Kerry blows Agent's cover?

[Chants Evensong]

The issue is whether or not ther has been a deviation from Trotsky in the neocon movement. Digging up a nearly 100 year old article which predates the movement with a catchy title does not constitute a bitchslapping. If you think it does, then you know nothing about the movement. And you did not read the article.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky ... ictatorvs/

To refute my points, mild as they may be, you need not engage in hate. All you need to do it to show that neo-cons are hard core socialists. If you know anything about neocons, however, you know you cannot do that.

[Ddrak]

You failed to answer my question Chants. I'm not asking who makes foreign policy - that much is obvious. I'm asking if the party in power *is* America, because that is what you implied in your previous post.

Alternately, If you want to rephrase to ask exactly the same question in terms of foreign policy, are you saying that America *is* it's foreign policy, i.e. if you hate America's foreign policy then you hate America?

You could also rephrase in terms of domestic policy, or whatever policy you want. Is the party in power and their policies "America" and if you hate them do you hate "America". Is that what you are saying?

Dd

[Relbeek Einre]

Chants, one mode of your thinking that screams of Trotskyism is your inability to differentiate between the individuals in power in a government, the government, and the nation.

I think neoconservatism is not Trotskyism. However, as you aptly pointed out, they do have severe policy issues in common. If you want to get really conspiratorial about it, I've seen chains of mentor-pupil from Commies of old to the modern leaders of the neoconservative movement.

[Chants Evensong]

It is not an inability to diffferentiate, Relbeek. It is a refusal to take the Dd's ever so obvious bait.

[Relbeek Einre]

Um, I disagree that's "bait" as in trolling, Chants. It's "bait" as in "a logical trap to show your previous ad hominem statement was wrong."

[Ddrak]

It wasn't even a trick question. If Chants can't answer then it's basically an admission of hypocrisy.

Dd

[Relbeek Einre]

I find it odd, considering. He had the intellectual honesty to admit - through humor - the similarities between Trotskyism and neoconservatism.

[Partha]

Funny, the only point I can find that Chants has raised is either alternatively "Neocons are not Trotskyites" or "Neocons have moved away from Trotskyism".

Now, we'll ignore the fundamental contradiction of both those statements. Let's examine the credentials of the 'neocons'.

Irving Kristol was a Trotskyite. He freely admitted this in his memoirs.

...the honor I most prized was the fact that I was a member in good standing of the Young People's Socialist League (Fourth International). This organization was commonly; and correctly, designated as Trotskyist.

James Burnham, who founded the National Review was a Trotskyite.

Max Schactman? Trotskyite.

Leo Strauss? As William Pfaff so cogently argues, Trotskyite. Moreover, you can draw a direct line as Pfaff did from Strauss to several of his students (Wolfowitz, Bloom) and to further students of theirs (Perle, Kristol). I'd not be surprised if you were taking law classes in school under one of them - after all, liberal educators are famous for brainwashing their students. At least, that's what the Republicans tell me.

Now, if you're going to argue not that they are not Trotskyites, but have instead moved away from Trotsky thought, please give cogent examples.

[Chants Evensong]

You forgot to mention that Kristol attended New York City College where he met and discussed issues in Alcove one in that college's cafeteria. These people were pro Trotsky at the time. Over in Alcove 2 sat the pro Stalinists, including Julius Rosenberg.

So the conventional wisdom would have it.

The problem is that it is only a half-truth. An excellent discussion of Neocons and the Trosky link can be found here:

http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/ ... trotp1.htm

I quote in relevant part here:

If the "Trotskyist roots" of neoconservatism have been greatly exaggerated, what about those of the first generation who were involved with Trotskyism? How much of an influence did Trotskyism have on their thinking? Presumably on this level a more credible case could be made for a real Trotskyist influence on neoconservatism. But it is precisely here that the complete lack of substance of the "Trotskyist neocon" assertion emerges, for there is nothing in any of the neoconservatives' vast political, sociological, or cultural writings that points to the remotest influence of Trotskyism. Instead, those propagating the assertion have been forced to rely only on whatever anecdotal evidence is available to make their case. Thus Irving Kristol, who wrote an autobiographical essay entitled "Memoirs of a Trotskyist" and has sprinkled mentions of his youthful political dalliances throughout his writings, is more often accused of still being influenced by Trotskyism than Seymour Martin Lipset, who was also a Trotskyist but who has not made similar use of his own brief radical past.

