Is Neoconservatism making a comeback...in the other party?

[madfloridian]

I am asking it after reading this Right Web article from September. It gives some food for thought. It refers to the Progressive Policy Institute.

Some familiar names here. Very familiar.

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1534

“Don't look now, but neoconservatism is making a comeback—and not among the Republicans who have made it famous, but in the Democratic Party,” declared writer Jacob Heilbrunn in a May 28, 2006 op-ed for the Los Angeles Times. In “Neocons in the Democratic Party,” Heilbrunn argued that a new generation of Democratic “pundits and young national security experts” are trying to revive the Cold War precepts of President Harry S. Truman and apply them to the war on terror. “The fledgling neocons of the left are based at places such as the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), whose president, Will Marshall, has just released a volume of doctrine called With All Our Might: A Progressive Strategy for Defeating Jihadism and Defending Liberty … Their political champions include Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman and such likely presidential candidates as former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, who is chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).”

Concluded Heilbrunn: “It is amusing to see that at the very moment when hawkish realists are trying to extirpate the neocon credo in the Republican Party, it's being revived in the Democratic Party that first brought it to life.”

PPI, founded in 1989 by Marshall and Al From, is a project of the Third Way Foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. As the think tank for the Democratic Leadership Council, the PPI says its mission “arises from the belief that America is ill-served by an obsolete left-right debate that is out of step with the powerful forces reshaping our society and economy.” PPI claims to advocate “a philosophy that adapts the progressive tradition in American politics to the realities of the information age and points to a ‘third way' beyond the liberal impulse to defend the bureaucratic status quo and the conservative bid to simply dismantle government.”

And a little more from the article.

The PPI's efforts to get Democrats to be more pro-military and pro-defense were also obvious in its May 2006 book, With All Our Might. Edited by Marshall, the book contains an introduction and 14 essays on how to address “jihadist terrorism.”

The reception With All Our Might received from the neoconservative corner was, perhaps unsurprisingly, warm. In a Weekly Standard article entitled “The Loneliness of the Liberal Hawk: Dems Who Understand War, Pols Who Don't,” neocon stalwart Thomas Donnelly opined that the volume “actually represents an impressive lineup of younger defense and security intellectuals.” Book contributor Kenneth Pollack “sounds like a closet neocon,” and Jan Mazurek's essay is “even tougher on Middle East strategy than Pollack,” according to Donnelly (Weekly Standard, May 22, 2006). "

Link to the book referred to in the article.
http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?contentid=253887&su...

[annabanana]

1. unless they can sucker in the"Christian" Right,

and the free market radicals, I don't think they'll have much room to maneuver.

[Leopolds Ghost]

2. In the Democratic Party, they are known as neoliberals.

They wielded power in the Clinton Administration during the dismantling
of social programs in that era.

The only thing separating them from the neocons is/was their stance on
social issues which are now proven to be fictitious in order to distract the electorate.

Neoliberal stance on the left-right divide has always been to stake out a socially liberal fictitious position opposite Karl Rove's fictitious position, while otherwise advancing the same overclass objectives as the neocons.

The fictitious position adopted by the neolibs is that everyone aspires to be a latte-sipping upper class social liberal, so Dems should abandon the lower classes. Because anyone who for "values reasons" is not an upwardly mobile socially liberal urbanite, is behind the times and must be "reeducated" or simply ignored as part of the vast "labor surplus" inherent to the global economy. Both poverty and social conservatism are defined as pathologies. Religion is embraced only when it encourages "personal responsibility" and upward mobility.

Republican-turned Democrat Michael Lind talked about this in his book, "Up from Conservatism" in the 1990s. Who here has read it?

The thesis of Lind's book is that neolibs and neocons are conspiring to create "two parties of the overclass" and he saw this in the cynical way social issues were manipulated.

Mark Warner, former Governor of Virginia, personifies neoliberalism, and Fairfax County Virginia, home of the nation's military-industrial-intelligence complex, is its spiritual home.

Warner recently declared that Dems "cannot afford to abandon the top 1%".

[Jed Dilligan]

4. Great post

Neoliberalism kept me home from the polls from my 18th birthday until 2000.

[madfloridian]

8. Or just plain "liberal hawks"...

I also think of Beinart when I think of that movement. He is the personification in the media.

[Nikki Stone 1]

13. Fairfax County?

How does that work?

