Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same.
Condoleezza RiceRead
This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten its neighbors, occupy a capital, overthrow a government, and get away with it. Things have changed.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the changed geopolitical landscape and the diminishing tolerance for aggressive actions by powerful nations.
In this quote, Condoleezza Rice emphasizes that the international response to acts of aggression, such as Russia's actions in Czechoslovakia in 1968, has evolved over time. She suggests that current geopolitical realities do not allow for such unchecked invasions and that the world is now more vigilant and interconnected, making it difficult for any nation to act without facing consequences.
In practice
In a discussion about current global politics, one could quote this to illustrate the importance of historical context.
Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same.
I think my father thought I might be president of the United States. I think he would've been satisfied with secretary of state. I'm a foreign policy person and to have a chance to serve my country as the nation's chief diplomat at a time of peril and consequence, that was enough.
What the United States has done is to be open to people who are fleeing tyranny, who are fleeing danger, but we have done it in a very careful way that has worked for us.
For the United States, supporting international development is more than just an expression of our compassion. It is a vital investment in the free, prosperous, and peaceful international order that fundamentally serves our national interest.
Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same. If you are too attentive to the former, you will most certainly not do the hard work of securing the latter.
Does anybody think these people were just sitting around drinking tea?
My fellow Americans, all of us in this grand hall and everybody watching at home, when we vote in this election, we'll be deciding what kind of country we want to live in. If you want a winner-take-all, you're-on-your-own society, you should support the Republican ticket. But if you want a country of shared opportunities and shared responsibility, a we're-all-in-this-together society, you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Why should Iran have a deterrent strategy? Well, it's surrounded by hostile enemies. Both of its borders have been under occupation by a hostile superpower, the United States, which is constantly violating the U.N. charter by leaving open what they call the saying, 'all options are open' - meaning the threat of war.
The framers of our Constitution understood the dangers of unbridled government surveillance. They knew that democracy could flourish only in spaces free from government snooping and interference, and they put restraints on government overreaching in the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights. . . . These protections require, at a minimum, a neutral arbiter - a magistrate - standing between the government's endless desire for information and the citizens' desires for privacy.
The extravagant expenditure of public money is an evil not to be measured by the value of that money to the people who are taxed for it.
In the United States large corporations control some members of Congress. All this does is delay the corporation’s funeral at our expense.
Only votes talk, everything else walks.
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