Word: decay
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...four years, the Democratic organization had been neglected by Lyndon Johnson; the potent coalition assembled by Franklin Roosevelt was crumbling. The young were ignoring the party, and the Old South had deserted it. The big-city Democratic machines were frayed from the stresses of racial tension and urban decay. In fact, the most vocal critics of Democratic policies were Democrats themselves. Some dissenters were even praying for a debacle that would shatter the old patterns forever. Only then, they argued, could a new party be built without the encumbrances of obsolete ward heelers and aging urban oligarchs...
Even if Nixon merely diagnoses what ails America, he will have gone a long way, for what the nation needs above all is a fundamental reassessment of its peril as well as its progress. Are the disruptions in U.S. life signs of decay, or are they constructively forcing Americans to do out of necessity what they have refused to do by choice? Can the U.S. go on risking the backlash effects of helping some needy people at the expense of others who refuse to share their gains-or does it sorely need a unifying national challenge, a moral equivalent...
...grim penitentiary, out of my mind, I looked over at the man next to me, a Polish embezzier from Worcester, Mass. I could see him so clearly, I could see every pore in his face, every blemish, the hairs on his nose, the incredible green-yellow enamel of the decay in his teeth, the wet glistening of his frightened eyes. I could see every hair in his head, as though each was as big as an oak tree. What a confrontation! What am I doing out here, out of my mind, with this strange mosaic-celled animal, prisoner, criminal...
...Establishment," have been loud in their condemnation of America's commitment to space. It has been ridiculed by such authorities as Science Editor Philip Abelson as a "moondoggle," by a congressional critic as a "garish spectacular." Indeed, considering the proliferation of terrestrial problems-poverty, ignorance, racism, the decay of the cities, the rape of the environment, the deepening chasm between affluent and backward nations-it is easy to question the wisdom of spending billions to escape the troubled planet...
Thus Finch may be confronting the entire spectrum of problems spawned by urban blight, racial tension and social decay. It will be the new Secretary's task to integrate Great Society programs already in being with the innovations that Nixon hopes to achieve...