>>>>>>>>>>Europe had the advantage of having the Soviet Union against which to show up a good face. South America had no such thing, so no propagandistic, people pampering action was needed. It was all up for grabs the easier way.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>Maybe so. I suspect, though, that it had more to do with the fact that the white ruling class of the U.S. came mostly originally from Europe, and it is a pretty tougher to flog your distant relatives than it is to stomp unrelated people. you would think, one would think, that the results of communism stopping actions in Latin America would have been much better if the U.S. had set up a good rather than a horrible example of how people are treated under the North American system. Is it any wonder that Venezuela, Bolivia and many other countries are now leaning heavily to the left.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>In a (coco)nutshell, while pulling the same cart, Europe got the carrot, South America got the stick.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>That's it? We could have saved SO much paper that went into publishing history books about all this mess, as well as money spent on educating countless political scientists and historians to ponder all this. It all boils down to folksy carrots and sticks, eh?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>No, it boils down to the guy in the cart, and the existence of the cart. Both continents would have probably been better off doing what they want for themselves, without any cart to pull.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>As for those social so-called "sciences"... c'mon. They'd be doing the same thing they are doing anyway, just to a different tune.
>>>>>
>>>>>Hey, watch it... I have a Master's degree in Sociology...
>>>>
>>>>I have 5 friends who are qualified socialogists. Of them, only one is working in the field and she receives a very low pay (in my opinion). Similar to a teacher's salary. The rest worked for a period time (max was 4 years) and moved onto something else (1 into programming, 1 into defense work interviewing for security clearances, 1 into sales, and 1 into marketing). 3 of them have a masters and 2 a doctorate from UNC.
>>>
>>>Familiar story. I've earned my living after graduating by working as a journalist, working as a carpenter and/or cabinetmaker, working at NASA flight simulation labs, working at a regional planning agency (closest to my education, maybe, although I was a programmer there), working for an ad agency, working as a technology consultant to a Japanese telecom giant, running my own business, running somebody else's business, and the list goes on. THere are more sociologists doing unrelated things to their education than probably any other graduates (well, maybe sculpting beats sociology in this area...) But college was a fun run, no matter what!
>>
>>Quite an eclectic career.
>
>And that was just a broad brush view ;-)
>
>Luckily I had very accepting parents who encouraged me to go out and explore the world. They didn't care if I was a carpenter or working for NASA or an ad agency as long as I was happy. I have tried to encourage the same curiosity and values with my own kids, and it seems to work at least for the three older ones -- one is a political science student in Helsinki and the other one is an aspiring sculptor in Barcelona. The third one is a theater arts student at UCLA, while the fourth one is starting High School this fall. And my wife, bless her heart, somehow has stuck with me all these years -- we'll have our 25th wedding anniversary this May.

Congrats! That's terrific.