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Author Topic: A neo-con is? (definition)
Cueball
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posted 06 March 2004 12:10 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
A silly article from Town Hall to et people started.

quote:
Hitting at what may be a new low in the "neocon" code-word game, Business Week magazine recently ran a "news" story that practically screamed "Jew"--without saying the word at all.

In an article titled "Where do the neocons go from here?" Richard Dunham attempts to explain to a lay audience what a neocon is and where the "movement" is headed.


Cueballs definition: A conservative who rejects more tradtitional nationalist-convservatives. In the US they are distinct from the old school isolationist conservatives of the last century. Aligned with capital itself not just a capital city.

This is represented by two main policy directions:

1) Support for reduced trade barriers world wide -- the global economy. The international version of smaller government and less taxes.

2) Forced economic isolation and sanction against non-compliant nations/peoples or direct military intervention if necessary.

[ 06 March 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]


From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
radiorahim
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posted 06 March 2004 03:52 PM      Profile for radiorahim     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
"Neo-conservative" is the North American term, while in Latin America they use the term "neo-liberal" to describe those who espouse the same policies.
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Cougyr
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posted 06 March 2004 03:57 PM      Profile for Cougyr     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I see Neo-Cons as American imperialists, both economically and militarily. At the moment, they seem to have a pro-Israel component, but that may be more fragile than it looks. With the present fear of Islam, it is convenient to speak of Judeo-Christian culture when refering to the west, but there are alot of anti-everybodys who would cut Israel loose without a second thought.
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beluga2
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posted 06 March 2004 04:41 PM      Profile for beluga2     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
As has often been pointed out, "neo-conservatives" are neither. They're not "neo" because their economic and political ideas are recycled 19th-century bromides dressed up in a thin veneer of 21st-century technology. And they're not "conservative" because they advocate sudden, radical transformation in just about every area conceivable, from the economy to the international political system. They're more radical-revolutionary than conservative.
From: vancouvergrad, BCSSR | Registered: Mar 2003  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 06 March 2004 05:28 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
This has some similarities to the Neo-con as Trotskiest line as espoused by Justin Raimondo from Antiwar.com.

GEORGE W. BUSH, TROTSKYITE

[ 06 March 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]


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lagatta
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posted 06 March 2004 05:52 PM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Dubya is no Trotskyist - not nearly bookish enough and I can't imagine him in little wire-rimmed glasses.

By the way, neoliberal is used in French as well.


From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
Cougyr
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posted 06 March 2004 06:40 PM      Profile for Cougyr     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by beluga2:
As has often been pointed out, "neo-conservatives" are neither. They're not "neo" because their economic and political ideas are recycled 19th-century bromides dressed up in a thin veneer of 21st-century technology. And they're not "conservative" because they advocate sudden, radical transformation in just about every area conceivable, from the economy to the international political system. They're more radical-revolutionary than conservative.

Yes, you are right. I think the "neo-conservative" label is appropriate to the extent that they differ from those who advocate liberal democracy or social democracy. Some of the latter would like to be more "radical-revolutionary" in the opposite direction. The neo-cons are just "robber barons", happily stealing from all.


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Rufus Polson
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posted 06 March 2004 08:26 PM      Profile for Rufus Polson     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Hmmm, yes . . . neo-conservative vs. neo-liberal is an interesting one.
I think they are not quite identical. Neo-conservative implies more things to me than neo-liberal does. So while all n-c are n-l, not all n-l are n-c.
Neo-liberal to me implies pretty much solely the economic slash-and-burn class-war-from-above doctrines, with no position necessarily implied on either the military or social or religious issues.
Neo-conservatives, on the other hand, have the whole enchilada; slash-and-burn economics, plus pro-military, pro-imperialism policies, plus no gays, no abortions, and a woman's place is in the home, and probably strong religious views, usually Christian but possibly Jewish (or maybe Hindu; I can envision calling those Bharatiya Jhanata bastards neo-cons).

Now *in fact* I think neo-liberal economic policies depend on militarist policies to sustain them. And *in fact* I think sexism, racism and so forth are essential tools in from-the-top class warfare. So neo-liberals are going to be sort of tacitly neo-cons as well, but many of them don't admit it to themselves.


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koan brothers
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posted 06 March 2004 09:56 PM      Profile for koan brothers     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
How about calling them fundamentalist-conservatives? It may not translate exactly but most folks know what it means and it evokes a much scarier image of these scary people.
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LukeVanc
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posted 06 March 2004 10:12 PM      Profile for LukeVanc     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:

Cueballs definition: A conservative who rejects more tradtitional nationalist-convservatives. In the US they are distinct from the old school isolationist conservatives of the last century. Aligned with capital itself not just a capital city.

In agreement with Rufus Polson above, I'd say this is a better def'n of neo-liberalism. Neo-liberalism is global capitalist imperialism but without the hankering for traditionalism that helps define the neo-conservative movement.


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Cueball
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posted 06 March 2004 11:33 PM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Now *in fact* I think neo-liberal economic policies depend on militarist policies to sustain them. And *in fact* I think sexism, racism and so forth are essential tools in from-the-top class warfare. So neo-liberals are going to be sort of tacitly neo-cons as well, but many of them don't admit it to themselves.

That's interesting and I think true, so to represent that I parse the seperations in conservative thinking as follow:

1) (Traditional nationalist) Conservatives: In Canada this would be Joe Clark, etc.

2) Neo-conservatives: Paul Martin, and Harper.

