright
Stated on NBC's Today Show (February 19, 1998)
To Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the 1990s, on Bosnia, recounted in Madam Secretary (2003), p. 182
Unlike neoliberalism it is mainly ideology for internal USA consumption, not a powerful ideological export product like neoliberalism. Under Bush II it they were often called Mayberry Machiavellians. Here is one insightful comment from discussion The Rise of Invisible Unemployment (The Atlantic, Nov 9, 2014 )
RobertSF > masher
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Neoliberalism and neoconservatism are mutually compatible ideologies that leverage the power of technology to create a powerful, transnational, economic elite. The difference between the two is stylistic.
Neoliberals would use economic forces while neocons would use military forces. And the two are mutually compatible because a person can believe in both without conflict -- witness Obama, who is as much a hawkish warmonger as Bush and as much a corporatist lackey as Clinton.
| But it is not really domestic policy that defines neoconservatism. This was
a movement founded on foreign policy, and it is still here that neoconservatism carries the greatest
meaning... Neocons are closer to the mainstream of the Republican Party today than any
competing faction. During the 2000 campaign, President Bush sounded very much like a realist,
with his suspicions of "nation building" and his warnings about American hubris. Then along came
9/11. The National Security Strategy that he released in September— which calls for "encouraging
free and open societies on every continent"— sounds as if it could have come straight from the
pages of Commentary magazine, the neocon bible. |
Projection of the USA as a "shining cityof the Hill" is the way neocons fight the moral degradation of the society. So this is an instrument to achieve an important political goal, not the goal in itselve. The same like of thinking is with indiscrimate application of brute force, that neocons favor. While being third rate thinkers and second rate politicians, neocons try follow Otto von Bismarck line of thinking -- if you can subdue the country just do it and then you can find scholars who will prove that you have immanent right on this territory.
Not by speeches and votes of the majority, are the great questions of the time decided — that was the error of 1848 and 1849 — but by iron and blood.
But being third rate thinkers they do not understand the second, no less imporant, part of Bismarck's strategy: avoiding the danger of overextension of power. As he noted "Preventive war is like committing suicide for fear of death. "
In any case neoconservatism is the core ideology behind the attempts of the US elite to impose Pax Americana on the rest of world by direct military intervention. As Samuel P. Huntington(1927 – 2008), the author of the concept of Cleft country noted, the idea of forcing Pax Americana in other countries by brute force for neocons is justified by the following fallacy:
"a world without US primacy will be a world with more violence and disorder and less democracy and economic growth than a world where the United States continues to have more influence than any other country in shaping global affairs.
The sustained international primacy of the United States is central to the welfare and security of Americans and to the future of freedom, democracy, open economies, and international order in the world."
While on the surface this approach has merits, in reality, as Russian proverb say "appetite comes during a meal" and such a state itself became the major contributor to instability and its elite tends to launch disastrous wars just for self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement. This is what we we see in the USA foreign policy after the dissolution of the USSR. Although existence of the USSR did not prevent Vietnam war (1.3 million dead). Also as Napoleon notes: you can subdue any country with bayonetes. But you can't sit on them.
The USA wars in Iraq (up to 600K total Iraqi casualties according to Lancet survey) and Afghanistan (around 100K casualties) attest that there are great dangers when a single state dominates the globe and can invade other countries with impunity. Like in everything, having countervailing force (which actually disappeared with the collapse of the USSR) might be a better deal. Also powerful countvailing foce keeps the US elite in check and prevents degradation that we saw in Bush administration when third rate neocons came to power and essentially formulated the US foreign policy.
Ideas very similar to Samuel P. Huntington about Pax Americana were also expressed in a popular 1998 book The Grand Chessboard American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives by Zbigniew Brzezinski. From one of Amazon reviews:
- The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final step in the rapid ascendance of a Western Hemisphere power, the United States, as the sole and, indeed, the first truly global power..."
- "Two basic steps are thus required: first, to identify the geostrategically dynamic Eurasian states that have the power to cause a potentially important shift in the international distribution of power and to decipher the central external goals of their respective political elites and the likely consequences of their seeking to attain them;... second, to formulate specific U.S. policies to offset, co-opt, and/or control the above..." (p. 40)
- - "...To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together." (p.40)
- - "Henceforth, the United States may have to determine how to cope with regional coalitions that seek to push America out of Eurasia, thereby threatening America's status as a global power." (p.55)
- - "America is now the only global superpower, and Eurasia is the globe's central arena. Hence, what happens to the distribution of power on the Eurasian continent will be of decisive importance to America's global primacy and to America's historical legacy." (p.194)
- - "That puts a premium on maneuver and manipulation in order to prevent the emergence of a hostile coalition that could eventually seek to challenge America's primacy..." (p. 198)
- - "The most immediate task is to make certain that no state or combination of states gains the capacity to expel the United States from Eurasia or even to diminish significantly its decisive arbitration role." (p. 198)
- - "For Pakistan, the primary interest is to gain Geostrategic depth through political influence in Afghanistan -- and to deny to Iran the exercise of such influence in Afghanistan and Tajikistan -- and to benefit eventually from any pipeline construction linking Central Asia with the Arabian Sea." (p.139)
And ponder the meaning of these statements in a post-9-11 world:
- "Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." (p. 211)
- "The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. (pp 24-5)
Zbigniew Brzezinski views are probably a shared belief of the majority of the US elite, especially sociopathic part of this elite (which includes many neocons). In 1992, the US Defense Department, under the leadership of Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney [later to be George Bush Jr.’s VP], had the Pentagon’s Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Paul Wolfowitz [later to be George Bush Jr.’s Deputy Secretary of Defense and President of the World Bank], write up a defense document to guide American foreign policy in the post-Cold War era, commonly referred to as the “New World Order.” The Defense Planning Guidance document was leaked in 1992, and revealed that,
“In a broad new policy statement that is in its final drafting phase, the Defense Department asserts that America’s political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to ensure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territories of the former Soviet Union,” and that, “The classified document makes the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose position can be perpetuated by constructive behavior and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy.”
