One of the Media Research Center’s dearest friends and supporters, Mark Levin, has a new book out called “Ameritopia” which as CNSNews reports will debut at number one on the New York Times best seller list in four different nonfiction categories.

On Tuesday, the esteemed author and radio host spoke to NewsBusters by phone about the book’s contents and how the media are assisting powerful utopian forces in America to undermine our Constitutional republic (video follows with complete transcript, don’t miss spectacular book signing video at article’s conclusion):

http://www.mrctv.org/embed/109441

mark-levin-talks-newsbusters-about-ameritopia-and-medias-role-advancing-utopianism

NEWSBUSTERS: Mark Levin is a lawyer, author, and host of one of the nation’s most popular syndicated radio programs. His book “Liberty and Tyranny” was on the New York Times bestseller list for eight months, three at number one, and was Amazon’s second best seller in 2009. An expert in Constitutional law, Levin is a loyal supporter and dear friend of the Media Research Center. His new book “Ameritopia” takes readers through the various utopian concepts proffered by Plato, Thomas More, Thomas Hobbes, and Karl Marx demonstrating that despite their notorious failings, America has been moving in this direction for almost a century and is dangerously close to never coming back. We are very pleased to have Mark with us at NewsBusters to discuss his compelling new book. Welcome, Mark.

MARK LEVIN: Noel, a great pleasure. I appreciate all the work you do, my friend.

NEWSBUSTERS: Thank you, sir. You as well. My first question is a bit tongue-in-cheek. I think you’ll find it a tad humorous. Despite your last book “Liberty and Tyranny” spending many months on the New York Times best seller list, they never reviewed it. You think they’ll review this one?

LEVIN: Well, you know, if they do I’m sure it won’t be very favorable. Whether they review it or not is almost irrelevant because I barely read the New York Times anymore, let alone that particular section of the New York Times. So, my goal is to address my audience, reach beyond where we can to people who are somewhat open-minded or aren’t sure what they believe, and my guess is most of the people who read the New York Times are people who are in that utopian camp. Whether it’s reviewed or not is no matter to me.

NEWSBUSTERS: Why do you think they don’t typically review conservative authors?

LEVIN: Because they are exactly what we’ve said they are for years. They are mouthpieces for the Left, and for the most part when they do review conservative authors, they trash them, or they nitpick them and cherry-pick aspects of their books. So I don’t care if they review my book or not. It is totally irrelevant.

NEWSBUSTERS: I don’t imagine you’re expecting “Good Morning America,” the “Today” show or the “Early Show” to give you a call and let you speak about your book.

LEVIN: They’ve not contacted us and we’re not contacting them, and that’s pretty much the way it worked with “Liberty and Tyranny.” They never contacted us and we pretty much didn’t contact them. If they want to go out of their way to contact me and invite me on and have a little debate, that’s perfectly fine, but I don’t need them, and obviously they don’t need me.

NEWSBUSTERS: There you go. Well, in your introduction, you wrote, “Utopianism has long promoted the idea of a paradisiacal existence and advanced concepts of pseudo ‘ideal’ societies in which a heroic despot, a benevolent sovereign, or an enlightened oligarchy claims the ability and authority to provide all the needs and fulfill all the wants of the individual – in exchange for his abject servitude.” Does this describe Barack Obama and all of his followers including in the media?

LEVIN: Well, it absolutely does, and in his State of the Union speech it will be clear as with his past State of the Union speeches, with most of his past speeches. Obama holds himself up as a mastermind. He’s not one, but he holds himself up as one, and only because he has power and he has an ideology. And even though his ideology is generally understood and can be generally defined, it’s not well thought out by him.

So, like most masterminds, he has a general idea where he wants to drag this country, although he’s a little short on specifics from time to time, and his target is to reshape, to mold the individual, in fact to destroy the nature of the individual so that he can build in essence an army of followers – the masses as they like to call them – in pursuit of a fantasy. And the fantasy is this notion of a so-called paradise which requires individuals to surrender their liberty and surrender their private property rights, basically to surrender their free will in order to accommodate this abstraction that Obama and others have. And there’s no end to it, because once you’re unmoored from the Constitution, as we are in so many ways today, then we are moored to this abstraction that a mastermind has and is promoting.

