Commonism: The new face of Communism

By Tom DeWeese
web posted October 30, 2000

Communism, we're told, is dead. Welcome to the new era of Commonism.

When the walls around the Soviet Union fell a decade ago, once-proud nations that had been swallowed up by the Soviet empire emerged as a new "democracy movement." In truth, the "death" of Soviet-style Communism allowed the movement to free itself from its negative baggage. As long as the title "Communist" was not hung around their neck to raise Western fears, the ideas of International Socialism could move forward unhindered. The world has responded in almost thunderous support. Commonism was born.

The distinctive feature of Commonism is its intention to transform private intellectual property and nationally controlled natural resources into common property in the name of the "common heritage of mankind." The ideology of Commonism is based on political concepts and spiritual values such as global commons, global village, global spirituality, equalitarianism, democratism, disarmament, environmentalism, interdependence, interconnectedness, and participation in world peace.

Commonism is a political ideology containing both a doctrine and a device for its expansion. Commonism advances the idea that problems cross national and local boundaries. In that way, natural and political boundaries are conveniently overcome (overthrown?) through treaties, legislation and policy statements, all explained as necessary for improvement of the common good.

Here in the United States, the President's Council on Sustainable Development is one of the most obvious devices in the establishment of Commonist policy. The Council's report describes "certain tools, approaches, and strategies…could result in more environmental protection, less economic cost, and…greater opportunity for the poor and disadvantaged." A program, publicly presented as a way to protect the environment, mysteriously transforms itself to engage in racial, economic and equality issues.

This is no accident. It is a tactic of Commonism to meld together a seemingly unconnected array of issues into one common cause. The President's Council report explains how these partnerships are to be a first step. "Learning to use new approaches to achieve interrelated goals simultaneously will be an evolutionary process. It needs to build on the strengths and overcome the limitations of current economic and regulatory systems and recognize the interrelationships between economic and environmental policies."

This is nothing more than a methodology to render local or state elected officials incapable of making development and other decisions for their communities and constituencies.

The doctrine of Commonism is promoted through a restructured education system where traditional ideas of schools as centers of academic learning are replaced with systems designed to moderate behavior that will accept the doctrines of the new Commonism. The very meaning of Outcome-based Education (OBE) insures that students will leave school fully indoctrinated with the Commonist agenda.

The New Threat for a New Century

Throughout the doctrine of Commonism one rarely hears use of the words "freedom" or "liberty" as they would pertain to individuals. Instead, one hears much about the need for justice. Economic justice. Environmental justice. Racial justice. Rights, too, are important. The rights of the child. The rights of women. The rights of indigenous populations. All of these rights and calls for justice serve a very important purpose; the need for more laws, rules and regulations to enforce them and, since these urgent needs cross international borders, there must be some sort of international power to keep them under well-ordered control.

The September 2000 United Nations' Millennium Summit saw the initiation of the official transformation of the UN from what many perceived as an international organization of individual sovereign nations to that of a global government.

Documents presented to the Summit represented the culmination of almost all of the goals in the drive for Commonism. Some called for the consolidation of all international agencies under direct authority of the UN. Others called for regulation by the UN of all transnational corporations and financial institutions. UN reports refer to the Earth as the "global commons" encompassing all of the air, water, land and airways for the purposes of giving the UN jurisdiction and taxing power for use of natural resources. Other documents call for the establishment of a UN standing army, for the power of global taxation, and an International Criminal Court. Each of these items would give the UN the power of rule making and the enforcement ability to see it carried out.

Finally, in the spirit of Commonism, UN power would be transferred from the General Assembly to an "Assembly of the People" populated by selected non-governmental organizations. Thus, if you do not support the goals of environmental, family planning, or organizations advocating total disarmament, you views would not be representated.

The UN Millennium Assembly was the culmination of efforts begun in 1974 by a band of International Socialists who saw the need to restructure revolutionary Communism into a more palatable, less threatening Commonism. They saw this new "functional" approach not merely as a change of political device, but a change of political outlook. They saw a way to eliminate the baggage of Communism, which they knew was hated and opposed in the West.

They developed what they called the "common index of need" that David Miltrany, writing in 1966, said "cut across national boundaries" defining them as, "universal" in scope. This set the stage "for building up an international community of interests (that) could be made by setting up joint agencies for dealing with these common needs." In plain language, it was the game plan to create a world government based on Communist principles and objectives.

Semantic Slavery. They called the process "social and economic democracy." Democracy is a positive term in the West. However, understanding the use of this word by International Socialists is the key to understanding Commonism.

To Conservatives, democracy means civil and political decisions made within the framework of a free society and a free market. It means free and competitive elections among multiple parties. In the United States, democracy particularly means that the defense of individual rights and property are paramount to avoid government dictate.