Further, “the new draft sketches a world in which there is one dominant military power whose leaders ‘must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role’.”
The key problem is huge cost of imposing the will on vassal states because as Hans Morganthau's stated in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics that "it is virtually impossible for any state to achieve global hegemony." (p. 41). So it seems that at the highest level - geopolitics - "neoconservatism" is not only a very dangerous game, it is also very expensive game, which can well bankrupt the host nation.
Moreover it provokes a fierce opposition of regional powers as we now see in Ukraine and Syria. While economically Russian is much weaker then USSR and as such can be squeezed (especially due to dominance of the USA in world financial system) it is impossible to do this without huge costs. And Russian can well retaliate in energy sector and by nationalizing the USA assets in the country. In way sanctions against Russia is probably the best way to ensure the repetition of Cuban missile crisis in some new form or shape.
The distinctions between Neoconservatism and neoliberalism are fuzzy, perhaps because the US political elite members are adherent of both. Superficially Neoconservatism is a mor3e militant version of neoliberalism and is focused more on enforcing the USA hegemony by military force, while neoliberalism is more about neocolonial methods of subduing other nations, enforcing the same hegemony by economic, mainly financial means (via debt slavery) and by exporting ideology. See also Washington consensus.
All that means that neo-conservatism can be viewed as a native for the USA flavor of Neoliberal ideology -- the dominant ideology from 1970th to approximately 2008, ideology that defeated and by-and-large displaced communism on international arena. Its main difference from other flavors of neoliberalism is that it postulated that the USA should be the only world dominant power and makes achieving and maintaining this role the key goal of the USA foreign policy.
In foreign policy both neoconservatism and neoliberalism are not that dissimilar from colonialism ("white man burden"), and neocolonialism -- idea of financial hegemony of the USA in all third world countries via promotion/enforcement of neoliberal reforms and excessive debt in each of them. Not-accidentally Paul Wolfowitz was at one point the President of the World Bank -- one of the key enforcers of Washington consensus.
And they want this dominance at any cost for the nation (Brzezinski - Grand Chessboard quotes)
"Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power."- (p. xiii) (Eurasia means "the Middle East")"... But in the meantime, it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book.” (p. xiv)
"In that context, how America 'manages' Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania (Australia) geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources." (p.31)
“The momentum of Asia's economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea." (p.125)
"In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last." (p.209)
“Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization." (p.35)
"Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." (p. 211)
"...The last decade of the twentieth century has witnessed a tectonic shift in world affairs. For the first time ever, a non-Eurasian power has emerged not only as a key arbiter of Eurasian power relations but also as the world's paramount power. The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final step in the rapid ascendance of a Western Hemisphere power, the United States, as the sole and, indeed, the first truly global power...” (p. xiii)"... But in the meantime, it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book.” (p. xiv)
"The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.” (pp 24-5)
"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia... Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia - and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained.” (p.30) (bases in Iraq??)
"America's withdrawal from the world or because of the sudden emergence of a successful rival - would produce massive international instability. It would prompt global anarchy." (p. 30)
"In that context, how America 'manages' Eurasia is critical. Eurasia is the globe's largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world's GNP and about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources." (p.31)
“It is also a fact that America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the use of America's power, especially its capacity for military intimidation. Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization." (p.35)
(Therefore, it is also critical -- not optional -- for America to overcome these limitations imposed by democracy. That's what he's saying, right? Right?? If imperial geostrategy is critical, the "permit" known as Sept 11 was also a critical component and precursor. With or without Bush. But the "cowboys" and neocons were much better "geared" in the public mind to exploit Sept 11. "conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being" ~gg)
"Two basic steps are thus required: first, to identify the geostrategically dynamic Eurasian states that have the power to cause a potentially important shift in the international distribution of power and to decipher the central external goals of their respective political elites and the likely consequences of their seeking to attain them;... second, to formulate specific U.S. policies to offset, co-opt, and/or control the above..." (p. 40)
"...To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together." (p.40)
"Henceforth, the United States may have to determine how to cope with regional coalitions that seek to push America out of Eurasia, thereby threatening America's status as a global power." (p.55)
The key idea of neo-conservatism is very similar to the idea of communism -- hegemony of a single (right, virtuous) state on the globe (USSR in case of communism, the USA in case of neo-conservatism). In other words neocons are globalists par excellence. If needed, unwashed masses, who might have reservations about benefits of globalization, should be coerced into the "true path".
| The key idea of neo-conservatism is very similar to the idea of communism -- hegemony of a single (right, virtuous) state on the globe (USSR in case of communism, the USA in case of neo-conservatism). In other words neocons are internationalist par excellence. If needed, unwashed masses should be coerced into the "true path". |
This connection of Neoconservatism and Trotskyism is not accidental as in both cases the core ideologists were Jewish intellectuals, in case of neo-conservatism, iether former Trotskyites or from sympathetic to Trotskyism left groups. They are strong proponents of wars to achieve national goals and "the law of jungle" in international relations as long as the USA is the top dog.
