John Dean's first excellent book on the Neocons, Worse than Watergate, has a new bookshelf partner, Conservatives Without Conscience. Barry Goldwater was very disappointed with the Neocons and couldn't understand their behavior on any rational grounds. He and Dean started the book, which was shelved for a time after Goldwater's death. Finally, Dean finished it and has been touring and giving interviews, including one yesterday on public radio.
Essentially what is driving the Neocons is the same as what was driving the Nazis. Social psychology identifies it as the Authoritarian Personality, where there are some authoritarians who are dominators (Cheney is a 10 out of 10 possible) and the majority are their sheep-like followers who will do anything for them (possibly up to 23 percent of the population). The book includes information about the Milgard Experiment where subjects were asked to participate in electrically shocking people to “help them learn” -- and surprised the researchers by being willing to repeatedly and rather mindlessly send electric shocks to unseen people in an adjacent room. The conclusion is that when significant authority tells some people to engage in certain behaviors that they would normally avoid due to conscience, a significant number will disregard their core principles and do as they are told. The Milgard researchers were appalled at the high percentage of subjects who were willing to give dangerously high (400 volts) shocks to "learners" in the adjacent room (no one was actually shocked -- they read the reading on the voltmeter and screamed appropriately).
The Neocons believe they are the chosen people to take us to a new level as a nation, and they are all authoritarian personalities to some extent. They are also all Reversionsists (Alvin Toffler, Future Shock), as were the Nazis, attempting to return to the glory of a past age, in the case of the Neocons the world just after the Allied victories of WW II, except some like Newt Gingrich want to go back to medieval times.
To these Neocon/Nazi/Authoritarian types, 9/11 was a precious gift that allowed them to seize power, begin governing in secret, and slowly begin to erode away the rights of American citizens. They do not believe in democracy as they are totalitarians.
After hearing John Dean on the program yesterday, my new concern is the the Neocons might stage a terrorist attack on the US, blame it on Al Qaeda, and use that to grab greater power. It wouldn't be the first time such tactics have been used.

Channing
Ventura CA USA

came from his grandfather Prescott Bush's proceeds as banker for the Nazis in America. (this is a matter of public record as he was prosecuted for his prewar work as Hitler's American financial agent)

I think that the reasons for most of the neo-con's Machiavellian plans are economic. They want to continue to exploit the way they have in the past, in a changing world, even if that means destroying it and us.

Just like Hitler, they try to disguise that with various complex schemes.

Its surprising just how mundane the reasons for evil are. If it gives the people whose lives are destroyed any consolation, 'its not personal'. Just like the Indians, they have resources, votes, money, etc. that the neo-cons want.

I saw a very good BBC web site about Naziism the other day, (and in particular, the part about Adolph Eichmann stuck in my mind.)

Its worth checking out.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/genocide/

It CAN happen here..

Did you know that Hitler had a huge portrait of Henry Ford in his office in Berlin - and he claimed that his ideas originally came from America? (From "Social Darwinism" which is part of the ideological heritage of the American right)

Food for thought...