In the United States, the political system is a very marginal affair. There are two parties, so-called, but they're really factions of the same party, the Business Party.

How it is we have so much information, but know so little?

Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.

In the pre-capitalist world, everyone had a place. It might not have been a very nice place, even maybe a horrible place, but at least they had some place in the spectrum of the society and they had some kind of a right to live in the place. Now that's inconsistent with capitalism, which denies the right to live. You have only the right to remain on the labour market.

The death penalty can be tolerated only by extreme statist reactionaries who demand a state that is so powerful that it has the right to kill.

Capitalism denies the right to live. You have only the right to remain on the labour market.

To say that the United States has pursued diplomacy with North Korea is a little bit misleading. It did under the Clinton administration, though neither side completely lived up to their obligations. Clinton didn't do what was promised, nor did North Korea, but they were making progress. So when Bush came into the presidency, North Korea had enough uranium or plutonium for maybe one or two bombs, but then very limited missile capacity. During the Bush years it's exploded. The reason is, he immediately canceled the diplomacy and he's pretty much blocked it ever since.