In foreign policy neocons advocate the same "my way or highway" principle that Bolsheviks used. It started from getting into key role in State Department super-aggressive, almost psychopathic "not so bright" Madeleine Albright who inspired bombing of Serbia and partitioning of Kosovo (which later backfired for the USA in Georgia and Ukraine). It continued with the same type of women for two following presidents with Hillary Clinton probably being even more jingoistic then Madeleine Albright.
Actually under Obama neoliberals dominates the USA State Department to a larger extent then under Bush II, because Condolezza Rise (who was a student by Josef Korbel, the father of Madeleine Albright) was super hawk mainly in her attitude to Russia and middle East. But outside of her Iraq adventures she looked almost moderate in comparison with Hillary "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton to say nothing about former Cheney associate Victoria Nuland (see Nulandgate ).
Like is the case with neoliberalism in general, there are deep ideological connections between neo-conservatism and Marxism. Politically neocons are turncoat Trotskyites and they introduced the full bag of Trotskyite/Bolsheviks methods into arsenal of arch-enemies of communism.
bevin
The US tactics are an adaptation and updating of those of the Comintern in the '20s and '30s. This isn't surprising given the enormous influence, since the early '40s, of comintern renegades on US Foreign Policy: the neo-cons whose mouths are not simply used for foaming, its 'intellectuals', have all sipped if not drunk at the well of Trotsky's strategy of Revolution.
The problem that the neo-cons face and cannot deal with is that underlying any successful uprisings there has to be some sort of mass consciousness or delusion. In the past the attractions of the American Way of Life (Dream included) have formed a pale, but serviceable, imitation of the promise of human liberation that cheered millions of socialist martyrs to their deaths in the battle against imperialism and capitalism. But it has become very pale indeed: the future America offers to its partisans in, for example, the Ukraine is so bleak that it lends the past a roseate hue.Nothing is so calculated to strike dread in the heart of a people as the promise of IMF assistance.
There is something very symmetrical about the coincidence of a foreign policy, of the sort the Russians describe, coming into its own at the very moment that the world-from the EU nations outwards- is awakening to the realisation that the Dream promoted by Hollywood, central to the ideology of NATO, is actually a nightmare of deprivation, Panopticon surveillance and control, eternal warring and a steady retreat to the social relations of the Plantation and the sweat shop. a journey back to the slums and the caves.
The propaganda in the west's information war will be, increasingly, viewed against a background of 50% Unemployment, riots and water cannons, declining life expectancy and millions of homeless emigrants wandering from country to country, away from war and looking for work.
As Goebbels learned, it is hard to promote a circus when the Four Horsemen are galloping around town.
Burt Blumert managed to capture the essence of difference of neo-cons and paleocons:
"Neocons, as ex-Trotskyites, are bad enough, but those who follow the pro-pagan Leo Strauss are deadly. He advocated the Big Lie.
Forgive me for all the gory details, but these people – with their other leaders like Bill Buckley and Irving Kristol and the help of the CIA – perverted the American right into loving the welfare-warfare state."
Of course, blanket depictions of neoconservatives as Trotskyites is just a useful hyperbola that needs to be supplemented by a more nuanced analysis. There are several important differences:
A lot of prominent neo-conservatives were high-placed government officials and have has great influence of the US foreign policy. The key figure in this respect was Paul Wolfowitz. As Harper's Magazine quoted from NYT:
According to Juan Cole, a professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Michigan and a persistent critic of the Iraq war: “Wolfowitz has demonstrated a penchant for cronyism and for smearing and marginalising perceived rivals as tactics for getting his way. Indeed, these tactics are typical of what might be called the neoconservative style.”
By the time Wolfowitz was forced out, the ugly side of the World Bank boss was revealed in a memo in which he vowed in the style of a mafia don that “if they fuck with me or Shaha, I have enough on them to fuck them too”.
See also
Right Web
Profiles - Individuals - Right Web - Institute for Policy Studies
Please note that the original neocons were a small group of Trotskyites who, in the 1960s and 70s, saw the overwhelming US military strength as a panacea to solving all world problems and objected to what they saw as the reluctance of the political establishment to endorse the unlimited "arms race" with the USSR. From the very beginning neocons were openly militaristic and allied with the military industrial complex.
Where most conservatives favored détente and containment of the Soviet Union, neocons pushed direct confrontation, which became their raison d'etre during the 1970s and 80s. Many of them worked in the 1970s for Democratic Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson closely connected with military-industrial complex and were rewarded by forming the core of the Defense Department during Ronald Reagan implementing his aggressive strategy of undermining the USSR economy with steep hikes in military spending. With the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States emerged as the uncontested solo superpower in the world. Still, the neocons decried any reductions of defense spending.
During the 1990s, they were the most prominent pro-military-industrial complex PR force constantly exaggerating the threats and warning the public about supposed dangers of reducing the defense spending, openly using the disinformation for the advocating military intervention on "humanitarian grounds" and so-called "nation building". They played a prominent role in misinforming the public and unleashing extremely profitable for the military-industrial complex Yugoslavian war. Their long-time ties to the military-industrial complex helped many neocons win key posts in the second Bush administration. The reasons for second Iraq war were probably different but profits for military-industrial complex were even bigger.
