And now, deep thoughts...

From Neptunus Lex:

Fukuyama said that Islamist movements won’t make history in the way that the 20^th century ideological struggles such as those between democracy and fascism or communism did because the appeal of fundamentalist Islam does not extend beyond the range of its heartland. He goes on to say that whether you call it globalization, modernization or westernization, what we’ve got presents a much greater threat to the Arab Middle East than what they’ve got does to us. Modernization inevitably empowers women, with the probem being - for traditional societies - that nothing is as culturally wrenching as the re-definition of gender roles. Which is true I suppose in the calculus of cultural existentialism, but less true - from my perspective anyway - in the math of “are we more likely to find that a dirty bomb has been planted in New York, or Teheran and thousands of people have been killed in an afternoon” kind of a way. (Fukuyama summarized by Neptunus Lex by Thomas Barnett in plain, NL's comments italicized - ed.)

Barnett has the job of deep thinking forward looking.  Neptunus Lex is a thoughtful spear carrier.  We're lucky to have both.  It's interesting stuff, and fun to play with.  No word on the threat posed by the greens, though.  I think that's a big mistake.