On Wednesday night, Fox News host Tucker Carlson rightfully celebrated the firing of John Bolton as National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump. With no shortage of irony, Carlson noted that many left progressives, particularly those closely associated with former President Barack Obama, lamented Bolton's departure. Top of the list was Samantha Power, the humanitarian interventionist who was instrumental in the Libya debacle and almost succeeded in getting Obama to go all-in with war against Syria. "Fundamentally Bolton was a man of the left," Carlson declared.
He explained: Bolton never saw a problem that could not be solved by government intervention. That, Carlson noted, is characteristic of the left, not the right.
Whether Carlson intended to dig deeper or not, the reality is that Bolton's brand of neoconservatism came directly out of the far left wing of Soviet Communism. As some may recall, many of the first generation of neoconservatives in the mid-1970s were former followers of Leon Trotsky–card carrying members of the Fourth International. They merely morphed Trotsky's core idea of permanent revolution into the neoconservative dream of permanent war, permanent regime change. First Gen neocon godfather Irving Kristol personified the leftist roots of the neocons. But he was not alone in his early Trotskyite roots. Other neocons who were part of the Trotskyite New York Intellectuals included: Seymour Martin Lipset, Nathan Glazer, Leslie Fiedler and Kristol's wife Gertrude Himmelfarb. They moved from the Young People's Socialist League to the American Enterprise Institute.
Perhaps this is why Bolton, who is a rabid subscriber to the permanent war/permanent regime change dogma, shrieks in protest every time he is called a neocon.
Let’s not forget the synthesis with Leo Strauss, who – shall we say – shared a historical milieu with the Lipsets and Kristols of this world. Purely coincidence tho.
The Neocon shrieks in protest when he strikes you.
But speaking of Trotskyists in America, have you followed the recent controversy involving the ADL and PewDiePie, the Swedish youtube gaming sensation with over 100 million subscribers? There is little decent coverage in the media, but the Catholic scholar and notorious thoughtcriminal E. Michael Jones did a great video on it.
Colonel…Thank You For putting up these Two Articles on Tucker Carlson…and The Neo.Con Trotskyist Influences on John Bolton…and many Previous “Advisors to United States Presidents..s.”on Foreign Policy who believe in Perpetual Wars..and The Irving and William Krystal Types Manipulating and Organizing..The Resistance..I think This all Points and Long History of Political Manipulation..Appointment of Cabinent Members Agency Directors.. U.S…. Policys..and Interventions..I now see how Deeply entrenced the Neo Cons are in Our System..: Long Developed..and Groomed..By Very Rich and Powerful People..Many in The New York.. New Jersey areas..I am beginning to Think The Fusion GPS Group was Was funded by this Group…That Perhaps…Christopher Steele and His Support group are Also Like Minded Neo Cons..That Is Entrenched In England…and that this Whole Matter..Involves Carrying On Trotskys..famous Feud with Joseph Stalin..and Our Wealth..Resources and Republic…. are Victims..of a War Eating up Our Wealth..Attacking Our Culture..and Constitution….The Far Left..Socialists..and The Neo Con..Trotskyist Now Own Both..Branches..and Its Gettysberg..and Valley Forge Time for The United States..IMO….
damn, let’s see… my father served in the Bersaglieri and when returning to Italy at the end of WWII his brother was shot in the back of the neck by communists. My wife endured the reign of Pol Pot, and I took the oath,”against all enemies, foreign and domestic” wtf is a guy supposed to do 🙂 I hope we aren’t planning on letting California go.
Left? What left?
Funny thought. Bolton sits to the right of Genghis Khan. That’s enough.
“He explained: Bolton never saw a problem that could not be solved by government intervention. That, Carlson noted, is characteristic of the left, not the right.”
That’s laughable. A neocon is short for a neo-conservative. Not a leftist. Not by any stretch of imagination. Carlson, while he is absolutely right that Bolton is warmonger, still trying to twist it, in order to bash the left. If Carlson were honest, he would have said “Bolton never saw a problem that could not be solved by going to war”.
TonyL
I could call myself a horse but that would not make me one.
Strauss and Co. are not particularly of the left or of the eight but are more or less a third force.. They are anti-democratic authoritarians who believe that the mass of humanity is incapable of making “correct” decisions and must be ruled from above by would-be noble tyrants who have been educated and are advised by an elite of the Straussian ilk.
