How to explain the term "neo-con"

[margotb822]

How would you explain this to someone who is very non-political?
I tried to do it yesterday, but I didn't feel that I was getting the point across in the most effective way.

[MonkeyFunk]

1. I think it's very overused, especially here.

People seem to think "neo-con" has some sort of panache that's lacking in "conservative". But I'd say 90% of the time people here use it, they just mean "conservative".

[margotb822]

3. I always hear people talk about how

there are no "real" conservatives left. Maybe Chuck Hagel. But, some how, every other conservative has left the right for the far-right neo-con world. I'm starting to think that it's not so "neo" any more...it's become the standard for conservative.

[cynatnite]

7. IMO, there are very few real conservatives left...

Which I see as Goldwater types.

It does seem like there was a melding of religious right and neoconserv attitudes into what we're seeing today. I find that a little frightening.

[SpiralHawk]

20. But there are no republicon 'conservatives'

That word is just republicon homelander propaganda.

Republicons borrow and spend, borrow and spend, borrow and spend. They have trashed America's economy, environment, Armed Services, and Constitution.

That's all radical, and all wrong.

Borrow-and-spend republicons.
Borrow-and-spend republicons.
Borrow-and-spend republicons.
Borrow-and-spend republicons.
Borrow-and-spend republicons.
Borrow-and-spend republicons.
Borrow-and-spend republicons.
Borrow-and-spend republicons.
Borrow-and-spend republicons.
Borrow-and-spend republicons.
Borrow-and-spend republicons.
Borrow-and-spend republicons.
Borrow-and-spend republicons.
Borrow-and-spend republicons.
Borrow-and-spend republicons.
Borrow-and-spend republicons.

[cynatnite]

2. It's conservs who want the US to be macho like Rambo...

ready to kick ass and show the world they're the roughest dudes on the block. The US will kill you with it's pinky finger if you mess with it. That's how I understand it.

[magellan]

4. Kristol described neoconservatives

...as "liberals mugged by reality". Its cynicism does define them well.

This is from Wikipedia:

The term neoconservative was originally used as a criticism against liberals who had "moved to the right".<3><4> Michael Harrington, a democratic socialist, coined the usage of neoconservative in a 1973 Dissent magazine article concerning welfare policy.<5> According to E. J. Dionne, the nascent neoconservatives were driven by "the notion that liberalism" had failed and "no longer knew what it was talking about."<1>

Perhaps "bitter former liberals rife with neuroses" sums them up? lol

[cynatnite]

5. It has evolved over the years to what it is today...

Neocons like Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Cheney were never libs. These assholes want democracy in the Middle East by the use of a gun. That's why they've got such a hard on to bomb Iran.

[sutz12]

8. I would argue that the form of democracy that they peddle...

has a decided Fascist tone to it.

For me it always has that corporatist stench permeating it. They tend to label anything even remotely collectivist in nature as socialist or communist. They are really fond of simple labels, and love to apply them willy-nilly, and without any real justification for them.

They are not real fond of thinking about things, but seem to love spewing buzz-words and talking points.

[magellan]

9. Maybe this is the result of their mixing

...with conservatism (the party they feel comfiest hiding within) and neoliberalism, which is all about corporatism and the so-called free market?

[cynatnite]

14. I probably should have said 'their twisted idea of democracy'...

Maybe they think the two hour action movie is the real world.

[Vincardog]

10. The fundamental problem with that framing is that there was never anything remotely liberal about

the Neo Con nut jobs running the show today. The closest thing to the fascist idiots in charge is Nazi SS . Their faith in AmeriKKKan supremacy and willingness to use any means to enrich them selves at our expense is without limit. But what else would you expect from Hitler's bankers grand larvae?

[magellan]

11. Yes, they have morphed into something far more sinister

No wonder so many of them bristle at being called neocons. The original neocons were pansies compared to these sociopaths.

[Vincardog]

12. agreed they personify the worst aspects of unregulated capitalist corruption and unmitigated greed

[margotb822]

22. I like your description

short, sweet and accurate!

[Vincardog]

23. Thank you

[Alcibiades]

6. They are mainly ex-Trotskyites

Mainly from New York City, who broke with their comrades and became conservatives because they wanted to take a hard line in the Cold War. Few in number, but intellectuals, schooled in a brand of totally committed take-no-prisoners politics they learned as left-wing extremists, now become rightwing extremists. Many have risen to prominence in academia and have students who have gone on to be successful, so that there are now second and even third-generation neoconservatives.

Their ideology is that democracy is good, and so wars to protect democracy are good. They seem pretty much to care more about the wars than democracy itself, however. They like the free market and are generally socially conservative, but really they don't care for much except war, the means of waging it, etc. Always looking to attack somebody or other in the Middle east, the ascendancy of the Bush administration was a godsend for them, raising as it did a more than a couple of neocons to positions to make policy decisions.

I think THE book to read on th subject is "They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons" by Jacob Heilbrunn. Made it halfway through and skimmed the rest because I got to the part of history I remember firsthand, plus, well, there's only so much neocon I can take before I get m blood pressure up to where it should not be.

Oh, and many of them happen to be Jewish, so much so that many neocons take offense even at the mere use of the word "neocon," claiming it's somehow antisemitic. I don't see how, because many important neocons have not been Jews, but there you have it.

[Charlie Brown]

13. I once listened to Limbaugh (not by choice) go into a tirade about this

and how calling someone a neo-con was like calling them a "Jew." I didn't know what the hell he was talking about (nothing new there), as I've always understood neo-con as a purely political term (rightly, I think). This does shed some light on the association, but it appears ridiculous to view the word neo-con as something distinctly Jewish when most of them seem to be Protestant and Evangelical.

[TygrBright]

15. Since when is "Jew" an insult?

I always assumed it was the correct noun for an individual either a) professing the Jewish religious faith; or b) born into a family that identifies itself as Jewish.

Is there something degrading or insulting about either of those things?

bewilderedly,
Bright

[Charlie Brown]

21. according to Rush, I guess there is

I'm only repeating what I heard when I was forced to listen to his ravings while riding with someone. I don't try to make sense of any of it. There's no point.

[LeftishBrit]

17. I have actually seen RW isolationists use the term in an anti-semitic way

But they use lots of terms in nasty ways.

We should steer clear both of neo-cons (in the usual sense) and RW isolationists.

[LeftishBrit]

16. I think it originally meant...

former liberals/ Democrats/ sometimes even far-leftists, who turned conservative, mainly due to a perceived need for hawkishness on foreign policy.

It's now often used just to mean super-conservative or RW imperialist however.

[Perry Logan]

18. Neocons also oppose the public sector to an irrational degree.

Neocons are usually Friedmanites, aren't they? They want to privatize everything but the military. That's another reason things are so incredibly screwed up now.

[Echo In Light]

19. Neo, new. Con, as in, con job = The New Con

[Diclotican]

24. margotb822

margotb822

The Neo-Conservative should have labeled them selfs at the neo-nazis, og the neo-facisms. Because that it what they really are.. They are just so much better cloth, and better behaviored than the old nazis was... And they have no brown shirts to do their bidding - yet.. But I feel that the Black water group could be that very soon...

Diclotican

Sorry my bad english,not my native language

ps are your name Margot?. If so is the case, my grandmother had that name when she was alive;) Nice to se that an old norwigian name still living well;)