THINKING ABOUT NEOCONSERVATISM

by Kevin MacDonald Kevin MacDonald is Professor of Psychology at California State University-Long Beach. https://www.vdare.com/misc/macdonald_neoconservatism.htm While Prof. MacDonald is dealing with the situation in the USA, Australians will have no trouble in relating the article to what has happened in this country - as well as the U.K. "Over the last year, there's been a torrent of articles on neoconservatism raising (usually implicitly) some vexing issues: Are neoconservatives different from other conservatives? Is neoconservatism a Jewish movement? Is it "anti-Semitic" to say so? The dispute between the neocons and more traditional conservatives -'paleoconservatives'- is especially important because the latter now find themselves on the outside, looking in on the conservative power structure.

Neocon foreign policy fits well with plausible version of Jewish interests: Hopefully, some of the venom has been taken out of this argument by the remarkable recent article by neoconservative "godfather" Irving Kristol ("The Neoconservative Persuasion," Weekly Standard, August 25, 2003). With commendable frankness, Kristol admitted that "the historical task and political purpose of neoconservatism would seem to be this: to convert the Republican party, and American conservatism in general, against their respective wills, into a new kind of conservative politics suitable to governing a modern democracy." And, equally frankly, Kristol eschewed any attempt to justify U.S. support for Israel in terms of American national interest:
"[L]arge nations, whose identity is ideological, like the Soviet Union of yesteryear and the United States of today, inevitably have ideological interests in addition to more material concerns… That is why we feel it necessary to defend Israel today, when its survival is threatened. No complicated geopolitical calculations of national interest are necessary." If the US is an "ideological" nation, this can only mean that the motivations of neoconservative ideology are a legitimate subject of intellectual inquiry.
For example, it is certainly true that the neocons' foreign policy fits well with a plausible version of Jewish interests, but is arguably only tenuously related to the interests of the U.S. Also, neocons oppose the isolationism of important sections of traditional American conservatism. And neocon attitudes on issues like race and immigration differ profoundly from those of traditional mainstream conservatives - but resemble closely the common attitudes of the wider American Jewish community.

'Ethnicity' is a practical matter not a moral one: Count me among those who accept that the Jewish commitment of leading neoconservatives has become a critical influence on U.S. policies, and that the effectiveness of the neoconservatives is greatly enhanced by their alliance with the organized Jewish community. In my opinion, this conclusion is based on solid data and reasonable inferences. But like any other theory, of course, it is subject to reasoned discussion and disproof.
We shouldn't be surprised by the importance of ethnicity in human affairs. Nor should we be intimidated by charges of anti-Semitism. We should be able to discuss these issues openly and honestly. This is a practical matter, not a moral one.
Ethnic politics in the U.S. are certainly not limited to Jewish activism. They are an absolutely normal phenomenon throughout history and around the world. But for well over half a century, with rare exceptions, Jewish influence has been off-limits for rational discussion. Now, however, as the U.S. acquires an empire in the Middle East, this ban must inevitably fall away. My views on these issues are shaped by my research on several other influential Jewish-dominated intellectual and political movements, including the Boasian school of anthropology, Freudian psychoanalysis, the Frankfurt School of Social Research, Marxism and several other movements of the radical left, as well as the movement to change the ethnic balance of the United States by allowing mass, non-traditional immigration.

My conclusion: Contemporary neoconservatism fits into the general pattern of Jewish intellectual and political activism I have identified in my work. I am not, of course, saying that all Jews, or even most Jews, supported these movements. Nor did these movements work in concert: some were intensely hostile to one another. I am saying, however, that the key figures in these movements identified in some sense as Jews and viewed their participation as in some sense advancing Jewish interests.

