Neocons = America's Soviets

[drumwolf]

In a response on another thread, a poster named Charlie made a great analogy. He talked about how America is currently engaged in:

Soviet-style first-class funding for military might and state-protected monopolies, and fourth-class funding for research, innovation, and social infrastructure.

You know, conservatives like to attack liberals for comparing Bush to Hitler, and even many of us would certainly agree that comparing Bush (or anyone else, for that matter) to Hitler is, at best, facile and very tired and cliched hyperbole, if not outright silly.

So why don't we start comparing the neocons (and fundies too -- they are essentially religious neocons) to the Soviets instead of the Nazis? I think the analogy is just as appropriate.

For one thing, American neocons have their own entire propaganda machine that would have put Pravda to shame. And the way the neocons twist and abuse language to their ends ("freedom", "democracy") rivals that of the Soviets ("comrade", "workers' paradise", "people's republic", "anti-fascist").

And I find it ironic that for so long it's the liberals who have traditionally been labeled as "communists," while it's actually the neocons who are acting like the Soviets.

[fearnobush]

1. Chimpy boy and the supply side Fundies hate freedom.

Bush loathes freedom, he hates the electoral process, thus stolen elections, corruption and hate.

The fundies despise all and everything outside their sphere of belief. That is why it only took 6000 years to create the Grand Canyon. And why the dinosaurs were really Jesus Horses.

[cliss]

2. Maybe they are Soviets.

I'm saying this in all sincerity. I happen to believe in reincarnation, and from what I've read and seen, they seem amazingly similar to some leaders who have come and gone.

Actually, they remind me more of the Nazis. Our current administration has used symbolism and wordsmithing which is uncannily similar to them. When I started looking into it, I thought, wow, did they take lessons from these guys? And they very well could have, just by reading their tactics. It's all in the history books.

So -- a mere 100 years later: here we have the richest country in the world, ripe for the taking by newly reincarnated Soviets or Nazis. An internal coup. The Americans are very distracted by tending to their enormous wealth, so it happened. These guys moved in, and now we're stuck with the mess.

I've read that communism is in fact a very materialistic ideology, and these people certainly do fit the bill.

[sjgman9]

15. Look at the history of their ideology

Wasnt the elder Kristol a stalinist from NYC?
Arent some of these guys descended from Trotsky?

Damn commie NeoCons

[ixion]

3. the analogy is accurate

they are acting like the soviets, who were actually facists, not communists. Actually, there has never been a truly communist government. Only governments that have sought to control their populations. That said, though, your analogy is entirely accurate. They are seeking to install a corporate theocracy, which is a police state by any other name.

[russian33]

4. as someone who lived there...

...i have to disagree...the difference between these people and the government of USSR (is Soviets even a word?), is they invested in such things as research, education, health care, the elderly...education was free, and it was one of the best in the world, health care was free, and it was good healthcare...USSR was very anti-religious, where as these morons do everything in the name of God.

I'm not defending the ways of USSR, because I lived the good ways and of course the many bad ways, and of course in many ways USSR and USA of today are very similar (take the propaganda for example).

But I still don't think they have that many similar traits.

[SpaceCatMeetsMars]

5. Bush, Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the neocons

seem to have a resemblance to the Soviet leaders in that they are an insular group that puts ideology before facts or reality. They could have carried out Iraq differently, for example, and listened to the military, intelligence, Powell and the State Department, Bush Sr's advisors, the other countries, etc., but they ignored EVERBODY for their own fantasies and phony intelligence.

The Soviets put ideology before facts and reality and science and the country ended up being backwards.

[kalian]

6. Nazis are much more appropriate...but then again....

when you reach the extremes of the political spectrum....they start
resembling each other. The word is: totalitarianism.

[gayrebel83]

7. If you're going to compare conservatives

to a totalitarian regime, I'd compare them to the Nazis before I would the Soviets. At least the USSR tried to keep people fed while oppressing them ;)

Though I am hesitant to compare ANYONE to Nazis because I feel, on some level, like it's disrespectful to those who suffered under their regime. Bush, for all he's done wrong, has not systematically targeted people of color, gays, the disabled, or anyone else for extermination. You CAN say that for him, though it's one of the few things you can say...

