What is a 'Neo-Con' and why are they dangerous?

[OutsourceBush]

We hear the term 'Neo-Con' used frequently in the media by both Republicans and Democrats to describe the Bush administration, but what does it mean?

[stepnw1f]

1. Fascism (nt)

[Lone_Wolf]

5. Yes.. Fascism

A distinct American form of Fascism

[reprehensor]

2. Here's a good intro.

Neo-conned!

[teach1st]

3. Project for The New American Century

http://www.newamericancentury.org/

This is from a previous post on DU:

What is a neoconservative? The Christian Science Monitor has an excellent introduction:

Neocon 101
Some basic questions answered.
What do neoconservatives believe?

"Neocons" believe that the United States should not be ashamed to use its unrivaled power - forcefully if necessary - to promote its values around the world. Some even speak of the need to cultivate a US empire. Neoconservatives believe modern threats facing the US can no longer be reliably contained and therefore must be prevented, sometimes through preemptive military action.

Most neocons believe that the US has allowed dangers to gather by not spending enough on defense and not confronting threats aggressively enough. One such threat, they contend, was Saddam Hussein and his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Since the 1991 Gulf War, neocons relentlessly advocated Mr. Hussein's ouster.

http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/neocon101.html

Are you a newoconservative? Take the quiz:

http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/quiz/neoconQui...

[RichardRay]

4. Reasonably fair definition at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism_(United_States)">Wikipedia definition

[Postman]

6. Neo-conservative (i.e. new conservative), fascist.

check out Project For A New American Century (PNAC)

http://www.newamericancentury.org/

[Malachi5]

7. Neo-Con-artists

Neo-Con is short for neoconservative ("new" conservative) who are the group of right-wing whack-jobs in the White House who concocted the plan to attack Iraq at all costs. Paul Wolfowitz is probably the most dangerous neocon in the country today. It was his hypothesis that you could just sprinkle freedom dust all over the middle east yet failed to realize that you can't export democracy on smart bombs.

[NecessaryOnslaught]

13. Freedom dust.

Does that have properties similar to depleted uranium?

Welcome to du :hi:

[jody]

8. NEOCON 101 at

http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/neocon101.html

[OutsourceBush]

11. That link seems to be a very sanitized version to me...

[whosinpower]

9. Simply put

Ideology trumps reality in the life of a neoconservative.

Their ideology of transforming Iraq into a market driven free economy that would be a shining example in the middle east of capitalism at its finest.

The reality is far far different.

This is where John Kerry earns more points for stating the obvious - Bushco. refuses to realize what is really happening - why the insurgency is growing - why it was such a grave error to fire the entire Iraq army - why it was such a grave error NOT to safeguard known munitions dumps - why it was such a grave error to allow the Abu Ghraib torture to occur. Why there aren't more nations and corporations eager to participate in the looting of Iraq......

Read up on PNAC AND read up on some of Bremer's declarations regarding Iraq. One small example - farmers in Iraq are no longer allowed to keep a portion of their crops to plant the next year. That is now illegal under a Bremer declaration that all crops must be protected by genetic copyrights......

[ixion]

10. neocons are

corporate theocratists that seek to push Pax Americana (American hegemony) on the rest of the world. They are facists by definition, and dangerous because they are zealots, and like any zealot, the will lie, cheat, steal and murder to try and realize their twisted vision.

[AntiFascist]

12. "Hijacking Catastrophe" shed some light for me....

wherein it points out that the ideological roots of neoconservatism began at the end of the Cold War when neocons felt that we then had the opportunity to conquer and Americanize the rest of the world. This started with the Gulf War and Bush I's plans for a New World Order. Combine this with the current Judeo-Christian fundamentalist craze and peak oil theories and you have something truly cataclysmic.

[Sporadicus]

14. Here's a Good Thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=110&topic_id=80

and since the archives are temporarily unavailable, here's a compilation from DUer LunaC that I posted at e-thepeople.org:

http://www.e-thepeople.org/comment/176772/view?viewtype=best

and a good Christian Science Monitor article:

http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/spheresInfluence.html

[HamdenRice]

15. The original version and the pop culture version

Outsource,

You are going to get a lot of different answers to your questions, because the term has been thrown around so much to describe so many members of the bush administration, that the term is losing all meaning. Strictly speaking, Paul Wolfowitz is a neo-con, but Don Rumsfeld isn't; Richard Perle is a neo-con but Condi Rice isn't. Now the term has been so broadened that almost anyone associated with the admin is called a neo-con.

Originally, neo-conservative refered to surprisingly small group of mostly New York based intellectuals. They were "neo" or new conservatives, because many of them had been liberal or even radical or Marxist at one time. Neo-con as a movement really got its start when certain leftist and liberal intellectuals became really disappointed and disgusted with the new left of the 1960s and moved to the right. Many of them switched from the Democratic Party to the repug party at that time -- especially with the election of Ronald Reagan. Because many, but not most, of these people moving to gether to the right were Jewish intellectuals, two foreign policy issues were very important to them: confronting the Soviet Union over its treatment of both Soviet Jews and eastern Europeans, and the existence of Israel.

Not all neo-cons of course were Jewish. But almost all tended to be, what were called in the 1970s "white ethnic." Zbigniew Brezinski, as a Polish immigrant, concerned with Soviet domination of Eastern Europe was a neo-con; so was Irish American democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan. One thing they had in common with the broader "white ethnic" demographic was that as liberalism took up the problems of people of color and integration, this threatened both white ethinic segregated neighborhoods and white ethnic political control of democratic cities. So there is an anti-Black, anti-Latin, anti-feminist backlash aspect of neo-con. Its as though they were saying the left was more fun when it was concerned with color blind economic issues and "we white guys" (not me personally of course) were in control.

In international relations they were a continuation of "cold war liberalism", really the liberalism of JFK -- being aggressive about confronting the Soviets all over the world, both with American power and with unapologetic export of American values of democracy and capitalism. Strong support of Israel as the only country in the middle east that purported to embody American values; a refusal to accept the special problems of newly decolonized countries in the third world and a skepticism about their demands and hence of the UN which reflected their majority status in the General Assembly.

Most of the original neo cons were not as bad as the current crop. In fact, most of the neo cons today are the children of the original neo cons: William Kristol is the son of founding neo con Irving Kristol. Elliot Abrams is the son-in-law of founding neo cons Midge Decter and Norman Podheretz. The children seem to have none of the mixed feelings about liberalism of the parents, and are just ruthless in pursuit of American empire for its own sake.

[sweetheart]

16. new conservatives destroy government and empires

Bush has dismantled the post ww2 consensus and the USA empire in
such a short time. That is a neocon, a sort of perverted anti
imperialist. I just wonder whether it is deliberate or cynical.