such as James Burnham (a former leader of the Fourth luternational)rnand a whole coven of ex-commies of one sort or another,rnwho were hell-bent on destroying their cx-comradcs in thernKremlin,rnIf we look at the parallel histories of the War Part}’ and the Party’rnof Peace, wc can see a whole series of such realignments,rnstarting with World War I and its aftermath. The crusading spiritrnof the War Partv’ of 1917 was animated by Wilsonian liberalism,rna militant internationalism of the left. These same liberals,rnhowever, were cruelly disillusioned by the vengeance of Versaillesrnand the subsequent redivision of Europe by the GreatrnPowers. This great betrayal gave rise to a new, noninterven-rnHonist liberalism, which found polihcal expression in the Midwesternrnpopulists of both parties (primarily the Republicans).rnExemplified by Sen. William E. Borah, the great orator knownrnas the “Lion of Idaho,” this group constituted the Midwesternrnleadership of the antiwar movement of the 1930’s. These progressivernRepublicans were initially friendly to Eranklin Roosevelt,rnbut were alienated by the Mussolini-esque National RecoveryrnAct, horrified by the court-packing scheme, and bitterlyrnopposed to getting into the European v’ar, which they saw as arnconflict between empires in which the republican UnitedrnStates had no interest and no stake. American inten’ention inrnthe war, they believed, was a scheme by the President to increasernhis power and to plant his foot firmlv on the neck of thernnation.rnhi this suspicion, they had plent}’ of companv’ in conser’ati’ernbusinessmen such as Gen. Robert E. Wood, the head of Sears,rnRoebuck, and a group of Yale law students led by R. DouglasrnStuart, the son of the first vice president of the Quaker OatsrnCompany. This working alliance, based on opposition to arncommon enemy, soon arrived at a common analysis of Americarnin the 1930’s: that Roosevelt was a warmongering would-berndictator who was taking the countrv’ down the path to perdition.rnWliile opposition to the President’s domestic policies formedrnsome basis for the alliance, the war question v’as the real catalystrnof the 1930’s realignment—as it has been of realignmentsrnthroughout American historv’.rnOver on the left, another sort of realignment was takingrnplace, with the formerly antiwar Communist Parh- turning on arndime: The signing of the Hiticr-Stalin Pact had motivated itsrnopposition to inter’ention, but when Hitier turned on his hvinrnbrother in the Kremlin, Stalin’s American agents changed theirrnline in mid-sentence—and without missing a beat. Suddenly,rnthe commies were the biggest warmongers on the block, stridenriyrndemanding that the United States open up a “secondrnfront” to save the Soviet Union, and insisting that all opponentsrnof the war be jailed as “traitors” —^/H’S from a part} funded andrndirectly controlled by a foreign power, a part}’ that now billedrncommunism as the incarnation of “20th-century Americanism”!rnThe communists had been on the outs with their liberalrnfriends and potential fellow travelers on the war question, but asrnsoon as the commies were pro-war, thev were let into the governmentrnand the seats of power. Communists hailed the passagernof the Smith Act, which criminalized opposition to thernwar, and cheered when Roosevelt jailed some 30 members ofrnthe Socialist Workers Part}’, which opposed the war. A few yearsrnlater, the same law was used to jail leaders of the CommunistrnParty—which demonstrates how the principle of karma operatesrnin historv.rnThe War Part}’ has worn manv guises throughout Americanrnhistor}’. Sometimes it is left wing, at other times it is a creaturernof the right. The Part}’ of Peace is likewise prone to switch polarities.rnIf you live long enough, you can start out your life as arnliberal and wind up a right-wing reaetionarv’ without undergoingrnany fundamental change of views. That is what happenedrnto H.L. Mencken, the guru of the freethinking “flaming youth”rnof the 1920’s and early 30’s, who was later consigned to the feverrnswamps of “right-wing extremism” for his opposition to the warrnand his visceral hatred of Roosevelt. The same was true of AlbertrnJa}’ Nock and John T. Elynn: Their ‘iews did not change,rnbut the perception of them did. Opposition to war, imperialism,rnand the centralized state was “left” at the turn of the centur}’rnand “right” by the 1930’s. In the 1960’s, it was “radical”—thatrnis, radical left—to oppose our policy of global intervention,rnwhereas the noninterventionist of toda’ is far more likely to berna conservative Republican or a member of the Reform Parh’rntiian a liberal Democrat.rnThe idea of an alliance between the antiwar left and the anti-rnimperialist right is a concept rooted in more than just opposihonrnto war. For out of the struggle against empire will arise arnwhole new way of looking at the world, a common analysis ofrnhow the few use the state to rule the many. Naturallv, there willrnbe disagreements, and competing analyses, and a lot of initialrnconfusion; but over the loirg haul, the two sides will sort tiiemsehesrnout. A movement in opposition to imperialism must, inrntliis dav and age, necessarily become a struggle against globalism,rnagainst the idea of a world state. In the era of enforcedrnglobalization, the Peace Part}’ is the greatest defender of nationalrnsovereignt}’ as a bulwark of resistance against the emergingrntransnational tv’ranny, while the War Part}’ is the great championrnof a world without borders. Now that the epic battle betweenrncommunism and capitalism has been decisively decidedrnin favor of the latter, a new struggle of “isms” is breaking out,rntiiis time between globalism and nationalism —and Kosovo wasrnjust the beginning.rnAs the rule of the acronyms-WTO, NATO, E.U., U . N . -rnreplaces the self-rule of sovereign nations, a broad opposition isrnsure to arise. Who can say whether it will be “right” or “left” —rnand, in the end, what does it matter? Such labels no longer describernanything meaningful —and that, really, is the wholernpoint. ‘^rnOn Progressivismrnby Robert BeumrnFuture means older: here we trudge.rnEqual and free, to vote for Fudge;rnUnder the princes ran a hostrnRaiding imagination’s coast.rn18/CHRONICLESrnrnrn