Word: populist
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...result of a clash between two sets of political élites that have failed to find common ground. Pitched against Abhisit, the scion of an old Thai-Chinese family with connections to the country's royalty, is Thaksin, who is everything the current PM is not: a brash, populist, new-money billionaire who was sentenced in absentia to two years in jail on a conflict-of-interest conviction. Both camps have amassed vocal - and occasionally violent - supporters among a general populace that is ever more politically disillusioned. Results of a recently released nationwide poll by the nonprofit Asia Foundation found...
...political gulf and restore confidence in Thailand's wobbly democracy. Just by projecting a clean image, the PM may be able to woo more of the foreign investment Thailand needs to continue its economic recovery and to placate northeastern farmers who pine for the days of Thaksin's populist microfinancing initiatives. But first Abhisit will have to control the fractious six-party coalition that propelled him to power in the first place. A seemingly minor scuffle over who should be the next national police chief has riven the alliance. Abhisit's bid to avoid potential demonstration violence by invoking...
...numbers for his past three pictures prove that: Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko have together earned more than $300 million worldwide. Not all this boodle can have come from people who agree with his populist-lefty agenda. No, they pay to see him play "Michael Moore": a heavyset fellow with a doofus grin, alternately laughing and badgering but perennially at the center of attention. For all his girth, Moore fits the mold of the little guy in classic Hollywood movies. Like Jefferson Smith and Rocky Balboa, he bucks the odds and takes on the power élite...
...while this feel-good democratization is politically correct, it fails in practice. Populist American optimism tends to cut the legs out from beneath potent terms like “genius”; the harsh truth is that not everyone is capable of producing works of incredible beauty or sublimity. In the Coen brothers’ 1991 movie “Barton Fink,” a studio boss dresses down his star scripter: “You think you’re the only writer who can give me that Barton Fink feeling? I got 20 writers under contract that...
Ralph Nader has been many things: lawyer, consumer-rights bulldog, political activist and perennial third-party presidential candidate. He has now added a new title to his business card: fiction writer. His latest book, Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!, is a 700-page populist fantasy in which a small group of billionaires and media moguls - led by Warren Buffett and including Ted Turner, George Soros, Bill Cosby, Yoko Ono and Phil Donahue - pool their massive resources to reform the U.S. With the help of a $15 billion war chest and a p.r. campaign starring a talking parrot...