Using Michael Ledeen's
quote, the neocons approach is that "Change - above all violent change - is the essence of human
history" . The "violent change" here means that the USA has a responsibility to fight "liberation"
wars to create democratic governments in place of "failed states" or any regimes that are threatening
to the US or its interests. Any regime that is hostile to the USA and could pose a threat should
be confronted aggressively, not "appeased" or merely contained.
One thing Mr. William Kristol is not, is a combat vet.
Although he was born in 1952, he never served during Vietnam. I am sure while at Harvard he was a staunch supporter of the American effort to enrich the war profiteers while ostensibly stopping that war's "enemy" communism from spreading across Asia.
But for tactical reasons neocons allied with "born-again" republican activists who argued
that the survival of the United States hinges on "restoring its Christian heritage" and preach a
bland of militarism that can be called "messianic". Support of the theocratic aspirations of the
Religious Right and their "messianic militarism" means that neocons represent a really dangerous
force in the society. To quote a former presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater who probably cannot
be accused of any liberal sympathies, "Our problem is with ... the religious extremists ... who want
to destroy everybody who doesn't agree with them. I see them as betrayers of the fundamental principles
of conservatism. A lot of so-called conservatives today don't know what the word means." For a greater
understanding of the interplay between the neocons agenda and the political agenda of the Religious
Right, see the Texas Republican
Party Platform, 2002 .
Any illusions some naïve soul may have had about the objectivity of the US media has been dispelled by their embarrassing performance at the Sochi Olympics: the chorus of whining complaints might as well have been written for them by the US State Department – which, come to think of it, is entirely within the realm of the possible given the imperious tone. The water, the toilets, the hotels – nothing pleases our pampered media divas, whose hatred of all things Russian oozes from between the lines of their "reporting" like pus from an old wound.All the antipathy we saw aimed at Russia during the cold war years is now being revomited up by the political class, albeit in a new flavor: instead of genuine martyrs like Andrei Sakharov and Alexandr Solzhenitsyn being lionized, we see the professional provocateurs of "Pussy Riot" elevated by Western media to the status of "dissident" stars. Why do these heavily made-up show biz types merit our attention? Well, didn’t they desecrate a Russian Orthodox cathedral by stripping off their clothes, screaming obscenities, and insulting parishioners? Clearly this is the type of "dissident" the American media can get behind. (Try that in New York City, ladies, and see what happens.)
Our shameless media is always eager to place itself at the disposal of the State. If it isn’t David Gregory calling for the arrest of Glenn Greenwald, it’s the ubiquitous Richard Engel of NBC "News" – tireless cheerleader of US-sponsored "revolutions" abroad – deliberately downloading a virus onto his computer and then pontificating about how the minute you enter Russia you are bound to be "hacked."
In the midst of this orgy of Russophobia, the foul-mouthed Victoria Nuland’s leaked conversation went viral over the Internet, exposing the real extent of Washington’s stake in the latest anti-Russian campaign, Ukraine being the battleground this time. Not that it wasn’t fairly obvious before, what with US diplomats demanding an end to government "repression" against rioting violent "protesters," but the Nuland intercept made the strings tying the Ukrainian opposition to Washington starkly visible.
Ooops!
But wait – didn’t the cold war end with the downing of the Berlin Wall and the implosion of the old USSR? So how did it get reignited – and who lit the fuse?
It started, as so many of these overseas vendettas do, when the Russkies earned the ire of the neocons by 1) Overthrowing communism, thus depriving several leading neocons of their jobs as professional anti-communists, 2) throwing out the hated oligarchs, who had looted what was left of Russia after the commies got through with it, and 3) refusing to go along with the Iraq war, and blocking US intervention in Syria. Granting Edward Snowden refuge was the absolute last straw – a tactic that inverted the familiar cold war narrative by casting the Russians as the patrons of dissidence and the Americans as their relentless pursuers.
Yes, this is my ultimate proof that we have indeed entered the Bizarro Era, where up is down and history stood on its head: even the terms of the Russo-American propaganda war have been reversed. It used to be that Russian propaganda was the worst of the worst: wooden, unconvincing, ideological gibberish expressed in the crudest possible terms. The Americans, on the other hand, were relatively sophisticated about it, covertly spreading Washington’s party line through a multitude of mostly center-left "fronts," like the Congress for Cultural Freedom and Encounter magazine, which weren’t exposed until well after they had served their purpose.
Now, however, those roles are reversed, and it is the Americans who are stumbling over themselves trying to make Sochi (and Putin) look bad, and only revealing their utter incompetence – while the Russians broadcast Nuland’s vulgar king-making to the world.
Ukraine has been a battleground in the new cold war since the early days of the new millennium, back when the "Orange Revolution" was all the rage in the Western media and the martyrdom of Viktor Yushechenko was the driving narrative that toppled the pro-Russian government of the "Party of Regions," the Eastern-oriented pro-Russian party then in power.
The official story, as pushed relentlessly in the Western media until it became the Conventional Wisdom, was that Yushchenko, the pro-Western ex-central banker and presidential candidate, had been poisoned by the KGB for daring to defy Putin and his Ukrainian sock-puppets.
