Word: politicians
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...problem isn’t the money, it’s that candidates have to prostitute themselves to get it. In America, a politician’s chief duty is to represent her constituents—whether a congressional district, a state or the whole nation. But if a politician has to worry about funding her next campaign, her duty often takes a back seat. She has powerful incentives to overvalue the interests of big donors, like corporations, and to undervalue the interests of those who give less, like the poor...
Alex Sanders—the South Carolina judge, humorist, and politician, and a hero of mine—likes to say that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat that damned George Santayana quote over and over again...
DIED. GERARD PIERRE-CHARLES, 68, influential Haitian author and politician; of heart failure after a lung infection; in Cuba. Although the lifelong communist was an early ally of Jean-Bertrand Aristide's, standing by the former Haitian President during his 1991 ouster and his 1994 return to power, the two had a falling out in 1997, when Pierre-Charles accused Aristide of betraying the poor and drifting toward dictatorship. In 2001 Aristide backers burned down the home of Pierre-Charles, who continued to stage protests until the Haitian President finally left the country last February...
...seen as a man who makes no mistakes." But during Saddam's reign of terror, Sistani's seclusion turned into house arrest imposed by the regime. He endured it as a "religious duty to defend the Shi'ites' sacred center," says Tawfiq al-Yassery, a secular Shi'ite politician with close ties to the ayatullah. After Saddam fell, Sistani faced new threats from al-Sadr's militia, and now armed guards tightly control access to his house. He is still most comfortable operating behind closed doors; he hasn't conducted Friday prayers for years and even discourages the dissemination...
...Americans, "When are you leaving Iraq?" He advised people against revenge killings of Baathists. Iraqi and U.S. officials agree that his calming influence was critical in tamping down Shi'ite resistance. "That was the only reason there was no bloodbath in those early days," says a secular Iraqi politician. When the orgy of looting after Saddam's departure ran unchecked, Sistani stood up to label it immoral and wrong. Overnight, thieves were piling up stolen air conditioners, computers, art and relics at the doors of Shi'ite mosques...