SNIP...

Just as incriminating is Kristol's claim to have learned how to construct an argument by reading Trotskyist theoretical journals! But if the lack of seriousness in the paleocon accusations is evident, it does raise the question of exactly how much of a Trotskyist Irving Kristol was in his youth. And if one takes a close look at his actual Trotskyist past, a very different picture emerges from the one that has been conjured up by the polemicists and to a certain extent by Kristol himself.

Kristol was involved in the late 1930s, still in his teens, in the milieux of the young Jewish intellectuals that frequented the now-infamous Alcove No.1 at CCNY. While there he became a fellow traveler of the small group of Trotskyist students who belonged to the youth wing of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), known as the Young People's Socialist League-Fourth International (YPSL-FI). While steeped in the world of hyper-intellectual debating at CCNY, Kristol was not an SWP or YPSL-FI member -- and much less a full blown Trotskyist ideologue, as is often implied by those seeking to exaggerate his Trotskyist credentials. Infamously, James P. Cannon, Irish-American leader of the Trotskyists, once admonished Kristol and his friend and fellow CCNYer Earl Raab for not joining the SWP. From Mexico, Trotsky himself cast a wary eye on the YPSL's and fellow travelers such as Kristol and Raab because of their "lack of experience" and, more damningly, for their "petty bourgeois" backgrounds.

Despite Cannon's scoldings, Kristol never did join the "official" Trotskyists of the SWP, but rather the heretical offshoot led by Max Shachtman, the Workers' Party (WP), in 1940. More importantly, Kristol belonged to a small intra-party faction inside the WP known as the "Shermanites" which was led by future Sociologist Philip Selznick, and also included Lipset, Himmelfarb, and Diamond, i.e. the only other neoconservatives to have been associated with Trotskyism. What is key here, and what for the most part has been overlooked, is that the Shermanites considered not only Stalinism but Bolshevism, which in their context meant Trotskyism, to be "… bureaucratic, totalitarian, and undemocratic". Decisive to Kristol and the others' rejection of Marxism and Trotskyism was Robert Michels' Political Parties, which was introduced to the group by Selznick. This "premature" anti-communism was so anathema to Shachtman that after Kristol and the tiny band of Shermanites resigned from the Workers' Party in 1941, a mere one year after they had joined, they were then retroactively expelled. The journal that Kristol and the Shermanites briefly published after their expulsion from the Workers Party, Enquiry, far from providing "conventional Marxist fare" as has been claimed by one scholar, in fact consisted mainly of substantive critiques of Marxism, Leninism, and Trotskyism, all the more noteworthy for the youthfulness of those making them.

SNIP

The main weakness of the Dorrien/Judis approach used by Zmyrak is, ironically, its own excessive abstractionism. The approach is based precisely on abstracting Trotskyism from the concepts that define it as a Marxist political ideology, such as the anti-capitalist class struggle and proletarian internationalism, and those that define it as a specific school within Marxism, such as the need for a Fourth International and the transitional program. As archaic and even quixotic as those principles seem, without them the term "Trotskyism" is reduced to a meaningless label. It then becomes deceptively easy to refer to anything as "inverted Trotskyism", from an aggressive polemical style and "contempt" for liberalism as argued by Dorrien, to an "idealist" concept of internationalism as argued by Judis. But what does that really say? Can such commonplace characteristics and widely held viewpoints seriously be considered in any way specific to, or constitutive of, Trotskyism as a political ideology? This approach focuses on elements that are at best incidental to Trotskyism, and for that reason it implies more than it can demonstrate and misleads more than it illuminates. This is even more the case when we consider that very few neoconservatives were ever Trotskyists. It perhaps goes without saying that this type of abstractionism is disastrous as an approach to history, but is tailor-made for making sensationalistic accusations.

