Judith Mirville writes: …Actually the neocons that used to write in Commentary started out as American populists of a more enlightened kind opposing the mainstream view of the Jewish university world they stemmed from.
Another hotbed of American neoconservatism was disappointment with the new Negro delinquent culture stemming from the Civil Rights period, the very same disappointment the White majority felt, when many Jewish activists that had fought for Southern Black emancipation while dreaming the spirit of classy jazz would rule American culture at last and prevail over trite Western ballads faced what was to become the gangster rap culture instead. Neoconservatism is a very broad movement to which many dissident and contradictory figures such as Lyndon Larouche (also a former Trotskyite) also belong.
La Rouche is a neocon? I do not know what to make of that.
But the rest is all correct.
In the first part, Juidth discusses neoconservatism as a movement against the Leftwing Jewish culture that had sprung up via the universities and Jewish intellectuals. This was what I would call a rightwing Jewish movement of reaction against the Jewish New Left represented in the universities and intellectuals.
But there was more to it than that. The neocons were at core conservative Jews who are appalled by the excesses of the counterculture, which itself was heavily Jewish and often had Jewish leaders. They were sort of like the Jewish parents revolting against their rebellious Jewish sons and daughters. They were disturbed not just by the Counterculture’s politics but also by what the neocons saw as a basic lack of civilized behavior and a work ethic replaced with hedonism, sexual license, all manner of drug-taking and slovenliness. The neocons were outraged by this movement and did not want to be associated with it, hence their rebellion.
Something else happened: the Six Day War in 1967. This was the turning point in US Jewish culture when US Jews finally all fell in line in support of Israel. Not coincidentally, this is also when the US itself started to massively support Israel, due in part no doubt to powerful Jewish lobbying.
However, the American people also fell into line as they saw plucky Israel, outpost of Western values, being threatened with another Holocaust by unshaven, uncouth, uncivilized and un-Judeo-Christian Muslim Arab-Nazis. The overwhelmingly Jewish media went wild with propaganda during this war. I remember it, as I was 10 years old, and I remember the headlines in Life Magazine. The press played it up like the Second Holocaust of the Jews was soon to be visited on millions of Jews in the Levant.
The second point Judith makes is very important and there is a seminal essay by Norman Podhoretz, father of John Podhoretz along these lines. Norman was one of the first neocons at Commentary, and John has long been a leading neocon figure. The essay appeared in the early 1960’s in the Jewish press, possibly in Commentary. The topic of the essay is exactly what Judith refers to and the pain and sense of loss felt by Jewish liberals like Norman who had worked so hard for the Liberation of the Blacks only to see their handiwork degenerate into mass crime and chaos.
The article also references Black criminals preying on Jews, often elderly Jews, who remained in the large cities. These older Jews were often the parents of the younger pre-neocons. The piece has a poignant tone. Norman seems to be saying that he is still a good liberal, he still loves Blacks, and he doesn’t want to be racist…but…it’s hard. It’s hard not to be racist considering the wreckage Black criminals and rioters were visiting on the cities and especially the parents of Norman’s generation. Towards the end of the essay, Norman equivocates and wonders whether it was all worth it.
At this time, Norman was still a good Jewish Civil Rights liberal, or at least he comes across that way. He’s struggling internally not to be racist…but…it’s hard.
This is one of the seminal essays of the late 20th Century, and if you are interested, you really ought to go read it. It is also very well-written; Norman was an eloquent writer. And it’s a bit sad too.
Anyway, in reaction to what these Jews saw as Black ingratitude towards Jews for helping them in Civil Rights, the neocon movement sprung up as sort of a counter to the blissful liberal antiracism of the time. The reaction was not so much racist as what I might call Jewish Race Redpill or maybe Jewish Race Realism.
It was these three things: reaction against the Counterculture, reaction against the wreckage of the Civil Rights movement, and a new passionate embrace of the Israeli state, that birthed the pre-neocons in the 1960’s, even though the first actual neocon intellectuals and publications did not appear until the early 1970’s.