Larry Kart
Why have you ignored the trotskyite element of neoconism that Harper stressed.
Bolton and his fellow travelers should thank the stars above that, so far, they haven’t suffered Trotsky’s fate.
Indeed. I’d like to see his interpretation of neo-liberalism.
Carlson has become a voice for prudent and non-interventionist foreign policy, the only one in the mainstream media I can think of. The president seems to listen to him despite his annoyance with Fox in general.He is credited by some for stopping Trump from bombing Iran over the drone. He has hosted Russia expert Stephen Cohen and Tulsi Gabbard among others that question our overseas engagement. Despite Cohen’s real creds to speak on Russia, the networks prefer our former ambassador to Russia, McFaul.
I think Larry Kart captured the essence of Trotsky’s (and other’s) vanguard party, a select group who fervently believe they know how the world should be and work tirelessly to force that world view on all others. The neocons certainly fit this description. They fervently believe in American exceptionalism and work to impose their vision on the rest of the world primarily through military intervention, but also through embargoes and other sanctions. They believe history must go in a certain direction and they know what that direction is. This view fits the neocons as it does the humanitarian interventionists. Carlson is not of that mold, nor is Gabbard. Trump could follow those examples, but he also seems intent on bending to world to his desires. Thankfully he prefers doing so through economic warfare rather than bombs and missiles.
Neocons don’t seem to give much thought to domestic policies, but the left and the right both exhibit traits of a vanguard party. The progressives certainly have their preferred view of what America should look like, but the nationalists fervently believe in their vision for America and work just as hard to impose that view on the rest of us as the progressives do. I think there may be a little bit of Trotsky in most of us.
I stubbornly maintain that the blueprint for the GWOT was rolled out by Benzion and Benjamin Netanyahu at the Jonathan Institute’s (named for Bibi’s ‘martyred’ brother) Jerusalem Conference, July 1979.
Following introductory remarks by Benzion, who had been assistant to, then successor to Vladimir Jabotinsky, proponent of “revisionist” or militarized zionism, participants included avowed Trotskyites Gertrude Himmelfarb, Norman Podhoretz, and hanger-on zionists Paul Johnson, George H W Bush.
The book that Bibi edited from this conference, International Terrorism: Challenge and Response
https://books.google.com/books?id=s8Pm37gg5JkC&q=contents#v=snippet&q=speaker&f=false
planted in my mind the notion that Jabotisnky zionists in league with American Trotskyites formulated and fulminated the Global War on Terror, for the primary benefit of Israel and the advancement of Frankfurt school ideology.
It is worth noting, with serious concern, that Alex Karp, co-founder of Palantir, the CIA-affiliated corporate spy aggregators, completed the PhD at Frankfurt U. in social theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Karp
Bolton may be gone but neocon/Trotskyite/Frankfurt School theorists are even more deeply embedded than Bolton was in American institutions & decision making.
TTG
“here may be a little bit of Trotsky in most of us.” Quibbling.
Harper:
Where are the American Electorate in all of this? Are you positing neo-conservatives as their alibi?
Isn’t the only one, defining characteristic of the Neo-Con movement their servility to the state of Israel?
So what’s the point of defining this in the mindless left-right paradigm?
These people are simply agents of Israel. That is their only ideology. Prove me wrong.
Leo Strauss was part of the same late-1930s migration to the United States as the Frankfurt School. He stopped over in England on a Rockefeller Foundation grant to review the papers of Thomas Hobbes, which further consolidated his love for authoritarianism. He viewed the political front men as inferior, preferring a quiet behind-the-scenes dictatorship of lies by what he called “the Gentlemen.”
Frankfurt School moved into universities, OSS and promoted culture war. They broke with Marx over the fact that the working class was profoundly patriotic during World War I and every effort at creating a Bolshevik revolt in the West failed. They like Strauss concluded that an intelligentsia elite had to rule, by lying to the gullible masses and destroying their sense of morality and values. Identity politics, political correctness were consequences of this outlook, shared by both Strauss and the Frankfurt School.
Some openly embraced the Nazis. Hannah Arendt had a long relationship with Heidegger when he was one of the ideologues of National Socialism. History is not linear or objective.
