Bush is no conservative

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Bush Is No Conservative

by Paul Craig Roberts
December 5 2006

The conservative movement in the United States has been stamped out, not by liberals but by neoconservatives. Conservative philanthropic foundations, conservative print media, and conservative think tanks have been taken over by neoconservatives, who have exiled real conservatives to voicelessness and joblessness.

Neoconservative translates as "new conservative." However, there is nothing at all conservative about neoconservatives. The name is a misnomer of the first rank. Neoconservatives believe the U.S. can deracinate foreign cultures and remake foreign countries in America's image. True conservatives, following Edmund Burke, do not believe that a country can be shorn of its social, political, economic, and cultural ways and made anew from the ashes.

Modern history bears out this opinion. The Jacobins of the French Revolution were going to transform not only France but also all of Europe, but no such thing happened despite the abolition of feudalism in 1792 by the National Assembly, the guillotine, and France's military dominance of Europe for two decades.

The Bolsheviks were going to transform Russia, but after 75 years of an unaccountable Communist Party, Russia has emerged more capitalist than when the Communist transformation of Russia began.

Mao undertook to transform China by exterminating landlords, merchants, and private property, but today China is emerging as the leading capitalist power of our time.

There was no skimping on the expenditure of human life in behalf of the great cause to remake human society. Victims of the Communist "transformation" of Russia and China number in the tens of millions.

All of these outcomes reinforce the genuine conservative's confidence in Edmund Burke. The only people who are intent on repeating the mistakes of the past are the neoconservatives, who believe they can remake the Islamic world in America's image.

In the face of the total failure of their plan to remake Iraq and Afghanistan, neoconservatives continue to say that America must deracinate Islam and put in its place a women's-rights democracy. On National Public Radio recently, neoconservative Joshua Muravchik reaffirmed that it was America's job to remake Islamic society.

Neoconservatism is actually a more extreme form of revolutionary utopianism than that of the Bolsheviks and the Jacobins. The Soviet Communist Party was content with trying to remake Russians. The Jacobins ran out of steam early, and Napoleon reinstituted the old order, dispensing titles of nobility and crowning himself emperor. Only neoconservatives are sufficiently ignorant and delusional as to believe that America's overthrowing an Arab leader will result in Arab states reconstituting themselves in the West's image.

Neoconservatives have demonstrated an unrivaled ability to detach themselves from reality. Americans should be terrified that delusional neoconservatives were able to seize control of the presidency of George W. Bush and commit the U.S. to two illegal wars that have been lost and that have isolated the U.S. from the rest of humanity with the exception, of course, of Israel.

...

When Bush says that the U.S. will stay in Iraq and Afghanistan "until the job is done," what job is he talking about? The slaughter of civilians? The destruction of Iraq's infrastructure and entire towns such as Fallujah? The incitement of civil war? Recruitment for al-Qaeda and the provision of a training ground for Osama bin Laden's followers? The fostering of Islamic extremism throughout the Middle East? These are the real results of Bush's occupation of Iraq, but they are not what he means by "the job." In true Jacobin, Bolshevik, Cultural Revolution, neoconservative fashion, the job Bush wants to accomplish is the deracination of Islam and the recreation of Muslim society in America's image. It is impossible to imagine a less conservative goal.

Bush has taken America far beyond the role of being the world's policeman. Bush is America's first Jacobin president. He is as far from a conservative as it is possible to be.

http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=10103

Of course Bush is not a Conservative. Conservatives want things to stay as they are. Bush is a Reactionary.

I would just start swearing at Bush now, but I dont' want to rant.

Anyway, this article is correct. Conservatives way back when wanted things to stay intolerant. Conservatives now want to stay where we are, and NEO-CONSERVATIVES want to go straight back to intolerance.

We need to get our labels straight.

Actually, neo-cons really don't care much about social conservatism relative to the religious right that is, and a good number of neocons are secular. They want to maintain traditional norms and values viewing them from an abstract point as important in order to maintain societal order and they hate hippies, but really, they have traditionally been more supportive of civil equality. Bush just throws out the gay marriage thing to keep his voters happy, he really does not care much for the issue and in the past has been supportive of civil unions, in fact, log cabin republicans were once very happy about Bush as they thought that his gay tolerance in giving government officials positions meant that the republicans were getting soft on the homosexuality issue.

