Know your Neocons

There's a lot of misunderstanding about the neocons. Lately, I've heard a lot of people referring to them as fundamentalists. This irks me to no end.

Neoconservatives believe in a dark, I would even go so far as nightmarish, political philosophy where America-as-Leviathan has a moral obligation to enforce its will upon the world by military force. They see human nature as a terrible thing, and raw, naked power as the only thing that can bring about a just and moral society. They are suspicious of personal liberties, but primarily focused (for the moment) on America's moral duty to establish itself as a global hegemon, and use its overwhelming might to create a moral society at the edge of a sword.

Fundamentalists are an entirely different breed altogether, of course. The Christian Fundamentalists of America are not neoconservatives; the neoconservatives are almost entirely Jewish! Rather, American fundamentalism is being manipulated by the Bush administration--which is composed primarily of neocons--for political gain.

The Passion last year revealed some tension in this situation, as for a time the fundamentalists seemed to turn a bit on their neoconservative puppeteers. Encouraging such strife may be the only recource moderates and liberals in the United States have over the next four years. But if we fail to understand exactly who it is who's calling the shots--if we're actually so naive and uninformed as to think neocons and fundies are one and the same--then we'll certainly miss that opportunity.

Know thy enemy.

(And apologies for the self-link amidst the FPP--I couldn't find anyone else who ever drew the connections with Hobbes)

Sounds like you are saying neoncons are mostly Jews and these Jews want to control the world. There was this other guy who, about 60 some odd years ago, had a pretty good political career pushing this same theory. He got his whole country to go along with him, too. Until the United States and some other countries pulled their collective heads out of their asses and realized he was a maniacal whack-job out to destroy a whole race of human beings and take over the world.

Funny. His name escapes me right now.

I included the Jewish part for completeness, even knowing someone would try to dismiss all of it on that alone. It's a logical fallacy all around, of course, but when did that ever stop anyone?

See, I happen to know plenty of Jews who aren't on board with this. Several of my friends, including my Jewish girlfriend, who went so far as to spend election day volunteering with MoveOn's "Get Out the Vote" effort to help elect Kerry (in Pittsburgh, PA, the one clear victory Kerry won that night). I'm talking about a political philosophy which yes, happens to be formulated, held, and championed primarily by a small number of wealthy, secular Jews.

I've seriously considered converting quite a few times ... much of my family is convinced I already have. I don't have a large circle of friends, but they are quite disproportionately Jewish, and some have even conferred on me honorary Jew status for my knowledge of their religion. I live in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, have attended synagogue services many times, and will one of these days learn Hebrew. I have a Tanakh on my bookshelf with facing English and Hebrew.

Then again, I don't like a lot of the things Israel does, and am totally sick of the over-use of "anti-Semitism" to prevent any disucssion that some Jews somewhere might be less than angelic. They're among my closest friends, but it's a freaking religion--not every last one of them is angelic, or even good. There are plenty of nasty, asshole Jews--just as many as there are nasty, asshole Christians, Muslims, atheists or even pantheists like me. Like I said, I live in a Jewish neighborhood. Some of them cut me off; others help me carry my groceries. They're not angels. They're not demons. They're people. And if a small number of them begin championing a poltiical philosophy this terrible, and do so in the corridors of power, they need to be stopped, regardless of their religion or heritage.

So ... yeah. Because there's a group of Jews trying to take over the world doesn't make me an anti-Semite. It makes me an anti-neocon. And that one, I'll quite willingly embrace.

And as an aside, I have often remarked that one of the worst things the neocons have done is, for the first time in history, given the semblance of legitimacy to the nut-ball notion that the most persecuted religious minority in history has some sinister conspiracy to rule the world.