Thank you for your post. Right on! I appreciate the absence of polemic. I am a retired American and have backpacked twice around the world in the last five years...living close to the ground...observing. I have lived in Oaxaca Mexico for the last year trying to understand the upheaval here. So I am just now getting around to reading PostGlobal...a laudable attempt...however I feel I am wasting my time scanning many of the comments. Your post was thoughtful and didn't "bait" so it is interesting that it only generated one comment until now.

But back to the point of PostGlobal. One of the problems I have observed is that many policy-makers, and many of their critics, don't have the faintest idea of how an economy generates wealth for it's constituents (let alone without leaving out the poor) especially in an interconnected world. (Not that I do!)

Participatory democracies require the "luxury" of taking time out from putting food on the table. In other words, how do we access relevant information that we can trust and when and how do we think about it? And what if we don't have the language and education to understand the terms? And what if I am a Trique, or Mixtec indigenous person living in the mountains of Oaxaca and all I know is that a mining company is willing only to pay pennies for my communal land?

And what if you are a Mexican and Pemex is threatening to pull the country under but you are one of a nationalistic people...still living out the revolution...and you are resisting outside investment you are afraid will only be another opportunity for plunder in your own country?

And what if you live in a country where you only get information your leaders want you to have?

Yes, the appeal to fear is strong...both in my country and others. And reprehensible. A missed opportunity to educate and inform.

Do you think that Reagan would have a chance in Mexico? Pancho V. and his band of thugs would have a tough time today.