From: steve365@btinternet.com
Date: Mon Jun 02 2003 - 07:28:13 MDT
Ron H says (in response to an earlier post)
> In the meantime you said, "The neocons have their agenda," and gave
> away your agenda. The only people that call them neo-cons are outsiders and
> political opponents. I had never even heard the term until suddenly the
> political opposition opened up with vicious attacks on every list I follow.
Ron, you keep on saying this. I can only say you clearly haven't read any political journalism until recently. The term "neo-conservative" has been around since the early 1980s and has been widely used in political science since then. It refers to a group of intellectuals who were at one time supporters of the Democrats (some had even earlier been on the far left) who moved towards the Republican party and conservatism in the late 1970s/early 1980s (they themselves claim with some justice that it was the Democratic party that moved not them). Some of the people usually tagged as neo-cons reject the term (e.g Daniel Bell) but most of them accept it. Irving Kristol, one of the main early members of the group had a collection of essays entitled "Reflections of a Neo-Conservative" (Basic Books, 1986). There are also several books about neo-conservatism written by people who describe themselves as belonging to that group eg Irving Kristol "Neo-Conservatism: the Autobiography of an Idea" (Ivan R. Dee, 1999), Mark
Gerson "The NeoConservative Vision" (Madison Books, 1997) and "The Essential Neoconservative Reader" (Perseus 1997). There is a whole chapter on them in George H. Nash "The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945" first edition was mid 1980s, there's Garry Dorrien "The Neoconservative Mind" (Temple UP, 1993) and Peter Steinfels "The Neoconservatives" (Basic Books, early 1980s). The term refers to a clearly identifiable group of public intellectuals who have a broadly shared world view and philosophy and a common approach to public policy. You may agree or disagree with their ideas but you can't claim that this group does not exist or has been 'invented' recently as a smear in debate. What has Irving Kristol been doing for twenty years in that case? Steve Davies
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