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Friday, October 05, 2007

Using the disgrace associated with neo conservatism I've never cared to learn the finer underpinnings of neo-conservatism. I learned all I needed to know from the actions of the neo-con junta that bullied its way into the white house. To me, it's an ideology of foreign aggression, corporate profits, domestic control, and dis-investment in the civilian infrastructure. However, I have a conservative friend who takes issue with the neo cons - a so called paleo con - and he explained to me some of the theoretical underpinnings of neo conservatism. In the end, it sounded like Trotsky style Leninism: global communism through Russian communist intervention. Just change communism with democracy (or "liberal democratic principals") and you have it. Whether theory and practice lined up, neo conservatism is now a disgraced ideology. The Iraq war is a quagmire. Iran is a regional powerhouse. We lost a city to a storm. Bin Laden is still making tapes. The housing market went pop. As a nation, we're deep in the red. My initial thought was that the vilification of neo conservatism was not necessarily a good thing. In my opinion, the real problem is that Washington politicians - those currently in office and almost every legitimate contender for president in both parties - don't share the widely held belief that (1) globalism in it current form is bad for Americans and just about anyone else who isn't moving capital for a living and (2) America's military should be used primarily, and near exclusively, to protect America from those who would do us harm (and not, say, forward the economic interests of oil companies, force America's version of freedom on people who don't want it, or intervene if some other country's wars when they're unlikely to affect us directly). Thus, if we were to fix the blame on the current sorry state of the affairs narrowly on "neo cons", we're letting a horde of globalists and interventionists off the hook. A recent article on digbysblog makes me rethink that. It seems that the term neo-con is being used interchangeably with the term interventionist. And because neo-con has the stain of failure attached to it, it sticks. Apparantly, its bumming out some non neo con war mongers! AWWWWWWW! See - here is how it works. Back in the day there was a country called the soviet union, and it tried to implement communism and mucked the whole thing up. Between their mistakes and hostility from the outside world, the entire affair concluded in undeniable failure. Part of what the communists did was implement social programs like universal healthcare. Never mind the fact that every other industrialized country in the world has successfully implemented a universal healthcare system, universal healthcare supporters are tarred as "communists" and are reminded "that's been tried and it didn't work." Logically flawed, but rhetorically effective, the association of social programs with communism has helped ensure that America's poor will be among the worst off in the industrialized world! So why not fight fire with fire? Anytime any politician or pundit talks about sending in our military to achieve some objective outside the scope of protecting American lives, call them a neo con. Say, "hey neo con, that idea's been tried before and it didn't work." I love it! Here is the article. http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/dear-roger-cohen-by-tristero-dear-roger.html