[many a good man]

16. You shouldn't conflate neoliberals with neocons

There are important distinctions between the two. Your post leaves the impression that they are the same except one is for Democrats and the other for Republicans.

Neoliberalism represents the dominant establishment view worldwide. Neoliberals have been in power in both parties since at least the beginning of GATT, WTO, and NAFTA. They represent free trade, i.e., the undoing of tariffs and other restrictions (aka "fair trade") under the governance of international institutions. Some neoliberal Democrats want to extend this philosophy domestically by undoing regulations on corporate actions within our border. Geopolitically, neoliberals hope to use the interdependencies of international trade to minimize conflict.

Neoconservatism is a different breed. They are neoliberal on trade, but prefer economic Darwinism to international agreements. Geopolitically, they support the wielding of economic and military dominance to enforce international order. They are a minority, of course, on the world stage and hopefully they will soon become a minority here in the US.

Few Democrats, outside of PPI, are neocons. Most, including Warner, are neoliberals. IMO neoliberals can be "saved" if they would start giving worker and environmental rights the same prominence they give to international capital. Not likely, but at least there's a hope. And there is some evidenct that trade dependencies are lessening conflict.

Neoconservatives are totally without any redeeming qualities.

[TahitiNut]

32. It's "good cop - bad cop" fascism (corporatism)

Both subordinate the role of labor to the greater enrichment of the already wealthy and inflate the 'rights' (entitlements) of artificial "persons" above those of real persons. That they differ in the degree of social oppression is, no matter how noxious (not the same as toxic), very subordinate to the permanent damage to the "world order". In effect, it's one party (corporatist party) with two faces. Many are impelled, for various sucker-bait reasons, to hype the difference between the two faces - ignoring the fact that this is inherent in two-facedness.

[many a good man]

34. The greater enemy

Republicans are far worse than Democrats and neocons are far worse than neoliberals. Short of revolution our only chance is to root out the greater evil first and then work on the next most evil. When in world history has any nation or the international order NOT been ruled by "the establishment" or by elites? Its a constant struggle and we must know our enemies.

I can't disagree with the main thrust of your argument, though. I agree the people have to take back our country and make intl institutions serve people first, not corporations. My main point was to refute the post's impression that neoliberals are the exact same thing as neocons, but in the Dem party.

[Hippo_Tron]

33. In the foreign policy sense, Clinton is NOT a neocon

Say what you will about his economic policies, but Clinton's approach to terror was drastically different and far more pragmatic then than the neocons. The neocons believe that the way to defeat terror is to invade countries and show our strength. Clinton knew that people who strap bombs to their chest aren't going to suddenly stop doing so because we show our strength by invading a country. Clinton knew that the way to stop terrorism is to systematically kill the leaders and that's why he actually went after Bin Laden instead of Shrub who sat around for 8 months and half-assed the job after 9/11. Clinton knew that funding the Taliban would lead to more terrorism hence he didn't give them millions of dollars to "fight the war on drugs" like Shrub did.

PNAC made several attempts to get Clinton to invade Baghdad and overthrow Saddam but he wouldn't do it. They even made indirect attempts by trying to get Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott to convince him to do it.

I have many problems with Clinton's domestic policy and his caving to the GOP congress, but in terms of foreign policy there is a drastic difference between him and the people that are in office now.

[Horse with no Name]

3. How many here didn't know that?

That is why many of us hate the DLC. We aren't stupid.

[madfloridian]

5. Well...

of course most of us know it. But it never hurts to remind now and then at crucial times in our history.

[Grateful for Hope]

6. Exactly. n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. The "Third Way" leads to a dead end. 655,000 dead in Iraq alone.

Their neo-con/neo-lib ideas are as old as Cain whacking Abel. They might as well call themselves "neo" murderers.

[madfloridian]

9. Baloney, they knew Saddam was contained.

More from the article:

"As the “Progressive Internationalism” authors explain, the PPI endorsed the invasion of Iraq “because the previous policy of containment was failing, because Saddam posed a grave danger to America as well as to his own brutalized people, and because his blatant defiance of more than a decade's worth of UN Security Council resolutions was undermining both collective security and international law.”

This is pure bull^^^^, and some of our Democrats HAD to know it. The former president bombed Iraq in 1999. They knew Iraq was under our control. From 1999:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/...

[Mr_Spock]

10. As somebody recently put it "the neocons will attach themselves to

whatever party is in power in order to achieve their goals".

You can bet there will be neocons joining up with Lieberman to continue the war machine if and when the Repukes fall from grace.

