The View From 1776

American liberal-progressive-socialism, in the person of Senator Obama, is a carbon copy of European socialism, and Islamic jihadists recognize that socialism offers no opposition to their ruthless jihad to enslave the entire world.

For historical perspective, let’s look to one of France’s leading socialist theoreticians, the late Jean-François Revel.  As I wrote at the time of M. Revel’s death in May, 2006:

Jean-François Revel, who died last week at the age of 82, was that exceedingly rare person: a French intellectual who didn’t despise the United States, an intellectual who understood the cancerous prognosis of liberalism.

Revel’s 1983 “How Democracies Perish” described liberalism’s debilitating effect on confronting the threat of domination by the Soviet Union.  His observations apply equally today in our long-term struggle against Islamic jihad.

Revel wrote about democracy, meaning societies unhinged from historical tradition, in which people come to accept the idea that a constitution is nothing more than the latest social-justice fad formulated by intellectuals.  That is a 20th century derangement, very different from what the Constitution instituted: a Federal republic with power divided between the states and the national government and split, within the national government, among the three main branches; a constitutional government designed to protect the rights of individuals against PC tyranny of the majority.

Earlier, in 1970, Revel had a sharply different, eagerly accommodating view of the nascent Baby Boomer cultural, educational, and political revolution in the United States.  He happily foresaw a worldwide revolution spreading from this nation and transforming the world.

The ensuing thirteen years, however, were severely disillusioning to him, leading to the reassessment quoted above. 

What was his assessment in 1970?

Contrary to the hate-Bush party line, Europeans have despised the United States at least since the early 1960s.  Describing the typical European perspective, Revel wrote in Without Marx or Jesus (published in 1970):

On the one hand, there is America, the citadel of reaction; and, on the other hand, there is the rest of the world – the revolutionary camp, composed of everyone who resists America...The basis for such a division of the world, obviously, is the opposition between capitalism and socialism...And, since imperialism is a necessary concomitant of capitalism, it is clear that the United States will move toward socialism only if it is forced to do so from without...Thus the spirit of revolution and anti-Americanism become synonymous.

In 1970, Revel had high hopes for the late 1960s cultural anarchy in the United States: the Cal-Berkeley Free Speech Movement, SDS, Weatherman, the Reverend Martin Luther King’s civil right campaign, feminism, homosexual outing, the black power groups, and the push for abortion, no-fault divorce, and sexual promiscuity.  All of these, he anticipated, would lead to full-fledged socialism in the United States and would become the model for the remainder of the world.

The particular relevance of M. Revel’s 1970 analysis, with respect to Senator Obama’s public relations tour of the Middle East and Europe, has to do with the Senator’s speech in Berlin.  To roars of approval from the socialist throng in the Tiergarten, he declared:

I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before. Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen—a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.

Citizen of the world is liberal-progressive-socialist code for world government, the fundamental socialist goal impelling the 1960s student anarchism.  This became the foundation for Senator Obama’s cultural and political doctrine.  Underlying Senator Obama’s continual refrain of change is M. Revel’s 1970 expectation:

With respect to the second world revolution [originating during the 1960s in the United States], it is clear that it can have only one goal, on which all other goals, however numerous, must depend.  And that single goal is the establishment of world government...On that, depends all else, including the establishment of economic equality and the abolition of social classes...

In other words, bringing us together and transcending racial barriers is to be accomplished by moving toward world government.

This goal of world government has been prominently in evidence since Senator John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign emphasizing “sensitive” foreign policy, in which the United States is to take no international action not approved by all of its purported allies and by the UN.

Senator Obama in his Berlin speech echoed Senator Kerry:

Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe. No doubt, there will be differences in the future. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more—not less. Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity.

Again, M. Revel’s assessment clarifies and amplifies both liberal-progressive-socialist denunciation of President Bush’s foreign policies and the implications of world government espoused by Senator Obama:

...we can conclude that the abolition of what we call foreign policy will be one of the essential components of the future world revolution.  And it will also be the key to all other changes that constitute the revolution...The second world revolution will therefore consist in putting an end to that notion which is the source of all evil: the notion of national sovereignty...only multilateral agreement on reciprocal controls, leading to planetary multinational law, will allow us to escape safely from this absurd situation.  Bilateral accords must be avoided like the plague, for they are only the framework for warlike foreign policies, local hegemony, or imperialistic domination...

Whether one supports the liberal-progressive agenda or not, there must be clear-eyed recognition that it is pushing the United States toward abolition of national sovereignty.  From Supreme Court advocacy of international and foreign country law as superseding the Constitution, to “sensitive” foreign policy that must be pre-approved by the UN, we are barreling down the slippery slope to socialist impoverishment and domination by foreign powers.