There are two basic points here.
One, that there is a concerted effort to “shape” the opposition in America by limiting its focus to the role of “neocons” in the prosecution of the Iraq war. In fact, my larger thesis, which I will attempt to develop on this site, is that much of the “opposition” in the U.S. is kept effectively in check by the power structure through manipulation, infiltration and even, at times, direct control.
Two, because the neocons, as originally defined, are almost exclusively Jewish, this is uncomfortably close to Jewish control theories popular on the extreme right. In fact, as I began to discuss in my Heinberg post, neofascist ideology is making inroads into the left and progressive communities within a variety of movements such as Peak Oil, environmentalism and 9/11 truth. I’ll have much more to say about those at a later time.
In this post, I’d like to deal with the first point. I thought it was self-evident that the idea that this “neocons made us do it theme” is finding increasing acceptance on the left. Evidently, not everyone has noticed.
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Friday, October 06, 2006
Infliltration
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"Two, because the neocons, as originally defined, are almost exclusively Jewish, "
ReplyDeleteThis, for a start, is simply not true. The two most powerful signatories to the PNAC document were Cheney and Rumsfeld, both WASPs.
"The two most powerful signatories to the PNAC document were Cheney and Rumsfeld, both WASPs. "
ReplyDeleteThat's true, the neocons were identified as Jewish by pro-Bush journalists who were replying to criticism from centrist journalists that forefronted that term - the whole discourse about the 'neocons' is a staged debate between a ventriloquist and a dummy. There are people who identify this way but it doesn't tell you much about what they do, just a little about how they might characterise what they do.
It's a good article because it is really true the 'neocons' don't exist as a ruling class interest or independent bloc of policymakers, they exist only loosely as a group of intellectuals and upper level poliocy clerks, and very often any analysis of the conflicts and collusion between sectors of the ruling class is derailed or diverted into confusion by the evocation of this 'neocon' figment, which disguises above all the increased solidarity and discipline in the ruling class, financial and political, over the last decade behind a false image of increased conflict. The talk of neocons tends to get very gossipy and deceptive, they are are even occasionally portrayed as in disagreement with C. Rice or whomever, to create a false image of policy debate and 'philosophy' in the halls of power, disguising the operations of empire as empire as its ruling class as imperial. The talk of neocons as independent agents is a bit like backstairs at Versailles gossip and it prevents understanding of the policies and their accompnaying 'theory' and propaganda which is labelled/mislabelled 'neoconservatisism', when it is just generic ruling class policy, with an inherent tendency to fascism when need and opportunity arise, with some innovative propaganda largely directed at the less-favoured (but not disfavoured) sections of capital (domestic, as well as international competitor/allies) rather than the general public.
the other article there though aout this heinberg character (never heard of him) made me laugh...a spooky evocation of the infiltration of the left by spooky people with spooky theories about the spooky infilration of the left...it's so post-retro-pomo. Is it a compact recursive parody of the style of it's object? Trawling the archives of popular occultists for the red thread of evil thought and whatnot? Can't tell.
ReplyDeleteis there a conspiracy to implant the belief in a fictional conspiracy or is that conspiracy only a fiction nefariously implanted by another conspiracy?
is it in the texts of the literary occult, nazi and otherwise, that we must seek the keys which will unlock enlightenment, the truth of our world? ooooooooo what a fun spooky question.
(the real apocrypha, which only the intiates dare approach, is just page 2 onwards of the Financial Times)
are the neocons the true infiltrators, the rasputins of the ritht? or are the neocons the figment created by other infiltrators, the rasputings of the left, to disguise their own presence....? we can journey through the secret texts of pop spiritualism and the nazi party perhaps for the answer, hidden in code and dispersed so only the true aspirant to knowledge can reassemble the message's true import...
ReplyDeleteIt's like an endless recursive parody engine constructed out of the concept 'infiltration'.
but it's true that counterpunch doesn't mind the christisons and other similar defenders of the virtuous purity of US policy corrupted by nefarious foreigners, when their main message is filled in with useful information and analysis, and welcomes lots of 'conspiracy theory' in that sense and seems to object only to any such theory based on reasonable assessments of US ruling class criminality and the historical record of its practise. But it's not Condé Nast...
ReplyDeletebut it is true that the way the 'neocons' are spoken of is reminiscent of the way 'nazis' appear in some work which is dedicated to absolving capitalism and capitalists of fascism as kind of a spooky inexplicable force of evil intentioned people who 'reversed' and interrupted 'normal' German capitalist history (which tends toward the deceptive positioning of liberal democracy with progressive internal tendency toward social democracy as normative capitalism).
ReplyDeleteDid you post this article, Colonel? I can't really see what the guy's getting at. Yes, as I said to lenin a couple of days ago: there is no point in trying to make a sharp distinction between some "old" right represented by Kissinger and "the neocons", beacuse no such sharp distinction exists. The entire Iran-Contra crew was immediately rehabilitated and recruited by this bunch! And for a long time, as long it was undeniably good for business, the policies of that alleged "cabal" were perfectly acceptable to nearly everyone in Washington.
