In an age of Christian anarchists, Libertarians and eco-fascists, the terms "left" and "right" hold about as much value as East German government savings bonds. As "progressives" join in cross-border struggles against free market fundamentalism and unbridled globalization, they've attracted unsolicited stowaways -- from Boise to Bombay, nationalist groups forge their own brand of global anti-globalism.

Greenpeace supporters might have flinched at seeing presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan in Seattle protesting the World Trade Organization. (Is it left or is it right? It's Pat!) Like any other nationalist, Buchanan has cause for opposing globalization. "To many liberals, it might be the preservation of the rain forest, the environment. To me, it is keeping good-paying jobs for American workers, the sovereignty of my country and the national security of the United States," he told Geraldo Rivera.

While many right-wingers are nationalists, not all nationalists embrace the right. Some "nationalist" groups are anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, pro-labor, pro-environment -- folks who advocate cooperation across national and racial barriers. Some can sound downright progressive 'til you read the fine print. Here, left-right duality yields to new conflicting couplings: nationalist versus internationalist, identity versus cosmopolitanism. Unlike multiculturalists, self-proclaimed "racial preservationists" fear a loss of identity and defend a so-called "ethnostate," free of banks and multinational corporations controlled by "International Jewry." Ironically, their fight is leading to an internationalization of nationalism, or global anti-globalism.

Despite past national enmities and a shared rejection of European integration, many Euro-nationalists support each other (avoiding what they call "brother wars"), aiming to rid their "Europe of the Peoples" of immigrants, "International Zionism," and "the homosexual disease." That takes teamwork: Just recently, two Italian fascists bought the Spanish ghost town Los Pedriches to house English, French, and Polish members of the nationalist International Third Position (ITP), which also has American adherents -- and which voices support for radical Palestinians.

The ITP has also purchased three towns in France and has been accused of trying to organize peasants into American-style militias. "You would be very surprised by how clued up some of the peasants really are -- they may look stupid but they know all about the bureaucracy and technocracy and the move to the New World Order," one English militant in France told the international nationalist fanzine Final Conflict. "They know this because they know that they are not wanted in the capitalist Brave New World." The ITP, which takes as its symbol the Celtic cross, denies allegations that it is a neo-Nazi movement.

Cross-border Nationalist camaraderie doesn't end there. According to the The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism and Racism, Spanish neo-Nazis have hailed the Basque extreme-left terrorist group ETA as a vanguard force of the Third Position. A September meeting in London brought English and Scottish members of the ITP together with Austrians from Jörg Haider's Freedom Party, Spaniards from Falange Española, Italians from Fiamma Tricolore, and French from Nouvelle Resistence. Likewise, a British National Party delegate to a meeting of Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National told of pro-FN African Francophone nationals promising to recall their emigrants in exchange for financial aid ("Black and White agree to the benefits of separation -- the path to peace, mutual respect and white survival.")

"Since the victory of a National Revolution in one part of the world is a victory for all Third Positionists, it follows that each affiliated member must be prepared to give moral, financial or technical assistance, where possible, should a revolutionary situation emerge in any given country," states the ITP in its summary of principles. "Parochialism in an age when the One World Ideology is striding to total victory is a complete negation of everything we profess ..."

With the Internet, nationalist networking moves at a greater pace. Brazilian skinheads, Scottish separatists, Argentine fascists, German Nazis -- even armed Islamic fundamentalists -- can find continuity in the Nationalist Banner Link Exchange. White nationalist sites point to each other -- sometimes linking to black nationalists at the Nation of Islam or Muslim extremist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. Groups who may feel heat in their own countries have enjoyed the server hospitality of American white supremacist groups like Don Black's Stormfront.

Despite his "America first" agenda, Buchanan also has many foreign admirers. He is the darling of groups like the exiled Cuban Alianza Nacional, acclaimed alongside leaders like Le Pen and nationalist movements like Italy's Forza Nuova, Mexico's Unión Nacional Sinarquista, and South Africa's Afrikaner Resistance Movement. He may not be entering the crossfire to praise them, but many in the global Nationalist movement endorse him.

For evidence that not every nationalist needs a militia, one can look to the world's largest democracy. In India, with an ethnic diversity rivaling Europe's, recent elections again shined favorably upon the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a Hindu nationalist party headed by acting Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Fundamentalism does not sit well with groups like the Karnataka State Farmers' Movement (KRRS), an Indian group that has been at the forefront of forging an international, anti-nationalist front against capitalist globalization. Nonetheless, there may be indications that even Hindu nationalists are getting into the global groove.

"We received a message from one of our friends from Europe that some farmers from India are travelling to Europe and United States [Seattle] soon ... All of them were expelled from KRRS recently because of their anti-movement activities," says Prof. Nanjundaswamy, KRRS President. "[Two of them] are registered members of BJP ... There is a possibility of them misusing the name of KRRS by posing themselves as its members."

Nationalism is one global franchise not monopolized by Europeans and Americans. Indonesian transport operators do swift business evacuating conflictive groups from each others' enclaves. African defenders of otherness can safely preclude any Hutu-Tutsi Love-Ins for the foreseeable future. From Burundi to Belgrade, nationalist groups defend ethnicity as something to be cleansed, thus preserving an historic enterprise that can already claim millions served -- sometimes six million at a time.