Anti-americans everywhere

[Murthy Yenamandra]

calbert at hslboxmaster.com writes:
> Yes, but our response must involve an effort to separate the facts 
> and fictions of such ideologies. Solutions founded on weak but 
> comforting premises will offer no solutions in the long term.

No doubt, but what matters is the mass of people the solutions appeal
to. Ideologues of all stripes have as their number one objective to
coerce all states to conform to their vision of the ideal state, which
in itself is the solution for all problems. Sure they'll exploit the
conditions (and dissatisfactions) that already exist, but fixing
people's lot is way down on their list, as a side effect of the ideal
state. 

This, of course, is not to say that if living conditions were better for
people over the world, ideological/political conflict will go away. But
it is a more worthwhile project in the long run, though as you say it's
not usually clear how to go about it and economics is only part of the
puzzle, than trying to defeat or eradicate particular ideologies.

Murthy

-- 
Murthy Yenamandra                  mailto:yenamand at cs.umn.edu
"I strive to be brief, but I become obscure." - Horace