[madfloridian]

11. They probably already are.

It's all about power, isn't it? I wish it did not have to be that way. We have some wonderful Democrats, but beating the system is another thing.

[blm]

18. Line up and stay strong - - read this Charles Pierce note from Am Prospect

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/10/post_1639.html#0...

[Nikki Stone 1]

14. Another reason LIEberman needs to be beaten

(preferably to a pulp.)

[Odin2005]

12. Al "DLC hack" From can go FUCK HIMSELF.

[mmonk]

15. Yes, the third way is in the party.

I've noticed. The thing is, I hope their skewed vision is on the way out. We won't know for sure their strength or the strength of real progressives until after the election if we take the house.

[Fovea]

21. The third way is too vulnerable

to partisan sabotage from the right.
If the hunting of Bill Clinton, and the Trent Lott/Newt Gingrich attacks while Clinton was fighting terrorists didn't prove that, nothing will.

Further, the third way has been turned into a tool of the corporatists to destroy the middle classes and cripple labor movements.

I think there are two options
first we can vote them out of offices in the next cycle or two with real progressive candidates.

Second, we can start digging and thwart these bastards every way we can. The first step will be a draconian reform regarding K street and it's state level miniatures.

[ComerPerro]

17. there are a ton of people here who would fit in great with the "neoCons"

people here who, rather than advocate liberalism, praise "true conservatives" and "fiscal conservatives".

Happens several times a day.

One example includes people who worship Lou Dobbs.

[Skidmore]

19. Post #2 is on target. Do not confuse

populism with neoconservatism.

[ComerPerro]

20. I'm not confusing anything. There is no mention of populism in there

[Skidmore]

23. Dobbs is a populist, a conservative leaning one but

a populist nonetheless. I don't agree with everything he says, but I would definitely not put him in the neoconservative camp. Lieberman is a good example of a liberal neoconservative. Rabid warmongering in the name of democracy.

[ComerPerro]

24. If Dobbs is a populist, then so are Pat Robertson and James Dobson

[w4rma]

27. When have those two ever done anything for the middle class? (nt)

[ComerPerro]

28. When has Dobbs ever done anything? And besides, look who they preach to

they preach to the middle and lower class, trying to save them and teach them how to get rich and live good lives and blah blah.

Its all rhetoric.

[w4rma]

37. Journalists draw attention to problems. That is what they do. (nt)

[Selatius]

30. Robertson and Dobson were never populists

A populist usually finds appeal through voicing economic issues that resonate with the people. Social issues are usually treated in a pragmatic fashion. A populist, as a result, can sometimes have racist views or narrow-minded social views (See Populist Movement), especially if the people who support the populist also have narrow-minded or bigoted tendencies, at the same time as advocating economic policies for the working class that are ostensibly leftist or progressive in nature.

It's a contradiction in terms though. Eugene V. Debs, a prominent democratic socialist and labor activist of the early 20th century, argued that if workers are to band together and fight against exploitation by their corporate baron masters, then it would only strengthen them if they looked past skin color or religion instead of segregating themselves along those lines. Debs argued that being divided made it easier for the capitalists to exploit them.

[ComerPerro]

35. Populist issues are not always economic

By definition, to be populist all you have to do is take up issues that resonate with the common man.

Thomas Frank, for example, suggests that the "grassroots" anti-choice crowd is a new type of populism, that hijacked the populist movement of the 1900s.

The biggest key to gaining steam for a populist movement is by finding a large group of "common" folk, finding a common enemy, convincing them that they are under attack, and letting their outrage fuel your success.

Populists in the 1900s used economics, and by that same token Robertson and Dobson could be said to be using so-called persecution of Christians in America. (Christians are an overwhelming majority, but they are oppressed by a very small group who controls how religion gets to be practiced and experssed. sound familiar?)

[w4rma]

25. Neo-liberals/Neo-cons are pro-illegal immigration. They are happy to look

the other way as big buisness profits from the slave-like labor of illegals.
Dobbs, obviously, opposes illegal immigration.

Neo-conservatives and neo-liberals want a two tiered society of the poor and the ultra-wealthy. The middle-class is seen as an obstacle to neo-conservatives and neo-liberals. The middle-class fights back better against the neo-liberal/neo-con economic policies, because they tend to be more educated and they have more to lose than the lower-class.
Dobbs supports the middle class. His show goes after the economic policies that are in place which are shrinking the middle class.

