As
decades roll by it often occurs that people seemingly forget the trials and
tribulations of past years. In fact the
often replace those learned memories with a nostalgia for a time before them
which is seen as simpler and peaceful.
Such is apparently happening in the United Kingdom, parts of Europe and
in America.
For
almost five hundred years the nations of Europe consolidated their borders and
warred with each other forming often different alliances based on religion and
on national ambition. With the
devastation of World War I, and the almost total annihilation of populations in WWII,
many European leaders began advocating some form of European integration. With American support first the Benelux
nations formed a common market and then when DeGaulle and Adenauer reconciled
the two great rival nations France and Germany the European Common Market was
born. In the 1970's with both of those
out of power the Common Market merged with a rival European Free Trade Union
and created the European Union which the United Kingdom (after a popular
referendum) joined. The EU was the culmination of efforts to forge a new Europe
one with continental identity and one that would exist in peace. When soviet
control of Eastern Europe imploded in 1990 those nations sought entrance into
the EU as a sign of their desire to be European.
Almost
forty years have gone by since England voted to join the EU. And it is now over seventy years since the
end of World War II. The causes, the
incentives and the motivations for integration in Europe apparently have been
forgotten as national economies struggle with recession and debt. And, a great migration of
Middle Eastern refugees (Muslim) floods the EU countries which allow easy entry
from one nation to the other.
In the
United Kingdom a coalition of the disaffected and dissatisfied, often inflamed
by the fears of the Muslim migration, voted to "Leave" the European Union. Despite the support for remaining in Europe
which was announced by every major British political party the vote to leave
garnered 52%. There are now increased
fissures within the four nations of the United Kingdom and great uncertainty in
Europe where right wing groups in other nations are urging withdrawal.
As
America watches post war Europe unravel it faces an possible Exit of its own. US
foreign policy since the days of Theodore Roosevelt has been based on urging
the world to unite to solve problems. The United States was the moving force
behind the League of Nations (which we did not join), the World Court (which we
also failed to ratify), and after WWII the United Nations, and a myriad of
specialized agencies: the International Labor Organization, the Universal
Postal Union, the United Nations Children's Fund, the World Trade Organization,
and others. America also led the
formation of regional organizations mostly keyed toward mutual defense and
collective security: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, The Organization
of American States, the Association of East Asian Nations -- and other regions
soon copied these models, e.g. The Organization of African Unity, the Arab
League, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union the a Commonwealth of Independent
States. America has preached two
political philosophical values across the world -- Democracy and Federalism.
In 1940
a non-politician - Wendell Willkie - took the Republican nomination for President
by a popular people’s revolt
against the party establishment. Willkie
among his many remembered arguments was his belief that we now lived in One
World. It was that phrase and his advocacy that moved the Republican Party away
from isolationism and began, what Sen. Vandenberg of Michigan completed, a
bipartisan foreign policy that lasted almost fifty years. It also enabled FDR to bring America into the
role of world leader - the role it had rejected when sought by Woodrow Wilson.
Now a
new non-politician, Republican Donald J Trump, says make America independent
again. Independent of What?
Of Who?. He would leave NAFTA (a three nation trade agreement). He will rely on
the right wing extremists who already
advocate leaving the UN. Trump
says we don’t need NATO. Apparently he
would have America retreat behind oceans and a wall and deal unilaterally with
191 other nations singly and separately.
America is the one economic/military superpower left on the planet. The
entire world looks to our every action.
And despite our own negative views of our country, most people still see
America as the shining city on the hill that the Puritans opined for. What Trump is doing is appealing to nostalgia
for a simpler time. His make America Great Again and his make America
Independent Again are brilliant marketing slogans that appeal to whatever the voter/consumer
considers Great Again or Independent Again to mean.
The
world is getting smaller. New generations, using social media, identify themselves as people and citizens of the world.
They don’t accept the artificial
differences of color, ethnicity, and nationality and gender that the wealthy
economic interests have used for centuries to maintain control over the masses
of people.
In
1918 the little nations, and the oppressed nationalities, saw the League of
Nations and the Treaty of Versailles as a harbinger of peace and collective
security to come. It was said that when
the United States rejected the League in 1919 “America broke the heart of the
World”. One hundred years later we
cannot let a manufactured and manipulated fear of Muslim migration cause us to
withdraw behind a Fortress America and leave the world - this time we would not
just break its' heart -- we might break the world.
5 July
2016
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