Unhinged Citizen
IMO it is a major error to think the neocons merely servants of Zionism. they see themselves as a sort of secular priesthood intent on unifying the world under the whacko Straussian ideology. for them the Jews, Israel and the US are all just tools and the power of the Zionist lobby in the US makes their support of Israel and reciprocal Zionist support of them an attractive thing.
Unhinged, You’re forgetting the containment/rollback period in American foreign policy. The neocons were in the thick of that.
It’s useful to think of the political spectrum as circular, not a straight line. The extreme “left” and extreme “right” meet each other in the extremity of their violent inclinations.
How about the fabianists? were they not partners to the Frankfurt School complementing each other?
”Where are the American Electorate in all of this? Are you positing neo-conservatives as their alibi?”
Silly…the American Electorate has no say in policy.
All we do is vote and then the Elected Ones do whatever they want to or are told to do by their real Ma$ters.
All neocons are Trotskies , all united in hate of whatever and whoever stands in the way of their preferred “World Order’.
‘Spreading democracy,’protecting the homeland’,’human rights’ blah,blah,blah is just the lipstick on the pigs.
The neocons’ GWOT brand was a master stroke. Just like the progressive Left’s wars on discrimination and inequality, the struggle must necessarily be eternal. After all, what does victory look like when the enemy is an abstract noun?
The zeal to wage permanent revolution must have an underlying psychological cause and I would not be surprised if it were the same in progressives and neocons. Both share a disdain for and eagerness to make war on other cultures. Could this be born out of the angst and fear of not being at home in their own? Most people I meet who are culturally at home have no such desires and are content to simply make their way in the world – and let others do likewise. Tucker Carlson appears to be one of these.
Troskey – Bolsheviks -Zionism was not a factor but Jews were (Aleksande Solzhenitsyn., 200 Years Together),
Trotsky’s lawyer at his Mexico hearings was Albert Goldman, a Trotskyist who had joined the American Communist Party in 1920, and was expelled for Trotskyism, because he was one of a faction who broke with the official line that World War II would weaken Trotskyism. Trotsjey’s other big supporters were Albert M Glotzer, also a Trotskyist who had been expelled from the Communist Party USA in 1928 and Max Shachtman, who had founded the Communist League.
So some of the Trotskyist had broken away because they supported the US entry into the war…..quite a pit of snakes wiggling around in America and hatred of Russia lives on.
Trotskyism, Bolshevism, Zionism, all Neoconisms now ensconced in many of the Think Tanks congress regularly calls on for “expert advice:’
Arendt certainly had a secret affair with Heidegger, but she never “openly embraced the Nazis”. Here’s Wikipedia’s take on her:
Doesn’t sound like much of a Hitler-fan, does she?
Your confusion may stem from the fact that Heidegger’s relationship with National Socialism was, in fact, very conflicted. In 1934, he initially embraced it with enthusiasm, only shortly thereafter to grow disillusioned with it. Even before the outbreak of war, he had ceased to speak publicly on politics. During the war, he took a long sabbatical and became a virtual recluse for years.
Then I must read up on this ideology, I wasn’t aware there was such a political strain in the state security apparatus.
Then why pay for this representative republic charade in US? Or in France, or Italy?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School
Check out the conspiracy theories in this article
babak
the neocons have not won yet.
unhinged citizen
Nothing was said about the state security apparatus. The neocons are a private cult outside the Deeep state.
anonymous
Conspiracy theories or actual conspiracies?
Chuck,
That sums it all! exactly, a neocon and a neolib have the same goal.
Tucker Carlson said a lot things that I agreed with. But he a typical one-dimensional (or should I say one-issue) conservative talk show host. Everything is revolved around ideology, i.e. left-vs-right, for him.
I guess this (Bolton’s leftism) explains why his government career began under Reagan, and continued under every Republican President since then? And I suppose the Stalinists in the Clinton & Obama Regimes exiled Bolton to the gulag (including hard labor as a talking head at Fox) because they couldn’t stomach his devotion to Trotsky?
I share Carlson’s glee at Bolton getting the boot, but claiming that “he’s a man of the left” is, ah, counter-factual, and that’s being too generous.
Yes, the Neocons have some weird Trotskyite/Communist roots (through Strauss, etc). Based on their actions , I have wondered if their real goal has always been to hasten the end of our Republic. (IMO, that has been the most important long-term effect of the invasion of Iraq).