Here is neo-conservatism in a nutshell
-traditional, nationalistic values must be maintained for the sake of societal order and prevent social chaos.
-big government is not the biggest evil and is acceptable
-interventionist foreign policy is necessary for future peace and our national interests, the US must be strong for its sake and for the sake of the world, democratic peace theory is true and therefore we must democratize other nations to create peace.

You forgetting Poland, damn it! You're forgetting Poland!

Neocommies goin' down! Neocommies goin' down! Lalala lala la!

Hi, this is my first post in the political forum. It is kinda long. This is why I kinda reluctant to visit I think.

The real conservatives have been "stamped out" by "neoconservatives"? The non-isolationist Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush legitimately won the Republican primaries and when "paleoconservative" Pat Buchanan tried to run a campaign against against the "neocons" in 2000 he got only about one percent of the vote. In 2006, even with the unpopularity of the Iraq war, the GOP maintained it's strength inside the party for the most part for lost votes among moderates and Democrats (who polls reveal want more troops sent to Iraq). And please note I think Bush has made some major mistakes in Iraq and appears likely to make some even bigger ones.

Where do these comparisons come from? The article claims that "neocons" wish to remake other countries in America's image. This isn't strictly true since George Bush has repeatedly emphasized that democracy shall come in other forms then the United States (witness Afghanistan and Iraq's high placement of Islam in their constitution), however even assuming this is true it is not capitalism or democracy that killed millions Russia or China but rather tyranny and failed socialist policy. Millions died in the Korean war but millions didn't die turning South Korea into a successfully capitalist democracy and the same is true with Taiwan. The same is the case with (obviously more extreme) examples of Japan and Germany.



This is an utter falsehood. Shortly after Lenin took power in the October coup of 1917 a civil war broke out, as a strategic move he granted the option of independence to to the Finns, Poles, Georgians, Armenians and other peoples. But the Soviet Union was astonished that these peoples would not join the "worker's" paradise of the new U.S.S.R. and launched various invasions (Poland, seeing the writing on the wall attacked first). Poland, Finland, and the Baltic states survived (the latter until Stalin's collaboration with Adolf Hitler to start the second World War).

The people of the Caucuses and the Ukraine were treated atrociously by both Lenin and Stalin and the victim of massive intentional starvation in which millions died and much of the Caucasus' population was deported to Siberia. Of course, Stalin conspired, as said before, conspired with Hitler with annex half of Poland as well as the Baltic nations and after the end of WWII held Eastern Europe beneath the Iron Curtain.



Oh, yes, oh course, awful horrible Israel. Not, say Iran where being a homosexual will get you executed (that doesn't happen in Israel). Or in say EU candidate Turkey, where changing from a Muslim to a Christian can get to thrown into prison for "insulting Islam" (that doesn't happen, in reverse, in Israel). Yes, Israel, which offered 96% of the Palestinian territories up for a Palestinian state (a deal Saudi "Jews gets executed" Arabia thought was a good deal) and got the most terror attacks in the the country's history against it as a response. The same Israel that oh so horrible had the arrogance to think that rockets being fired from across an international border by a group being sponsored by two countries which official state policy is that Israel should not exist actual merit a response (and not a strong enough one if you ask me). Oh, Israel, they are so disrespectfully of the authority of the United Nations!



American troops don't target civilians, and not only that they do a pretty good job at not killing them by mistake(link to Foreign Affairs article).. It should be noted there are other wars (and genocides such as Darfur) taking place that this is not the case that don't get nearly the attention.



This is false (the second sentence, and third sentence). The term "conservative" is just what we used to call generally "classical liberal." In fact what we call "conservatives" in America are still called "liberals" in Japan. Bush has seemed to be supportive of civil unions for homosexuals. Historically that is a major change. Additionally, his administration proposed and got passed a medicad bill for prescription drugs that could hardly be called "conservative." Now, I suppose you could say he was reacting to the situation (although he ran on that very items, as well as his current immigration plank). Many modern conservatives also support getting rid of what they see as a broken social security system and switching from an income tax to a different kind of tax (few support just abandoning the income tax without an alternative) which is a major change in the establishment. Modern conservatism is not about just returning entirely to the 1950s or 1800s, and I have never heard any major conservative talk about such nonsense.



