This may sound like a dumb question, but what exactly is a neo con?

The term "neoconservative" was coined and espoused by tenured individuals (they don't deserve to be called "professors") at the University of Chicago to describe their ideology.

It is effectively a Rockefeller mentality taken to its extreme, bordering on what Benito Mussolini termed "corporatism" where the wealthy and elite control and dictate society and are exempt from the burdens of society and the working class and poor left to bear all of it - taxes, labour, risk. The inevitable goal is a return to the unrestricted capitalism of the industrial revolution where the workers lived on subsistence wages in unspeakable conditions. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia's economy was encouraged to adopt such measures; the result was complete collapse of the social system and complete deregulation and privatization (witness the tenfold increase in crashes of Aeroflot planes), leaving a system of extreme rich and poor.

It is Plutocracy at its worst because it puts the control of an entire nation into the hands of a few, very similar to how communism ran the Soviet Union. It also encourages actions solely for one's own benefit, regardless of the consequences. That includes wars of acquisition and agression, which both Afghanistan and Iraq are.

Despite the right wing claims to the contrary, it was social conservatives who espoused the doctrine of "social darwinism", the eradication (by euthenasia and sterilization) of the "infirm" and "mentally disturbed". Their view was that certain classes could be selectively and deliberately eliminated for the "good of the nation" and resources withdrawn to be used elsewhere. This is why the right in the US is adamantly against affordable medical care, affordable housing, affordable insurance, affordable education, and affordable preventive measures. The poor are left to die whether singly (Deamonte Driver who died from a tooth infection that would have cost US$80 in preventive medicine) or the entire black population of New Orleans. If you believe the right wing are not that callous and inhuman, read this:

http://blog.ourfuture.org/newt_on_new_orleans_9th_...

> How can you have the mess we have in New Orleans, and

> not have had deep investigations of the federal

> government, the state government, the city government,

> and the failure of citizenship in the Ninth Ward, where

> 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared,

> they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane.

- Newt Gingrich, at the Conservative Political Action Committee

Some might say it's untrue if there were only words, but here is the recording of Newt Gingrich's words:

http://www.liberaloasis.com/newtcpac.mp3

This is not the first time Gingrich blamed the poor for their own deaths, shifting the blame away from George Bu**sh**'s reduction of the levee budgets by FIFTY PERCENT of what the Army Corps of engineers would need in the six years before hurricane Katrina.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090405B.shtml

http://jeffrey-feldman.typepad.com/frameshop/2007/...

Incidentally, at this same CPAC meeting, Ann Coulter called John Edwards a "****_t" and the audience cheered. The so-called "liberal media" (other than the New York Times) have yet to mention this and NONE of those present have apologized or rebuked Coulter for its words.

The net effect is, neoconservatism is an attempt to claim "entitlement" for a small elite at the expense of the majority, to eliminate taxes for the wealthy and to spend public money for their benefit rather than the taxpayers. The US$250million that was cut from the levee budgets for New Orleans went to buy "equipment" from companies like Halliburton and Lockheed-Martin, among other war profiteers.

Another good explanation for "neocon" is neo-convict, because most/all of them are financial and war criminals.

Both Dwight Eisenhower and Henry Wallace were absolutely right in their warnings about the merger of corporatism and foreign policy.

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/i...

> Military-Industrial Complex Speech,

> Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961

> [...]

> This conjunction of an immense military establishment and

> a large arms industry is new in the American experience.

> The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual

> -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office

> of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative

> need for this development. Yet we must not fail to

> comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and

> livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of

> our society.

>

> In the councils of government, we must guard against the

> acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or

> unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential

> for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will

> persist.

For example, the maker of "Interceptor Body Armor" (supplied to the US military) which is inferior to "Dragon Skin" but whose manufacturer has direct business connections to the Whorehouse (as well as its CEOs being under investigation for insider trading).

http://newdeal.feri.org/wallace/haw23.htm

> The Danger of American Fascism

> Henry A. Wallace

> New York Times, April 9, 1944.

> [...]

> The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do

> in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in

> Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would

> prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the

> channels of public information. With a fascist the problem

> is never how best to present the truth to the public but

> how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving

> the fascist and his group more money or more power.

> [...]

> Still another danger is represented by those who, paying

> lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their

> insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives,

> do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed

> to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion.

> American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned

> with their German counterparts before the war, and are even

> now preparing to resume where they left off, after "the

> present unpleasantness" ceases.

For example, Prescott Bush, grandfather of George "chickenhawk" Bush.

.

That is not a dumb question at all. Most of the folks who use the term on YA, don't have a clue as to what it means.

Take a look at the following link. It will give you a quick, "credible" course in the meaning and history of neo-conservatism.

An ex liberal who wants to over control everyone around, and has some conservative views becomes a neo con when they seem to go in the conservative direction.

LOL! You made me spit my coffee. This is not a dumb question.

When I first heard the term, it was used to describe Newt and his congress.

Former liberals turned socially conservative is my understanding of the term.

But these days, it is a perjorative term thrown at anyone who isn't anti-war in Iraq.

And this is what my friends and I do for fun: We call each other "NEO-CON" (must always be capitalized, btw). Sometimes, I look in the mirror and laugh at myself and say, "damned NEO-CON!" Oh, yeah. This term is really offensive.

It's short for Neo Conservative.

Neoconservatism is a political movement, mainly in the United States and Canada, which is generally held to have emerged in the 1960s, coalesced in the 1970s, and has had a significant presence in the administration of George W. Bush.

The prefix neo- refers to two ways in which neoconservatism was new. First, many of the movement's founders, originally liberals, Democrats or from socialist backgrounds, were new to conservatism. Also, neoconservatism was a comparatively recent strain of conservative socio-political thought. It derived from a variety of intellectual roots in the decades following World War II, including literary criticism and the social sciences.

it is a convict illuminated by a fluorescents lite tube.

It is a press and European code word for the rich Jewish people who currently control the US government with Bush as figurehead. I have heard them say that they cant say rich Jewish people who control America but that is what it means deep down anyway. Whether it is true (That rich Jews control America or not) I cannot say.

Those who use the term have absolutely no idea what it means. They just think it sounds suitably derogatory.

it's liberals who just got smart.

pretty much