Newsgroup: it.fan.culo
Titolo: ['mericania] Going Our Way

Going Our Way
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN [premio pulitzer 2001, mica balle, eh?]
President Bush made a strong case at the U.N. for why the world community 
should not allow Iraq to go on flouting U.N. weapons inspections. But what 
struck me most about the scene was how intently the U.N. delegates were 
waiting for, and listening to, the president's speech. We should listen to 
their listening — because it is telling us some important things about our 
world.
First, for all the noise out there about rising anti-Americanism, America 
remains the unrivaled leader of the world — the big power, which makes its 
share of mistakes, but without which nothing good happens.
But, second, while our leadership requires American valor, it is ultimately 
based on American values. That is, what gives America its unprecedented 
power and influence today is the fact that, more than at any time in 
history, the world has come to accept the Western values of peace, 
democracy and free markets — around which American society is organized. 
That is the truly significant trend in the world today — not terrorism or 
anti-Americanism.
Third, while terrorists like Osama and rogues like Saddam can unleash 
lethal events against us, they do not represent an alternative trend with 
any global appeal. Indeed, the reason the terrorists unleash huge events 
like 9/11 is precisely because they have no mass following and must 
substitute sound and fury for compelling ideas, enduring achievements and 
popular support.
Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union and Mao's China not only 
represented powerful alternatives to U.S. leadership in their day but also 
powerful, and popular, alternative ideologies to peace, democracy and free 
markets. With Hitler's, Stalin's and Mao's downfalls in the last century, 
there is no longer any serious military or ideological rival to these 
ideas. That global trend is enormously favorable to us — but its 
sustainability depends on America's health and the wisdom with which it 
leads this world, particularly now.
I wish I could say I had thought of all these concepts on my own. But I 
didn't. They come from reading an important and compelling new book, "The 
Ideas That Conquered the World: Peace, Democracy and Free Markets in the 
Twenty-first Century," by Michael Mandelbaum of Johns Hopkins and the 
Council on Foreign Relations.
Mr. Mandelbaum's thesis is that all the powerful ideological rivals to 
America and its democratic allies have been vanquished and that three big 
ideas now dominate global politics: The first is peace as a way of 
organizing international relations. By that he means the core idea that has 
finally stabilized a fractious Europe, namely arms control — the notion 
that armies should be configured primarily for defense, with a high degree 
of transparency so everyone knows what everyone else is doing. The second 
idea that has triumphed is the notion that free markets are the best way 
for nations to grow from poverty to prosperity. And the third is that 
democracy is the ideal form of political organization.
"To be sure, these ideas are not practiced everywhere," Mr. Mandelbaum 
said, "but they are far more powerful and attractive than any other ideas 
and have no serious rivals today. Bin Laden and Saddam pose a threat to the 
personal safety of people living in our world, but they do not pose the 
kind of existential threat that Hitler, Stalin or Mao did. Neither man 
controls a major country with large, attractive ideas."
And that brings us to today. It is crucial that as we confront Iraq, or 
other terrorist events, that we do it in a way that reinforces the positive 
global trends already in our favor.
"That means," Mr. Mandelbaum said, "dealing with Iraq with as many allies 
as possible, with as broad an international endorsement as possible, so 
that confronting Iraq is seen as enforcing what are now widely accepted 
norms — rather than the policy of one particular country. We must act vis-
à-vis Iraq in a way that persuades people that this is an international 
imperative, not an American preference."
Never forget: We are winning. The terrorists and the rogues do not have the 
power to dislodge our world, or reverse the broad positive trends. Only we, 
the trendsetters, can do that — by acting in ways that would upset the 
trend toward peace, disrupt global markets and put the democracies at odds 
with one another. Do that, and we really would create a dangerous world — a 
world where the best Western ideals would be mismanaged and the country 
most important for sustaining those ideals — America — despised, weakened 
or discredited.
Chi sono i fondamentalisti ?
-- 
New Magic Flash
Ogni tanto penso che i neri ci abbiano messo il sound, lo swing, e i
bianchi tutta la musica.     --- Carlo Trobia, IFQ

 Chi sono i fondamentalisti ?
Considerando l'accozzaglia di cervello famosi da cui proviene rivaluto
immensamente Carlo. No, per dire, a confronto e' un socio-economo-filosofo
di rango.
Pardon, razza, volevo dire razza (chianina, s'intende, neh).
D.