Read the whole thing. It is a very sound debunking of the Trosky-Neocon connection.

Relbeek tracked:

I find it odd, considering. He had the intellectual honesty to admit - through humor - the similarities between Trotskyism and neoconservatism.

Exactly, Relbeek. I think you are the only one here who has a clue about what I have been saying. Although I reject the Trotsky-neocon link, I know enough about it to play along.

And that is what I was doing: playing. I was going to use the fallacious arguments demstrating a neocon-Trotsky link to develop a similarly absurd link between modern liberalism and Stalin.That's why I gamely stated that "ome neo cons have roots to Trotsky to at least the degree that the present day radical left have roots to Stalin." And why I noted that the "[alcove 1] people were pro Trotsky at the time. Over in Alcove 2 sat the pro Stalinists, including Julius Rosenberg."

But in the middle of while writing this post, I lost my sense of humor.

Dd, your question (is the party in power America) involves equivocation. In one sense it is. The party in power acts for and speaks for America in the international realm. Those actions and statements can accurately be labeled "American" foreign policy.

In another sense, it is not. That's quite obvious. The party in power may lose the next election, but "America" will still exist.

And there is no question that I equivocated when I stated:

But look at Partha's last post. He is essentially calling the US evil because the neocons are articulating solutions to evil regimes, North Korea, Syria, Iran. He provides no solutions to the neocon plan. Continued starvation of millions, stoning of children, execution of thousands without trial is an acceptable status quo to him. His real goal is to label Americal policy as evil. Solutions? Who needs them, as long as he can tar and feather Amerika.

What is ironic is that you, Dd, have hounded me through this thread like some modern day Inspector Javert as the gigantic Trotsky-Neocon connection (which is nothing more than a theory founded on one big equivocation) burns on around you.

[Partha]

I read your article. Talk about excessive abstractionism.

Claims of a "perpetual war" waged by the Pentagon and of endless adventurism against all and sundry courtesy of the "War Party" stand in stark contrast to the actual course of American foreign policy since the formal end of the war in Iraq, in which diplomacy (backed by credible examples of force) has far outweighed military action.

Note how the author convienently glosses over the factoid that military action is not really an option, with more than half the military tied up in the garrisoning of Iraq, which therefore tanks any Trotskyite strategy. This is not an isolated example, either - the readers here can easily detect them. The author also asserts that Kristol was never in the YPSL when Kristol (as I noted in the post above it) clearly stated he was in his memoirs. Now, if you're calling Kristol a liar.......

Lastly, your counterexample falls short, if only because you're not drawing any parallels between the Stalinists in Alcove 2 that you can between the Trotskyites in Alcove 1. Now, if you can show us that the Stalinists in Alcove 2 became educators and taught high position holders in the 'radical Left' (whatever you call that) who subsequently influenced American foreign policy. Can you do that for us?

[vaulos]

Partha does have a point, at least in the first paragraph. Perpetual war does not mean either the lack of diplomacy or the lack of periodic suspension of war-like activities (say to rearm, to reequip, to redeploy forces, etc). For instance, one might suggest that the US military taking a right turn and invading Iran (after our military's footprint in that country is no longer "needed") would merely be a "continuation" or our war-on-terrorism. It would be just another battle in a perpetual war...despite the several years between the "end of the Iraq war" and our invasion of Iran; and despite our current negotiations with the latter.

[Chants Evensong]

Note how the author convienently glosses over the factoid that military action is not really an option, with more than half the military tied up in the garrisoning of Iraq, which therefore tanks any Trotskyite strategy.

Not an option? I thought you said there was going to be a draft. (I kid).

