Neoconservatism: where Trotsky meets Stalin and Hitler

The neoconservatives’ mendacity apparent in the misrepresentation of the Iraqi crisis to the American people recalls the Goebbelsian “hypodermic needle approach” to communication, in which the communicator’s objective was to “inject” his ideas into the minds of the target population. “Why, of course, the people don’t want war,” Goering said when it was all over, in his prison cell in Nuremberg in 1946:

Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a communist dictatorship ... That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

It does indeed. Goering’s observation is echoed in our time by the Straussian dictum that perpetual deception of the citizens by those in power is necessary because they need to be led, and they need to be told what is good for them. On this, at least, Trotsky, Stalin, and Hitler would all agree. (As Hitler had said, “The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble.”) In the Straussian-neoconservative mindset, those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right, the right of the superior to rule over the inferior.

That mindset is America’s enemy. It is the greatest threat to the constitutional order, identity, and way of life of the United States, in existence today. Its adherents have only modified the paradigm of dialectical materialism in order to continue pursuing the same eschatological dream, the End of History devoid of God. They are in pursuit of Power for its own sake—thus sinning against God and man—and the end of that insane quest will be the same as the end of the Soviet empire and of the Thousand-Year Reich.



Lengthy, but worth the read.

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/News/Trifkovic/NewsST072303.html

...this is an ultraconservative publication, put out by the Rockford Institute.

1) Hitler didn't practice or believe in dialectical materialism.

2) The statement that the masses are ignorant isn't the enemy, it's true. The enemy is a system that maintains that ignorance.

"thus sinning against God and man" What is this theocratic garbage?

"the End of History" is a bourgeois concept. http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/fukuyama.htm

Conservatives=desire for weak central government, privatization of industry, expression of religion. Hitler had much more in common with dictators such as Stalin, and Mao: All-powerful central government, government control of industry, total suppression of religion.

Contemporary Republicans and neoconservatives are conservatives in name only. Their ideology has far more in common with fascism than anything which could legitimately be called conservatism.

...on your profile, I'll take that with a big grain of salt. I'm sure conservatives would like to think of themselves as promoting small govenment. In reality, it looks more like big regulation / small assistance for individuals, and the opposite for corporations and major investors.

The Nazis married corporatism and racism, and in the end it didn't matter what tactics they used as long as their racially-cleansed investor class, Barons, etc. benefitted from the opportunities of military adventurism. It is the first resort of incompetents on both the right and the left.

Nazism was marked by all the conservative wants: A pre-occupation with a fabricated/idealized past, "natural" structures for production and control (the corporation with it's authoritarian, "father-like" CEO, and a corporation-like state where action and decisiveness are celebrated), a tribal/religious identity that imparts a privileged status. This is what Hitler used to lead.

The remark about "total suppression of religion" is way off base. The Nazis wanted their religion, and although they were not of a single mind as to what that would eventually be, they knew they did not want the presense of other particular religions that they did not identify with. The hatred of both Jews and Judaism dovetailed nicely because the Nazis has a tribal worldview. This is quintessential conservative extremism.

As for the results of extremism, they are often similar whether they come from the left or the right.

Looking at the level of privatization in the Weimar Republic would be interesting. I've wondered if fostering monopolists and investor-barons is just a way to unintentionally build-up a class of power-mad people who eventualy demand control of the military through a Bush or a Hitler.

capitalism and socialism are opposite ends of an axis.
democracy and dictatorship/monarchy are opposite ends of another axis.

A state can be totalitarian and capitalist (fascism):

"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

A state can be totalitarian and socialist (communism)
A state can be democratic and capitalist.
A state can be democratic and socialist.
A state can be anywhere inbetween the two axis. The U.S. has both capitalist policies and socialist policies.

Here is a list of some of the socialist ones:
socialized armed forces
socialized water
socialized police
socialized fired department
social(ized) security
medicare
road building/maintanance
public waste and water treatment
public schools

But then, neither are the Busheviks.

Traditional Conservatives were prominent in the Old Republic and believed inthe things you say.

No one, including the author, is saying that Hitler was a Traditional Conservative.

Hitler had much in common with dictators at the extreme Left and Right.

As do the Busheviks.

The conservatives used to promote limited government, but with the religious right calling the shots, they say that they support limited government but they want it to reinforce a biblical moral code. The fact that so many conservatives we unhappy with the sodomy ruling proves it, as anyone who believes in limited government would not want government agents arresting people for having sex a different way.