Word: racism
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...there is one axiomatic truth of modern European thought, it is that empires end in tears. Indochina, Algeria, Kenya, India--all convinced Europeans of two things. First, military might was incapable of forcing foreign lands into habits that suited the imperial power. Second, imperialism soured domestic life. It fueled racism and privileged those with commercial interests in the colonies. It meant accepting a steady drip of deaths in little colonial wars and required large, expensive standing armies...
...kind of society and know a certain kind of people and their views, and then as you mature, you meet other kinds of people." He pointed to his press conference as evidence. "Think about the statements I made there. I stood in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and repudiated racism of all kinds and apologized for things I've said that hurt African Americans. If Mississippi hadn't changed, I couldn't have said those things. Can you imagine a Mississippi politician of 30 years ago or 20 years ago doing that? They couldn't do that...
What, if anything, has changed between 1962, when Lott described himself as a segregationist, and the day last week when he repudiated segregation and all forms of racism? Lott told TIME that "it wasn't any one moment or epiphany" but rather many experiences, especially as he has got to know better the poorest parts of his home state. "We've lived in this cocoon in Pascagoula," he said. "Everybody had a job. The schools were good. But it's different in the Delta." There, he says, "I've seen that a lot of people don't have the opportunity...
...opposition to the racial groupthink of the far left and the bigotry of the far right, this conservatism has sought to uplift individuals regardless of race or background. For these conservatives, treating all people as equal citizens regardless of race has come to mean repudiating both old-style racism and the reverse racism of affirmative action and racial quotas...
...gaffe is when a politician tells the truth (as someone once said), Senate Republican leader Trent Lott's bizarre endorsement of white racism and segregation does not qualify. An authentic gaffe is more like Lawrence Lindsey's comment that a war against Iraq could cost $200 billion, which got him fired as President Bush's top economic-policy adviser. Nobody at the White House disputed the figure--they just didn't want it brought up. This is called being off-message, and in Washington that's much worse than being, say, wrong. Lindsey's replacement, investment banker Stephen Friedman...