Partha, Trotsky's "perpetual revolution" and the concept of "permanent war" are two very different things. Trotsky's "perpetual revolution" is his way of explaining why, in a backward country such as Russia, the proletariat will have to continue the revolution that the bourgeoisie would fail to complete. Essentially, the proletarial would have to "perpetuate" what the bourgeoisie started.

Unlike "perpetual revolution," "permanent war" is war with no clear ending conditions. The cold war was considered to be a permanent war. The war on terror may be another one. War on drugs yet another.

Another manifestation of a "permanent war" appeared in Orwell's 1984 where three superstates waged a constant "guns and bullets" war with each other, as opposed to the metaphorical wars listed above.

Some have argued that "permanent war" is waged to distract the masses and for profiteering.

However, none of the manifestations have anything to do with Trotsky's "permanent revolution."

It is becoming apparent to me that with each post you write,

Lastly, your counterexample falls short, if only because you're not drawing any parallels between the Stalinists in Alcove 2 that you can between the Trotskyites in Alcove 1. Now, if you can show us that the Stalinists in Alcove 2 became educators and taught high position holders in the 'radical Left' (whatever you call that) who subsequently influenced American foreign policy. Can you do that for us?

No. No meaningful link can be drawn Partha. Neither can there be drawn a realistic and meaningful link between the neocon persuasion and Trotsky's political ideologies, which you demonstrate with ever increasing clarity with each post you write attempting to do so.

And that was the point of my counter example.[/u]

[Ddrak]

Chants,

I don't care about the Trotsky thing. It's pesudo-intellectual foppery at its finest and we both know it.

It's the equivocation that annoys me excessively. I detest the people that throw "Anti-American" in the faces of those exercising the very American right to freedom of speech and political ideals. "America" is not Republican, Democrat, Neoconservative, Green, pro-Israel, anti-Israel, pro-Peace, pro-War or anything like that. It is the blend of the ideologies of all Americans that makes it a great nation and to shout "Anti-American" at those you disagree with, is probably the one true way to be Anti-American yourself.

As for "hounding you", I'm flattered but no. You're just being oversensitive to criticism.

Dd

[Chants Evensong]

Pseudo-intellectual foppery at its finest.

Best one liner I've heard all week.

[Torakus]

, with more than half the military tied up in the garrisoning of Iraq, which therefore tanks any Trotskyite strategy.

Just thought I would point out another example of someone talking out their ass.

Note how Partha convienently glosses over the factoid that the number of personnel in Iraq isn't even close to half of the military.

Here are the numbers for military personnel committed to OIF

Army 101,932
Navy 15,988
Marines 35,216
Airforce 17,511

Total 170,647


Total Force Structure numbers:

Army 499,533
Navy 373,197
Marines 177,480
Airforce 376,616

Total 1,426,836


Not only is the number in Iraq not more than half of the military, it is barely 12% of the total active military.

Ron

[Trollbait]

pwn

[Ddrak]

Actually, it's apples and oranges. Partha never said "in Iraq". He said "tied up with the garrisoning", which would count the people in the US whose full time job is directly supporting the troops inside Iraq. That figure could easily run to half the military (I seem to recall figures for support personell running vs men on the ground running 5:1 or higher?), but that's a completely uninformed opinion.

Dd

[Embar Angylwrath]

Partha has his wires crossed (again). The Army Reserve and Army National Guard have about half their assets tied up in the conflict, but Torakus has the meat of it correct. Overall, we have a little over 10% of total military personnel assigned to the conflict.

The larger question is what this conflcit is doing to military infrastructure. Although we're getting e very seasoned and battle-hardened military out of it, the pressure on Guard units and equipment is staggering. The replacement of personnel due to attrition, and of course the substantial equipment replacement costs, will be felt for quite some time.

[Kulaf]

The typical use of the word garrison applies to the personal at the post.....not to those supporting them. When talking of the garrison of troops in Korea.....one speaks to the troops on the ground.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Torakus... where'd you get those numbers? They are very specifc (down to the man/woman). The number you listed for the Marine deployment is quite a bit larger than what I have.