For those who wish for more clarity on the different ideological factions within the right wing, here is an article I wrote for our local
Peaceworks Monitor, which focuses on the political spectrum. For many kos readers this may be fairly elementary, but I welcome any feedback from fellow kos-sacks on this, and whether or not you find this diary useful or just taking up space.
The entire issue of our newsletter can be found here http://peaceworks.missouri.org/monitor/2005/fall/4.html
The article on the neo-cons and paleo-cons is in the extended entry...
Neo-cons, Paleo-cons and Other Cons
When the words "liberal" and "conservative"
are used in contemporary discourse, they often
oversimplify varying political ideologies and fail to discern differences within categories. Take for instance the word "conservative." If we hear someone described as conservative, most people will almost automatically assume that person supports President Bush and the War on Iraq. Yet, a significant segment of conservatives do not support Bush's foreign policy and in fact are at odds with the administration in Washington.
While there are many different forms of conservatism, perhaps the most significant rift in American conservatism today is between traditional paleo-conservatives and modern neo-conservatives.
With regard to Iraq policy, the paleo-conservatives generally oppose the Bush administration, while neo-cons are supportive.
Ironically, many neo-conservatives trace their intellectual lineage to members of the Old Left
rather than the political right. The early neo-cons were either anti-communist liberals with a deepseated antipathy for Stalinism and the Soviet system, or they were former left-wing Trotskyites.
The neo-conservative movement actually originated in the 1960s and 1970s from the pro-interventionist wing of the Democratic Party. Many neo-conservatives were Jewish intellectuals who, while socially liberal, grew disillusioned with the student left and with Democrats such as George McGovern and Ted Kennedy, who they felt did not embrace a militant enough anti-Communist and pro-intervention foreign policy. In 1976, these neocons supported the hawkish Henry "Scoop"
Jackson for president over Jimmy Carter, and many bolted the party and supported Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Prominent early neo-cons included Norman Podhoretz, Irving Kristol and Jeanne Kirkpatrick.
Today, the neo-conservative philosophy is best exemplified by arrogant unilateralists, such as Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and John Bolton, who view the UN as an obstacle to unrivaled American power. Neo-cons strongly support an interventionist foreign policy, favor the War in Iraq, support the Likud government in Israel and are ardent defenders of "free trade" and corporate-directed globalization.
Neo-conservatives are generally more tolerant of immigration, gay rights and civil rights than traditional conservatives and are less hostile toward welfare spending than old school conservatives. But, first and foremost, neo-conservatives are empire builders who believe America's mission is to spread "democracy" and capitalism across the globe.
The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) document calling for sweeping regime change in the Middle East and Central Asia is the quintessential statement of contemporary neo-con principles. While not often viewed as one, Democrat Joseph Lieberman can arguably be
labeled a neo-conservative, as his foreign policy viewpoints are scarcely distinguishable from the neo-conservative cabal that holds sway in the Bush White House, Lieberman's partisan affiliation notwithstanding.
By contrast, more traditional old school conservatives are often termed paleo-cons. Paleo-conservatives trace their intellectual roots to World War II isolationists, such as Charles Lindbergh and Robert Taft. Unlike the neo-cons, who morphed out of Cold War liberalism, the paleo-cons trace their heritage to the conservative opponents of the League of Nations, Eastern European immigration and FDR's New Deal.
In contrast to the neo-cons, paleo-conservatives are suspicious of empire abroad and the exercise of state police power at home. Paleo-cons are also typically xenophobic and want strict immigration controls. They oppose much U.S. intervention abroad with nationalistic "America First" ideas, and they are hostile to the ambitious global agenda of the Bush administration, as well as the global
free trade policies that were advanced by Clintonian neo-liberals.
The most vocal contemporary paleo-conservative is Patrick Buchanan. Buchanan is a fiercely
outspoken critic of the U.S. war in Iraq and a vociferous opponent of U.S. aid to the Israeli government. He is also vehemently anti-immigration, and he advocates an exceptionally reactionary social agenda on issues such as gay rights, abortion, welfare spending and school prayer. He also exhibits a visible measure of anti-Semitism that puts him at odds with Jewish neo-cons and fundamentalist Christians who view the reestablishment of Israel and the reconstruction of the Temple as an essential step on the road to the Second Coming.
Other prominent paleo-cons include racist David Duke, who can sound almost cogently leftwing
in his critique of U.S. policy in the Middle East but rabidly right-wing on domestic and racial
issues, and Anti-war.com's Justin Raimundo who is another paleo-conservative critic of current U.S.
foreign policy.
Differing from both the neo-cons and paleocons are moderate conservative foreign policy
"realists" such as Colin Powell, Brent Scowcroft, Howard Baker and George Bush Senior. These moderate cons lack the neo-conservatives' messianic idealism, Wilsonian rhetoric and desire for global conquest, opting for policies of containment and cooperation, rather than the perpetual military conflict chosen by the neo-cons. The moderate conservatives also lack the fear of entangling alliances and disdain for the UN, which seemed to be the one area of common ground between paleocons and neo-cons.
Unlike the paleo-cons, most of the moderate cons supported Bush's war with Iraq in its initial
phase if reluctant to embrace the full scope of the neo-con agenda. Within the cabinet, Powell may
have expressed reservations, but he dutifully spouted Bush's lies and did the bidding of the
PNAC cabal in public and failed to put any brakes on the neo-con project for expanding empire.
Likewise, Congressional moderate conservative Republicans (and many Democrats) signed Bush's
blank check to launch war with Iraq. Only recently have moderate conservatives made their voices heard in opposition to Iraq policy, with Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel leading the charge after months of acquiescent silence.
It is important for progressives to build political alliances of common purpose with allies from across the spectrum on political issues. Thus, on the Iraq War, we can cooperate with Paleo-conservatives and some moderate conservatives to build as broad-based an opposition to the Iraq War as possible. This does not mean we cater to the racism, xenophobia or anti-Semitism of some paleo-cons, but we can forge alliances and work together to bring the troops home from Iraq and reshape American foreign policy by rejecting the neo-conservative project for imperial conquest.
We need not share our fellow citizens values on each and every issue, but we can forge a multifaceted anti-war movement that has room for progressives, anarchists, libertarians, radicals, liberals, centrists, moderate conservatives and paleo-conservatives and build a mass movement to stop the neo-conservative foreign policy juggernaut dead in its tracks and put the Iraq war and occupation to an end.