Also, Dobbs has been fighting against electronic (easily hackable) voting. Easily hackable election machines are probably also something else that neo-cons/neo-liberals like. I see no love for democracy from neo-cons and neo-liberals. Their foriegn policy is very anti-democratic and pro-empire.

[ComerPerro]

31. Three things

one, Dobbs' fight aganist illegal immigration is based and seeded in racism. I know that's a cliche for all people who are anti-immigrant, but it is especially true about Dobbs. Just watch and listen to the contempt on his face and in his voice as he talks about them. "Mexican" this, "Mexican" that. Illegal immigrants get here many ways, not just by crossing the Mexican border.

two, Dobs only talks about how he supports the middle class. But he never does anything for them, and for someone who claims to be against the super rich and against corporate crooks, he sure likes giving the Republicans a free pass.

and Third, the only voting machines that Dobbs speaks out against are Sequoia machines, because they are suspected of being controlled by Venezuela. He doesn't care about Diebold, not at all.

[w4rma]

36. Talking and writing is what journalists do. That is their job.

And focusing on the issues that need to be focused on is their job. Dobbs has been doing his job. And by focusing his debate on the middle class he has been doing *a lot* for the middle class.

He speaks out against *all electronic voting machines*. You are lying, or at least acting ignorant, by saying he speaks out only against Venezuela made voting machines:

…
Across the nation, eight out of every 10 voters will be casting their ballots this November on electronic voting machines. And these machines time and again have been demonstrated to be extremely vulnerable to tampering and error, and many of them have no voter-verified paper trail.

There is simply no way in which election officials and their staffs of thousands of volunteers with limited experience and often poor training can possibly carry out reliable recounts.

Only 27 states have laws requiring the use of voter-verified paper trails in electronic machines. Eight more states utilize a paper trail in their machines but don't require it, leaving 15 states with no mandated requirements for safeguarding your vote. But with no national law in place, our midterm elections are being threatened by a system lacking any real regulation and standards.

The problems with electronic voting aren't necessarily new, yet we're still not ready for the midterms. During the 2004 presidential election, one voting machine in a Columbus, Ohio, suburb reportedly added nearly 3,900 additional votes to Bush's total. Officials caught the machine's error because only 638 voters cast presidential ballots at that precinct, but in a heavily populated district, can we really be sure the votes will be counted correctly?
…
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/09/19/Dobbs.Sept20/index.htm...

And on immigration, unless you are a mind reader you cannot know all his motives for going after illegal near-slave labor from other nations. I suggest that since he is fighting for the middle class on other issues, he is most likely fighting for the middle class on this issue also.

[ComerPerro]

38. Then where the hell was Lou two fucking years ago?

I say he is nothing more than a hack, latching on to an issue after others have already done the legwork.

By the way, Lou Dobbs is a champion of the middle class because he says he is one. But he is all talk and nothing more. And he never actually does anything to disrupt the power structre that huts the middle class. He just fans flames to anger people. But he never speaks out against Republicans without condemning Dems as well, or by attacking "all politicians", a common Conservative trick.

And, remember, Bill OReiley, "Who's Looking Out For You", also claims to be a hero of the middle class. Do we take his word for it? After all, he speaks out for common middle class causes, right? He sure resonates with them, his ratings are very very high.

[MadHound]

22. And party personell wonder why people are leaving in droves

It is because of shit like this, the ever rightward movement of the party, away from their base, ignoring the poor, marginalizing social issues, and trying to outhawk the chicken hawks in the Republican party. More and more of the party leadership is declaring that it is OK to do whatever is neccessary in order to win elections, including abandoning their base.

This is why we're seeing the rise of parties like the Greens and Progressives. People are tired of having to choose between party A, utter evil, and Party B, slightly less evil.

I still forsee an '08 election run that is going to feature both a Democratic and Republican candidate who are pro-war, much like in '68. This will suppress voter turnout and spell ruin for our country.

The Democrats need to wake up and realize that if they continue down this path and offer nothing to their tradition base members, they're going to wind up on the dustbin of history. People want to be able to vote for something, not simply and continously voting against something.

[Selatius]

26. No, the PPI has been there since before Neoconservatism became popular

It's a DLC outfit. It's old news.

[kiahzero]

29. Progressive intervention isn't supposed to be like neoconservatism

As I've heard the term defined, it's more like our actions in Kosovo (or what we would be doing in Sudan in a better world) than our actions in Iraq. Of course, definitions change.