OK, I think I've figured it out. The Cheap Labor Conservatives, cheaplacons, are the Generals and civilian leaders of The Syndicate. The shadowy civilian leaders are the corporate elite and megawealthy investor class. These are the numero uno guys in the whole 'crew'.
The Neoconservatives, neocons, are the bulk of the officer corp. They take care of implementing actual cheaplacon decisions, and they handle most aspects of foreign policy the cheaplacons don't care about. So they handle things like the WoT and the CIA, but keep their mitts off of things like cheap labor issues, immigration control, trade policy with China, outsourcing, and so forth.
The Theocratic conservatives, theocons, AKA The Neo-Christian Right, are the foot soldiers. And like most foot soldiers they get fucked over, do most of the actual work while getting few of the benefits, and take most of the bullet wounds and bomb blasts. They're more or less expendable, because there are so many of them and as far as the cheaplacons are concerned, they're just common grunts.
George Bush, Karl Rove, and Dick Cheney are not neocons, they're senior cheaplacon Generals. Rummy, Wolfie, and Condi, are high ranking neocon officers. Falwell and Robertson are theocons, but they're examples of senior NCO's, unlike most of the theocon sandbags used by the cheaplacons and neocons.
It's all about money of course. And it all revolves around the Cheap Labor Conservatives. They score in one of three ways:
- Political contributions from the foot soldiers to keep the cheaplacons entrenched behind halls of power and inaccessible to the working classes. In a normal military heriarchy, the orders flow down, and that's about it. In this arrangement, the orders still flow down, but more importantly the money flows up, just like in a crime syndicate.
- Anything which reduces their overhead. Cutting benefits to workers, increasing outsourcing, looking the other way on illegal workers, reducing Federal Funding of public works. Social security is a big deal for them right now; prior to this point it had been a source of revenue, but it's about to turn into a source of expense, so it has to go.
- Transferring tax money from the working classes directly to the cheaplacons via tax scams. Both by cutting taxes, and by borrowing from foreigners with the loans secured against the future taxes of the working classes. This is has been a 'good earner' for the cheaplacons lately.
Again social security make sense to jettison at this point. It will soon turn into an expense as opposed to part of the tax scam which is/was enriching the rulers, whereas the Chinese are a long term necessity, because they fund the tax bait and switch con as well as directly impacting labor prices. Bush kind of let this
slip out accidentally the other day, when he implied that the US Government will not make good on it's Social Security Trust Fund Obligations , but sort of left it unsaid that the Chinese and other wealthy bondholders can rest assured that there's nothing that will threaten those interest and principle repayments.
The primary goals of the cheaplacons is to keep everyone on task; keeping the goodies flowing uphill to them; meaning to keep wages low, taxes low, expenses low, the theocons outraged and opening up their pocket books, and restrict or eliminate the social safety net. Basically, anything that translate into higher earnings, and political contributions to keep the electoral system primed with willing acolytes to benefit the cheaplacons.
The neocons are kept in line by making them a 'made man', sharing some choice trinkets, allowing them to pursue their foreign policy goals, giving them some real power and thus a real stake in the status quo, and that kind of thing. The neocons have a fairly free hand as long as they keep the cheaplacons interests above everyone else's.
The theocon enlisted ranks are kept in line by keeping them in a permanent state of extreme outrage and fear, together with internally enforced discipline, and thus keeping their political support blindly loyal and those contributions flowing up. Terry Schiavo, the WoT, The Liberal Plot To Destroy Christianity, stem cells, abortion, gay rights, God in the Pledge, it's all just part of that strategy to keep them pissed off and whipped into a fine, frothing, lather. The last thing the cheaplacons want to do is actually solve those issues or make serious progress on them. Because then the issue cools off and it's not as good for keeping the theocon foot soldiers so frenetic and terrified, that they can't think straight and figure out they're getting screwed. And of course the theocons are allowed to make believe they're really neocons or cheaplacons, or will be someday. And being a foot soldier beats being a peasant/victim any day.
At the state level the theocons actually do have some real influence. But if a theocon, or even a neocon, gets crossed up with a cheaplacon for any reason at any level, the cheaplacon will always win. It's Spades over Hearts over Clubs, everytime. Example: DeLay got crossed up with the cheaplacons, so now he's in hot water.
Bosses, Capos, Soldiers, and victims. Sound familiar? It's the same feudal arrangement once used in pretty much every nation, and also used in crime syndicates.