But when Carlson says “Left”, he’s really just trying to smear the Democratic Party. Many decades ago, the Democratic Party had “real” leftists in positions of power (ie, Henry Wallace). But in the 1990’s, with Union money running dry, the Democratic Party was taken over by the neoliberal Democratic Leadership Council (the Clinton wing). They abandoned many traditional “leftist” priorities – unions, progressive taxation, etc – and focused instead on socially Liberal positions. Politically, it worked, sorta, for a while.
In 2016, the chickens came home to roost. Trump got about the same number of votes as Romney had gotten four years earlier; but Hillary got way fewer votes than Obama had, particularly in states where Unions had collapsed.
The left didn’t vote for Hillary. The working-class vote – once solidly Democratic – split, or stayed home. Black and young voters were unenthusiastic. Jill Stein peeled off a bunch of votes, including Sanders supporters pissed off by the DNC tilting the scales for HRC. People like me couldn’t forgive her vote for the invasion of Iraq.
Hillary picked up a few suburban women, but not enough to offset the loss of the real left.
Hillary is not a “Leftist”. Bernie is a Leftist, but not a Communist.
And John Bolton is a neo-con, not a leftist.
Tony,
I believe the moniker “neo-con” stems from the defection of the Trotskyites from the Democratic party during the Viet Nam war era. At that time the Scoop Jackson Democrats were the war mongers, but when that party became the home of the anti-war movement their position within that party became untenable. They switched to the Republican party and called themselves conservatives. New Conservatives.
Many have been conditioned to view the Republican party as the right and the Democrats as the left, but both are tainted with Trotsky’s views in certain areas. Carlson’s employer views the Republican party as sugar and spice and everything nice, so Bolton must be labeled a Democrat in some way. They can’t do that directly, as it was Republican presidents who nominated him to high positions in both the GW Bush and Trump administrations.
In any event, it’s good to see FOX disavowing those guys. Thank’s Tucker.
elkern
No. He was undercover as a Republican to fool people like you.
TonyL
And for John Bolton and all the other neocon devotees.
Why indeed.
There aren’t enough jails to holds us all if we quit paying taxes.
Maybe we should try it.
Next April we could have a million man/woman march on capitol hill with burning tax returns for torches.
I have to say that I Love The Debates here on SST….and am grateful I can come here and Express Ideas…and My thinking on Issues I find Interesting…Thank You Colonel for Your long Hours of Production..and Editorial work ..often into Late hours of the Nite..I have been Inspired into Doing My Own Long Research into Background on Many of the Topics Debated here..and especially on many the Historical Facts..that have gone on that I never Knew..I Respect how much you care for Our Constitution..and Republic…”Liftera Scripta Manet..”
whats interesting is that both the frankfurt school and trumps father came from germany aus.jahwol.raygun was a big fan of wohlstetter.and nancy had a fancy.and a few wars later and bolton is fired and that is an actual conspiracy.jahhol
I was talking about the founding father of the neo-cons, Leo Strauss, who to my knowledge had no Trotskyite connections or sympathies but was, as I said, a figure neither of the right nor the left but an anti-democratic authoritarian who believed that the mass of humanity is incapable of making “correct” decisions and must be ruled from above by would-be noble tyrants who have been educated and are advised by an elite of the Straussian ilk.
If this description sounds like a more or less armchair philosophy/world view that has little or no connection with modern political movements of any sort, you might be right. The eternal “verities” that Strauss and his hardcore followers are rooted in have their origins in their often abstruse reading of chosen thinkers of ancient Greece. (Strauss, BTW, not only was an anti-democratic authoritarian; he also believed that Western civilization turned onto the road to ruin the advent of the Enlightenment, a development that he was eager to undo.)
However, as you and Harper have stated, a later generation of Strauss-influenced types, the in many cases former Trotskyite neo-cons, took Strauss’ anti-democratic authoritarian ball and ran with it, often (at least in their own minds and/or when they felt it was necessary), backing up and in effect dignifying their calls for contemporary war-mongering and global hegemony with discreet doses of Strauss’ fancy-dan intellectual B.S.
P.S. The gap between Leo Strauss and the key figures of the Frankfurt School (e.g. Horkheimer, Adrono, and such latter offshoots as Habermas ) could not be wider. Nor AFAIK do any of the more (would-be) intellectual neo-con types regard the Frankfurt School with any favor. Indeed, the most devastating takedown of Strauss that I know is an essay by the late Frankfurt-associated thinker George Lichtheim. It can be found in his “Collected Essays.”
