re: #305 sattv4u2

Terrorism has less of a chance to fester and grow if people are educated and have some sort of a shot at creating stable homes and families

And then you have the Bin Ladens of the world. Someone who came not from poverty, but a family of some renown and wealth

Yes, poverty, ignorance and the ravages of war play “a” part, but many peoples have gone through devastating wars and come out the other side without the radicalism (hello,,Japan)

If you look back historically at the leadership of many revolutionary movements - and Al-Qaeda certainly fits in along that spectrum - you’ll see that many of the leaders came from middle-class and up backgrounds. Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Trotsky, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden; these men did not grow up as either poor or uneducated. Lenin was a lawyer. Pol Pot [Saloth Sar] was the son of an official -not to mention educated in France - particularly ironic in light of the Khmer Rouges’ criteria for extermination. Mao’s family was certainly upper middle-class by the standards of that time. Trotsky was the scion of well-to-do farmers. Bin Laden’s family is wealthy by any metric you can apply.

It’s a peculiarity I’ve always noticed. I don’t include Stalin on that list, as he came from a generally working-class background. Adolf Hitler, the son of an Austro-Hungarian Imperial Customs official.

A good many of these revolutionaries are from the very socio-economic class they excoriate.

Oops. Edited for a major typo.