In Obama’s case, he borrows a little bit from Plato’s “Republic,” a little bit from Thomas More’s “Utopia,” and Thomas Hobbes’ “Leviathan,” and Karl Marx and Engels’ “Communist Manifesto.” Now, he may not do it wittingly, and he may do it unwittingly, but in either event it is extremely destructive. You cannot have these notions of utopianism dressed up as a humane type of ideal society and constitutionalism. You cannot have 310 million individuals who are mostly free to pursue their own interests and live their own lives and at the same time have a centralized government with increasingly concentrated power which is telling people what to do in matters big and small.

[PJMedia.com]

You didn’t ask for my advice, but I don’t hold that against you. Here it is, anyway:

(1) Prepare for every debate as brilliantly you did for last night’s.  You were ready for every single question and every one of Gingrich’s attacks on you.  Your criticism of him was right on target, and delivered with previously unexpressed zeal.  You were sharp, focused, and appropriately fierce.  Perhaps one day, the leaders of Iran, Cuba, and other hostile nations will hear such eloquent fierceness rather than the fawning obsequiousness to which they’ve become accustomed from the president and his administration.

(3)  Stop trying to persuade us that you and Bain Capital were in the business of creating jobs. It doesn’t fly. It is legal and OK to be in business to make money. It was far better last night when you said that rather than attacking an American for being capable of creating wealth, such skills should be seen as an advantage that would serve the country well.

I’ll put it to you in one of the simplest concepts in the law: You know the legal concept of a third-party beneficiary: that in a contract between A & B, it is possible that C may benefit from the work that A & B do together under their contract.  But A & B haven’t agreed to work together for the purpose of benefitting C.  They’ve signed a contract to benefit each other. That C also does well is a happy byproduct, but neither A nor B should ever try persuading the public that their work was intended to do C any good.

That’s what’s wrong with arguing that Bain Capital “created” jobs.  That wasn’t your or Bain’s purpose and Jane and John Q. Public know that.  I think last night’s debate may have been the turning point for you:  when you said, “I’m proud of being successful,” you won over more voters than with anything you’ve said previously about Bain. I’d stick with that approach in the future.

(4) Admit to yourself that no one outside your family and your own circle of friends and business associates is going to vote for you because they’re wild about you.

For most people, and that means most Republicans, the phrase “I’m just not that into him” has seemed to fit you to a tee.

We’re just not that into you. You sometimes come across as a little too self-satisfied for many viewers. Not that you don’t have reason to be satisfied with yourself. You do.  It’s just not appealing to see someone as pleased with himself as you appear to be. But you’re not going to change and this isn’t the time to try.

Luckily for you, the president doesn’t have to be loved. He or she has to be able to do the job. That’s where Obama has failed the country.  He’s not up to the job.  You are.

That’s your best argument for voting for you.  Not that you’re lovable or that you’re a regular guy (you know you’re not), but that you have what it takes to get us out of this economic morass and leftist la-la land the incumbent has foisted upon us.

(5) Try telling Americans something like this:

“I understand that you may never get excited about me. I can be pretty boring. I’m not as flashy as Newt, nor am I a rock star as many thought Obama was in 2008.

“I’m not the ideal guy to go out and toss back a few beers with. I don’t even drink beer.

“I was in the top 5% of my graduating class from Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School. I know those schools don’t impress anyone anymore because Obama graduated from Harvard Law School and W graduated from the Harvard Business School. So I don’t expect you to respect me because of my education.

“And I know many of you find my religion strange. That’s your prerogative. I’m not trying to convert you. As I said in the debate last night, as your president I’ll be guided by the principles articulated by the Founding Fathers.

“What I am I am offering you is something no other candidate, Republican or Democrat, is able to offer, and it happens to be the single most important thing the country needs now: my services to get our nation out of the economic mess we’re in.

