How did many of the liberals of the 60's and 70's become Neo-cons?

[coloradodem2005]

It has been discussed, but some of the same people who supported liberal and progressive ideals in the 60's became the people who supported Reagan, and both Bushes in the 80's and the 2000's. They also gave the legislative branch of the Federal Government to the Republicans in 1994. I don't know if it was just aging, or that they changed. Or that they sell their souls to the highest bidder. What happens?

[JI7]

1. many of them were "liberals" only because they wanted to avoid

serving in the war. when they too old for the draft or when the draft ended they started moving to the other side.

[dbeach]

7. sharp pt!

chikenhawks then and still squawking..now they are all grown up and doing TREASON

some evolution..Great question..
I read that wolfie worldbank is follower of Leo Strauss and some other nihilist philosopher..very dangerous teachings

VN Veteran 101 st airborne division.
totally against all US war policy related to current illegal occupation of the WH and govt..

[leftofthedial]

2. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

plus, many of them were just contrarians or sophists or were just into being hippies for the drugs and the sex

[slay]

10. Bingo!

They were never true liberals. True liberals don't change, sell out, or give up. Perhaps the 60's and 70's were just a trial run for the true liberal awakening.. which is now. :evilgrin:

[Lisabtrucking]

3. Their brains got fried out from all the drugs and became those

radical religious folk you see walking blindly with the wolves.

[madrchsod]

4. "beatniks are out to make it rich"

"oh no,must be the season of the witch" just replace beatniks with liberal 60`s people..i know alot of them..

[knowbody0]

5. i stood by watching the hippies turn into yuppies

new born babies into daycare 10 hours a day for that grand house and way cool car. barf. IMHO it was a basic break down of human instincts. "things" became gods. so sad

[housewolf]

28. Didn't that just break your heart???

It did mine - I couldn't believe what happened to so many of the "flower children" who came of age in the 60's and early 70's.

[knowbody0]

46. and i turned around again

and the kids were calling girlfriends "bitch", Ozzie was sanctifying suicide, girls were wearing dog collars.
after the war ended i took my baby boys deep into the forest. we had no neighbors, water, or electricity. when i returned us to society everything was upside down.

[Gemini Cat]

50. Isn't that the difference between the "hippies"

and the civil rights workers, the anti-war activists and political activists in general?

[spindoctor]

6. What's the saying?

If you're a Republican at 20 you have no heart. If you're a Democrat by 40 you have no brain.

Something like that.

I'm turning 40 in three weeks and somebody just accused me of being an "operative".

Yikes!

[sasquatch]

13. That's the wrong saying, that's what the Fascist say

The real saying is "If you're not a radical by 20, then you have no heart. If you're a radical by 40, then you have no brains."

[spindoctor]

19. Ach so!

I came close though ;)

[steelyboo]

44. Still Wrong

"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains"
-Incorrectly Attributed to Winston Churchill , Origin Unknown

Sorry, just happens to be one of my favorite quotes, Although I truly see it as generalized ignorance.

[QC]

8. They were bourgeois liberals all along.

And Lord knows I have known plenty of these people--the ones who think that they can solve all the problems in the world by plastering the correct stickers on their Volvos while ignoring the role of exploited labor in their own comfortable lives.

[izzie]

36. I think your right about a lot here

It was the kids mostly in college so they were of the middle class in most ways to start with. Kerry may have talked for the vets but he was hardly one of them. He was from the top schools in the country and few in Nam were from that group or should I say class? Need the right school and bank and the flower children saw that and hopped on the band wagon.They did change many things. But as a class they sure did not mean to give up their money or power. Look at who are our leaders. Their are few black men from the Civil rights movement in Congress.I can only think of one.

[adwon]

9. Hmm

Some of them, Horowitz as the prime example, are simply extremists searching for a camp. They shifted from being apologists for Stalin/Mao/everybody else to being radical emissaries of 'democracy.' This group's commitment is not to a part of the spectrum, but to the radical end of it (which end is not important).

