Word: corruptible
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...suffering innocence in an unjust world that has lodged in the national psyche to this day. Russians routinely use the excuse that they are innocent victims of forces beyond their control to explain away personal failures. A vague, amorphous "they" is always responsible: selfish relatives, meddlesome neighbors, greedy capitalists, corrupt bureaucrats, the government...
Cumbersome, inefficient and corrupt, the Soviet economy functioned, such as it did, because it had its own internal logic. Moscow decreed the production of every tank, shoe and potato; every working-age person was supposed to have a job; and prices were stable. If the end result was not exactly according to plan -- a long-drawn-out failure, in fact -- at least the command system offered a coherent vision of what the plan...
...check against abuses of authority that could occur in an independent judiciary. Federal judges may feel indebted to senators who appointed them. Or state judges may be connected to governors or lawyers who nominated them. In a judicial system without checks and popular participation, these judges might engage in corrupt political dealings and remain unaccountable to the public. The current case of Sol Wachtler, chief judge of New York State, who has resigned from the bench in the wake of charges that he threatened to extort money from a woman with whom he had an affair, is indicative of such...
...victories over cold war bad guys. It seems somehow fitting that Bill Clinton's favorite literary do-gooder is Easy Rawlins, a savvy, down-to-earth African-American private eye based in Los Angeles. In WHITE BUTTERFLY (Norton; $19.95), the third book in the Rawlins series, good-time girls, corrupt politicians, trigger-happy psychopaths and other crime-novel fixtures are all in place. But Walter Mosley's writing hums with the particular rhythms and blues of the black American experience. What makes these books special is their vivid portrayal of life in the side streets where Philip Marlowe seldom ventured...
Sketching quickly, letting a line stand for a landscape, the author shows us Moscow in the month before last year's coup. Marxism's fragments still clog streets and government offices. The ruble is nearly worthless. Murderous Chechen bandits and corrupt former party officials war bloodily over control of the new capitalism, which turns out to be the old black market grown great. Ordinary people stand in lines for food, and when they have time, go to work...