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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (217223)	2/4/2005 10:05:27 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572361

The neo-cons are a bit more diverse and less mono-lithic than that. Neo-cons in general are not followers of Strauss, he had an influence but he isn't some giant who all the neo-cons bow to or someone who's ideas they all slavishly follow. "Intellectually, neoconservatives have been strongly influenced by a diverse range of thinkers from Max Shachtman 's strongly anti-Soviet version of Trotskyism (in the area of international policy) to the elitist, ostensibly neo-Platonic ideas of Leo Strauss." "The original "neoconservative" theorists, such as Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, were often associated with the magazine Commentary, and their intellectual evolution is quite evident in that magazine over the course of these years. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s the early neoconservatives were anti-Communist socialists strongly supportive of the civil rights movement, integration, and Martin Luther King. However, they grew disillusioned with the Johnson administration's Great Society. Some neoconservatives also came to despise the counterculture of the 1960s and what they felt was a growing "anti-Americanism" among many baby boomers, in the movement against the Vietnam War and in the emerging New Left. According to Irving Kristol, former managing editor of Commentary and now a Senior Fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington and the Publisher of the hawkish magazine The National Interest, a neoconservative is a "liberal mugged by reality." Broadly sympathetic to Woodrow Wilson's idealistic goals to spread American ideals of government, economics, and culture abroad, they grew to reject his reliance on international organizations and treaties to accomplish these objectives." "The term was coined by socialist Michael Harrington, who wanted a way to characterize former leftists who had moved significantly to the right – people he had been deriding as "socialists for Nixon." Many of the men and women to whom the neoconservative label is applied reject it as artificial and too abstract. The fact that its use has rapidly risen since the 2003 Iraq War is cited by conservatives as proof that the term is largely irrelevant in the long term. David Horowitz, a purported leading neo-con thinker offered this critique in a recent interview with an Italian newspaper: Neo-conservatism is a term almost exclusively used by the enemies of America's liberation of Iraq. There is no "neo-conservative" movement in the United States. When there was one, it was made up of former Democrats who embraced the welfare state but supported Ronald Reagan's Cold War policies against the Soviet bloc. Today neo-conservatism identifies those who believe in an aggressive policy against radical Islam and the global terrorists. Similarly, many other supposed neoconservatives believe that the term has been adopted by the political left to stereotype supporters of U.S. foreign policy under the George W. Bush administration. Others have similarly likened descriptions of neoconservatism to a conspiracy theory and attribute the term to anti-Semitism. Paul Wolfowitz has denounced the term as meaningless label, saying: [If] you read the Middle Eastern press, it seems to be a euphemism for some kind of nefarious Zionist conspiracy. But I think that, in my view it's very important to approach [foreign policy] not from a doctrinal point of view. I think almost every case I know is different. Indonesia is different from the Philippines. Iraq is different from Indonesia. I think there are certain principles that I believe are American principles – both realism and idealism. I guess I'd like to call myself a democratic realist. I don't know if that makes me a neo-conservative or not. Other "traditional" conservatives (e.g., Jonah Goldberg) have rejected the label as trite and over-used, arguing "There's nothing 'neo' about me: I was never anything other than conservative." Other critics have similarly argued the term has been rendered meaningless through excessive and inconsistent use. For example, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are often identified as leading "neocons" despite the fact that both men have been life-long conservative Republicans. Such critics thus largely reject the claim that there is a neoconservative movement separate from traditional American conservatism. Other traditional conservatives are likewise skeptical of the contemporary usage term, and may dislike being associated with the stereotypes, or even the supposed agendas of the "neocons." Conservative columnist David Harsanyi wrote, "These days, it seems that even temperate support for military action against dictators and terrorists qualifies you a neocon." On the other hand, some of those identified as neoconservatives embrace the term. For example, Irving Kristol (who once famously defined a "neoconservative" as "a liberal who got mugged by reality") published a collection of his essays under the tile Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea (paperback ISBN 1566632285, hardcover ISBN 0028740211). Use of the term enables neoconservatives to distinguish themselves from conservatives when they find it advantageous to do so. In addition, neoconservatives who were once leftists can soften the implication that they have "defected" to the side they once opposed." en.wikipedia.org see also opinionjournal.com