“Everyone agrees that this is the most important election in more than six decades.

“As a nation we’re in the worst shape we’ve been in since the Great Depression. You don’t have the luxury of electing a candidate who’ll make you swoon, who’ll uplift your spirits and make you so proud and happy you voted for the most exciting candidate you’ve ever seen in your life.

“This is the year to vote like a drowning man, because that’s what our country is. I, Mitt Romney, have a lifeboat with about 310 million life jackets.  That’s what you need, America: not a comic, not a star, not a fast-talker, just a serious-minded man who understands money, finance, fiscal responsibility, and how to repair a broken economy.  This is what I do and I do it well.

“Vote for me for president and your grandchildren will be able to vote into office another rock star president. Vote for anyone else this year and you’ll look back on 2011 as the best year you’ll have for the rest of your lives. Your grandchildren won’t be able to afford a rock star president, or anything else.”

– Belladonna Rogers

Americans aren’t the only ones shocked by U.S. Congressman Ron Paul’s assertion that international sanctions against Iran qualify as an “act of war.”

The Texas Congressman has made the assertion several times during the past few years, and reiterated it last night during the Republican debates in Florida when he argued that the U.S. had committed an act of war by “blockading” Iran (which the U.S. is not doing).

“We’re blockading them,” Paul said to a Tampa audience. “Can you imagine what we would do if someone blockaded the Gulf of Mexico? That would be an act of war–so the act of war has already been committed and this is retaliation.”

But Amir Fakhravar, a pro-democracy freedom fighter who was imprisoned and tortured by the Islamic Republic, disagrees.

Fakhravar, who spoke to Big Government today, says: “Sanctions weaken the government so much it will eventually empower the people of Iran to change their own regime without war,” and added that ”Ron Paul’s foreign policy toward the Islamic Republic is wrong. If we don’t have hard sanctions against the regime they will have more money to buy weapons, and then we will definitely have war.”

Fakhravar was imprisoned in 2002 for calling to rescind the powers of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and the Council of Guardians. During part of his sentence he was taken to a military detention camp where he underwent the first known example of “white torture.” He escaped in 2006 and came to the United States. Fakhravar is now a Research Fellow and Visiting Lecturer at the Center for the Study of Culture and Security at The Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C.

“If the United States lifts sanctions and Iran eventually gets the bomb, that means war,” he added.

Paul’s argument presents problems under international law and from a historical perspective. First, under international law sanctions are not considered “acts of war.” Second, if any incident can be pinpointed as the first “act of war” between the blossoming Islamic Republic and the United States it was the November 4, 1979 violent takeover of the American Embassy by pro-revolutionary student radicals.

Ron Paul has argued in the past that the United States is responsible for acts of war against Iran, and even implied during the December Iowa Caucus that Iran was justified in building it’s nuclear program to “gain respect from (Israel).”

Prior to the passage of the “Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010,” Paul took the floor at the U.S. House of Representatives and argued that America’s threat not to trade with countries that traded with Iran was also an act of war.

Paul said the following:

Sanctions are very serious. Sanctions are literally an act of war–when you prevent certain goods and services going into a country, it’s like a blockade. There’s no advantage to us to do this. The sanction bill literally says that any country that trades or sends oil into Iran, we would no longer trade with them… so often well intentioned foreign policy procedures backfire they have unintended consequences and too often there’s blowback… Sanctions lead to hostilities. If you’re committing to sanctions then you’re committing to the next step… The sanctions on the 1990’s and the year 2000, the sanctions in Iraq eventually led to the hostilities and the war and the invasion.

Yet the United States is not the only entity that has implemented sanctions against Islamic Republic.

On June 9, 2010, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1929 implementing restrictions on missiles and other materials that could be used to build destructive weapons in the post-revolutionary state.

U.S. sanctions began in 1979 after the embassy takeover when President Carter implemented Executive Order 12170 freezing $12 billion in Iranian assets, and during the 1980’s, President Reagan implemented a number of sanctions against the Islamic Republic ranging from weapons trading bans to the importation and exportation of goods.

