Today my wife and I had coffee with another hitchhiker who is by trade an art dealer. The subjects wandered far and wide, and what had been foreseen as a half hour quick break turned into almost three hours. Discussions about Open Source (which he knew of vaguely) turned to more kulchural subjects. I am going to try to relate this without backing it up with any links or references because I think it provides some food for thought, even though I have no personal knowledge of it. I'd appreciate any comments, too.

One of his main points was that the US has been contributing to its own cultural downfall in the Middle East for almost a generation. He said that Reagan administration cut funding for cultural attachés, mostly in the Middle East, and that as a result since that time most of the young people there don't have any personal contact with US culture; it's limited to the exposure they get through the mass media. That's not the same thing. He mentioned that people from the US used to come to schools and museums and tell stories or sing while playing the guitar.

This may seem like a trifling, insignificant point to most people. By itself, it would be. But it's another piece of a much larger picture of what's going on, a depletion of the deposits of goodwill made all over the world by US citizens in the past.

Admittedly, it may be especially hard to see this for someone who is living in the US.

Another news item that floated across my CRT today that has some bearing on this - from an interview of Jon "maddog" Hall in Spain:

Hay algo importante: Mientras un país dependa de otro en algo tan crítico como los sistemas operativos, ese país no tendrá una seguridad completa y total, porque (Dios no lo quiera) si EEUU entrase en guerra con España, no sé si los generales se pondrían contentos al tener que usar un software diseñado y producido por el enemigo, el cual puede incluso tener acceso a importante información gracias a ello. Se trata de una situación extremadamente comprometida.

This is something important: While a country is dependant on another one in something as critical as operating systems, that country will not have a complete and total security, because (God forbid!) if the U.S.A. had a war with Spain, I do not know if the generals would be happy if they had to use software designed and produced by the enemy, and which thanks to that might even give them access to important information. That would be a dangerous situation.

This is not the first time I have heard this observation. But, it is the first time I've heard it from a US citizen. It's obliquely mentioned in some news articles from Europe. And I've heard discussions about it in Latin America. But there's always a vague uneasiness about it, because the assumption is generally that the US is "our friend".