Yeah, yeah, I know, Jew conspiracy and all that, heard it a million times. BORING!
Fooling me never mattered; I’m a “real leftist” (Green, actually), so I don’t have any power beyond my one feeble vote, and maybe $27 for Bernie.
It was the GOP that put Bolton & the other NeoCons in positions to screw up our country and our planet. Most real leftists protested – ineffectually, as usual – everything they did.
Centrist Democratic Senators (even Joe B) filibustered when Bush appointed Bolton as UN Ambassador. Each time the Democrats took the White House, Bolton was out; each time Republicans got in, back came Bolton, each time in a bigger chair.
Are these not facts?
Only way I can make sense of Bolton as a “Leftist” is as a Trotskyite mole of some sort. I get the possibility, but I don’t really buy it. Were “they” in cahoots with the Chicago School Economists who invented GOP Voodoo Economics? Was that how they got a foot in the door? The only Democrat in the NeoCon path to power was Scoop Jackson, (D-Boeing); was he a Commie, too? And Kissinger would have had to be in on it; Nixon, too? Did the FBI & CIA just miss the conspiracy, or were J.Edgar and GHWB part of it? Arrgh, now we’re into “Bolton killed JFK” territory.
Too complicated, fails Occam’s Razor.
There was a personal connection between some of the early neocons and Trotskyist movements but not a substantial ideological one. Before Podhoretz, Kristol et al. became neocons after splitting from the Socialist Workers Party they joined the Socialist Party, which had a decidedly anti-Communist stance. The twists and turns of leftist politics between the world wars left Communists and Social Democrats hating each others’ guts. During the 1950s the Michael Harrington Socialists were basically absorbed into the program the Cold War liberals, who were drunk with the power that the outcome of World War II had left in US hands and had social ideals influenced by the New Deal and Social Democratic parties in Europe. There was a somewhat messianic view of spreading enlightened-capitalism-for-the-good-of-all throughout the post-colonial world, coupled with a deep conviction that Communism was the remaining evil in the world after the Axis ideologies. Those who fell away from the idea of enlightened-capitalism-for-the-good-of-all and substituted the spread of unfettered internationalist corporate capitalism by force if necessary as their messianic ideology became the neocons. The Trotskyist ideology of revolution sweeping the world under “proletarian internationalism” and the neocon internationalism of unfettered global capital backed by force of arms are in fact polar opposites.
Where is Ramón Mercader when you need him?
The neocons are mostly trying to find a way to reverse the results of the XV and XVI party congresses in the USSR where Trotsky and all the United Opposition were expelled and Trotsky exiled from the USSR. They almost succeeded during that short spell of neo- con glory in the late 90’s as they and their fellow travelers the Oligarchs raped the FRS of much of its wealth. But Yeltsin’s successor has succeeded in finding ways to diminish the power of the oligarchs and the Troskyites. Which successes, given the ownership and editorial control of all of the American infotainment industry by neo-cons and their fellow tribalists might
explain the great depth of anti-Putin rhetoric and bull crap that geysers forth from our infotainment industry every day.
Thirdeye’s account is accurate ASFAIK.
Clearly Tucker Carlson’s use of irony to describe Bolton as “man of the left” has sparked some deeper considerations. Going back to the ideological roots in the Trotsky movement of the 1930s of today’s neocons is a deeper dig than the usual use of the terms “left” and “right.” I emphasize that the common bond between the original Trotsky followers and today’s neocons is the belief in permanent global upheaval, whether it is called permanent revolution, permanent war, permanent regime change, permanent humanitarian intervention. The Democratic and Republican parties are both heavily penetrated/influenced by the neoconservative personalities and ideologies. If Hillary had been elected, you can bet that Robert Kagan would have been a key cabinet or White House officials, along with wife Victoria Nuland. Look at the signers on documents like the Project for a New American Century or the John Hay Initiative and you will see both nominal Democrats and Republicans. It is the party labels that have been so blurred that voters in 2016 voted against both parties by electing Donald Trump, an abrasive outsider who showed equal disdain for Hillary and Jeb.
Harper
Anything else to say about neocon spiritual ancestors and a flirtation with the NSDAP or its predecessors?
