Feingold’s prepared remarks were different than I expected.
He suggested that it was in America’s best interest for people
in other countries to like us and that one thing ordinary people could do to help is to have positive contacts with people in other countries.
He specifically mentioned the peace corps (probably targetted to the significant number of college students expected to be in the audience) and a WI farmer who shared techniques with farmers in other countries. Travel abroad and hosting exchange students was also mentioned. Open source collaboration wasn’t mentioned.
Surprisingly there was little critisizm of America’s policies in this part of the presentation.
The other speaker gave a quick overview of some general types of things that affect how people feel about America and stated that the rest of the world views America much worse than most people would expect.
In the question an answer period the speakers made it clear that they strongly disaggreed with several policies of the Bush administration that they think have greatly hurt the opinion most of the world has of America.
The audience seemed very friendly to Feingold and hostile
to the way the Bush administration has been handling things.