Washington basically works for the corporate sector and Silicon Valley, technically at least, is suppose to sponsor initiative in creativity, whether it does or not is another question.

The major organizing centers, like the labor movement, have been severely weakened in the United States by policy.

In the academic world, most of the work that is done is clerical. A lot of the work done by professors is routine.

The more privilege you have, the more opportunity you have. The more opportunity you have, the more responsibility you have.

Say the Pentagon Papers, - that material went much deeper. It went into internal government planning back for twenty - five years. Those are things that the public should have known about. In a democracy they should have known what leaders thinking and planning about major enterprises like the Vietnam war. It was kept secret from them.

The Republicans went so far to the right that they just can't get votes. They've become a dedicated party of the very rich and the corporate sector.

As for academics, I do not see why their responsibilities as moral agents should differ in principle from the responsibilities of others; in particular, others who also enjoy a degree of privilege and power, and therefore have the responsibilities that are conferred by those advantages.