Can you define how neoconservatives want to go back to intolerance? It is worth noting that alot of people that are noted as "nonconservatives" were big supporters of the civil rights movement of the 1960s (not that being a conservative bars you from being such a thing). For the record, I will note that you could argue correctly that William F. Buckley held positions that could be argued as intolerant in the 1960s (that he has since sincerely apologized for). Then again, William F. Buckey is definitely not a neoconservative.*



Some converts to conservatives are certainly less conservatism on the social end, although I think it's less the former democrats (the hawks) then the libertarians. The main "neoconservative" magazines are Commentary and the Weekly Standary are they are both social conservative. They mainly differ with the "regular" conservative National Review and American Spectator on the border issue. I don't think Bush just "threw out" the gay marriage ban. I would seem odd since he actually seems to be OK with civil unions. I think he thought about. He seems more ambivilant on abortion, although he clearly is against some kinds of abortion. I believe overall he's sort of center-right, but he is a very unusual political. I don't think sexual orientation should have anything to do with whether someone is appointed to a government position. It should be based on qualifications exclusively. I may have misunderstood you on that regard however.

*Sometimes I put quotes around neoconservative and sometimes not. Te quotes are because no one seems to know what a neonconservative is. Literally, of course, it means "New Conservative." There is a book available titled "The Neoconservative Reader" by Norman Podhoretz. Alot of people think there is some Jewish conspiracy, but this is nonsense. Although his son thinks the "Borat" movie is hilarious, and the Borat actor is... I have "The Neocon Reader edited by Irwin Stelzer. It has a essay "The Neoconservative Cabal" by, you guessed it, Joshua Muravchik. But it also has essays by George Will, David Brooks, Max Boot, and an excerpt from a book from Margaret Thatcher (I have the book). Also former UN Ambassador John Bolton is included.

It is also well thought out and presents a point of view very intelligently.
Actually, conservative can be used to describe classical liberal as conservative economic ideas and views on government have a good overlap but they are not necessarily the same. Pretty much the view known as conservatism is to some extent classical liberalism with a socially conservative and nationalistic twist and as such ideas associated with libertarians are often taken up by conservatives.


Well, the neocons stemmed from hawkish democrats to some extent, and secular neocons are not uncommon. Neocons are more socially conservative than a few other types but they really care more for values supporting strength and nationalism and less about traditional Christian values. Part of this view on neocons is something I pulled off of wiki "Compared to other U.S. conservatives, neoconservatives may be characterized by an idealist stance on foreign policy, a lesser social conservatism, and a much weaker dedication to a policy of minimal government, and, in the past, a greater acceptance of the welfare state, though none of these qualities are necessarily requisite." I think Bush did just push it out there because he IS fine with civil unions. I think that like most politicians he was appealing to some aspect of the social conservative base to maintain power. Bush is definitely a right winger, I think he just comes across as further right than he is. Sexual orientation should not have anything to do with appointments and the fact that he did not make it an issue for his appointments is a demonstration for his views on that matter.

Sounds like a facist to me.

Perhaps one can criticize it on those grounds. I am not a neocon and I have distaste for their views on governmental intervention.

perhaps neoconversativism is just "en route to international communism"

I tend to doubt that neoconservatism really wants international communism. They tend to be a bit nationalistic, and they tend to still be somewhat capitalistic despite their tolerance for government intervention.

First let me compliment Awesomelyglorious. I think we disagree with each other quite bit however I liked his critique. My opinion that President Bush gave thought to the same-sex marriage ban is clearly my opinion and we differ on that, but I appreciate a well thought out differing approach. In regards to whether whether "paleo"/traditional conservatives on the whole are more conservative then neonconservatives I would tend to agree that that the former are more right wing then the latter on the average on social issues. On economic issues it becomes somewhat a more difficult questions because traditional conservatives (and forgive me for generalizing but it is necessary) tend to be attracted to such items as items as the tariff and be opposed to items as The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The "neoconservatives" in question are probably the most literally "new conservatives" as they more likely to be "War on Terror" conservatives. I have noticed there are a good number of bloggers (although making a pure estimation is difficult) seem to have this attitude.

First, it is worth noting you are commenting on a analysis rather then, say, a official party platform (and there is no party platform for the "neoconservatives." To be honest, there is no one "neoconservatism." When I talk of "neonconservatism" I am really speaking really speaking of most of the writers of National Review, the Weekly Standard, The American Spectator, and The American Enterprise magazines. I have no clue if President Bush considers himself a neoconservative (I will drop the quotes now), or Vice President Cheney. They neoconservative (although the writer's of the aforementioned magazines usually refer to themselves as just "conservatives") aren't huge fans of many of the recent decisions coming out of the White House. Indeed, each of the editorial boards of the above magazines think the White House approved far too much spending in the first term (with National Review angrier then then Weekly Standard).