Some were disaffected Democrats who the New Left jeered as 'cold war liberals.' They left over the split in foreign policy and gradually shifted their domestic priorities to suit their new allegiance. They forgot a key element of a winning foreign policy: strength at home. Kinda hard to be effective when your own country needs fixing.

Most who made the switch were useless then and remain useless now. They just chase the fads.

[tyedyeto]

11. I graduated H.S. in 1970 and thought we were a progressive bunch until....

my 10th year reunion. That is the only reunion I have attended. Our class president who was a 'long hair' and spoke for 'peace and understanding', 10 years later was a huge repug!.

Never went to another of those 'Look how conservative I've become' parties since.

[oscar111]

35. My tenth grade elected a class prez who was a bully

does it get any stupider than that?

[ConsAreLiars]

12. I'd be interested in seeing some real data.

The assumption that this actually happened in any significant way has never been shown to be true by any studies I have seen. It certainly is a lie insofar as my own experience is a guide.

The closest I have heard is that some who participated in Trotskyist sects (notable for mostly for their anti-Soviet politics) continued their anti-communism in the form of support for US hegemony. But if any one has any facts, other than folklore, I'd like to see them.

(edit typo)

[the_spectator]

24. They were trotskyist.

In the 30s, most intellectuals were communist or communist sympathizers, for great reasons.

Capitalist bourgeois western civiliation had crashed and burned in World War I - really the most bloody, terrible and useless war in history. So in all aspects of culture, people realized that the Ezra Pound dictum "Make it new!" was essential advice. This led to dadaism, surrealism, Schoenberg serialism in music, Le Corbusier in architecture, etc, and communism in politics.

Plus, the communists, of course, took Russia right at the end of that war -- it seemed as though the Soviet Union was the lifeline that history threw to humanity at its darkest moment.

(By the way, understanding the 30s in context helps one really understand why McCarthyism was so unfair and unneccessary. Many people joined the CP in the 30s -- the vast majority of them had left by the 50s.)

The original neocons remember going to college at CCNY in the 30s, and talk about the (since demolished) dining hall there at the time. Most of the students (like most students in college at all times) were just there to punch their ticket and graduate into a good job. The students who actually thought about the world ended up sitting in "Alcove 1" or "Alcove 2" of the dining hall, and debating the world. The Neocons sat at Alcove 1 - they were trotskyists. They were outnumbered by the Stalinists at Alcove 2, who followed every twist and turn of the Party Line from Moscow:

At the time, Stalin wanted "communism in one country" (meaning Russia.) The Trotskyists saw this as either a deplorable lack of nerve, or as a reactionary highjacking of the communist ideal for the benefit of great power geopolitics -- valuing Mother Russia over the International Proletariat. So they followed Trotsky's line of "worldwide revolution."

And this Trotskyist parallel is strong today. It is the neocons who want to make a "worldwide revolution" - to use the power of the U.S. to build bourgeois capitalist democracies on every corner of the globe.

[ConsAreLiars]

26. Utopians of the worst sort.

They wanted to remake the world to fit their own "ideals" (read: lust for power) and in their zeal opposed every small step toward real progress. The neocons have far more in common with Pol Pot and Adolf Hitler than with anyone who fought for justice in the 60's. The BS suggestion by the original poster that the neocons had their origins in the progressive movement is a lie.

[Crunchy Frog]

14. Because most of them weren't really liberals.

They were radical left wing ideologues. They simply ended up exchanging one system of radical ideology for another one. From what I've been able to see, there are really many areas of commonality between radical left wing and radical right wing ideologies. It's really not that extraordinary to jump from one to the other.

[QC]

17. Exactly--they still think like Leninists and talinists,

wich is why they fit in so well with the Bushists.

[Crunchy Frog]

22. Yes, I have felt for a long time

that the current Republican party is very Leninist in the way it operates. I really like the use of the term "Bushevik". I think it sums up the reality pretty well.

Interestingly, I actually heard Wes Clark explicitly state that the Republicans resemble a Leninist party, so I know that I'm not crazy, or at least I have some good company in my insanity.:P

[GettysbergII]

25. Actually they were Troskyites for the most part and still adhere to those

kind of elitist, Machiavellian, anti-democratic tendencies. They just switch from the leftwing to the rightwing.