Key founders originated as followers of Trotskyite theoretician: In all of the Jewish intellectual and political movements I studied, there is a strong Jewish identity among the core figures. All centre on charismatic Jewish leaders-people such as Boas, Trotsky and Freud- who are revered as messianic, god-like figures.
Neoconservatism's key founders trace their intellectual ancestry to the "New York Intellectuals," a group that originated as followers of Trotskyite theoretician Max Schactman in the 1930s and centered around influential journals like Partisan Review and Commentary (which is in fact published by the American Jewish Committee). In the case of neoconservatives, their early identity as radical leftist disciples shifted as there began to be evidence of anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union.
Key figures in leading them out of the political left were philosopher Sidney Hook and Elliot Cohen, editor of Commentary. Such men as Hook, Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Nathan Glazer and Seymour Martin Lipset, were deeply concerned about anti-Semitism and other Jewish issues. Many of them worked closely with Jewish activist organizations. After the 1950s, they became increasingly disenchanted with leftism. Their overriding concern was the welfare of Israel.

Astonishing number well placed to influence political leaders: By the 1970s, the neocons were taking an aggressive stance against the Soviet Union, which they saw as a bastion of anti-Semitism and opposition to Israel. Richard Perle was the prime organiser of Congressional support for the 1974 Jackson-Vanik Amendment which angered the Soviet Union by linking bilateral trade issues to freedom of emigration, primarily of Jews from the Soviet Union to Israel and the United States.
Current key leaders include an astonishing number of individuals well placed to influence the Bush Administration: (Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, I. Lewis Libby, Elliott Abrams, David Wurmser, Abram Shulsky), interlocking media and thinktankdom (Bill Kristol, Michael Ledeen, Stephen Bryen, John Podhoretz, Daniel Pipes), and the academic world (Richard Pipes, Donald Kagan).
As the neoconservatives lost faith in radical leftism, several key neocons became attracted to the writings of Leo Strauss, a classicist and political philosopher at the University of Chicago. Strauss had a very strong Jewish identity and viewed his philosophy as a means of ensuring Jewish survival in the Diaspora. As he put it in a 1962 Hillel House lecture, later republished in Leo Strauss: Political Philosopher and Jewish Thinker:
"I believe I can say, without any exaggeration, that since a very, very early time the main theme of my reflections has been what is called the 'Jewish Question'."
Strauss has become a cult figure-the quintessential rabbinical guru with devoted disciples.

Nothing 'conservative' about their goals: While Strauss and his followers have come to be known as neoconservatives - and have even claimed to be simply "conservatives"- there is nothing conservative about their goals. This is most obviously the case in foreign policy, where they are attempting to rearrange the entire Middle East in the interests of Israel.
But it is also the case with domestic policy, where acceptance of rule by an aristocratic elite would require a complete political transformation. Strauss believed that this aristocracy would be compatible with Jewish interests.
Strauss notoriously described the need for an external exoteric language directed at outsiders, and an internal esoteric language directed at ingroup members. In other words, the masses had to be deceived.

Common 'rhetoric': But actually this is a general feature of the movements I have studied. They invariably frame issues in language that appeals to non-Jews, rather than explicitly in terms of Jewish interests. The most common rhetoric used by Jewish intellectual and political movements has been the language of moral universalism and the language of science-languages that appeal to the educated elites of the modern Western world. But beneath the rhetoric it is easy to find statements expressing the Jewish agendas of the principal actors…" to be continued.

LIBERALS (NSW) HAVE RESCINDED 'REPUBLIC' MOTION

A LESSON FOR US ALL

by Betty Luks:
A small number of keen social crediters from around the world have been involved in a discussion via the internet. I have to confess although I put my name on the list to participate my contribution has been pathetic.
But my attention was drawn to the comments of some -- frustrated because of their lack of success in interesting others in social credit, and also the difficulties in corresponding with those at different levels of understanding.
Let me list just some of their complaints:
• One has gone off on a concerted effort to establish world government.
• Another has gone off to promote Gessell's "disappearing money" theories.
• Others have become obsessed with interest on bank-created money derived from loans as being the bete noire of the economic malaise and have said that Douglas "missed the boat" with his "A + B Theorem."
• Others are convinced that the Social Credit concept and proposals re the Just Price are either not relevant or practical.
• Others fancy that the problem can be solved by myth of capital ownership.
As one correspondent wrote: "What bloody chaos. Don't imagine that I am not frustrated."

