"Gus" wrote in message
ups.com...

Ed Huntress wrote:

I don't use rightard and I'm really stingy with the use of winger. But a
neocon (neoconservative) is self-defined, an outgrowth of some articles
written in the 60s by a group of Jewish intellectuals (Irving Kristol
and
Norman Podhoretz were prominent among them) who objected to the way the
US
reacted to the '67 Mideast War, and who flipped from liberal to
conservative
political postures.

It has a clear-cut history and the development of neocon thinking can be
tracked through articles and essays published in the intellectual-right
press in the years since. The term has broadened and narrowed, then
broadened again. It's not perfectly fixed. But it has a few common
threads
and a core of well-defined adherents. The central idea, which has been
central since the first days of the neocons, is that the US should
project
its power to "modernize" the key trouble spots around the globe --
particularly the Middle East -- by imposing a form of government and
rights,
and, they may hope, a set of social attitudes that might be exemplified
by
the attitudes of, say, Waco, Texas. The Project For The New American
Century
is a major neocon program. You'll recognize the names of the key
participants: they're now filling the second tier in the White House.

The term "neocon" has taken on some opprobrium for warmongering and
heavy-handed political dealing, and most of them prefer to be called
"conservatives" today. But they're something like that new variety of
semi-domesticated Canada goose that spends its winters up north and
doesn't
migrate. It honks like a goose and walks like a goose, but when it comes
time to migrate and act like a goose, it just hangs around and craps up
the
neighborhood. Interestingly, these new geese, which I've heard are now
considered a subspecies by some, showed up at about the same time that
neocons first appeared.

I think you'll find that "neo-fascist" also has a fairly clear
definition,
and there are specific groups around the world -- not all with the same
programs, but all of whom share a strong desire for authoritarian
rule --
that political scientists label as neo-fascist.

"Neoliberal" has a specific meaning in economics. It refers to the
current
US- and UK mainstream economic thought, which most people would call
conservative. It's known in economic policy circles as "the Washington
Consensus."

But I don't know what meaning you're assigning to it in politics. I
suspect
there is none, really; it's just an attempt by conservatives to sling
around
a term that sounds erudite and opprobrious, but which is really just
noise.

In any case, there is no "new liberal" thought that I know of. The
60s/70s
liberals are mostly moribund. Those that remain have no projects or
programs
around which they could cohere. Liberalism itself is little more than an
attitude today, as conservatism tends to be in the mainstream. But there
is
no intellectual or policy-driven core of liberalism as there is with
conservatism.

Whew! That was good.

thank you, thank you. I do that kind of stuff for a living, and I try hard
to play it straight when I'm being serious. I don't always succeed but at
least it ought to be entertaining. g

--
Ed Huntress