by Patrick Lang (bio below)
People pay schools money to have this man [Francis Fukuyama] teach their children? I wonder of he does the dog-paddle or the back stroke as he swims away from the ship? His detailed account of the Left wing nature of the neocon movement is delightful. You don’t like the word Lefty? Lang
"The roots of neoconservatism lie in a remarkable group of largely Jewish intellectuals who attended City College of New York (C.C.N.Y.) in the mid- to late 1930’s and early 1940’s, a group that included Irving Kristol, Daniel Bell, Irving Howe, Nathan Glazer and, a bit later, Daniel Patrick Moynihan." Fukuyama
"It is not an accident that many in the C.C.N.Y. group started out as Trotskyites. Leon Trotsky was, of course, himself a Communist, but his supporters came to understand better than most people the utter cynicism and brutality of the Stalinist regime. The anti-Communist left, in contrast to the traditional American right, sympathized with the social and economic aims of Communism, but in the course of the 1930’s and 1940’s came to realize that "real existing socialism" had become a monstrosity of unintended consequences that completely undermined the idealistic goals it espoused. While not all of the C.C.N.Y. thinkers became neoconservatives, the danger of good intentions carried to extremes was a theme that would underlie the life work of many members of this group." Fukuyama
I once had one of the leading theoreticians of the "movement" tell me that the "con" in "neocon" is the "con" part. Translation: They are not Conservative. Conservatives in America believe in the limited utility of government, the importance of stopping government when it tries to run one’s life and that Freedom has little to do with the Patriot Act. The religious right in America are no more conservative than the neocons. They are merely right wing in a narrow minded and sectarian way. … continued below …
"The End of History," in other words, presented a kind of Marxist argument for the existence of a long-term process of social evolution, but one that terminates in liberal democracy rather than communism. In the formulation of the scholar Ken Jowitt, the neoconservative position articulated by people like Kristol and Kagan was, by contrast, Leninist; they believed that history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will. Leninism was a tragedy in its Bolshevik version, and it has returned as farce when practiced by the United States. Neoconservatism, as both a political symbol and a body of thought, has evolved into something I can no longer support." Fukuyama
Apparently, this is not exactly right. I mean the part about "no longer support." Fukuyama’s solution for the mess that he and his pseudo-conservative Jacobin friends have gotten us all in is that the US should have much the same policy with regard to "friendly autocrats" but should be careful not to do anything that might further break up the China (dishes). In other words, he has no solution for the mess that he and his pals made but is frightened by the result of their sophomoric meddling with the deepest forces in human nature and Middle Eastern history. Ah, I forgot. History has no meaning for them because like all good little Utopians, the past is dead and only the future matters. Lang
"Peace might emerge, sometime down the road, from a Palestine run by a formerly radical terrorist group that had been forced to deal with the realities of governing." Fukuyama
This is the best part really. This "scholar" has not learned a damned thing about Islam, Muslims, human nature and can’t read the newspapers evidently. I guess he hasn’t read Lang’s Rules of Epistemology or "Pie in the Sky." Oh well, I don’t suppose that readers of the New York Times magazine will be more than 75% of those who even know who he is. Lang
Pat Lang
Col. Patrick W. Lang (Ret.), a highly decorated retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces, served as “Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East, South Asia and Terrorism” for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and was later the first Director of the Defense Humint Service. Col. Lang was the first Professor of the Arabic Language at the United States Military Academy at West Point. For his service in the DIA, he was awarded the “Presidential Rank of Distinguished Executive.” He is a frequent commentator on television and radio, including MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann (interview), CNN and Wolf Blitzer’s Situation Room (interview), PBS’s Newshour, NPR’s “All Things Considered,” (interview), and more .
Personal Blog: Sic Semper Tyrannis 2005 || Bio || CV
Recommended Books || More BooTrib Posts
Novel: The Butcher’s Cleaver (download free by chapter, PDF format)
“Drinking the Kool-Aid,” Middle East Policy Council Journal, Vol. XI, Summer 2004, No. 2
wow!
i’d seen fukuyama’s article, but this was still one seriously eye-opening read. you are not alone is describing these goons as jacobin. i’m going to have to study up on that.
He will be on March 5 / noon ET / Booktv.org — live three-hour discussion — C-Span2.
Had a similar discussion w/a friend who is a minister. The thing is that I’ve been thinking that there is more of a split in the repubs than many want to believe/realize.
However, that does not justify a split re: the dems running conservative candidates that barely differ freom the repubs.
And since it is getting late, I am calling it a nite–making too many typos and am not caring.
Alright Col. Lang! Very nice to see Fukuyama get properly rung. It is important that Pat mentioned the worth of objective history to the neocons – not much, to these revisionists. And the consequences that we are paying now for the utter disregard of it.
here, but isn’t Fukuyama implying that the problem with the neocon movement stems from the fact that these guys are Jewish (mostly) and from New York:
“The roots of neoconservatism lie in a remarkable group of largely Jewish intellectuals who attended City College of New York (C.C.N.Y.) in the mid- to late 1930’s and early 1940’s, . . .”
Or is it that they originally were communist sympathizers? Anyway, it seems like there is a move afoot to separate the good guys from the bad guys–and the bad guys are left-wing Jewish intellectuals from New York. Hmm, sounds familiar somehow.
Swim, Francis, swim hard!
i think so. everything has a history and to recount that history isn’t necessarily a reflection on why something failed.
fukuyama is arguing two things:
a) neoconservativism has its origins in left-wing philosophies
b) it’s a bad idea
This neocon calculus is immoral. No need to refer to god, religion or afterlife or bibles or christ or any other similar obscenity to understand this: Pain of a father
I would argue that the neo-con philosophy is not a product of left-wing political philosophy. It is, partly, a product of the thoughts and perceptions of former left wing academics, but it is also partly a product of former conservative politicians like Rumsfeld and Cheney. Many of the people working within this administration started their careers as employees of the Nixon administration and continued to work both within the Reagan and the Bush sr. administrations.
I would further argue that the neo-con “ideology” was hatched and created by disillusioned Trotskyites and nurtured and allowed to grow within the context of conservative administrations, thus being an ideological misfit neither leftist nor conservative in its true nature, but rather an amalgamation of the extremes on both sides of the political spectre and shaped into a new kind of political thought that’s not that easy to categorize.
it’s a tad simplistic, but I don’t really buy into neo-conservatism as an ideology. It appears to be a defense contractor lobbying group and not much more.
Well…..that might be true, but Wolfowitz, Kristol, Fukuyama and Kagan all belong to the academia and their thoughts had originally little to do with the defence contractor lobbying groups.
The PNAC think tank was a political think tank originally meant to come up with a new national policy for the US in the future. Defence contractor of course supported it because it meant a new era for the defence establishment, when the PNAC document and indeed the new National Security Policy paper states that the US has to be prepared to act unilaterally and with military, if necessary, in the future.
It’s only my opinion but I have real doubts that the Straussian elements have much to do with how these people really feel. I think that Scoop Jackson’s relationship with the defense industry has more to do with PNAC than Leo Strauss’s ideas on leadership and national myths and so on.