"The most effective means of ensuring the..." - Quote by Colin Powell
The most effective means of ensuring the government's accountability to the people is an aggressive, free, challenging, untrusting press.
More by Colin Powell
“With respect to our friends in the [Iraq] region, each has its own system, each will have to make its own judgment as to whether it will change, how fast it will change, and we hope that we can help influence them as to how change comes about and what change might be better for them than other forms of change.”
“It isn’t enough just to scream at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. We need our political system to start reflecting this anger back into, 'How do we fix it? How do we get the economy going again?'”
“How often have we seen politicians take a principle position only to give it up three days later? That is what makes democracy so fascinating.”
More on Government
“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson - and I am not wholly excepting the Administration of W. W. The country is going through a repetition of Jackson's fight with the Bank of the United States - only on a far bigger and broader basis.”
“This [the U.S. Constitution] is likely to be administered for a course of years and then end in despotism... when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.”
“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.”
More on Accountability
“Excuses are tools of the incompetent used to build bridges to nowhere and monuments of nothingness”
“Are you willing to push the right buttons even if it means being perceived as the villain? … I'd rather be perceived as a winner than a good teammate. I wish they both went hand in hand all the time but that's just not reality. … I have nothing in common with lazy people who blame others for their lack of success.”
“This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. There was an important job to do and Everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody would do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.”