Just perhaps as a devil's advocate, there might be a grain of truth in this article, however clumsily it was handled.

The author is asserting that nations prosper to the degree they interact well with other groups of people on the planet -- that dialogue, free flow of ideation and trade and viewpoints are an index of well-being.

I happen to believe there's a meaningful degree of truth in that thesis. It is unfortunate that the author tries to cast it in the context of American imperialism, which is a piss-poor rider to tag onto what is essentially a noble proposition -- that humans prosper when they are in open communication with other humans, and they do not prosper when they seek isolationism and autocratic insulation.

At the core, this is about ideas which will survive and ideas which will not. Strong ideas, those which align well with human realities, laws of nature, and whatever laws of metaphysics there are, stand up well in dialogue, tend to be infectious and survive noise-bombs.

Right now, one of the strongest ideas ever promulgated -- that the source of states lies in the informed individual acting freely -- is under a tremendous cloud of noise-bomb attack.

But that doesn't make it any the less a true and robust idea.

I believe it will survive. And I like the idea that we should "shrink the gap" of those who are missing out on the conversation. But I am thinking of a free conversation, not a manipulative power-grid of influential operations. Open communication, si -- Yanqui imperalism, no!

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