Topic category:  Issues of International Interest

A politician whose policies and goals are eerily similar to Obama's has been elected president of France. The big difference is that Francoise Hollande ran as a Socialist, but Obama has not yet openly admitted that he is one. (That may change if he gets reelected, because then he will have nothing to lose.)

This is a very sad day for France, and for Europe as a whole. Flags should be flying at half-mast all over Europe, because this signals an even more desperate economic future for the region than analysts had previously foreseen.

Hollande got approximately 52% of the vote, while President Nicolas Sarkozy received 48%. Hollande's win is attributed to unhappiness with austerity measures supported by Sarkozy.

France, like most of Europe, has been a Socialist-leaning nation for decades. But this is the first time since Francois Mitterrand was president (from 1981 to 1995) that an open Leftist has been chief of state.

Sarkozy was one of the United States‚ few real friends in Europe. More important, he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were the only strong European leaders pushing for economic sanity in Europe. As the leaders of the two major economies in the European Union, together they had the clout to pass austerity and debt reduction measures.

Now Hollande has pledged to renegotiate a European Union treaty on budget cuts that Sarkozy and Merkel had fought hard to push through.

Unfortunately, Merkel is having political problems of her own. In an election this week in the small German state of Schleswig-Holstein her Christian Democrat Party lost ground, receiving just one per cent more votes than the left-wing Social Democrats.

It seems that Europe is suicidal. After decades of over-spending and massive national debts, the European Union finally had two heads of state willing and able to lead them out of the darkness. But they have rejected one of those leaders at the polls, and another may be poised to suffer the same fate.

Don't the foolish voters realize that the reason unemployment is skyrocketing and businesses are suffering is the very Socialist cancer that Sarkozy and Merkel have been fighting? Don't they realize that most of Europe is just months away from falling apart the way Greece has?

The French vote reminds me of the stupidity exhibited in the Greek riots. After spending themselves into a hole, they acted like petulant children when they were faced with austerity measures. France has done the same thing by electing Hollande. At least they didn't do it violently like the Greeks did.

Is this the beginning of the end for Europe and the European Union? No, that happened decades ago when they started electing Leftists and Socialists to their parliaments. This is an acceleration of the end.

Will the European Union collapse? That wouldn't be a bad thing, but probably not. Some countries may leave, or even be expelled, but the Union will likely limp along.

And that‚s the shame of it. They had a chance to pull back from the abyss of complete financial collapse. Instead seem intent on rushing even faster to destruction. Not all of them － almost half of France voted for Sarkozy, and Merkel still has her majority.

But enough citizens of Europe have voted for the dark side to have ruined the economies of most of the members of the EU. Now France is lost, at least for the time being, and Germany is in danger.

Who will bail them out? Until now it has been mainly Germany and France that have held together the Union and bailed out the more foolish states like Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

You guessed it. We will bail them out. In fact, we're already doing so. "But I read that the United States has refused to bail out Europe." I read the same headlines, but I didn't believe the propaganda. Because that's all it was.

Have you ever heard of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank? These two abominations were created at an international conference held at a hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944.

Guess who "owns" both of the supposedly international organizations? You got it － good old Uncle Sam. Unlike the United Nations, the US basically controls the IMF and the World Bank. We pay most of the costs of all three organizations, but we lost control of the UN. Of the approximately 200 member nations, we pay the majority of the UN's costs for the privilege of being maligned and cursed at by most of the world － on our own soil.

But for a variety of reasons we have been able to maintain effective control of the IMF and the World Bank. That's why Obama can claim that the US is not bailing out Europe － he's using these two organizations to do his dirty work. And because most Americans are too dumb to read past the headlines, he's getting away with it.

What can we learn from Europe's plight? I have been saying this over and over, but I will say it again: With our two-term limit for US presidents, they do in their second term what they really wanted to do in their first term － but they knew that if they did so, they would not be re-elected.

If we are stupid enough to allow Obama a second term, the economic terrorism that will be unleashed upon this country will be unimaginable. I'm not talking about the economic terrorism that has been employed against us by Islamic terrorists and the governments of Russia and China. I‚m talking about economic terrorism engineered by Obama and directed from the White House.

We could waste time talking about his motives, but instead let's look at the outcomes. America, we allowed a Socialist to become the President of the United States. He didn't lie about who he was. He was very clear. He told us he wanted to "redistribute the wealth" － the very definition of Socialism. And a little over half of us were so dazzled by his charm and his promised of "Hope and Change" that we elected him.

Folks, this man is not a patriot. He doesn't even like America. Recently he said that his goal is to "fundamentally change" the United States of America. If he loved her, why would he want to "fundamentally change" her? How would you feel if your bride or groom said at the altar, "I promise to love you and fundamentally change you"? I suspect that if he or she had done so, you would have left the altar unmarried. I know I would have.

Don't let the United States go the way of Greece or France. Obama is dangerous. He will become far more dangerous if we are suicidal enough to allow him a second term in which to complete his destruction of our economy.

Dr. Tom Barrett
Conservative Truth (Publisher, Editor)

Biography - Dr. Tom Barrett

Dr. Tom Barrett has been an ordained minister for 30 years. He has written for local and national publications for most of his life, and has authored several non-fiction books. He has been interviewed on many TV and radio programs, and speaks at seminars nationwide. Tom is the editor and publisher of Conservative Truth, an email newsletter read by over fifty thousand weekly which focuses on moral and political issues from a Biblical viewpoint.

Tom is Publisher and Editor of ConservativeTruth.org.