NeoCons Are....

[Me.]

Lately the term neocon has been bandied about. In the last week DUers and Obama have been branded as such. Below is a definition of what neoconservatism actually. Additionally there is a list of the signers of the PNAC, the bigwigs of the neocon movement. These are who the neocons are and what they believe.

“ Neoconservatism is a political philosophy that emerged in the United States from the rejection of social liberalism and the New Left counterculture of the 1960s. It influenced the Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and the George W. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservative

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&channel=s&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=Dbq&defl=en&q=define:neoconservative&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

“Neoconservatism is a political philosophy that emerged in the United States. Their key distinction is in international affairs, where they espouse an interventionist approach that seeks to defend national interests, and are nationalists
The term neoconservative was originally used as a criticism against liberals who had "moved to the right".<1><2> Michael Harrington, a democratic socialist, coined the usage of neoconservative in a 1973 Dissent magazine article concerning welfare policy.<3> 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."<4>

The first major neoconservative to embrace the term and considered its founder is Irving Kristol, father of William Kristol, who would become the founder of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, and wrote of his neoconservative views in the 1979 article "Confessions of a True, Self-Confessed 'Neoconservative.'"<1> Kristol's ideas had been influential since the 1950s, when he co-founded and edited Encounter magazine.<5> Another source was Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary magazine from 1960 to 1995. By 1982 Podhoretz was calling himself a neoconservative, in a New York Times Magazine article titled "The Neoconservative Anguish over Reagan's Foreign Policy".<6><7>

Prominent neoconservative periodicals are Commentary and The Weekly Standard. Neoconservatives are associated with foreign policy initiatives of think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), The Heritage Foundation, and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA).

It is alleged that neoconservative influence on American foreign policy became central with the Bush Doctrine.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservative

Persons associated with the PNAC

Project directors



* William Kristol, Co-founder and Chairman
* Robert Kagan,Co-founder
* Bruce P. Jackson
* Mark Gerson
* Randy Scheunemann

Project staff

* Ellen Bork, Deputy Director
* Gary Schmitt, Senior Fellow
* Thomas Donnelly, Senior Fellow
* Reuel Marc Gerecht, Senior Fellow
* Mitch Jackson, Senior Fellow
* Timothy Lehmann, Assistant Director
* Michael Goldfarb, Research Associate

Former directors and staff

* Daniel McKivergan, Deputy Director

Signatories to Statement of Principles

* Elliott Abrams
* Gary Bauer
* William J. Bennett
* John Ellis "Jeb" Bush
* Richard B. Cheney
* Eliot A. Cohen
* Midge Decter
* Paula Dobriansky
* Steve Forbes
* Aaron Friedberg
* Francis Fukuyama
* Frank Gaffney
* Fred C. Ikle
* Donald Kagan
* Zalmay Khalilzad
* I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby
* Norman Podhoretz
* J. Danforth Quayle
* Peter W. Rodman
* Stephen P. Rosen
* Henry S. Rowen'
* Donald Rumsfeld
* Vin Weber
* George Weigel
* Paul Wolfowitz

* Zalmay Khalilzad
* Jeane Kirkpatrick
* Charles Krauthammer
* William Kristol
* John Lehman
* I. Lewis Libby
* Tod Lindberg
* Rich Lowry
* Clifford May
* John McCain
* Joshua Muravchik
* Michael O'Hanlon
* Martin Peretz
* Richard Perle
* Daniel Pipes
* Norman Podhoretz
* Peter W. Rodman
* Stephen P. Rosen
* Donald Rumsfeld
* Randy Scheunemann
* Gary Schmitt
* William Schneider, Jr.
* Richard H. Shultz
* Henry Sokolski
* Stephen J. Solarz
* Vin Weber
* Leon Wieseltier
* Marshall Wittmann
* Paul Wolfowitz
* R. James Woolsey
* Dov Zakheim
* Robert B. Zoellick\

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

[mmonk]

1. One problem with the definition. This part:

"Their key distinction is in international affairs, where they espouse an interventionist approach that seeks to defend national interests, and are nationalists"

The interests cited should be corporate interests.

[Me.]

2. I Agree

The definition needs to be pulled forward to what the situation is now. Did you note John McCain's name on the list of signatories?

[mmonk]

3. Not at first glance.

I wonder if Palin will be a smoke screen?

[Me.]

9. I Have No Doubt Of That

Especially when you read the tale of how she came to be chosen. Lowry & Kristol, both signers, pushed for her selection. They were quoted as saying she could be molded. Frankly, I think they still hold out hope for that. And then there was the guy who prepped her for the debates and was said to be one of her closest confidantes, Randy Scheuneman, another signer, who was eventually fired by McCain for spreading dissent within his campaign.