Still, Paul blames the United States for responding appropriately to the violent, anti-American hostilities that the fundamentalist revolution has fostered ever since the overthrow of the Shah and the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

The United States of America has not committed an act of war against Iran. Her actions have been cautiously measured in response to violent hostilities and threats repeatedly emanating from a hostile and oppressive regime that has been fundamentally anti-American from its origin. If the U.S. does not enforce sanctions against Iran it only increases the chances of an actual “hot war” since the Islamic Republic has repeatedly made threats against America and Israel.

[PJMedia.com]

The campaign for the presidency of 2012 is best understood not by the pundits of today but by a drama written in 1485.

In that year, 527 years ago, a new production opened in England. Entitled Everyman, this morality play became an instant hit, and has enjoyed remarkable staying power — and relevance — to this day.

The plot is easily summarized: in an age of the bubonic plague and other pandemics, God is troubled by how mankind has forsaken Him and has become immersed in frivolity.  He sends his messenger, Death, to summon Everyman who, like most of us, is afraid to meet his Maker.  He’s certain his spiritual balance sheet isn’t ready to be tallied by God.  He hasn’t lived the life he knows he should have and doesn’t want to be judged just yet.  He wants more time to get his moral books in order — as who among us doesn’t?

He’s been seduced by the three greatest temptations known to humanity: the world, the flesh, and the Devil. He argues with Death and is granted a single wish: he may bring one friend with him to speak on his behalf when he meets with God on judgment day — for the presidential candidates, November 6, 2012.  The play shows Everyman turning to his dearest companions, Fellowship, Kindred, Goods, Beauty, Strength, Discretion, and Five Wits (the five senses), all of whom forsake him.  Only one character agrees to die with him and speak well of him as his advocate after his death when Everyman comes face to face with his Maker.

Everyman lives within us all, including those seeking the presidency.

Any of their weaknesses could prevent their entry into heaven — for the candidates, defined as 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.  The gatekeeper is the Electoral College, which requires 270 votes for admission through the pearly gates into the heavenly realm, the Oval Office.

Alas, each candidate, like Everyman, has been sorely tempted in his life, and, as much as he wishes it were otherwise, his capitulation to his own greatest temptation is now clear for all voters to see.  Taking the great temptations of  each candidate one by one, we begin with

                                              THE TEMPTATION OF THE WORLD

Mitt Romney has been tempted by the World, the medieval reference to Mammon, the ancient Sumerian god of wealth. Christians began to use Mammon as a pejorative, a term that was used to describe a desire for worldly gain, described as a false god in Matthew 6:24 and Luke 16:13.

Romney correctly states that in the country in which we live, the free enterprise system encourages free markets with as little government regulation as possible. He says — and hundreds of millions of people the world over agree — that this is one of the glories of capitalism and that “wealth is good.”  In his concession speech to his supporters in South Carolina, he said that the 2012 election is a “battle for the soul of America” and he vowed to balance the federal budget. He decried both Obama’s and, without mentioning his name, Newt Gingrich’s “assault on free enterprise,” saying that, “when my opponents attack me and free enterprise, they’re attacking you. I’m passionate for our free enterprise system. Our party is the party of free enterprise, free markets and free consumer choice.

“The Republican Party doesn’t demonize prosperity,” he continued. “We celebrate success in our party.”

While Romney doesn’t have the sinister affect of Wall Street‘s Gordon Gekko — he doesn’t publicly snarl, bellow, or, heaven knows, swear — he certainly epitomizes the medieval concept of the man clearly focused on — and rejoicing in– the world and the riches to be reaped therefrom. While I do not criticize his business acumen and success — far from it — it was striking that at a time when “income inequality” is,  no matter how absurdly or erroneously, much bruited, the on-message Romney made no mention of private charity as did George H.W. Bush with his “thousand points of light.”

