Responsibility, I believe, accrues through privilege.

In the United States, and to a certain extent in Canada, there's very little interest in what happens outside their borders.

The possibility of interpersonal communication has increased substantially with contemporary technology. But as compared with the major changes, which were long ago, these are not huge.

The major advances in speed of communication and ability to interact took place more than a century ago. The shift from sailing ships to telegraph was far more radical than that from telephone to email!

I wrote an article about the marine landing [in Haiti] right away, but barely mentioned the oil, because my article would come out two months later and I assumed by then, "of course, everybody knows." Nobody knew. There was a news report in the Wall Street Journal, in the petroleum journals, and in some small newspapers, but not in the mainstream press.

People tend to rally around power.

Violence can succeed, as Americans know well from the conquest of the national territory. But at terrible cost. It can also provoke violence in response, and often does.