Neoconservatives, some of who are former Democrats (a few who a former Socialists), like FDR and Harry Truman, are remember what it was like during WWII when the country engaged in the a united war effort (with the brief exception of the Chicago Tribune). Many are disturbed when the country lacks "war readiness." On the other hand, very few to no neoconservatives support a draft because they see it as unnecessary or even counterproductive. To say "traditional, nationalistic values must be maintained" (emphesis mine) might indicate that such a process should proceed outside the democratic process. Neoconservatives (although, usually they don't even use the term) are strong believers in democracy and therefor wouldn't wish to violate the democratic process. Additionally although this is a personal belief of mine, I have never believed in "My country, right or wrong!*, but rather in Charles de Gaulle's famous saying "Patriotism is when love of you own people comes first; nationalism, when the hate for people other then your own comes first."

*The actual full quotation of Steven Decatur was: "Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong."



Of course, I agree that (assuming this your opinion, it may not be) oppressive government is evil. I will even agree that there is cases of the United States Government likely doing evil things (then again that's probably the case with the Canadian government and the Argentinian government). I suppose ultimately it becomes a question of the greater overall evil. Under Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt's administration the government grew greatly in size and, IMO, was often handled in a very inefficient process. But I wouldn't call that evil. I would call that stupid and misguided. Indeed in 1944 not knowing of FDR's illness of might have voted for him on the grounds he was a wartime President. President Reagan made the choice to to engage in a military buildup rather then struggle with congress over the size of the federal government. This resulted in a massive deficit, which fortunately didn't have that obvious an effect on the economic spur in the 1980s. George Bush is, without a doubt, not a Ronald Reagan republican. His first term, although not his second, he engaged in far more spending then one would expect from a "conservative" Republican. The President he resembled in this regard incidentally was not a Richard Nixon as is often claimed, but John F. Kennedy who also used tax cuts to base his increased spending. His domestic spending has cut back in the second term.

However I do not regard this as evil. But perhaps this has something to do with the Patriot Act? (and I do not mean this as an insult, of course)



The second part of three widely popular (and this no offense to libertarians). No one wins a election on "Let's have the US be the second most popular military in the world. The key to this all is the preemptive strike policy, which seemed to be OK with folks after 9/11 but as people thought about it and after we got bogged down in Iraq less so. This is partially probably because in alot of people's minds they probably looked upon taking down these dictatorships as some kind of cakewalk and obvious (with the exception of those in the Americas ie: Grenada, Panama) that is not the case, and unfortunately the CIA is not up to the job anymore (although the CIA doesn't equal democracy).

There is wide, honest disagreement on this issue.



Words are important.

Benito Mussolini was an learned reader of Marx, and Nietzsche and an avowed socialist. In 1912 he led the purge of moderate elements of the socialists after they congratulated the king of Italy for surviving an assassination attempt. In 1914 he became leader of the Italian socialist party. It was the First World War that led Benito Mussolini to end stop calling himself a socialist and declare himself a member of the political right (he supported the war, they opposed it). He supported various groups of striking workers as what would became called the "National Fascist Party" as of 1921. He declared his party to be "anti-Socialist," and engaged in violence against his opponents (notably the socialists and the communists).

In 1921 il Duce seized control in the (literally) mythically "March on Rome" (he was invited to form a government). In a completely fraudulent election the fascists won by a huge margin. All opposition parties were removed from the parliament, and banned. A massive welfare state (comparable to the French) was built up. The state was made the dominant force in the economy (hence the term: corporatism). Mussolini explained that capitalism went through three phases, "the dynamic, the static, the declining."

Lenin admired the Mussolini and his fascist party, and the Soviets in general noticed the similarity in the systems. Not only that, positive comments (regrettably) were made about Italian fascism by such figures as Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was when the Italians started cozying up the the Nazi Germans that relations fell apart. Since capitalism, national socialism, and fascism were all now Stalin's enemies he decided to combine the three. He declared that fascism was the last stage of capitalism (he also applied the term the then non-racist fascism on the very racist National Socialism). This was a clever idea since Marx's theory that capitalism would be overthrown by the masses (applied to England specifically) had turned to not.

While fascism (the party form in Italy, rather then the incorrectly used term applied to Germany, Spain, ect...) while not totalitarian (being ironic, since Mussolini invented the term), it was authoritarian (one party/man dictatorship and very oppressive. The fascists of Italy murdered thousands of innocents, allied with Adolf Hitler, and engaged in wars of annexation.

