Political scientist Herfried Münkler is right: If you only take normative positions, if your focus is solely on values, you won't find success in a world where others are relentlessly pursuing their interests. In a world full of meat-eaters, vegetarians have a tough time.
It is clear that there are reasons for discontent in Iran - economic and political reasons. We have told the Iranian leadership repeatedly that the country's economic recovery can ultimately only succeed through greater international economic cooperation. And the precondition for that is not only that Iran refrain from developing nuclear weapons, but also that Iran's role in the region become far more peaceful. We have offered to finally hold true negotiations and talks on that issue.
A major danger for us Europeans: We must demonstrate that those who have this view of us are mistaken, that we can come to agreement, that we as a community of democratic and free nations are economically successful and are gaining political influence. To do so, we must learn to project our power.
George W. Bush has deliberately polarized and divided America for political purposes, politicizing the most basic questions of war and peace for partisan advantage.
Sadly the job security of lawyers has been ruined, so they are less willing to defend political defendants.
The social and political issues the world faces are bigger than a few leaders. I made a lot of work about corporate influence in government, which is a problem in both parties and under any president.
Government interference with the economic process represents a substitution of political for consumer objectives.
To be political actually means to care about your community.
People get anxious about dividing sorts of poetry, say Confessionalism from political poetry. But Confessionalism is very much an expression of racial privilege and of class privilege. I don't think it's always a blind expression of these privileges but it does have its genesis in them, in the politics of them.
The question for me is not are we political, but how are we political? We need to be politically engaged, but peculiar in how we engage.
One of the great dangers in political engagement is misplaced hope.
I love to work. It's the idea of having someone else tell you how to make your film or how to sell it - that's the part I can't really deal with. I would rather do 1,000 things that are work than deal with one thing that's a political problem.
I have never claimed to do the right kind of things and make politically correct statements.
In terms of political things, I think it's important to be more direct in terms of political statements. I think in terms of philosophical and things that you plant things and see them grow lyrically or musically, it's okay to be subtle.
I don't want to do a war film per se. Nor do I want to do a political film.
Because the life that I live - the life that we all live - is filtered through [one's own] experience. It isn't necessarily optimistic when you look at the political phenomena, the different things that are going on in the world.
The political elite in Russia don't want domestic reform, they aren't ready for it. As such, they welcome an external threat. You have to remember that Russia rests on two national concepts: defense and sovereignty. We approach the question of security much more reverentially than other countries do.
The Baltic countries are sovereign nations. They have the right to decide which military and political bloc they want to be a part of.
The media no longer ask those who know something to share that knowledge with the public. Instead they ask those who know nothing to represent the ignorance of the public and, in so doing, to legitimate it.
The shortest road to wealth lies in the contempt of wealth.
I'm sure that those - well, I know for a fact that the prisoners, the political prisoners in the federal system, is asking [Barack Obama] for clemency or for some kind of release.
My reporting in Africa wouldn't be political per se, but it's certainly the point of my reporting - and of a lot of other reporters I know: Human suffering is bad, and if reporting stories about it brings it to light and someone does something, that's part of the point of journalism. And it's a thin line between that and activism, and you have to be careful about that.
I majored in political science, and my concentration was U.S. involvement in Latin America in the 20th century.
Politics is about who wins and loses. The rest is of marginal interest.
I don't read newspapers too much , just because they tend to make me feel I have a political obligation that I think is a distraction from what my political offerings are going to be if I just make my movies.
