PERSPECTIVErnA Revolution to Save the Worldrnby Thomas FlemingrniD eyond Left and Right” was the tide of the Antiwar.comrn- U conference which brought together Pat Buchanan andrnAlexander Cockburn, Justin Raimondo and Lenora Fulani (tornsay nothing of two Chronicles editors) in the same room (if notrnall at the same time) for a broad critique of the aggressive NewrnWorld Order launched by the Bush and Clinton administrations.rnIt was a cordial exchange, in which left and right did notrnpass each other like ships in the night but crossed at a 90-degreernangle after exchanging salutes. However, before quartering thernhammer-and-sickle with the fleur-de-lis, opponents of U.S./NATOrnimperialism might ask what the two sides ha’c in common.rnTo answer that question, most of the radicals and reactionariesrnin San Mateo, California, would agree in opposing the U.S.rnpolicy of imperialism and in condemning lastear’s aggressionrnagainst Yugoslavia. Beyond that point, agreement becomesrnmore difficult, partiy because so many different political perspectivesrnare represented, partly because some of us —evenrnmost of us—are unclear about what we do beliexe or about howrnthe United States turned into what it is today. If there is to bernnot a coalition but some sort of joint operation, both parties hadrnbetter be clear about the limits of what the)’ agree upon.rnThe only ideological coalition worth talking about will be thernunion of reactionar)’ Christians when the’ find the will to resistrnthe Jacobin governments that have destro’ed their world, butrneven a popular front alliance should have its rules. At a barernminimum, it could not include sentimental pacifists who opposernthe use of violence, civil disobedients who believe in doingrnevil that good may come of it, or nostalgic leftists who cannotrnbelieve that Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and Tito hae let them down.rnOne part of the problem lies in the Cold War America tornwhich so many conservatives look back as a Golden Age.rnAmerica today, nearly all of us are children of the Cold War.rnSome of the speakers at the conference opposed the U.S. policyrnof containment, opposed the undeclared war in Vietnanr thatrncost so man- Vietnamese and American lives, and resisted firerndemonization of the Russian people as our natural encnn-.rnOthers thought that communism was a nightmare menace tiiatrnhad to be kept in its box and still believe that Ronald Reagan’srnbuildup of file American war machine brought down the BerlinrnWall and saed the world from an Evil Empire.rnI understood both positions, because I had opposed both tirernwar in Vietnam and despised the American left’s manifest attractionrnto communisnr. Where were the isolationist reactionariesrnin die 60’s? Russell Kirk, I know, disliked America’srnSouriieast Asian adventure, but he kept his peace. What elsernwas he to do? He was part of a coalition defined by aggressivernanticommunism. Other isolationists drifted toward the left andrnfound a home there. I do not know what woidd have happenedrnif consenatixes like Kirk could have joined forces with EugenernMcCarth}- and William Applcman Williams. Certainh’, a differentrnsort of coalition would have been the result. But after therndeath of Robert Taft, consen’atives had little choice but to identifi-rnthemselves with resistance to godless communism in whatrnthe- regarded as a struggle for the world.rnNear the end of the Cold War, Jean-Frangois Revel publishedrnan influential book under the titie, HOH> Democracies Perish.rnRevel’s thesis, like the thesis of earlier Cold Warriors suchrnas James Bnrnham, was a variation on the old story of Lenin andrnthe rope: The greedv West, incapable of understanding the ideologicalrnforce of communism, was collaborating wifli the ‘cr’rnpowers that would destroy it, and if communists lacked thernIn money to bu}’ the rope from the West, well, the West would allO/rnCHRONICLESrnrnrn