ReplyDeleteWhich is not to deny that this is the most determinedly secretive US regime in history.
But other than that? I dunno. I've read a few of Heinberg's articles online, and found them informative and generally correct, as far as I could judge. Any suggestion that he's a closet neonazi looks absurd and (so far) slanderous to me. If DreamsEnd has any real evidence he should post it. Otherwise it's just a crepuscular crescendo of inane insinuendo, so to speak.
was not I
ReplyDelete...the nazi stuff is curious, he premise pf the quest, because it suggests a kind of unique nazi or evil set of occult thoughts passed from text to text, carrying evil with it... of course nazi weren't living in a bubble; they liked beethoven too, and justified themselves with all kinds iof popular culture motifs, from spiritulist eeriness, early spiritualist environmentalism, christianity when it suited them, paganism other times, adventure novels, Hegel, Nietzsche...and a lot of Nazi writers are popular and respectable now; attraction for the ideology of nazis, or sharing their tastes, is hardly a shocking revelation - everybody reads Schmitt!
ReplyDeleteI personally am not persuaded by Peak Oil; I think the deeds of the ruling US elite are better explained by the proposition that oil was too cheap for their purposes and interests, and i don't think they care about US living standards except to be egenerally inimical to upward movement and favourable to immiseration; i don't think they care whether americans can fill up their SUVs in and of itself, just if that is to their enrichment they will concern themselves with it. But the aim or controlling oil and the aim of provoiding it to the domlestic market are two entirely seperate things; they aren't nationalists and caretakers of the homeland and volk; they have more personal and class based reasons for controlling oil than the american middle class population's petrol thirst...
but anyway, there were some interesting points in that post and then this puzzling parody/not parody? quality of the earlier one linked within...whoever posted it, thanks that was fun!
its certain true that fascism is in fashion just about everywhere; every political persuasion has issued a fascist flavour, and fascism has issued a flavour for every persuasion.
ReplyDeleteI'd also say another reason why sections of the left, or at least the "opposition to neocons" focuses explicitly on the neoconservatives, is because they can red-bait.
ReplyDeleteIt is (supposedly) true that people like Irving Kristol were brifely involved with various Trotskyist sects. These erstwhile "left" critics thereby inform the reader that Trotsky's Permanent Revolution is similar to the neocon idea of "exporting democracy worldwide in all places by any means" , and in fact where they got it from. Simply Trotsky's big idea turned from communist revolution to imperial capitalism (!).
By doing so they attempt to red-bait and discredit the real (ie, revolutionary socialist) left to the broader audience who might be interested in it. "OH my! Its those horrible commies and their influence, however faint, has caused this! Damn them!!!!" Or something along those lines, heh ;(
to me, it takes an enormous leap of imagination to ignore the fact that cheney/rumsfeld/negroponte have been in and around the real IMF (Industrial, Military,Financial) counter reformation for the past thirty years. Sure, they might have flitted to some corporate sinecure during 'democratic' interregnums but they've always beening working away, and getting their way.
ReplyDeleteWith you on peak oil,colonel, classic capitalist wheeze and irrelevant as, if we are halfway through, we still have enough to reduced mother earth to a smouldering, malthusian ashtray.
fferie, yes i think that is true, the redbaiting of the forefronted neocons (who are also the jewish neocons)
ReplyDeleteit is much like the ideology of the (original) film "Manchurian Canditate" - even mccarthy and anticommunism is a communist plot!
it is the bedrock capitalist apology: here we have the existing capitalist ruling class in a position of greater power than ever due to victories in the long long long class war, and people want to say 'it's alien' and not that this is where they've been trying to get, systematically proceeding toward, for a long time, and these policies are their druthers which they couldn't always execute but now they can or can try, and these policies are determined by their long and short term interests in light of the actual historical conditions, and the exact same policies would not be followed in ther past not because the ruling class was nicer but because there existed different conditions, greater national competition, the USSR, capital controls, unions, a different array of capital assets, different resources of coercion and force, different resources in the hands of rivals and the resisting exploited classes, etc etc.
ReplyDeleteand that's why the hysterical critics of those who don't buy the rogue mediasavvy turrist explanation of 911 go off as they do into the dreamworld, because they fail to see that 911 is not being asserted as some strange new levbel of nefariousness by some strange new cabal but as obviously nothing new, business as usual, part of an established pattern of behaviuour, about which the white house kept shouting 'its new! its new! run to the bunker' - as usual - and the media dutifuly pretended was new, and eople believed was new because americans have no memory and find every sunrise a little shocking. You could only see it as new if you knew absolutely no history of secret servies and you could onyl perfcieve it as part of opposition and rebel actvity if you knew no history of opposition and rebel activity and tactics, and you could only see it as unusual for secret service tactics if you knew no history of secret service tactics. One hundred percent of the time, deeds in this genre are authored by secret services. We see the auteur theory of turr, so we can see the signature of the artists. That's why that's the likely case here, not because anything newly nefarious woudl have to be present, but because it's a policy with a motive carried out by a profession with a history and a style and certain repeaing motifs etc.
ReplyDelete