If you have no intent for a call to arms in left-leaning South American countries then I applaud you but somehow history has shown that we never end up with simple education. We always have to get our hands dirty. Our large corporations end up insisting on it because their bottom line is threatened.

I just find it interesting Tom that your outrage and illumination is always on the socialist movements and never on the abuses of the regimes that lean to the right. In South and Central America, the killing, raping, kidnapping, and maiming of people has been predominantly done by that side. Sure, you can cite instances of the socialist elements doing the same thing but, from what I read, the volume of abuse is substantially less.

Obviously, pure Communistic governments are not the answer and my liberal college instructor that assigned us this book goes out of his way to ensure that he does not advocate radical socialism. We've gotten many examples of the horrific human rights abuses of both extremes. In South America however the spotlight falls primarily on the fascist regimes we've had a major hand in keeping in power over the past century.

By the way, if you want academia to more reflect your right wing values, here's a clue. Pay educators more money (which will require more taxes). They certainly have put in the time and effort and financial investment to build their skills. Right now, with the very low chance of getting to the top rung of the wage earners in the country, who in the hell do you think is going to choose the field? It sure seems to me it's more likely to be someone that feels they have something to give back to society, someone with a sense of duty and sacrifice, maybe a liberal or progressive over someone more in line with the competitiveness and cutthroat world of big business and it's financial rewards.

Oh, and your remark that our government is taking little notice of the movements in Venezuela and other nations, I can't buy that supposition. Neither you or I know anything of the highly secretive goings on of the CIA or private mercenaries being guided by our State Department. In the past we've always found out about those dealings after the fact. My assumption is that it would be unusual if we weren't heavily involved already. The character traits of individuals in our administration fit perfectly with past leaders that have done exactly that.

Art