This story began to unravel, however, when several medical authorities – including the former chief diagnostician of the facility that treated Yushchenko, Dr. Lothar Wicke – called it into question. Yushchenko didn’t help matters when he refused to cooperate with the Ukrainian investigation into the matter, and suspicion turned to certainty when his old campaign manager, David Zhvania confessed that the whole thing had been a fraud from the beginning. A reporter who dared interview Zhvania was hauled into police headquarters and interrogated for seven hours. Perhaps Yushchenko’s decline into his present status of political irrelevance can be traced to his response to Zhvania’s confession – he accused Zhvania, the godfather of one of his children and once his closest confidante, of being the culprit!
So much for the Putin-did-it narrative.
What’s happening today in Ukraine is a replay of an old struggle that cannot be resolved except by the partition of the country, which is not a real nation but merely an administrative unit of the old Soviet Union. This article explains the cultural divide well: the truth is that Russian is the language of choice in Ukraine, and as far as the Internet is concerned, Ukrainian language sites come in third behind Russian and English.
Yet the historical antipathy to Russia still lives in the Western part of the country, where the opposition is strongest, and where – not coincidentally – support for the Germans during World War II was greatest. I may be in danger of violating Godwin’s Law, but the undeniable legacy of wartime pro-German sentiment is felt in the growing influence of ultra-rightist groups such as Svoboda and outright neo-Nazi organizations within the opposition. They are the shock troops of what they call a "national revolution," providing the organizational muscle for violent takeovers by the opposition of city halls around the country. The brazen anti-Semitism of the anti-government protesters has been studiously ignored in most of the Western media – but this is just a function of their requisite Russophobia, which frames every news story from the region in cold war terms.
Nuland’s cursing out of the EU is just a dispute among thieves about who gets the loot; the Germans have a different candidate in mind to preside over the EU takeover of the country, while the Americans have their own plans – with a different cast of beneficiaries. What’s revealing about her little exchange with an underling is the casualness with which the Americans move Ukrainian politicians around on the chessboard, just like the Kremlin used to. One doubts Putin exercises half as much influence over Yanukovich.
Confirming George Orwell’s theory that sport, international games, and militant nationalism are all inextricably intertwined, Sochi is the stage on which the new cold war is being fought. The battlefield is in the column inches given over in the Western media to the alleged shortcomings of Putin’s "Potemkin Village," as the critics are calling it. However, the nature of their complaints – the lack of luxuries to which they feel entitled, and which much of the rest of the world goes largely without – just underscores the utter cluelessness of Western propagandists posing as "reporters." They fail to understand why this makes them look bad to everyone outside of Brooklyn’s hipster precincts and Washington’s tonier neighborhoods.
The post-cold war strategy of the Americans has been to encircle the Russians, building an iron wall of alliances and military bases from the Baltic Sea to the steppes of Central Asia. The Clinton administration set up a special department devoted to development of Caspian Sea energy resources, and made a determined outreach to the post-Soviet potentates of the various ‘stans – ruthless dictators like the President-for-Life of Kazakhstan and the former despot in charge of Turkmenistan, who has been called the Kim Jong Il of Central Asia. The series of "color revolutions" in the former Soviet republics, from Georgia to Ukraine to Kyrgyzstan, were all generously funded and directed from afar by US government agencies, with the Western media playing a familiar role as their echo chamber.
The same scam is being played out in the media today, with the viciously anti-Semitic and violent "opposition" portrayed as heroes of "democracy," and the pro-Russian factions (a majority of the country) cast as villains. And looming over this trumped up scenario is the threat of Western intervention, as in the case of Kosovo and Bosnia. The media’s war against the Russians is the kind of virtual onslaught that can ultimately result in a military offensive – we saw this in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, as well as the Balkan wars, and we are seeing it again in the propaganda campaign waged against the Iranians in the past few years.
That’s why we founded Antiwar.com in the first place, way back in 1995 or thereabouts: because the Western and specifically the American media was playing such a vanguard role in ginning up wars. Their warmongering was so brazen that we couldn’t let it go unchallenged.
We’ve been challenging the foreign policy "conventional wisdom" – which always seems to argue in favor of extending US power and influence – ever since that time. But we just can’t continue to do it without your help. We didn’t ask for money in the beginning: people sent it in anyway. As we expanded beyond being basically a one-man operation – our heroic webmaster, Eric Garris – we began the quarterly fund drives. This is what has sustained us lo these many years, and hopefully will continue to do so as the issues we have pressed come to the fore.
In 1998, we were a small minority, a voice in the wilderness crying out against the madness: the militarism of the post-9/11 era only increased our isolation – and provoked an investigation into our alleged role as "foreign agents" by none other than the FBI! But we stuck to our guns, and inspired a growing group of supporters to keep our little operation going through all the years of that dark era.
When all the world "knew" for sure the WMD were hiding underneath Saddam’s palace, we called BS on their patchwork narrative – and we were right. We not only proved them wrong, we proved that they were lying. That’s not the kind of thing you read in the "mainstream" media: indeed, to even suggest such a thing automatically excludes you from that elite club.
Today’s journalists for the most part are simply servitors of the State: they might just as well be put on the government payroll for all the light they shed on what is happening in the world, especially when the reality conflicts with official US policy. That’s why Antiwar.com has survived all these years: because readers know they can get the real story – or, at least, a clue as to where to find it – when they turn to Antiwar.com.
There’s been much talk about how independent journalism in the age of the Internet can sustain itself, but I haven’t heard anyone so much as mention our own success in this regard: after all, we’ve been around for the past fifteen years or so, a millennium in Internet years, utilizing the same model we’ve depended on since the beginning – the old-fashioned fund drive.
