American business interests and to restrict immigration. Now,rnjust when the French, the Itahans, the Germans, and even thernSwedes are beginning to rouse from their internationalist slumbersrnand recognize themselves as peoples with historical identitiesrnand particular interests, Americans are, as the pop psychologistsrnlike to say, “heavy into denial.”rnOur Southern border is one long bleeding wound, leakingrnjobs and letting in an infection of welfare-seeking immigrants.rnWhen Democrats like Eugene McCarthy and Gaylord Nelsonrnwarn against the effects of unrestricted immigration, the Republicansrndo not even look up; they are too busy negotiatingrnNAFTA side agreements that give privileges to their multinationalrncampaign contributors.rnWe Americans have always been slow learners; it is one of ourrnvirtues. Roosevelt came to power ten years after Mussolini, andrnthe American New Dealers, although they were vastly more destructive,rndid not have one-tenth of the originality and intelligencernof the Italian fascists they were attempting to imitate,rnand now, as the French are redefining citizenship, the Germansrnare repealing their amnesty laws, and the Italians are rediscoveringrnthe real meaning of federalism, we are stuck in the samernold rut where Roosevelt bogged us down, and we are enlistingrnmore and more of our citizens in slave labor gangs to push thernwagon forward, inch by inch, into the New World Order ofrnmanaged competition and international socialism.rnThe political movements breaking out in Europe are variouslyrndescribed as nationalist and regionalist, but neither descriptionrnis accurate. What connects French and German nationalistsrnwith the Italians in the Lega Nord is a rediscoveredrnethnic identity that is both natural and historic. Nationalism,rna term that we have been using for want of a better word, isrnmore properly applied to a political ideology that did not reallyrnemerge before the end of the 18th century. Unleashed by thernFrench Revolution, the nationalist impulse spread rapidly underrnJacobin rule. As French nationalist armies swept across Europe,rnthey incited—both by their ideology and by their depredationsrn—other peoples to discover their own nationalisms.rnThe Italian flag, for example, is simply the French republicanrnflag with a color substitution—as Umberto Bossi, head of thernLega Nord, incautiously observed a few years ago.rnMystical concepts of “the nation” and “the general will,”rnhowever dear they were to crackpots from Rousseau to Fichte,rnmust also be seen as a partly wholesome response to the desiccatedrnuniversalisms of the Enlightenment. In this sense Burke’srndefense of England puts him closer to Romantic nationalistsrnthan to the universal rationalism of the Enlightenment. Andrntoday, even when demonstrations against the New World Orderrntake on a nationalist overtone—as in the case of Le Pen’srnFront National, we should not waste too much time deploringrnits Jacobin roots but rather welcome the implications. As onernFrench Gatholic rightist—decidedly not a Le Pen follower—rntold me last year, every good Frenchman really ought to supportrnthe efforts of the Fronf National.rnThere is, as yet, no American counterpart to these Europeanrnmovements. American public understanding of the nationalrninterest is retarded by the corruption of our political leadershiprnand by the stupidity of the press. Our inability to grasprnwhat is at stake can best be seen in the debate over the NorthrnAmerican Free Trade Agreement. The editors of the WallrnStreet Journal pretend that NAFTA is a trade issue, and somernof their readers are just obtuse enough to believe them, and sornthe argument goes back and forth between protectionists andrnfree-traders, each side paid off by the business and labor interestsrnwho stand most to gain or lose by the agreement.rnRoss Perot knows—as he always seems to know—that NAFTArnis the political event of the decade, but he is just beginningrnto catch on that the loss of American jobs is a minor issue comparedrnwith the fact that America’s economic elite not only doesrnnot care if NAFTA sends jobs to Mexico—but that the wholernpoint is to send jobs to Mexico.rny^ merican publicrn/-/ understanding ofrnt ^ ^ { ^ the nationalrninterest is retarded by the corruptionrnof our political leadership and by thernstupidity of the press.rnTo lower the price of labor, our business leaders are willing tornsell out not just the working class but the country itself. Wherernothers see crisis, big business sees only opportunities. Is Galiforniarnswamped with illegal aliens? Good, illegals work cheap.rnAre divorce and feminism tearing the American family apart?rnWonderful, they’ll eat out more, and women work cheap. WillrnNAFTA encourage companies to relocate factories to Mexico?rnTerrific, there’s no environmental regulation, and—as HymanrnRoth would say—”these people down here really understandrnbusiness”; in fact, the Mexican upper classes run their governmentrnas a for-profit business. Besides, Mexicans work cheap.rnExceptio—as usual—probat regulum, since Patrick Buchananrnis the one American political figure who has flafly declaredrnthat the issue is sovereignty and not trade. When adopted,rnNAFTA will supersede both federal and state laws, and each signatoryrnwill be bound to “ensure that all necessary measures arerntaken in order to give effect to the provisions of this Agreement,rnincluding their observance, except as otherwise provided in thisrnAgreement, by state and provincial governments.” Ross Perotrnand Pat Choate, in their book Save Your Job, Save Our Country,rnpoint out that NAFTA not only requires us to change our lawsrnbut it also “gives Mexico and Canada the right to challenge thernlegality of our federal, state, and local laws as illegal trade barriers.”rnThe London Sunday Telegraph’s Washington correspondent,rnAmbrose Evans-Pritchard, wonders if there is a parallelrnbetween NAFTA and the postwar European tariffrnagreements that culminated in Maastricht. A United States ofrnNorth and South America might make even world governmentrnlook like a good idea.rnMr. Buchanan was attacked by the Washington Post for usingrnan “illegitimate” argument. But the same administration thatrnis pushing NAFTA has also threatened to submit more andrnmore American soldiers to U.N. control, and Mr. Clinton’srnpredecessor, who was if anything even more enthusiastic forrnNAFTA, tipped his hand in calling for a New World Order andrnfired the opening shots against all national sovereignties in whatrnwill some day be known as the Gulf Massacre.rnOn the important issues of national survival, the only realrndifference between Bush and Clinton is Clinton’s youth and in-rnNOVEMBER 1993/13rnrnrn