In recent political discussions with friends, relatives, and acquaintances, I keep hearing the question: what’s a “neoconservative”? It’s a new word to add to our vocabulary used to identify a particular group of political Corporatist elitists and their supporters. Neoconservatism (or neoconservativism, as it is also sometimes called) applies to a group of people, both here and abroad, who support and want to put into practice the economic doctrine and teachings of Milton Friedman while simultaneously supporting the ideology espoused by Irving Kristol. It’s spun off into a new ideology for sure, a progressive new twist on the age-old game of pursuing global domination and hierarchical power.
Neoconservatives claimed to originally be liberals who switched over to become conservatives (which explains the ‘neo’ prefix), calling themselves “liberals mugged by reality,” who advocate an aggressive unilateralist vision of U.S. global supremacy, which includes a close strategic alliance with Israel. The words they use to describe themselves aren’t actually what’s relevant since they go by so many seemingly conflicting descriptions, such as neoliberal, transnational progressive, and neocon.
Merriam Webster defines Corporatism as: The organization of a society into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political representation and exercising control over persons and activities within their jurisdiction.
According to The Daily Banter:
Neoliberalism seeks to absolve everyone of their responsibilities to our fellow human beings. Friedman once said, “What you should do, in my opinion, is to give every person who now has a claim on Social Security bonds equal to the value of his claim, and set him free. Let him save. Let him do what he wants with it.”
When asked how he would stop people making bad investment decisions, the esteemed economist replied, “I don’t! Why should I?”
And that sums up the neo conservative view of people. Why should anyone care if a family made a bad investment decision and is out on the streets? Why should anyone care whether a poor child has a decent education? To Friedman and his minions, this is ‘real freedom’.
To people of conscience, this is barbaric.
**Note that “neoliberalism” and “neoconservatism” are used interchangeably in this context. In the U.S., they’re called neocons, but in other nations they’re referred to as neoliberals, strangely enough. Why is this? Well, to quote Wikipedia:
“Strictly in the context of English-language usage the term [neoliberal] is a syllabic abbreviation of “neoclassical liberalism“, since in other languages “liberalism”, minus any modifier such as “social” (as in social liberalism), has more or less retained its classical meaning.”
“Classical liberalism is not to be confused with the ideology that is commonly called “liberalism” today in the United States, as “classical liberalism” is closer to what today is a claimed current of conservatism in the U.S.”
Ah-ha! Right? Classical liberalism refers to modern day conservatism in this country. This is confusing, right? I thought so too. And I’m sure it is for plenty of people, thinking that these neoliberals society speaks of are leftists or Progressives, which simply isn’t true. Both terms refer to what we commonly think of as conservatives, many of whom belong to a political party experiencing a sharp shift to the right currently.
THEN William Kristol confuses the issue further, by threatening to abandon the right-wing to return to the left-wing (liberals, as he called them) in order to further the neoconservative agenda under the new label of “neoliberalism.”
What all of this essentially means is this new movement is NOT bound by any particular political party or labels, has no loyalty to conservatives or liberals in the U.S., and is willing to shift alliances whenever necessary if it will allow them to stay the course of occupying Iraq and other foreign nations. Pat Buchanan shares Kristol’s words from 2004:
“If we have to make common cause with the more hawkish liberals and fight the conservatives, that is fine with me,” William Kristol has told the New York Times.
The Weekly Standard editor added that the neoconservatives may just abandon the Right altogether and convert to neoliberalism.
Alluding to his father Irving’s definition of a neoconservative as a liberal who has been mugged by reality, Kristol describes a neoliberal as a “neoconservative who has been mugged by reality in Iraq.”
Ranking his political preferences, Kristol added, “I will take Bush over Kerry, but Kerry over Buchanan … If you read the last few issues of the Weekly Standard, it has as much or more in common with the liberal hawks than with traditional conservatives.”
The problem with that sort of…what do you even call it? Doubletalk? We’ll call it doubletalk for all intent and purposes here. The problem with this sort of double-talk is it confuses average people by giving the impression it’s referring to two separate groups. Liberals and conservatives are thought of as opposed to one another (according to some folks anyway). But in this context, they’re not. In fact, depending on who the author is, neoliberal may refer to people we commonly think of as politically conservative or it may only apply to the more extreme faction and be treated as synonymous with neoconservative. Weird, huh? Hard to keep your eye on the ball when the rules change mid-game and the terms you’re familiar with suddenly mean something else.
According to Pat Buchanan:
“In times like this, character comes through. By turning on the men they persuaded to go to war, by fabricating alibis and inventing excuses to absolve themselves of culpability for what they labored to create, they have revealed themselves [as neoconservatives] for what they are: hustlers and opportunists devoid of principle, driven by an ideology of power and a passionate attachment to a nation not their own.”
I’ll add more to this post over time…
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