A few years ago my favorite radio station, KDFC, the classical music station for the Bay Area, went from being a commercial station dependent on ads to the nonprofit model, and it’s really the same one we use. People who love classical music and want to preserve it on the air sustain KDFC – just as those who want to preserve some semblance of dissent in an age of ideological conformity donate to Antiwar.com. And both are tax-deductible.
The war for hearts and minds in the age of the Internet is an information war – and that’s our battlefield. In order to win the peace we must continually challenge the "conventional wisdom" in foreign affairs, which is invariably slanted to rationalize one form of US intervention or another. We need your help in this fight – indeed, we would cease to exist without it. The FBI memo authorizing an investigation into Antiwar.com asked "Where do they get their funding?" But of course the answer, which for some reason must have slipped by them unnoticed, is that we get it from you, our readers and supporters, exercising your constitutional right to free expression.
We have all the right enemies – and now we turn to our friends for the support we need to continue our work. Please make your tax-deductible contribution today.
In neocons view of the USA as a "special" and unique state (much like Israel for Jews, or USSR was for communists) that is allowed on the world stage things that are prohibited for all other states. As such it is very closely connected with the American nationalism which is usually called American exeptionalism (and exceptionalism is the key ingredient of any nationalism, especially of national socialist variety).
the key postulate of neocons about the USA preeminence in world affairs is essentially the same idea that Amercan exeptionalism cherishes. all this "Shining city on the hill" mythology. But insisting that the USA has the right to dominate the globe the take the idea of American exeptionalism to the extreme. And existence of a single superpower can in their opinion (see Robert Kagan weak and pretty unconvincing attempt to justify this postulate) diminish the number of conflicts in the world.
An excellent, insightful overview of the history of neoconservatism can be found at Trotskyism to Anachronism: The Neoconservative Revolution by John B. Judis (1995 ). Two of his books are also highly recommended. Especially:
Neocons do not incorporate into their thinking such fundamental foreign policy concepts as balance of power, spheres of influence and buffer zones—all crucial elements of diplomacy for nations interested in fostering stability and peace. They don't need that. Because while chicken hawk personally, they are bellicose warmongers in this positions. Very dangerous, and somewhat suicidal folk indeed. Some observers consider neoconservatism to be an Americanized and adapted to needs of US elite flavor of Zionism ( the Saker ). Indeed he formulated six immanent feature of neo-conservatism: de-regulation, violence, illegality, arrogance, systematic deception and messianism:
During the Presidency of Ronald Reagan a group which later become known as the "Necons" made a strategic decision to take over the Republican Party, its affiliated institutions and think tanks. While in the past ex-Trotskyites had been more inclined to support the putatively more Left-leaning Democratic Party, the "new and improved GOP" under Reagan offered the Neocons some extremely attractive features:
- Money: Reagan was an unconditional supporter of big business and the corporate world. His mantra "government is the problem" fitted perfectly with the historical closeness of the Neocons with the Robber Barons, Mafia bosses and big bankers. For them, de-regulation meant freedom of action, something which was bound to make speculators and Wall Street wise guys immensely rich.
- Violence: Reagan also firmly stood behind the US Military-Industrial complex and a policy of intervention in any country on the planet. That fascination with brute force and, let be honest here, terrorism also fitted the Trotskyite-Neocon mindset perfectly.
- Illegality: Reagan did not care at all about the law, be it international law or domestic law. Sure, as long as the law happens to be advantageous to US or GOP interests, it was upheld with great ceremony. But if it didn't, the Reaganites would break it with no compunction whatsoever.
- Arrogance: under Reagan, patriotism and feel-good imperial hubris reached a new height. More than ever before, the US saw itself as not only the "Leader of the Free World" protecting the planet against the "Evil Empire", but also as unique and superior to the rest of mankind (like in the Ford commercial of the 1980s: "we're number one, second to none!")
- Systematic deception: under Reagan lying turned from an occasional if regular tactics used in politics to the key form of public communication: Reagan, and his administration, could say one thing and then deny it in the same breath. They could make promises which were clearly impossible to keep (Star Wars anybody?). They could solemnly take an oath and than break it (Iran-Contra). And, if confronted by proof of these lies, all Reagan had to do is to say: "well, no, I don't remember".
- Messianism: not only did Reagan get a huge support basis amongst the various crazy religious denominations in the USA (including all of the Bible Belt), Reagan also promoted a weird can of secular Messianism featuring a toxic mix of xenophobia bordering on racism with a narcissistic fascination with anything patriotic, no matter how stupid, bordering on self-worship.
So let's add it all up:
Money+violence+illegality+arrogance+deception+Messianism
equals what?
Does that not all look very, very familiar? Is that not a perfect description of Zionism and Israel?
No wonder the Neocons flocked in greater and greater number to this new GOP! Reagan's GOP was the perfect Petri dish for the Zionist bacteria to grow, and grow it really did. A lot.
While neo-conservatism as a flavor of neoliberalism is close to Trotskyism, but that does not completely exclude this strong analogy with Zionism. Indeed there are connections between two although there are substantial differences as well (neoliberals behave toward the USA more like occupying power, the a host for advancement of their agenda, very similar to Bolsheviks behavior toward Russia).
It goes without saying that you can be both a neoliberal & a neocon. Obama is a good example in this respect.
