Cspan 2 - natural family manifesto

[ChairmanAgnostic]

these ultra-conservatives have control of CSPAN 2 today, promoting their books, their neoconservatism, their anti-individual freedom stances.

it is worth looking at, if you need to toss a few cookies.

[Recursion]

1. That's not "neoconservatism", btw

Neoconservatives are either ambivalent or progressive on social issues.

That's the point of the "neo": these are people who were on the left during the 1960's culture wars but then were hawks about foreign policy.

[Shipwack]

2. Can you give an example of a neocon that supports progressive issues?

I think you're definition is flawed... Any modern politician that I know of that is a neo-con wants to slash programs for the poor and disadvantaged, but I'll look at any counter example.

Granted, back during the 50s and 60s there were cons that supported a strong defense, industry, and progressive causes... the "Rockefeller Republicans".

[Recursion]

3. An easier question would be who *isn't* a counter-example of that

The definition of a neoconservative is essentially "a hawk who doesn't mind social spending". These are people who supported the Great Society but didn't like how the left (and later the right) were trying to achieve a detente with the Soviets. Irving Kristol was a strong supporter of the Civil Rights movement, as was basically every original neoconservative. Fukuyama's first break with the Republican party wasn't Iraq, it was GHWB's slashing social programs in the early 90's. Wolfowitz got the bank job not from some sense of symmetry with Macnamara but because he's spent most of his career working on public sector development. Rice supported affirmative action in admissions when she was provost of Stanford. Hitchens supports the complete removal of Israeli settlers and troops from the West Bank, writes books about how religion is the worst thing in history, and is a strong supporter of government social programs. (Hitchens, incidentally, was against the '90-'91 Gulf War.)

I think part of the problem here is that DU seems to call anyone involved in this administration a "neoconservative", which is not remotely the case. There were only a handful to begin with, and there are almost none left. The neoconservatives who had anything to do with this administration were Rice, Feith, Wolfowitz, and Zakheim (Cheney and Rumsfeld are not neoconservatives, though both used the faction at times to try to gain advantage over the other). Hitchins, Fukuyama, and Kristol are the main public intellectuals of the movement today. None of these people are opposed to social spending and social programs, none use the race-baiting language of the paleocons, and most supported the policies (though not the Presidency) of WJC, only they wanted him to take out Saddam too.

The only neocon left in the administration is Rice, and she was never a heavyweight neocon to begin with. The movement as a whole has been discredited and discarded, and to the extent that the American Right is disintegrating it's because the neos and paleos don't trust each other anymore -- the paleos consider the neos adventurists and dilettantes, while the neos think the paleos don't have the stomach to "see this through".