In other words, the neoconservative movement is akin to a Church Militant or to a Muslim Jihadists dynasty like the Ottomans. And I suppose the religion here is a version of the Cult of Prgoress & the Cult of Man?
The Western Civilization, at one time, was centered around God & Church. You can see that still in vestigial form in small towns and villages in Catholic countries. There is no longer a spiritual center into which move and have moved all these “isms”.
All these “isms” are offshoots of the Enlightenment Tradition and they all agree that “Man is alive by bread alone.”
That is why neoconservatives specially hate Iran: “People did not revolt over the price of watermelons…” but for Islam – as Ayatollah Khomeini stated.
All:
The biography of Trotsky is titled: “The Prophet” https://www.amazon.com/Prophet-Life-Leon-Trotsky/dp/1781685606/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=isaac+deutscher+trotsky&qid=1568560840&sprefix=issac+deutscher&sr=8-1
Thirdeye,
I quite agree, but I’ll opine they do share that messianic complex, the key to the damage they do. They share an absolute faith that people who don’t think like they do are ignorant.
Finally bothered to watch the Carlson commentary at the root of this. I detect no “irony” in his claim that Bolton is a “man of the left”.
Some direct quotes, from Carlson:
“John Bolton was one of the most progressive people in the Trump administration”
“[He]…promoted Obama loyalists” – with no list of names to check. Who?
“In between administration jobs are always cushy think-tank posts, paid speaking gigs, cable news contracts…”. Note that…
1. the Administrations were all GOP
2. the Think-Tanks were all GOP/Right-wing tanks
3. (I don’t have stats on the blab jobs, but it sure wasn’t the DSA)
4. Bolton was a FOX commentator.
This is a crying shame. Listening to Carlson’s monologue, I agree completely with his basic premise – that Bolton and the other NewCons continue to destroy America from within – and many of the details he provides (other neocons in government).
What bothers me is that Carlson threw in the gratuitous – and false – accusations attempting to tie Bolton to the “left”, “progressives”, and Obama, implying that the NeoCons are a Democrat problem and not a Republican one.
The key quote:
“If you’re wondering why so many progressives are mourning Bolton’s firing tonight, it’s because Bolton, fundamentally, was a man of the left. There’s not a human problem John Bolton wasn’t totally convinced could be solved with the brute force of government”.
1. The Progressives sources I’ve seen are happy & relieved that Bolton is out. We care about Peace, Life, Democracy, etc, so we hate the NeoCons.
2. Many “Liberals” – loosely, Clinton Democrats – view Trump as the bigger enemy, so they focus on the administrative chaos exhibited by the constant turnover. That’s exactly what Samantha Power said; she did NOT defend Bolton (nor “mourn” his firing), she attacked Trump for not having a stable staff. If you have better examples of progressives’ support for Bolton, please add links.
3. The real NeoCon project is solely focused on a warlike Foreign Policy, so of course they look to the “brute force of government”. We have little data on domestic issues where they might abuse this force to our detriment. OTOH, Bolton’s Wiki page recounts an incident early in his career (in USAID, under Reagan) where he threatened to fire someone who refused to “lobby for the deregulation of baby formula in developing nations”, which is an example of Corporatist priorities (let the multinational Companies sell baby-poison), not progressive ones.
I’m glad to see signs that the Right is turning against the NeoCons. But using Bolton to smear the left undermines the case against our common enemy. True progressives are your ally, against Republican NeoCons AND Democratic NeoLibs! Please, lets just rejoice together: Ding-Dong the Wicked Moustache of Evil is Gone! (…for now…)
Babak,
That is due to the relentless attacks on faith starting in the late 50s and early 60s.
I understand your bewilderment. I think in reality you cannot assign any of the many ‘isms’ strictly to ‘the left’ or ‘the right’.
The various ‘ism ideologies’ exist in some of the people in both parties.
It becomes confusing because one ism often ‘piggy backs’ another ism..i.e…joins up with, another ism to further their own goal.
Iow, you support me this and I’ll support you on that.
Conspiracy people talk about the Deep State as if it was one entity all agreed on one giant vision, when it is really various interest entities trading off bits and pieces of policy and power among themselves to achieve their goals.
Off by 350 years.
See BarbaraAnn’s comment, above: “Some people are compulsive revolutionaries, requiring perpetual war; others are “culturally at home and content to make their way in this world.”