This is an interesting nuance which on the surface contradicts previous. And which makes neocon kind of new generation of Jewish Bolsheviks who also were ready to betray national interests of Russia for the same of ideology, although they do not have a specific state.
Even cooperation between intelligence agencies under recent administrations became one sides and favor Israeli interests Netanyahu's Spying Denials Contradicted by Secret NSA Documents - The Intercept
Other NSA documents voice the grievance that Israel gets far more out of the intelligence-sharing relationship than the U.S. does. One top-secret 2007 document, entitled “History of the US – Israel SIGINT Relationship, post 1992,” describes the cooperation that takes place as highly productive and valuable, and, indeed, top-secret documents previously reported by The Intercept and the Guardian leave no doubt about the very active intelligence-sharing relationship that takes place between the two countries.
Yet that same document complains that the relationship even after 9/11 was almost entirely one-sided in favor of serving Israeli rather than U.S. interests...
Fascism is a toxic mixture of corporatism and ethnic nationalism. The legitimate question arise whether mixture of corporatism and American exeptionalism represents a form of fascism ?
Among several distinctive feature of fascism is merciless suppression of dissent by force, glorification of violence, jingoistic militarism directed toward expansion and colonization of other countries and strong propaganda of "national unity". Superficially fascist societies demonstrate a unity of purpose, with more or less all the levels of the hierarchy acting in unison. In reality workers are mercilessly exploited by large capital, which in reality completely controls the government and determines its foreign policy. It is a top-down government involving an alliance of corporate capital and military elite. Typically there is a dominant ultra nationalist political party that preaches "national revival". All other parties are iether prohibited or suppressed.
What in interesting in this regard is that some neocons are not former Trotskyites, but former admirers of Mussolini (Flirting with Fascism The American Conservative, 2003)
On the antiwar Right, it has been customary to attack the warmongering neoconservative clique for its Trotskyite origins. Certainly, the founding father of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol, wrote in 1983 that he was “proud” to have been a member of the Fourth International in 1940. Other future leading lights of the neocon movement were also initially Trotskyites, like James Burnham and Max Kampelman—the latter a conscientious objector during the war against Hitler, a status that Evron Kirkpatrick, husband of Jeane, used his influence to obtain for him. But there is at least one neoconservative commentator whose personal political odyssey began with a fascination not with Trotskyism, but instead with another famous political movement that grew up in the early decades of the 20th century: fascism. I refer to Michael Ledeen, leading neocon theoretician, expert on Machiavelli, holder of the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, regular columnist for National Review—and the principal cheerleader today for an extension of the war on terror to include regime change in Iran.Ledeen has gained notoriety in recent months for the following paragraph in his latest book, The War Against the Terror Masters. In what reads like a prophetic approval of the policy of chaos now being visited on Iraq, Ledeen wrote,
Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone. They cannot feel secure so long as we are there, for our very existence—our existence, not our politics—threatens their legitimacy. They must attack us in order to survive, just as we must destroy them to advance our historic mission.
This is not the first time Ledeen has written eloquently on his love for “the democratic revolution” and “creative destruction.” In 1996, he gave an extended account of his theory of revolution in his book, Freedom Betrayed — the title, one assumes, is a deliberate reference to Trotsky’s Revolution Betrayed. Ledeen explains that “America is a revolutionary force” because the American Revolution is the only revolution in history that has succeeded, the French and Russian revolutions having quickly collapsed into terror. Consequently, “[O]ur revolutionary values are part of our genetic make-up. … We drive the revolution because of what we represent: the most successful experiment in human freedom. … We are an ideological nation, and our most successful leaders are ideologues.” Denouncing Bill Clinton as a “counter-revolutionary” (!), Ledeen is especially eager to make one point: “Of all the myths that cloud our understanding, and therefore paralyze our will and action, the most pernicious is that only the Left has a legitimate claim to the revolutionary tradition.”
Ledeen’s conviction that the Right is as revolutionary as the Left derives from his youthful interest in Italian fascism. In 1975, Ledeen published an interview, in book form, with the Italian historian Renzo de Felice, a man he greatly admires. It caused a great controversy in Italy. Ledeen later made clear that he relished the ire of the left-wing establishment precisely because “De Felice was challenging the conventional wisdom of Italian Marxist historiography, which had always insisted that fascism was a reactionary movement.” What de Felice showed, by contrast, was that Italian fascism was both right-wing and revolutionary. Ledeen had himself argued this very point in his book, Universal Fascism, published in 1972. That work starts with the assertion that it is a mistake to explain the support of fascism by millions of Europeans “solely because they had been hypnotized by the rhetoric of gifted orators and manipulated by skilful propagandists.” “It seems more plausible,” Ledeen argued, “to attempt to explain their enthusiasm by treating them as believers in the rightness of the fascist cause, which had a coherent ideological appeal to a great many people.” For Ledeen, as for the lifelong fascist theoretician and practitioner, Giuseppe Bottai, that appeal lay in the fact that fascism was “the Revolution of the 20th century.”
