Are neocons the new communists?

Anyone who has been paying attention must be puzzled by the seemingly strange words and behavior of people who identify themselves as neo-conservatives, neocons for short.

Manipulating intelligence, engaging in preemptive war, threatening nuclear strikes, flouting international law, subverting civil liberties, implementing dictatorial powers, selective enforcement of the law, intimidation of the press, setting up secret gulags, using torture to coerce confessions, rigging elections, an endless stream of propaganda, subversion of science in favor of ideology, concentration of the economy into the hands of a narrow circle of cronies, universal surveillance of all citizens, secretly kidnapping "enemies of the state".

It's hard to tell where the list ends, at this point probably impossible. It's all quickly becoming secret, a matter of "National Security".

All these strange activities used to be in the ambit of a country known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, now defunct, then under the iron rule of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

There is one important difference. While Soviet citizens enjoyed things like universal health care, heavily subsidized food and housing, and guaranteed jobs and retirement, those particular items are definitely not part of the neocon agenda.

Quite the opposite. Granted that provision of these services to Soviet citizens was stunningly inferior, still, it was better than the nothing the neocons offer. The neocon agenda, in fact, seeks just the opposite, seeks to squeeze its comrades (that's us) for these and all other goods and services to our last nickle and beyond. They want to rule a nation of compliant serfs. Proof is in the bills they've rammed through a rubber-stamp congress and the Darwinian economic, labor and trade policies they've successfully pursued.

For neocons, the recent congressional election is a tragedy. But they're not dead yet. As you may have noticed they are busy concocting and spewing out the same big-lie propaganda that has served them so well in the past. Expect more of the same and worse in the coming years. And this time, no more Mister Nice Guy. Exactly like the old Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

If neocons are the new Soviet-style Communists and we find their goals and methods repugnant, what can be done about them?

Why not use some of the same methods we used to defeat the old Soviet Communists? Why not a new Cold War, but this time one to free us, instead of those formerly oppressed by the old Soviet regime.

Infiltrate, disrupt and compromise their organizations. Pursue their fellow travelers. Reveal their darkest secrets. Discredit their lies with truth. Attack their lines of communications and support. Destroy their will to continue their dark journey. Starve them out.

Either that or maybe we can get the European Union to declare Cold War on us.

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P.S. Just saw on the CNN crawl that Iraqi strongman Muqtada El Sadr has threatened to withdraw support from the Iraqi government if Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki meets U.S. President George W. Bush in Jordan next week. I laughed until I cried. This is the reductio ad absurdum of the neocons' dreams of a puppet state in Iraq.