My purpose was to challenge those who claim that, because Reagan shared the same views on foreign policy as neo-cons, he was one of their own. Any Freeper who voted for Reagan in the 1976 Presidential primary against Gerald Ford (as I did), at a time when neo-cons supported Scoop Jackson in the Democrat Primary, can tell you with certainty that Reagan was never a neo-con.
Another point I made in that discussion thread that was hotly disputed, is the fact that Leon Trotsky, the communist founder of the Red Army, is the intellectual godfather of many of the older neo-conservatives. Most younger neo-cons dispute this fact, because they are ignorant of the historical heritage of the neo-conservative movement. In fact, younger neo-cons are not well read, and simply assume neo-con is the ideological middle-ground between a liberal and a conservative. And because they themselves were never communists (unlike the older neo-cons) they deny that neo-conservatism had its origins in Trotskyite communism.
Steven Schwartz is a neo-con scholar, who provides proof of the intellectual linkage between neo-conservatism and Leon Trotsky. He is one of the few neo-cons around today, who dares to admit that he admires Trotsky.
The closest that whole NRO discussion of last week came to "linking" Trotsky to "neo-cons", besides name-dropping and anecdotal cases of personal conversions, was to say this:
Neo-cons aren't pacifists, just like Trotsky. (You don't say?)
This is a laughable pillar on which to base any kind of "linkage", of course. Apparently all non-pacifists after the 1930s are closet Trotskyists? If there's something more, er, substantial about this supposed linkage, I'd love to hear it.
The closest that whole NRO discussion of last week came to "linking" Trotsky to "neo-cons", besides name-dropping and anecdotal cases of personal conversions, was to say this:
Neo-cons aren't pacifists, just like Trotsky. (You don't say?)
This is a laughable pillar on which to base any kind of "linkage", of course. Apparently all non-pacifists after the 1930s are closet Trotskyists? If there's something more, er, substantial about this supposed linkage, I'd love to hear it.
Some Trotskyists rejected Communism (and Trotsky) to become conservatives. That does not constitute intellectual linkage unless you can drag Trotskyite concepts out of new-conservatism. Which I think you would find pretty hard to do.
BTW, neocon is a term very few of these people have consistently applied to themselves.
Some Trotskyists rejected Communism (and Trotsky) to become conservatives. That does not constitute intellectual linkage unless you can drag Trotskyite concepts out of new-conservatism. Which I think you would find pretty hard to do.
BTW, neocon is a term very few of these people have consistently applied to themselves.
Add another key word:
JEWS!!!!
You force me to post a link to my STEPHEN SCHWARTZ'S STENCH
What is a modern Trotskyist, I mean what do they take away from this 20s origin movement? World wide revolution but no longer for communism but for democratic socialism -- sort of like big govt. that does not act like big govt. -- cyrpto-socialist state (I just coined that copyright pending).
I think the Trotskyist's fear nationalism. They hate ideas of borders-an evolution from the slogan "workers of the world unite" to maybe something like "citizens of the world unite." Citizens that are uni-racial, uni-cultural, uni-you name it. In other words it is the elimination of all things that make humans conflict with each other. To do so you need a strong hand to smash people into place when they don't act homogenized. That is why the laughable pronouncements that Iraq, after the war would somehow transform itself to a selfless democracy.
That is the key I think to understanding neocons--their ideal for selfless actions as a policy guide, which itself is of socialist origin. I know it sounds decent and even Christian, but what motivates people is selfish interests. The same selfish interests that guide Adam Smith's invisible hand of capitalism also guides our democracy.
Being selfish in your own self interest seems not to be a good policy taken individually but applied on a mass scale it is the only system that works. Neocon policy is to IGNORE national self-interest, Sure they may dress up policy in patriotic terms-being that they are also Plato-Straussians (lie to the people for their own good and let the elite govern)- but their actions are geared to one thing--the elimination of nations - of borders-and thus conflict. Yes, some are Jews-because a philosophy geared to the elimination of conflict based on ethnic or religious status would appeal to many Jews. The fear of the return of a nationalist fueled monster like Hitler animates the nightmares of the neocons. You see it in how they call all their enemies "Hitlers". Milosevic is Hitler, Saddam is Hitler, Osama is Hitler. Hell all that that Mad-Cow Albright did was talk about Munich's lessons as her justification for her policies in the Balkans against Serbia. Bill Clinton stated that WW2 began in the Balkans on national television-talk about neocon Freudian slips! (Poland by the way is nowhere near the Balkans).
Neocons, also betray their roots in how they attack those against them-calling them traitors, putting them on the defensive, etc. These denounciation tactics are a legacy of the leftists.
What distinguishes Trotskyites is a belief in that absurd concept that Trotsky had of instantaneous proletariat revolution. Trotsky believed that the working class would engage in a spontaneous revolution once it determined it's class interest. A concept directly at odds with that of Lenin and yes Stalin's concept of the necessity of a revolutionary vanguard made up of professionals leading the proletariat who is incapable of knowing it's class interest. The Trotskyite position was closer to that of Bakunin and the anarchists.
That Trotsky must share in the crimes committed by Lenin during the evolutionary phase from 1917 on-wards there is no doubt and it is naive to absolve him from such crimes in which in excess of a million people died.
That someone is an ex something or order does not make one something in the present tense unless he has committed a crime. In which case, a murderer is always a murderer but an ex-democrat or liberal (much like Reagan) remains an ex unless he digresses and falls off the wagon.
Since I was once (late 70's-early '80's) in the Socialist Workers Party, arguably the "first" Trotkyist party in the USA and a fraternal mamber of the Fourth International, I can relate to much of this discussion.
I still harken back to the Churchill quote: "To be conservative at 20 is heartless and to be a liberal at 60 is plain idiocy. "
Bump for relevance.