Content tagged with “politics” under “Stuff I Looked Up”

“Anarchism rejects any type of hierarchical government or authority. It believes in ‘free association,’ which means humans coming together voluntarily to solve problems, rather than being forced by the state. I’ve always wondered how someone committed to anarchy would create a society, since…”

“This has its basis in Russian, where it was used to refer to a devoted member of the Communist Party. The party itself was referred to as ‘apparat,’ meaning something along the lines of ‘The Communist Machine.’ Today, it’s used to refer to anyone who is a blind or devoted follower of some…”

“Bebe Rebozo was a close friend, confidante, and adviser of Richard Nixon. ‘Bebe’ was a nickname – it’s Spanish for ‘baby’ as he was the youngest of 12 in a Cuban family. Rebozo was often suspected of criminal activity, but nothing was ever proven, other than a minor tax penalty. Rebozo was also…”

“In the context I decided to investigate, it refers to the starting defense of the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers. To differentiate players during practices in the 1960s, the Nebraska coach put his defenders in black jerseys, and the name stuck. When Nebraska keeps opponents to a low score, it…”

“Blue laws are regulations that attempt to restrict activities or the sale of specific goods or services for religious reasons. The most common in the United States is the restriction of selling alcohol on Sundays in some municipalities. Rumor has it that the laws were originally printed on blue…”

“The British had been involved India since the 1600s, when the East India Company set up trading operations there to import silk, cotton, and spices. The company slowly took control of large parts of the country through economic means, until they exerted de facto control of India in the mid-1700s….”

“This is both a common and a proper noun. Commonly, it’s literally German for ‘bunch,’ but also extends to be ‘union’ or ‘group.’ As a proper noun, it’s refer to several different historical groups, both for and against the Nazis. The most prominent of which (for Americans at least) was The German…”

“He was the second Secretary-General of the United Nations, and is considered one of the greatest diplomats in world history. He served from 1953 to his death in 1961. He was killed in a plane crash in Congo. There are conflicting reports of the cause, and it was still being investigated into the…”

“ The literally definition is ‘large land,’ referring to the fact that these Lords were landowners ”

“This is a vague word that generally means a request or statement of position from one government to another. When a government makes a request or a demand of another government, it is in the form of a démarche. (How each country specifically defines that word varies.) From Protocol for the Modern…”

“In politics, a filibuster is when a legislator makes a long speech or takes some other action meant to delay and therefore prevent the adoption of legislation. It’s basically a rules loophole, that lets one person prevent a measure from passing. Here’s a general definition : the use of irregular or…”

“According to Karl Marx, this is the lowest class. This is the working class – the classic Proletariot – but so ignorant that they’re not even aware of their situation, and don’t care about any class warfare. They have either accepted their fate, or simply aren’t aware that they are being exploited….”

“This term has a long historical context, first being used in France in the 1800s. It seems to have switched sides many times, and been flexed and twisted to mean a lot of different things. In contemporary Western politics, it mainly refers to the resurgence of conservative (yes, conservative )…”

“They’re actually very similar - in both cases, government power is effectively concentrated in a small group, but for different reasons and levels of formality. Plutocracy: This is where government power is held by the wealthy. However, it seems that this is informal – the wealthy are powerful…”

“This generally means the main political movement that is not in power at any given moment. If Party A is running a country, then Party B is the ‘opposition’ or ‘opposition party.’ I couldn’t find a formal definition for this – most definitions just mentioned vaguer terms like ‘political…”

“This was a communist government that seized control of Paris for two months in 1871. France was concluding the Franco-Prussian War at the time, and the only reason the uprising succeeded is because the army was outside of Paris. In fact, when the war concluded, the army marched back to Paris and…”

“From Wikipedia : […] a relationship in which one state or other polity controls the foreign policy and relations of a tributary state, while allowing the tributary state to have internal autonomy. The dominant state is called the ‘suzerain’. This seems to be a fairly historical term. There doesn’t…”

“This refers to a democratic ‘political machine’ in New York from the late 1700s all the way through the 1960s. It began as something like a fraternal order, and took the name ‘Tammany’ from an Indian chief. The members started to exert political influence shortly thereafter, picking candidates and…”

“TARP – the Troubled Asset Relief Program – was the famous ‘$700 billion bailout’ that the U.S. government undertook in 2008 to try and stave off the mortgage crisis. The crisis that led to this program was the basis for the book (and movie) Too Big To Fail . Did the government lose $700 billion?…”

“This is known mainly as a political scandal. Teapot Rock is an rock formation in Wyoming that (supposedly) resembles a teapot. It sits on top of an oil field that was discovered early in the 20th century and became known as Teapot Dome. The oil field was owned by the government as a Naval oil…”