I do think he has put his finger on part of the problem when he writes:
"One of the main problems is that our culture has been effectively sabotaged through the education system and the established media and this has spread paralysis via confusion. (Australians call it 'dumbing down' W.K.) We need a cultural regeneration to revive the spirit in the human soul--a spirit which seeks only the truth and is willing to make great effort and sacrifice to ensure that it prevails. This goes beyond our individual hopes and desires for a 'quick fix' for Social Crediters. One must persist in the face of adversity and slowness of progress because only "the truth will make you free" and because in the service of God we have no other option but to seek truth and strive for it simply because to do so is 'right.'"

I am in agreement with that as far as it goes. But I have a problem with the following:
" 'M.' made a brilliant and literate foray into the field with his… but then became enchanted with Charles Ferguson whose ideas were known to, and preceded Douglas. Recent editions appear to have almost completely abandoned the case for Social Credit…"

And for myself, I think this is where many of us have gone wrong. Let me explain further by quoting C. H. Douglas.
In "The Realistic Position of the Church of England" he wrote:
"It is important to notice that the " Elders of Zion," whoever they may be, have certain premises in common with their irreconcilable antithesis, Christianity.
Both philosophies explicitly and implicitly condemn and discredit the idea of human equality.
• "In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you."
• "Doth a bad tree bring forth good fruit?"
• "He that would be greatest among you, let him be your servant."
There is no essential difference in the premise; there is every difference in the policy as we can see when we come to examine that aspect.
There is nothing in the Protocols so devastating as the injunction (i.e., formal command):
"Cast not your pearls before swine, lest they turn upon you, and rend you," although the same idea is emphasised.
But the agreement on premises goes further. Both Christianity and the Protocols recognise the primacy and formative nature of ideas.
"My Kingdom is not of this world."
"There is nothing more dangerous than personal initiative" [the pursuit of an inborn idea], Protocol V, par II, Marsden Translation.
Christianity, moreover, does not scorn this world. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you."
It is not improper to say that Christianity is inter alia a technique by which a man, by control of his ideation, may gain such part of the world as in the nature of things appertains to him, and there is no injunction of which I am aware against that.
But there is a warning. "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"…"
By control of his (own) ideation may gain such part of the world which appertains to him… "The civilisation of Christianity was incompletely embodied in the culture of mediaeval Europe, and is exemplified (i.e., clarified by giving an example… and example, meaning something to be imitated) in Magna Carta.
Its essential characteristic is courage, allied to "love," cf. "Perfect love casteth out fear" (a rather unsatisfactory translation). The knight of chivalry, the militant Christian ideal, watched his armour alone in the chapel through the night, and then went out to do battle alone for love against fear and oppression-a very complete allegory (i.e., a visible symbol representing an abstract idea; a short moral story, often with animals in it. The fear in this allegory could be his own fear, frightened to try something new or different… it may not always be fear of another mortal.)
The "mass" is unsaveable, (comes from the same root word as 'salvation' i.e., being made whole) just as a mob is insane ("without health"); the object of Anti-Christ is to keep mankind in ever larger mobs, thus defeating the object of Christ, to permit the emergence of self-governing, self-conscious individuals, exercising free will, and choosing good because it is good. The energising factor is attraction, inducement…" (definitions and some emphasis added.)
Just quoting Magna Carta will not return us the freedoms we have lost and continue to lose. Just quoting Christ's words: "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you," will not give us "all these things will be added unto you."
We have to actively pursue them. There has to be a practical application of … "first seek (i.e., try to get or reach; try to locate or discover; try to establish the existence of) the Kingdom of God … and so with Social Credit!
P.S. I have some of Charles Ferguson's books and I see absolute flashes of brilliance and insight within. But it took C.H. Douglas to give us more detail and take us on further in understanding of this thing called 'social credit'. A good idea is to read Michael Lane's book on Charles Ferguson: "Herald of Social Credit". Available from all League Book Services.

"What IS Social Credit?" I hear you asking

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