Word: inertia
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Gromyko sent me abroad several times as his representative. My diplomatic mission to Africa in 1971 was depressingly instructive. Because of economic deficiencies and bureaucratic inertia at home we would be hard put to meet the expectations our expansionist diplomacy aroused. Instead of gaining friends, we would, in many instances, lose credibility. In their own policies toward the Third World, it seemed difficult for Americans to realize that a number of these initially Moscow-oriented countries did not want to emulate the Soviet model. The West's great advantage is that, except in a state of war, in the long...
...negative," says one of David Stockman's men down at OMB. "The Democrats are all fighting to avoid change. They cannot get increases in funds, so they are all battling to block the cuts proposed. We have a system for inertia." That...
...argument that Harvard couldn't really divest because then it would have to refuse tuition from students paid by dividends from companies doing business in South Africa. In law this line of reasoning is known as reductio ad absurdem. In politics it is known as the oldest excuse for inertia. Who knows what the immediate effects of Harvard divestment would be for South Africa? The psychological/political element, if considered at all, is vastly underestimated I think, and even if the economic effects are slight, the example set by Harvard will have lasting value both in South Africa as during...
...question is whether young Americans' current infatuation with Reagan and Republicanism will last long enough to bring about a historic realignment of party constituencies. Republican National Committee Chairman Frank Fahrenkopf points out that few voters ever change their party affiliation and that this inertia has benefited Democrats since the 1930s. Insists Fahrenkopf: "Now young people are registering Republican, and they won't be easy to change either...
While the PRI is much criticized for its inertia and ineptitude, it has largely succeeded in one of its original purposes: to achieve conciliation in a violence-ridden land. Some 2 million had died in more than a decade of civil strife that followed the revolution of 1910, and it was the assassination of ex-President Alvaro Obregón that led to the founding of the PRI as a coalition of compromise. Yet it is emblematic of Mexico City that the severed hand of General Obregón is still on display in a jar installed in a monument...