[Selatius]

30. I consider myself a libertarian socialist, but I find it hard to "jump"

People would call me radical in political ideology, especially when compared to moderates. I believe in worker self-management of their lives, direct action, and democracy and equality for all. People like Wolfowitz, Perle, and others are nothing like me. They represent everything I oppose. There is nothing similar between us at all.

I am anti-authoritarian preferring direct participation and organization with education as opposed to giving someone power over me by electing him, and I no longer have faith in capitalism as a long-term proposition given that it cannot exist without oppression and inequality--oppression in the form of enforcement of property law such as laws protecting agribusiness and corporate property to the detriment of ordinary people and inequality in the form of the boss-worker relationship. I find it sad that we'd be suing grandma for downloading John Coltrane off the internet and letting corporations leave farmland unused just to drive up crop prices while there are countless folks in the world who go to sleep hungry each night because they can't afford the prices.

I find it difficult for one to state that it is not extraordinary for one to jump from one opposite end to the other, at least as far as I picture the political spectrum. I find it difficult to believe any conscientious, principled person would sell out everything they hold dear. With that said, I'd say they weren't liberals of any stripe to begin with let alone conscientious folks, just power-hungry opportunists and scavengers using ideology as a vehicle to get what they want. They faked being leftist because they thought that was the ticket to office and power, and they switched the second they felt the rightwing would ascend to power.

[the_spectator]

15. Read Norman Podhoretz's "Breaking Ranks"

Whether you believe him or not, it lays out the basic story.

The neocons originally were just a part of the New York intellectuals. In the 30s, for good reasons, most intellectuals, if not communist, were sympathetic to communism and the Soviet Union.

But that 30s spirit turned out to be spectacularly wrong. There were the Show Trials of 37, and then, most devastatingly, the Hitler-Stalin non-agression pact of 39. Then, after World War II was over, the intellectual consensus of the late 40s and the 50s turned against the Soviet Union and turned towards the U.S. - after all, the supposedly great anti-fascist communist power had made a pact with the devil (before he struck them in 41). AND, the supposedly hide-bound, reactionary, isolationist United States had actually gotten off its duff and saved the world from fascism.

So all was cool. But once the 60s really got going, the neocons saw it as the mosnter of the 30s rose again. They thought that the old Stalinists of the 30s - those who had never abandoned the "Party Line", were behind the New Left of the 60s. And so they condemned it. They objected, also, to the anti-intellect, anti-reason strain they saw in the 60s New Left. The neocons favored Apollo, and the 60s were about Dionysus. "Red Diaper Baby" was a key concept for the neocons.

The neocons claim that they were FDR democrats at heart, (like Reagan claimed) but that the left eventually left them behind.

For what it's worth!

[necso]

16. It isn't a far journey

from pseudo-liberalism to pseudo-realism.

Same dreamworld -- different fantasy.

[eaglenetsupport]

18. I can't believe I'm seeing these utterances

on DU. Talk about stereo typing. While, just cause of shear numbers, some 60's folks have "gone over" the vast majority are brothers and sisters whom have stayed the course. Are you guys reading what you are writing? Do you actually believe it? Were do you think the progressive democrats came from.

Environmentalists, civil rights activists, anti-war and pro-peace folks just to name a few areas we've focused on didn't just fall out of the sky onto your generation. We set this agenda when most of you hadn't even hit the diapers yet. Everything I see here is a put down of your own roots. I think I'm beginning to understand the lack of focus. I don't do tit for tat so don't bother with the flames.

[thoughtanarchist]

27. well said

bashing-your-own threads are akin to pissing in the pool.

:wtf:

[G_j]

40. yup, and based on unsubstantiated assumptions

that have not at all been demonstrated here to be true.

OK, show us proof all those 'flower children' turned neocons.
:shrug: :puke:

[Deja Q]

45. Hmmm, how do I put this delicately?

Roots for a dying tree or recouping past losses.

