President Ronald Reagan successfully led the Greatest
Generation's ultimate triumph, over the transformational
challenge posed by the Soviet Union and its strategic threat and
rival model of governance, in part because he understood the
gravest threats to communism were the free exercise of religion
and free and independent labor unions.
Free and independent labor unions obliterated communism's
exclusive claim to speak for the "proletariat," and enabled
enslaved men and women to experience a core principle of America:
individual liberty, for which they fought, often with great
sacrifice. Thus, former Screen Actors Guild President Reagan
worked closely with American organized labor to foster and defend
workers' unions throughout the Eastern bloc, most notably
Poland's Solidarity.
The free exercise of religion destroyed atheistic communism's
ideological claim to be an historical, "scientific"
inevitability. In this cause, Reagan united with Pope John Paul
II to spur the peaceful implosion of the Evil Empire.
Today, our Global Generation confronts the transformational
challenge posed by communist China's rise as a strategic threat
and rival model of governance. Ominously, President Obama has not
learned the lessons of history; and has sought to appease rather
than implode the Beijing regime to free a billion souls from the
shackles of statist servitude.
Ironically, though a Democrat, President Obama has not
effectively marshaled the power of American organized labor to
push for workers' rights in the People's Republic of China (PRC).
Indeed, fearing communist China's economic leverage over the U.S.
economy, President Obama has calculatedly muted America's call
for the recognition of all human rights in the PRC, including the
right to free and independent labor unions.
Similarly, President Obama has also missed a historic opportunity
regarding the free exercise of religion. In refusing to meet with
the Dalai Lama prior to meeting with the Beijing regime,
President Obama is squandering this generation's opportunity to
see an American President unite with a religious leader to free
billions from oppression -- namely, the Dalai Lama.
There remains time for President Obama to realize his mistake;
and embrace the moral and practical power of both American labor
and the Dalai Lama to triumph over the transformational challenge
posed by communist China's as a strategic threat and rival model
of governance. Still, history's hands remorselessly round the
clock....
U.S. Representative Thaddeus G. McCotter (R-MI) is
the Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee.