While one can certain disagree with conservatives/neoconservatives, to use the term fascist is most inappropriate.

jimservo, I definitely think that you know more about this than I do. I have been ignoring the paleoconservative-neoconservative divide to a great extent and I don't know as much about conservative magazines.

I notably have been ignoring paleoconservatives in my view on economic issues though due to my view that the bulk of conservatives tend to be for freer markets due to the rise of neo-liberal ideas.

I will admit that "must be" might have not been the best words neoconservatives obviously do strongly believe in democracy as they put great faith in its ability to promote a great environment for peace.

I used evil figuratively when referring to the views on the size of government, I do not mean that big government is a moral abomination, although there are some arguments for that, but rather that big government which is generally concerned as bad is considered as not being as bad as other things. Think of the saying the "lesser of two evils" and you will see what I am getting at, that statement does not say that both choices are evil but rather that they are bad.

Interventionist policy was somewhat popular as we saw ourselves struggling with a foe and with a need to defeat it once and for all or at least be active in stopping it. Like you said though, we are now more distrusting on this because of the issues with the Iraq war. However, neoconservative foreign policy isn't the only view on foreign policy held by conservatives who tend to probably be divided into 3 camps: isolationism, realism, and neoconservatism. Isolationism is the favorite of libertarians and paleocons and says we should not intervene at all, realism says that we should intervene whenever American interests are at stake but that our main goal is to maintain our power, and neoconservatism is a derivative of idealism that states that we should go abroad promoting American values.

Because you see fascism as being completely alien to neoconservatism I feel that I should defend my opinion somewhat on that matter. Neoconservatism itself is not fascism, it is too idealistic and too capitalistic, but I feel that neoconservatism is possibly one of the closer philosophies in America to fascism due to its belief in interventionism and its tolerance for bigger government. To be honest even though neoconservatism is not fascism by itself, I have a fear that the ideas behind it are too opposed to the traditional ideas behind our nation and could be destructive due to the pursuit of power and control over the ideas in other nations. I am probably being too critical of neoconservatism though due to my more libertarian tendencies.

Umm...no. It can't, at least not all by itself. The charge usually results in execution when the act itself was pretty violent. I don't think that even most clerics there take the charge particularly seriously. That there have been a few executions lately is unsurprising with a conservative government in control there, but I don't think that any of them were innocent college kids caught under the sheets. In Wonderful Iraq, though, militias disguised as police have been pointedly searching out gay men for "extra-judicial execution," with our own government saying little or nothing about it. In Jamaica, with whom we supposedly have a good relationship, the government regularly turns a blind eye to gays being openly murdered, sometimes by members of their own families, the "gay panic defense" is widely accepted in courts of law, and a fully enforced law puts people away for periods up to ten years for homosexuality. Drop nukes on Jamaica until they are gone.

Unless you're in a Haredi neighborhood, in which case what the official government says tends to fall by the wayside.

Turkey, an ally of the US, by the way.

Nope. There are some conservative libertarians who believe that they follow classical liberalism, but they're 1) a minority and 2) completely wrong on what classical liberalism was all about.

No, it just shows him to be an unprincipled poll-chaser.

Of course. It's called communism, which the Democratic party largely seems to have abandoned.

jimservo: Good Show old boy! Been a long time since I've seen since good post on politics ANYWHERE on the net. Neo-Cons still sound like they're willing to scream "SEIG HEIL!" for "The Greater Good".

"Traditions" and "Social Order" were on the agenda for Hitler and Pinochet.

Awesomelyglorious, my brain is sort of non-functioning right now so I can't really give you a fair response at the moment. You said you don't read the conservatives magazines as much as I but that's OK (I really should read "The New Republic" more). Your comments have interested me, and I think answered what I think some things that I wrote that could have been misleading in many cases.

Griff, I disagree with you very much however I appreciate the lengthy response. I will try to get back to you tomorrow.

Flagg, feel free to continue chiming in. Your remark of appreciation is so sarcastic that even I was not left confused as to it's actual nature. I don't consider either of my posts as anywhere near the best of the net. The had flaws and those flaws were picked away at. If you have something with more depth (Hitler and Pinochet? Pinochet's bloody repressions are to be condemned but really! Perhaps I should reply by naming Stalin and Daniel Ortega together? Give me a break.)