Ledeen supports de Felice’s distinction between “fascism-movement” and “fascism-regime.” Mussolini’s regime, he says, was “authoritarian and reactionary”; by contrast, within “fascism-movement,” there were many who were animated by “a desire to renew.” These people wanted “something more revolutionary: the old ruling class had to be swept away so that newer, more dynamic elements—capable of effecting fundamental changes—could come to power.” Like his claim that the common ground between Nazism and Italian fascism was “exceedingly minimal”—Ledeen writes, “The fact of the Axis Pact should not be permitted to become the overriding consideration in this analysis”—Ledeen’s careful distinction between fascist “regime” and “movement” makes him a clear apologist for the latter. “While ‘fascism-movement’ was overcome and eventually suppressed by ‘fascism-regime,’” he explains, “fascism nevertheless constituted a political revolution in Italy. For the first time, there was an attempt to mobilize the masses and to involve them in the political life of the country.”
Indeed, Ledeen criticizes Mussolini precisely for not being revolutionary enough. “He never had enough confidence in the Italian people to permit them a genuine participation in fascism.” Ledeen therefore concurs with the fascist intellectual, Camillo Pellizi, who argues—in a book Ledeen calls “a moving and fundamental work”—that Mussolini’s was “a failed revolution.” Pellizzi had hoped that “the new era was to be the era of youthful genius and creativity”: for him, Ledeen says, the fascist state was “a generator of energy and creativity.”
The purest ideologues of fascism, in other words, wanted something very similar to that which Ledeen himself wants now, namely a “worldwide mass movement” enabling the peoples of the world, “liberated” by American militarism, to participate in the “greatest experiment in human freedom.” Ledeen wrote in 1996, “The people yearn for the real thing—revolution.”
Ledeen was especially interested in the role played by youth in Italian fascism. It was here that he detected the movement’s most exciting revolutionary potential. The young Ledeen wrote that those who exalted the position of youth in the fascist revolution—like those who argued in favor of his beloved “universal fascism”—were committed to exporting Italian fascism to the whole world, an idea in which Mussolini was initially uninterested. When he was later converted to it, Mussolini said that fascism drew on the universalist heritage of Rome, both ancient and Catholic. No doubt Ledeen thinks that the new Rome in Washington has the same universalist mission. He writes that people around Berto Ricci—the editor of the fascist newspaper L’Universale, and a man he calls “brilliant” and “an example of enthusiasm and independence”— “called for the formation of a new empire, an empire based not on military conquest but rather on Italy’s unique genius for civilization. … They intended to develop the traditions of their country and their civilization in such a manner as to make them the basic tenets of a new world order.” Ledeen adds, in a passage that anticipates his later love of creative destruction, “Clearly the act of destruction which would produce the flowering of the new fascist hegemony would sweep away the present generation of Italians, along with the rest.” And Giuseppe Bottai, to whom Ledeen attributes “considerable energy and autonomy,” was notable for his belief that “the infusion of the creative energies of a new generation was essential” for the fascist revolution. Bottai “implored the young … to found a new order arising from the spontaneous activity of their creation.”
One of the greatest exponents of such youthful vitalism was the high priest of fascism, the poet and adventurer Gabriele D’Annunzio, to whom Ledeen devoted an enthusiastic biography in 1977. Years ago, I visited D’Annunzio’s house on the shores of Lake Garda: there is a battleship in the garden and a Brenn gun in the sitting room. D’Annunzio was an eccentric and militaristic Italian Nietzschean who “eulogized rape and acts of savagery” committed by the people he called his spiritual ancestors. The poet was also an early prophet of military intervention and regime change: he invaded the Croatian city of Fiume (now Rijeka) in 1919 and held the city for a year, during which he put into practice his theories of “New Order.” In 1918, moreover, D’Annunzio had dropped propaganda leaflets over Vienna promising to liberate the Austrians from their own government, something Ledeen hails as “a glorious gesture.” D’Annunzio’s watchword was “the liberation of human personality.” “His heroism during the war made it possible,” Ledeen writes, “to bridge the chasm between intellectuals and the masses. … The revolt D’Annunzio led was directed against the old order of Western Europe, and was carried out in the name of youthful creativity and virility.”
As Ledeen shows, the Italian fascists expressed their desire “to tear down the old order” (his words from 2002) in terms that are curiously anticipatory of a famous statement in 2003 by the Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. In 1932, Asvero Gravelli also divided Europe into “old” and “new” when he wrote, in Towards the Fascist International, “Either old Europe or young Europe. Fascism is the gravedigger of old Europe. Now the forces of the Fascist International are rising.” It all sounds rather prophetic.
Neocons completely dominate the USA MSM. Fox News is the most prominent in this respect. Also important are Foreign Policy, Commentary, National Review Online, The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, The National Interest, The Public Interest, and most Murdock-controlled publications.
There also control several prominent think tanks, especially Project for the New American Century (PNAC), American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and Center for Security Policy (CSP)). See Christian Science Monitor/Neocon think tanks and periodicals for more information.
Media barons like Murdock are powerful financial resources supporting neocons agenda. Without them neocons are just "lumpen-intellectuals" ("An lumpen-intellectual is a man who uses more words than necessary to tell more than he knows."), a bunch of clueless Trotskyites like Robert Kagan (Neocons in State Department and Nulandgate).
But with the media outlets and huge financial support from media empires and military industrial complex channeled to think tanks and media outlets they are a very dangerous political force that along with Christian Right hijacked the Republican party and managed to enforce its agenda on the society using the disinformation the same the way it was used by Bolsheviks in the USSR. As media control is equivalent in politics to air superiority in war, they by-and-large preserved their influence after Iraq war disaster.
Neocons make several questionable and dangerous assumptions. Among them
In will be interesting to see if those assumption hold, say, in 50 years from now.
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