Romney made it sound as if anyone who works as hard as he has will be similarly rewarded. Coal miners and plumbers work hard and are not similarly rewarded. This is true of many industrious Americans.  Personally, I don’t oppose economic disparities, which would make as much sense as opposing clouds, oxygen and sunsets.  But it might have made him a more sympathetic figure if he had, while celebrating the wonders of free markets and his own successful participation in them, at least expressed empathy for those who have worked  every bit as hard as he has, yet have so much less to show for their efforts.

                                                    THE TEMPTATION OF THE FLESH

Tempted at 16 by his  23 year-old geometry teacher who became his first wife three years later when he was 19 and she 26, Newt Gingrich was re-tempted by Marianne Ginther, whose vindictive revelations were tawdrily broadcast by ABC “News” two nights before the South Carolina primary — to no discernible negative effect there. After 18 years of marriage to her, he married his current wife, Callista, with whom he had an affair during the final six years of his marriage to Marianne. Whether there were others will be a matter for Obama’s henchmen and operatives to uncover. If none can be found, they will be fabricated and paid for, as was the fate of Herman Cain, in my view.

Speaking of his serial temptations, Gingrich has said,

There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate. And what I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn’t trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them. I found that I felt compelled to seek God’s forgiveness. Not God’s understanding, but God’s forgiveness. I do believe in a forgiving God. And I think most people, deep down in their hearts hope there’s a forgiving God.

Somebody once said that when we’re young, we seek justice, but as we get older, we seek mercy. There’s something to that, I think. I feel that I’m now 67. I’m a grandfather. I have two wonderful grandchildren. I have two wonderful daughters and two great sons-in-law. Callista and I have a great marriage. I think that I’ve learned an immense amount.

And I do feel, in that sense, that God has given me, has blessed me with an opportunity as a person. Forget about all this political stuff. As a person, I’ve had the opportunity to have a wonderful life, to find myself now, truly enjoying the depths of my life in ways that I never dreamed it was possible to have a life that was that nice.

Unlike the Iowans for Christian Leadership in Government, whose very name suggests their intolerance, 40 percent of South Carolinians were willing to accept Newt’s penitence and give him their votes.  It wasn’t as if he was tempted by Satan himself.

THE TEMPTATION OF THE DEVIL

In this year’s morality play, which candidate would personify a man successfully seduced by the Devil?  Why, none other than Barack Obama.  He’s a walking compendium of the seven deadly sins — greed, wrath (such as when he snapped at Senator John McCain at a health care conference on February 25, 2010: “We aren’t campaigning any more. The election is over”), sloth (90 rounds of golf, the equivalent of three full months of his three-year presidency, while the country goes down the tubes), pride, lust (for power), envy (of the “one percent”) and gluttony.

There are more, although they don’t make the top seven: condescension, grandiosity (“Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment … when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal”), despicable, underhanded lowball tactics toward candidates seeking the offices he sought, inability to master his own addictions, ostentation, and unconscionable rudeness, egregious choice of friends, of the chief  law enforcement officer of the country, and of his mentor, in whose church he claims he managed to ignore the anti-American rants that drove Oprah Winfrey from its pews.

THE CONCLUSION OF THE MORALITY PLAY

In Everyman, the protagonist attempts to persuade others to accompany him on his journey to the grave, but all forsake him but one: the character known as Good Deeds.  Everyman wails,

“O all thing faileth, save God alone;
Beauty, Strength, and Discretion;
For when Death bloweth his blast,
They all run from me full fast.”

Beauty, strength, discretion, and the five senses can, indeed, diminish over time: all that remains at the end of our lives are our good deeds, represented in the play by the character of that name.  Finally, at peace with himself,  Everyman dies with no one but Good Deeds to speak for the life he led when he meets his Maker.  That is the message of the play.

Which of our Everyman candidates will ascend to the presidency a year from today on Inauguration Day? All are human. All could stumble and fall under the weighty baggage of their humanity.

As George Clooney’s character asks in Up In the Air, “Whose backpack is the lightest?”