Word: statism
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...past week, the Clinton campaign has seized on Barack Obama’s suggestion that rural voters “cling” to religious fundamentalism and anti-statism because they have seen no real governmental redress for their economic woes, turning it into a blanket charge of elitism against Obama. Copping her lines almost directly from 30 years of Republican smear literature, Clinton assessed Obama’s rhetoric as out-of-touch with supposedly authentic heartland values. Her surrogates quickly jumped into line to help paint Obama in the political poison-cloud of liberal snobbery...
...time TV soap operas that still overwhelm Latin entertainment. In the '70s, Brazilian films held an impressive 35% of the domestic market; by 1991, when fewer than half a dozen Brazilian features were made, the share had dropped to 0.5%. The return to form began in the '90s. As statism gave way to capitalism, spanking new multiplexes fed demand for more homegrown films. That helped spawn innovative cinema-funding laws like Brazil's, which offers tax breaks for private investment in film production and last year raked in almost $30 million (City of God cost less than $5 million...
...humanity against ideology. The 20th was the most ideological of centuries. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin systematically sacrificed millions to false and terrible dogmas. Even within the democracies, ideologues believed that the Great Depression imposed an either/or choice: if you abandon laissez-faire, you are condemned to total statism. "Partial regimentation cannot be made to work," said Herbert Hoover, "and still maintain live democratic institutions...
...Fried made the case of `statism' [in the rentcontrol debate]," Turk says. "He argued that localcommunities have very limited powers and that itis the state which grants and withdraws powers atits whim. I think he has severely warped what wasthe home rule relationship between localcommunities and their states...
Within a few years, this debacle was a laughing stock even in the Soviet Union itself; and yet, today, it is an idea which is again be enthusiastically touted as a spur of creativity. Where could such an outlandish failure of socialist statism find a new intellectual home? Where else, but the place that has always shown itself a safe-haven for bureaucratic absurdities. As though it has not done enough in preserving the tradition of pointless paperwork, generous sinecures, proliferating committees, sub-committees, and ad hoc working groups, Harvard has now decided it should adopt the animus...