I dunno anymore. Don't care. The hippies of the '60s were right, and I don't care if a part of them decided to become their one-time enemy. After peak oil, the hippie lifestyle is what people will HAVE to exist with, as today's selfish empire has survived on borrowed time and oil. Without the time and resources to allow our "selfish individualities" to exist, we then have to share and be a community. Not a bunch of 'individuals' out for themselves.


Oh, and does stereo typing requre two keyboards? }(

[lostinacause]

20. The two biggest reasons I can think of are

simplicity and economic policy.

The reason why conservatism is appealing to some people is the relative simplicity of things such as "markets solve all problem" and the view that policy does not adequately solve problems. While the first view has no basis the second view is at least partially accurate. Policy decisions on market failure are often handled in poor manner by Liberals and conservatives alike.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LdyGuique]

23. All of you are missing the Straussian connection

Leo Strauss was the mentor and leader of the neocon movement and is still the fundmanetal philosopher whom they study.

So a google search on Strauss and neocons --

but you can start with:

Neocons dance a Strauss waltz, By Jim Lobe

or Philosopher Kings -- Leo Strauss and the Neocons
By GARY LEUPP

[MollyStark]

29. They did?

Do you have any proof? After living through the reagan years I could have sworn it was the GenXers who voted these creepy conservatives into power.

[housewolf]

31. It largely had to do with their infatuation with US might and power

Some of the original neo-cons were aides to Dem seantor Henry "Scoop" Jackson who was a wild Viet Nam war hawk. They were all very hawkish on the VN war.

They turned from the left when the left turned anti-VN war. They felt the left was "soft" on communism and unwilling to use American power for American interests. They believed that we had this massive power and that we should use it to spread our power and influence throughout the world, including taking down communism. So they turned to the Republican party.

Really, the only area in which these folks are aligned with conservatism is in the foreign policy/defense/military area. Foreign policy is their big issue. Taxes aren't their issue; education isn't their issue, size of government isn't their issue - and most certainly they are not conservatives when it comes to fiscal responsibility.

That's why it's been so confusing, trying to figure them out - because they aren't really conservatives at all.

They are idealists and utopians, are not at all realists or pragmaticists. Their teachers and mentors were Strauss & Irving Kristol (Bill Kristol's father), Scoop Jackson, & Machiavelli.

[ribrepin]

32. Congressman Tom Foley of Washington State

was speaker of house in the early 80's. The Repubs ran a nasty campaign and defeated him. After the election, he said something about extremists. He basically said that right wing that defeated him were the same people who were left-wing radicals of a previous generation. He said that they are people who need an extreme position. This was a long time ago and I am too lazy to look up exactly what he said.

I think Congressman Foley called it right 20 years ago.

[Elwood P Dowd]

33. I need a 30 inch monitor to read this thread!

x(

[oscar111]

34. Weren't really Liberals at all. Just some outer facets, no compassionate

core. That compassion is the key to being a true Liberal.

Many had facets like long hair, love of fun, love of booze etc, love of dodging the draft, and generally a tendency to go along with the crowd.

But like dr dean edell on the radio, the core was defective. In his case, greed for money was his core.

He now collects chinese art and attacked Hillary in an interview on her '93 universal health plan.

People with compassion at their core just stayed Liberal. I do not collect art, nor slam universal healthcare. I post at DU.

PS A re above made a good point. The conservatives mostly grew up AFTER the hippies. Hippies were not the biggest source of conservatives.. cons grew up later.

[coloradodem2005]

37. Funny. are you saying that my generation are the Cons?

I thought a lot of them went to Kerry in the last election.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

38. I think Trotskyists eventually became lowly-regarded by the rest

of the Left; they were observed to be using the ideals of 'revolution' as an excuse for violent thuggery. Knowing that they couldn't get away with it any more they went to the Right, some became Anarcho-Capitalists in the Social Darwinist mould and others headed to the Republican Party and became Neo-Conservatives. They're no longer ready to use violent means to achieve Communism, but they're prepared to use violent means to achieve their extreme version of Capitalism.

It tells you that these people hold up the ideals of controlling power before anything else (acquiring money comes second but is related). If or when the Neo-Conservative project runs into the ground these people will try to find another vehicle to hijack and use for violent means.