3) Social Conservatives: Harper and some segemnts of the CPC

(Harper is both Neo-con and Soc-con, while Martin just Neo-con.)

I think there is some confusion about the Neo-liberal and neo-conservaitve tag, because of apparent, but unreal (as you point out above) distinctions between Democrats and Repbulicans and Tories and Liberals, econonomically speaking .

Liberals like to define themselves away from the Social conservative policies of the CPC by defining themselves as liberal, while their economic policies are more or less identical.

I think lumping in all of the regressive social policies and the economic policies under the Neo-con tag, undermines out ability to identify the likeness of their economic policies to what is being called neo-liberalism. When they are in fact the same.

At the same time, even in the new CPC, there are splits over the social policies, while there is a uniformity of economic policy that runs straight through the CPC and deep into the Liberal party and even into the NDP (Bob Rae!?)

One is reminded of Tony Blair's 'Third Way,' which has had no problem snapping into line with the American Neo-conservative agenda.

It seems to me convenient to note this uniformity of economic views, and identify it with the same label to avoid confusion, and then seperate that from the regressive social policies of the Social Conservatives.

So, I see your point but...

quote:
Neo-liberal to me implies pretty much solely the economic slash-and-burn class-war-from-above doctrines, with no position necessarily implied on either the military or social or religious issues.

You see when I think about this, I think Condeleeza Rice, who in my mind doesn't give a rats as in hell about the social issues such as religion, but is very much concerned about the economic policies. She'll go along with it, sure, but I don't think she cares one way or the other about such thinks. So is she a neo-liberal, therefore?

[ 07 March 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]


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Rufus Polson
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posted 07 March 2004 05:11 AM      Profile for Rufus Polson     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Cueball:
So is she a neo-liberal, therefore?


To my mind, yes. And note that when lists of the prominent neo-cons in the top echelons of the Bush administration come up, she is generally not included.
But really, these are fairly fluid terms. People use them in different ways and often pretty interchangeably; I just gave my impression of the general drift of connotation.


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scribblet
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posted 07 March 2004 09:38 AM      Profile for scribblet        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Neo-con means new conservative and was used originally to define someone who used to be liberal and switched to the conservatives.

Today, it is used as a derogatory term for anyone who isn't left wing.


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Cougyr
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posted 07 March 2004 11:43 AM      Profile for Cougyr     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by scribblet:
Today, it is used as a derogatory term for anyone who isn't left wing.

It shouldn't be. There is a legitimate place for a true conservative. It is common for people to become more conservative (less rash) as they age. The Neo-Cons use the language of conservatism, but they have a twisted justification for all the rape, pillage and plunder that they get up to. Conservatives like Barry Goldwater had principles; Neo-cons like Dick Cheney think the winner takes all and damn the rules and anybody who gets in the way.


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MacD
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posted 07 March 2004 01:02 PM      Profile for MacD     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I think Rufus Polson has provided the best definition and distinction between neo-liberal and neo-conservative. Neo-liberalism sees the world in purely economic terms, from a neo-classical/monetarist perspective. Neo-cons view the economy the same as neo-liberal but add a conservative viewpoint on social issues.

To me, to get back to the original article, Donald Rumsfeld and the New American Century crowd are definitely neo-conservatives. I wonder if claiming the derogatory use of "neo-con" to be an anti-Semitic code word is a tactic to create a discourse sympathatic to those poor, oppressed neo-cons.


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DrConway
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posted 07 March 2004 03:19 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Rufus Polson:
Hmmm, yes . . . neo-conservative vs. neo-liberal is an interesting one.
I think they are not quite identical. Neo-conservative implies more things to me than neo-liberal does. So while all n-c are n-l, not all n-l are n-c.

I prefer to use the terms interchangeably, since their economic doctrines largely motivate their social doctrines.

For example, the desire to return women to second-class social and economic status motivates the desire to not expand the legal definition of marriage, and which also motivates manipulating the tax system to favor heterosexual married couples and to be biased against gay couples or singles.

It also motivates creating a tax system that reflects their fundamentally Darwinist philosophies in regard to success or failure as well as who should be rewarded in society.


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Lord Palmerston
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posted 07 March 2004 03:24 PM      Profile for Lord Palmerston     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I think there's a difference in usage in the US and Canada. In the US, it means former liberals turned rabid conservatives - that would make Wolfowitz, Kristol, Podhoretz and Kirkpatrick neoconservatives, but Bush (I and II), Cheney, Rumsfeld, Baker and Kissinger would just be old-style conservatives.

In Canada, neoconservative seems to imply the conservatives who emulate the American right rather than traditional "Canadian" conservatism: this would include Frum, Harris, Klein, Campbell, Harper, Manning, etc., as well as the National Post editorial board.


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skdadl
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posted 07 March 2004 03:36 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Palmerston:
I think there's a difference in usage in the US and Canada. In the US, it means former liberals turned rabid conservatives - that would make Wolfowitz, Kristol, Podhoretz and Kirkpatrick neoconservatives, but Bush (I and II), Cheney, Rumsfeld, Baker and Kissinger would just be old-style conservatives.


Lord P (my, but you are well preserved! ), the most interesting reviews of the current Perle/Frum book linked to on that thread -- two fine commentaries -- both make the distinction you do there, but they consider the latter group to be neo-libs, much as limned above by Rufus, and that would be my sense of them too. How could we ever describe Kissinger, especially, as a conservative?!?


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