[H2O Man]

4. Thank you.

There will be attempts to appeal to emotions, rather than rational thought. An obvious example is when someone says that President-elect Obama is siding with "the neocons," or picking "neocons" for his administration. The hope is that people will instinctively say, "Neocons? They are bad. Therefore, Obama must be doing something bad. Very bad."

Always beware of attempts to inflame passions. Remember the words of Ben Franklin: "When passions drive, let reason hold the reins."

The reason that we are in a war of occupation in Iraq is because of the neoconservative ideology. They had advocated a wider war in Iraq since the end of the Gulf War. Neoconservatives in the Bush administration were responsible for the Plame scandal, and the Franklin/AIPAC espionage scandal. While the neoconservatives have changed, and include a broader group of individuals than when the movement started in 1967, they are still a distinct group. None are to be found among the people connected to the Barack Obama-Joseph Biden campaign or upcoming administration.

Nominated.

[mmonk]

5. I might add that Barack Obama is not only not an neocon,

he isn't even a DLC Democrat. The controversy within the party is the similarity in geopolitical view and approach between the PPI with the PNAC.

[Me.]

7. It Was Rather Shocking

That claims such as DUer are neocons could be put forth with the idea that they would be substantially accepted. If there is any group that has been on the look-out for the neos, and their influence, it is the folks on DU. I know you remember the threads with the lengthy discussions about the group and their ideology. Such informative threads are rare these days. Also there was great suspicion that they may have had something to do with 9/11 because they believed it would 'take another Pearl Harbor' to open the door to enacting their policies.

[mmonk]

8. Their claim they needed another Pearl Harbor for their policies to be accepted occurred.

So naturally speculation began. But we must not relegate this thread to the 9/11 dungeon.

[Me.]

11. Fingers Crossed

I mention it only in context of DU having been on neocon watch for years and if anyone saw through their BS nonsense that got us into the Iraq was, it was the good people of DU.

[mmonk]

15. Indeed DU has had its eyes open on those clowns.

[mmonk]

12. Here are the problems relating to why there is some confusion.

This from a conservative site:
-snip-
The neoconservative leanings of the PPI are also evident in the writings of "Progressive Internationalism" contributing authors. In a March 9, 2004 essay for PPI, Asmus and McFaul asserted that "a bipartisan consensus is emerging in America about the need to bring greater freedom and democracy to the Greater Middle East." Having signed on to the neocon agenda of invading Iraq, based on false claims about Iraq's stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, the liberal hawks after the invasion also became among the most vocal advocates of the regional political restructuring plans of such neocon institutes as the American Enterprise Institute and PNAC. Asmus and McFaul call for a tenfold budget increase for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a quasi-governmental "democracy-promotion" institute that was established as a neoconservative political project in 1983. Despite their proposal that Middle Easterners themselves take charge of the region's democratization and restructuring, Asmus and McFaul proposed that NED work closely with business and labor in the political project of overhauling the greater Middle East, arguing that "nothing would set back the democratic cause in the region more than a premature American disengagement from Iraq, where a critical democratic transition is now underway" (PPI, March 9, 2004).

-snip-

PPI's parent organization, the Third Way Foundation, an umbrella group of the New Democrats in the DLC, describes itself as a nonprofit corporation. Between 2000 and 2002, the foundation received $225,000 from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation (a top right-wing foundation), according to data collected by Media Transparency.

-snip-

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1534.html

Letting the PPI speak for itself

http://www.ppionline.org/

This assessment from CommonDreams

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0522-10.htm


But it all doesn't matter as long as Obama remains his own man. Nor do assertions of others. There may have been some shifting in opinion from the PPI as well. I will share an article I like concerning the geopolitical environment from my last issue of Foreign Affairs (published by the CFR) soon on someone's idea of what Obama should do. It was very good.

[Me.]

13. The Global Economic Disaster

Is taking a lot of the wind out of groups like the 3rd way

[mmonk]

14. Indeed it is. The thing about economic disasters is they tend

to sharpen focus back to domestic prosperity and away from grander aspirations.

[Soylent Brice]

6. doosh bags

:shrug:

[iamthebandfanman]

10. people on DU have been calling others neo-cons?

i musta missed those threads.

and are you sure they werent suggesting people are ACTING like neo-cons, not actually a neo-con?


nobody on DU is a neo-con, cept the freepers who lurk about. lol.

heck, if there are any conservatives on DU , they are the physical kind... which i think we can all agree is the best kind ;)
hehe