If scientists and scholars were to become "collectively self-organised and consciously activist" today, they would probably devote themselves to service to state and private power. Those who have different goals should (and do) become organized and activist.

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.

[There is] is all part of the whole neoliberal shift in the economy. But the parties have shifted to the right.

Human language is nothing like the signalling systems of other animals.

Discovery is the ability to be puzzled by simple things. Noam Chomsky

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!

Reparations - not just aid - should be provided by those responsible for devastating Iraqi civilian society by cruel sanctions and military actions, and - together with other criminal states - for supporting Saddam Hussein through his worst atrocities and beyond. That is the minimum that honesty requires.