Word: confrontive
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...message themselves, rather than leaving it to national gay-rights-campaign officials and full-time activists. "People are getting angrier," Hartman says. "More and more people are beginning to feel empowered to take the fight for their rights into their own hands, and I believe we will see them confront their legislators face-to-face with greater frequency and urgency. I believe that is the type of confrontation that will emerge - people no longer willing to sit idly by and leave the fight for their rights in the hands of lobbyists and special-interest groups...
...those who immodestly claimed to Know It All have Wiped Us Out. The problems we face are too fierce to accommodate arrogance. Humility leaves room for complexity, honors honest dissent, welcomes the outlandish idea that sweeps past ideology and feeds invention. We want to reimagine the health-care system, confront climate change, save our kids from a financial avalanche? The odds are much better if we come to the table assuming we don't already have all the answers...
Humility and modesty need not be weakness or servility; they can be marks of strength, the courage to confront a challenge knowing that the outcome is in doubt. Ronald Reagan, for all his cold-warrior confidence, projected a personal modesty that served his political agenda well. I still don't know what President Obama's core principles are, but the fact that he even pays lip service to humility as one of them could give him the upper hand in the war for the souls of independents - a group that's larger now than at any time in the past...
...Even if Reid manages to get his bill through by the end of the year, he'll then have to confront the messy prospect of merging it with the more liberal version passed by the House. But in some respects, the thorny details of the process have become almost secondary to the larger goal; Democrats are betting that they were elected on a platform of change, and they argue that health care is the first true piece of their platform, given that they have had to spend the first months of Obama's presidency dealing with the economic ruins...
...within it a significant warning. The U.S. has operated as if the elements of a peace deal on the Palestinian side - with a pliant leadership that is politically dependent on the U.S. and an administrative and security apparatus that is ready to suppress the more radical elements seeking to confront Israel - would remain in place, passively waiting for a better day on the Israeli side. Now, however, Washington has moderated its demands on the Israelis, mindful that there's a line beyond which the Israeli government says it will not go. Abbas' statement on Thursday, stunt...