[ixion]

8. hasn't targeted them YET for extermination

but if dominionism is implemented as they wish, that won't be far off.

Don't give the neocons any credit. Anyone who isn't 'one of them' should just as soon be dead, in their opinion.

[gayrebel83]

9. Well, I do consider it a well-founded fear...

that Bush & Co. will take political prisoners if allowed to go too far. After the Patriot Act, that does not seem far-fetched in the least.

At the same time, I am not going to call someone something that he/she is not, and at this point, I still do not find the administration comparable to the Nazis. Not to say that's not a future possibility, but presently, no.

[drumwolf]

11. I don't think they're like the Nazis in that respect.

The Nazis believed in using the power of the state to ACTIVELY weed out what they considered to be humanity's dregs. The neocons would be more inclined to do so using a passive social-Darwinist approach, i.e. cutting off any and all public-sector assistance or protection to the poor, handicapped, etc.

No matter how much anyone thinks the neocons do genuinely resemble the Nazis -- and yes, even I do concede there are some parallels -- one reason I'm reluctant to do so, and why I'd much rather find other tyrannical regimes to compare the neocons to, is simply because comparing ANYONE to the Nazis has long been a very facile, cliched and now extremely TIRED thing to do, to the point where it's lost its power. I'm sure most of you know Godwin's Law, in which an Internet thread ceases and someone loses an argument when s/he drags out a Hitler comparison.

And even within the "neocons = fascists" meme, I've heard some people say that Mussolini's Fascist Italy is a better comparison to the neocons than Hitler's Nazi Germany.

[ixion]

12. for those who think the neocons will not practice social 'cleansing'

You need to read this article:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x34888


Just because these fanatics haven't done it yet, doesn't mean that they don't intend to start, if given the opportunity.

[amber dog democrat]

10. Its about monopoly, power and authority

but I don't think we are in a totolitarian situation yet.
Maybe in time, who knows? I NEVER say it can't happen here.
I have no doubt if there were no restraints on the Chimp, people would start to disappear never to be heard of again...

[eventual]

13. As far as ideology is concerned...

Greetings all, I am new here, and I have been reading lots of disturbing things as of late, but thing that truly horrifies me the most about the neocons is that they are fundamentally altering the definitions of words like 'democracy', and 'freedom.' Democracy as I understand it to be as translated by the BushCo. actions means legislating violations of basic human rights to favor the laissez faire attitude of corpulently wealthy CEOs(bedfellows). Freedom to be translated as "the freedom to do what I want to whom I want, where I want, when I want, with immunity and impunity." Oh and.."the freedom to sell what I want to whom i want at whatever prices I care to sell them at, while maintaining the capitalist morality of keeping labor costs at a minimum." I have noticed as of late, and perhaps this is just a new phenomenon of ten years or so, but conservatives HATE the very idea of liberal, which to me seems to be founded in the idea of liberty, one of the main rallying points for our forefathers to create this country. "Liberal" is literally spit from the mouths of neocons as though they had just swallowed a cockroach.
These neocons are clever with their Goebbels like strategy of propaganda, but they resemble the Castro's Cuba in terms of tolerance to civil disobedience or, (god forbid!) dissent! (gasp!) The PATRIOT II wants to make it easier for unwarranted search and seizure, as well as using the police force for terrorist security as well as I am sure that odious TIPS thing that Ashcroft touted sounds like one of Castro's "listeners" who could be your next door neighbor, although the system is constantly revolving, and no one knows who is an informer. Seriously, they don't even seem American at all, more like a new terrifying hybrid of a shark and hyena.

[asteroid2003QQ47]

14. Comparing America’s neocons and fundies to Hitler might be inappropriate..

"Hitler's concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America's extermination - by starvation and uneven combat - of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity."

"Adolph Hitler" by John Toland, P. 202

http://web.edcc.edu/anthr210/genocide.html
(link might no longer work, couldn’t get it to open)