[Itsthetruth]

48. Huh? The Socialist Workers Party Evolved Into A Sect

The Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialist Alliance (the two main Trotskyist groups in 60's & 70's) were engaged in "violent thuggery"??!!!! That's utter nonsense!

I don't think you know very much about those organizations and what they actually did during that period.

In the past 25 years or so the Socialist Workers Party has changed dramatically into a tiny sectarian outfit with a cult like leader. It has no real base or support among radicals on the left and does not participate in the anti-war movement and other movements for social change and progress. It numbers less than 400 people and the Young Socialist Alliance no longer exists.

But, that's not because it engaged in thuggery! It just became more and more isolated from radical activists and organizations as it became more and more sectarian in its attitude toward other radicals. And that sectarianism fed on itself.

Most radicals in the Socialist Workers Party were other expelled or just left the organization in the early 1980's. And today many of those former members are active today in the labor movement, anti-war movement and other progressive causes.

[housewolf]

49. History question for you

What ever happened to the SDS - Students for a Democratic Society?

[Anarcho-Socialist]

51. I never said anything about the SWP and YSA

I was talking about the Neo-Conservatives when they were Trotskyists.

I also never said Trotskyists engaged in thuggery, I said that's how many on the Left saw them.

The point of what I wrote was about the culture of violence that Neo-Conservatives justified with revolutionary ideals when they were on the Left, and when they went to the Right they used the ideals of Capitalism as an excuse.

[Itsthetruth]

52. If You Disagreed With That Description Why Did You Use It?

" also never said Trotskyists engaged in thuggery, I said that's how many on the Left saw them."

You strongly suggested that "Trostkyists" engaged in no less than "violent thuggery" when you wrote:

"I think Trotskyists eventually became lowly-regarded by the rest
of the Left; they were observed to be using the ideals of 'revolution' as an excuse for violent thuggery."

In any case, you didn't question or challenge that false view, a view that hardly anyone held in "the rest of the left". I have to wonder what left you were thinking of. I don't believe that anyone would have thought you meant any organization other than the Socialist Workers Party when you referred to Trotskyists since all other groups that called themselves "Trotskyists" were very tiny and insignificant.

So I'd appreciate a clarification of your remarks if you did not intend to smear members of the Socialist Workers Party from that period as violent thugs. In truth, they were just the opposite of that in their relations with other radicals.

[Zorro]

39. Not really that many more liberals then

I think that many people that didn't live through that era may have a misconception that the majority of youth that came of age in the 60s and 70s were predominantly liberal.

I think that more "liberals" were outspoken and unafraid to criticize the government then. There were some common cultural activities that both liberal and conservative youth shared (smoking pot, specifically), but it would be a mistake to think that there was a united movement of young people.

There were conservative asshole Nixon-loving youngsters then (Young Americans for Freedom, in particular) that infested campuses around the country, but the majority of young people then, as the sheep do now, just went along with the flow.

[morgan2]

41. I think it may be an over exposure problem.

After growing up with their popular culture being about saving the world, many people who just did it as a cultural thing got jaded. People feel the world will always have problems, why waste my time worrying about them. I'm just speaking from the attitudes of adults I've talked to, but I think thats the one common theme I could discern from them. People grow up, and get families. For many that changes their focus on the world. As a young adult entering the real world, people are more inclined to notice its faults and try to fix them. As an adult with children, we tend to accept the world for what it is and try to live in it. Obviously this doesn't apply to everyone, but its general trends.

[ElkHunter]

42. Today's neo-cons are nothing more...

...than the "Cold War Democrats" that we anti-war Democrats opposed in the 1960's. McGovernism was the last straw for these folks, and after 1972 they started their trek to the GOP. But their intellectual roots are indeed in the Trotskyist movement of the 30's and 40's. If you want to understand neo-conservative foriegn policy, then read "The Permanent Revolution" by Leon Trotsky.

[durutti]

43. There's more money in being a right-winger. n/t

[kliljedahl]

47. Hey I resent that

I'm 55 & fought against the Vietnam war & I'm not stopping now. Nothing has happened to me. Is there "ageism" creeping into DU?


http://www.kliljedahl.net