Do you mind laying off of the anti-jew slurs.
How can you be a modern day Democrat and be in favor of the Constitution.
Char
Char,
I believe you said that you were also giving D the benefit of doubt or something to that effect in the statement above but I don't see it. Had you just uttered the one sentence of laying off the slurs I'd give you that but then you followed up with the crack about how can you be for the Constitution which IMO implies D doesn't respect peoples rights and by default because of the "jew" term, you are again IMO impling anti-semitic overtones. I can't look into you heart but by the context I read and I think I'm not the only one here who sees it this way, your comments to D aren't as you say they are.
Now I would like to address the point you raise about the term NeoCon. It is true that in the 1950's a group of Trotskite jews who were students in the NYC area became disillusioned with traditional so-called radical liberal politics in America. There is a large historical record on this that I won't go into although I'm more than prepared to do if you'd like.
You said in a later post:
Even the liberal who wrote this article knows its a slur
Let's look at this statement first. I'm not sure how well you read the article you linked in the first place because of what Dean sez in the first sentence of the piece.
I'm tired of the word "neocon."
If a liberal as you have alledged, why would he be tired of this? Now taking your theory of it being an anti-semitic codeword, if he were jewish I might understand that. Is he jewish? I've got absolutely no idea what he is. He could be a little green man from Mars with an internet connection for all I know. But it becomes even more interesting later in the op-ed when in paragraph 13, the first sentence he writes the following:
I don't get mad when someone calls me a "neocon."
Now this is very enlighting IMO because as a "liberal" why would someone call him a "neo-con" to begin with? As to Dean, his name is Dean Esmay and instead of thinking the term liberal applies to what we defind the term as today, maybe you should consider for a moment that Dean may be a liberal so to speak in a more traditional meaning that historically was called "Classical liberalsim". An example would be that our founding fathers were called classical liberals because the conservatism of their day were called Tories who were loyal to the Crown. The tories were our first Neo-Cons I guess you could say as they also supported empire!
I don't think Dean is what you would call a purist democrat type liberal in that radical traditional sense and I'm only guessing the Classical liberal stuff so in that respect I don't think you can use his op-ed as being a full blown public admission of a radical democrat liberal that the term Neo-Con is a coded anti-semitic term designed to derive and castigate a political movement because it was stated by jews.
As for being started by jews, yeah in some sense you could say that but even though I disagree with them on policy I don't consider it some jewish conspiracy either just as I don't for the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion being a grand jewish communist conspiracy either. I do however consider some efforts of the likes of people like Richard Perle at the least suspect of self serving motives. Perle was a former staffer of the late Henry "Scoop" Jackson who is best described as Neoconservatve before the term was made cool. Perle in 1996' prepared for the Israeli Prime Minister a plan that proposes the outster of Saddam was in the national interests of Israel and I can understand that. From Israel's position it makes complete sense to me as well. However, in truth was it also in the best interest of America? Debatable true, but Perle's actions IMO are seen more in the interests of the State of Israel than in the interests of America. As a result many see this war as a defense and moving forward of Israeli policy more than anything else. It's debatable but some facts do give that position legit standing and consideration. Overall I think the NeoCon tag is still not some jew related tagword. BTW: Anytime anyone wants to discuss the whole jew/muslim historical conflict and it's religious and geo political ramifications I'm a go for it. It's a discussion is serious need in America IMO.
That said, Irving Kristol was a writer and editor and was such during the 1950's as his beliefs began to form in a new way of thinking. (or was it really?) In the early 1960's he joined the Goldwater movement which was more paleo than neo conservative obviously but in 1965' he founded and became editor and even publisher of "The Public Interest" and "The National Interest" and remained in those capacities until the early 2000's. Since the 1980's he has been a distinguished fellow as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) which is considered one of the premier Conservative (neo not paleo) think tanks in America along with the Heritage Foundation. Their influence is well noted in our society and among today's conservatives,
Irving Kristol is reveerved as the father of NeoConservatism or what others also call Compassionate Conservatism unlike conservatism's early manifestation now called paleo-conservatism. I'd invite you to go to AEI and Heritage and read on numerous subject matters for more details on specific issues.
As to the used of the term neoconservative being used in a derisive manner, EJ Dionne in his book "Why Americans Hate Politics" on page 61 suggests that credit goes to Michael Harrington an avowed democratic socialist. Harrington wrote "The Other America, Poverty In The United States" that had a profound impact on the Kennedy adminstration and led LBJ to his War on Poverty which spawned what we now call, "The Great Society." Who is EJ Dionne? Political common tater (I love doing that, it's like ANALyst) and op-ed columnist for the Washington Post.
Prior to the term neoconservative taking root, these same folks described themselves as, opps watch this now, "paleoliberal" as in the tradition of Wilson, FDR, Truman, Hubert Humphrey and Henry "Scoop" Jackson. It makes perfect sense as the traditional 20th century liberal lost control of the democratic party to the grown up 60's radicals, these old fuddy-duddies had to go somewhere and since America was a 2 party system that left only one destination. BINGO!!!!! The old went across the street to become the new!
The bottomline Char, NeoCon may be more a derisive term of "New Criminal" (Neo-CON) than some secret anti-jewish codeword. If so and I happen to think it's the case, I find that kinda funny. If that's the extent of the argument, you guys should throw a party and declare victory because here's the other real secret.
"YOU HAVE WON! YOU JUST AREN'T LEARNED ENOUGH TO REALIZE IT YET BUT WAIT UNTIL HILLARY GETS ELECTED AND IT WILL MANIFEST ITSELF IF YOU KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR!"
Hillary is just as neoconservative as her husband was and the American Global empire will continue to expand and there are those on the left who know what I say is so true.