Neocons may exhibit an imbalance of the revolutionary compulsion, but the impulse is not limited to zionists/neocons. It may be that revolution is a Red Sportscar to more than a few aging comfortably at home non-neocons.
I wanna be a contender!
But my question stands.
Where are the American people in all of this?
The main manifestation of the Trotskyists’ messianic complex is their propensity for factional arguing over who can lead the masses to revolution with their One True Way. But they invariably fail to have any real effect at all. It’s more comical than anything. The attempts to tie Trotskyism to some grand narrative of contemporary American politics lend it more seriousness than it deserves.
Just been on a call with a Washingtonian, who told me that Bolton quit – he wasnt fired. He was reported as quitting because Trump had been moving towards talks with Iran.
I have no independent insight into this.
Because it is useful for those in power if the masses think they have a say.
By Carlson’s logic, every member of Team R that votes for an expanded military budget is a closet leftist, as is just about everyone else that isn’t a hardcore libertarian.
prawnik
“every member of Team R that votes for an expanded military budget is a closet leftist, as is just about everyone else” No, only those who advocate use of the expanded military in wars of choice and regime change.
Perhaps a useful distinction can be made between intellectual political ideology and emotional political psychology. I too had read that the earliest founders of “neo-conservatism” had begun as fervent butts-in-seats Trotskyists in the study carrels of City College of New York, locked in bitter intellectual and ideological combat with their opposing butts-in-seats study-carrel Stalinists at the same College.
When they went neo-con, they turned against socialism and towards privatism, but they kept their psychographic emotion-sets as permanent destabilizers always looking to overturn this and that.
So while they are not Trotsky-IST, they may be considered as being Trotsky-ESQUE.
Babak – most definitely yes. As we in England posit our own mini-neocons. As we discussed a while ago, they control the bulk of the information sphere.
That and, as you recently remarked, the Scofield Bible account for the most of it. Not forgetting the Eastern European Russophobes who flooded into the States after WW2. This is not, I respectfully suggest, a civilisational clash, with us on our side of the Diocletian Line clean off our heads. It’s an information war. If the American public, or indeed we Europeans, got a hold of what was happening the neocons would be a mere footnote in the history books.
Maybe not the French ones but then, the French have always been the exceptional nation. As with making tea properly (not that I’m boasting) some things you just have to be born into.
Colonel – perhaps as was stated by Biden a little while ago –
“If there were not an Israel, we would have to invent one to make sure our interests were preserved,”
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/if-there-were-no-israel-wed-have-to-invent-one-biden-55494
Every political confrontation we are seeing today is along civilizational lines – Western Diocletian Civilization against the Russian Orthodoxy, against Sinic Civilization of the Far East, and against Iranian Shia.
Inside India, we have two clashing civilizations Hinduism and Islam.
Central African Republic disintegrated along the lines of religion, soon to be repeated in Nigeria as well.
The confrontations between the United States and her vassals and the Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China, and the Islamic Republic of Iran are all along civilizational fault-lines.
The civil war inside the Islamic world is along the Seljuk fault line.
The persistent communal violence inside India is in between two distinct, hostile, and mutually exclusive and incompatible civilizations.
The Central African Republic disintegrated because the structures of Western Diocletian civilization decayed. The only functioning institution there, whose writ is carried out across its territory, is the Catholic Church – while Muslims have fled elsewhere.
I think you are taking the Western Diocletian civilization as normative, I take it as another machine that may or may not work according to its specifications when used in a different context.
Well, maybe I’m just too parochial to see it that way, Babak. Or maybe on those fault lines you identify we have another that cuts across them. Certainly does in the Western world, and in that world we must include the RF.
That’s the fault line between the Progressives and the rest of us. An internal conflict more debilitating, more destructive, than we acknowledge. While the big blocks you mention are engaged in the dramatic and hazardous business of pointing everything at each other from rockets to proxies, that internal conflict saps away at our Western civilisation more effectively than anything outside forces can threaten us with or we can threaten them with.
And in the world you are so intimately acquainted with, the Muslim world, do we not see that same fault line emerging? Certainly the Jihadis we send over from Europe are not just crazed lunatics. From the interviews I’ve seen some are looking, however imperfectly or naively, to reject what many of us in the West reject.
English,
2013 is almost a decade ago.