To the Socialist or Communist, democracy primarily means economic or social equality with or without parliamentary means. To the Socialist, if property, wealth, choice or communication need to be taken from one group in order to create "equality" for another, that is social democracy. In socialist philosophy, law becomes an instrument to advocate the redistribution of rights, riches, and property, in the name of equality to "enforce" a new international economic order.

Commissioning "Commonism" While Burying Communism

During the early and middle part of the Twentieth Century, International Socialist David Multrany pioneered the path to Commonism advocating common causes as the reason to find a global "common security" and a "common future." His ideas were implemented in international policy through a series of four UN-sponsored international commissions in the early 1980s.

The four international commissions were led by prominent European International Socialists. They dealt with the interconnection, integration and "democratization" of economic development, disarmament, environment, and communication.
Willy Brandt
Brandt

In 1980, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt chaired the Commission on International Development, an effort to unify financial and commercial decision-making. Also in 1980, Sean MacBride, a recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize, headed up a Commission on International Communications, a blueprint for controlling the world's media. In 1982, Olof Palme, the man who single-handedly returned Socialism to Sweden, served as Chairman of the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues, a plan for disarmament of nation states, leaving only the UN with a military strike force.

Finally, in 1987, came the granddaddy commission of them all, The Brundtland Commission on Environment and Development. Chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland, Vice President of the World Socialist Party, the commission introduced the concept of "sustainable development." For the first time the environment was tied to Socialist goals of international redistribution of wealth. Said the report, "Poverty is a major cause and effect of global environmental problems. It is therefore futile to attempt to deal with environmental problems without a broader perspective that encompasses the factors underlying world poverty and international inequality."

One world, one media, one authority for development, one source of wealth. One international army. The construction of a "just society" with political and social equality rather than a free society with the individual as the sole possessor of rights. It's wrapped in Orwellian double-talk guaranteeing exclusive and universal power for a restructured United Nations. Welcome to the world of Commonism.

The New America in the New Global Order

In the wake of the euphoria following the fall of the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall, Socialists wasted little time implementing their plans. The former Soviet Empire gave birth to a hoard of Socialist democracies. Western Europe fell in line, discarding the tradition of once-proud sovereign nations, forming the European Union with its common regulations, common currency and common Socialist agenda.

In the United States the agenda is moving forward faster than any Socialist could ever have hoped for. It has been expedited by President Clinton's use of Executive Orders as he fully implemented "sustainable development" and moved to strengthen U.S. involvement and subservience to the United Nations.

Republicans, too, have embraced the agenda, proclaiming Commonism's version of free trade as the vision of our founding fathers. When Republicans gained control of the Congress, Speaker-to-be Newt Gingrich agreed the lame-duck 103rd Democrat-controlled Congress should reconvene to pass the North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

A comparison of the NAFTA and GATT documents show them to be indistinguishable from the agenda outlined in the Brandt and Bruntland Commission reports from the 1980's. Most Republicans continue to dismiss the United Nations as a threat to U.S. sovereignty. The double-speak of Commonism has lulled too many of them to sleep.

Fighting Back!

As massive as the worldwide movement toward Commonism appears to be, it can be stopped. There are several elements the International Socialists never counted on.

First is the fact that humans are not a colony of ants. We have our own ideas about how to run our lives. Moreover, Americans have grown up with the idea of independence. As asleep as we appear to be at times, when our liberty is threatened, we awaken and fight back.

Commonism's greatest weakness is that Socialism doesn't work. Even if it were fully implemented, it wouldn't take long for the Socialist structure to crumble and individual ingenuity to again prevail.

Second, try as the Commonists will to control the flow of information, they never counted on the internet. The Internet represents the best opportunity for full Laissez-faire free enterprise ever known to the current generation. Any effort to impede it in any fashion must be fought. Even its less savory aspects!

Those who oppose the International Socialist agenda must fight on four distinct fronts. These are education, where the fight must focus on academics and an end to the psychology-driven behavior modification federal programs; the right to privacy, where an all-out effort must be made to stop the establishment of federal data banks that document personal information; private property rights, which guarantee private ownership, control and protection of real and intellectual property; and protection of national sovereignty.

Today the drive to get the United States out of the United Nations is beginning to take hold. End U.S. involvement in the UN and the Socialists will lose their center of power. Stop them on those four fronts and Commonism, too, will find its way to the ash-heap of history.

Tom DeWeese is the president of the American Policy Center, an activist think tank headquartered in Herdon, Virginia. The Center maintains an Internet site at americanpolicy.org.

For more information on Commonism read: "The Coming Century of Commonism: The Beauty and the Beast of Global Governance," by Philip C. Bom, published by Policy Books, Inc. P.O. Box 65111, Virginia Beach, Virginia 23467.

Other related stories: (open in a new window)

* The communist background of the United Nations by Charles A. Morse (August 28, 2000)
* Get ready for global governance by Henry Lamb (March 6, 2000)



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