Radicals, Reactionaries, and the Fourth

Robert J. Samuelson, 07/04/11

Our huge national pride -- which often strikes others as arrogance -- rests on economic accomplishments and even more on what scholars call the American Creed: faith in freedom; the rule of law; equal opportunity; and democratic ideas and political institutions. What defines us (and this differs from most societies) is not ethnicity, race, or religion but our bedrock beliefs. Unfortunately, widely shared values do not settle most specific conflicts.

We are now engaged in a messy debate over big budget deficits and the size of government. The struggle nominally pits liberals against conservatives, but this is misleading. The real debate involves reactionaries vs. radicals. Many liberals are reactionaries and many conservatives are radicals.

A reactionary is someone who, says Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, desires “a return to an earlier system or order.” This defines many liberals. They “pine,” Michael Barone writes in The Wall Street Journal, for “the golden years of the 1940s, ’50s and early ’60s [when] Americans had far more confidence in big government.” Modern liberals want yet bigger government to enhance social justice. They defend virtually all Social Security and Medicare benefits. Everything can be financed, they suggest, by cutting defense or increasing taxes on the rich.

Conservatives have become radical by seeking “drastic political, economic or social reform.” Their obsession with tax cuts when even today’s taxes don’t cover today’s spending implies radically shrinking government programs that are woven into America’s social fabric. All this ignores a basic conservative tenet: to respect existing institutions and traditions that anchor the social order. Change -- especially radical change -- is a last resort, not because today’s world is perfect but because efforts to improve it might make it worse.

Both visions are unrealistic. Given an aging population -- which boosts Social Security and Medicare spending -- government is automatically expanding. Since 1971, federal spending has averaged 21 percent of the economy (gross domestic product); just continuing present programs could easily raise that to 28 percent of GDP by 2021. The liberal reactionaries can’t smoothly finance that. In 2011, the deficit is already twice the entire defense budget. The richest 10 percent already pay 55 percent of federal taxes. The blanket embrace of all benefits for the elderly -- no matter how rich -- will require much higher taxes or steep cuts in other programs, including those for the poor.

Our huge national pride -- which often strikes others as arrogance -- rests on economic accomplishments and even more on what scholars call the American Creed: faith in freedom; the rule of law; equal opportunity; and democratic ideas and political institutions. What defines us (and this differs from most societies) is not ethnicity, race, or religion but our bedrock beliefs. Unfortunately, widely shared values do not settle most specific conflicts.

The conservative radicals are no better. Since 1971, federal taxes have averaged about 18 percent of GDP. There is no believable plan to reduce federal spending below that level, even with sizable cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits. So promises of more tax cuts either border on dishonesty or imply huge unspecified spending cuts that would devastate national defense, states and localities, and the poor.

A dilemma of democracy is the difficulty of making changes that, though essential for society’s long-term well-being, are unpopular in the short run. That describes today’s budget deadlock. To be sure, not all conservatives and liberals have become radicals and reactionaries. But many have. If we applied true labels to them -- reactionaries and radicals -- we would clarify the debate and compel them to deal with the world as it exists, not as they imagine it. Dream on.

Our politicians prefer self-serving fantasies. Americans are misinformed, and consensus becomes harder. Democrats won’t admit the need for major benefit cuts in Social Security and Medicare; Republicans won’t concede the necessity for higher taxes. The result is that our leaders are now playing a game of brinkmanship over raising the federal debt ceiling or defaulting. Liberals say spending cuts now would subvert the recovery; conservatives find that an excuse not to cut. Surely a compromise would be phasing in credible future cuts.

All this from “the world’s greatest nation.” It lowers our competence and elevates our national embarrassment. Altogether, an unhappy birthday.

This column originally appeared in The Washington Post.

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/07/04/radicals-reactionaries-and-the-fourth.html

以上兩篇評論談的都是美國政壇的形形色色，但很多聽起來相當熟悉。它們也是「台式民主」的弊病。如果我們了解「政治是爭奪資源分配權的活動。」，我們自然會見怪不怪。但是，既稱「民主」，不但應當做到「主權在民」，也必須是「主導權在民」。如何做到這一步，值得大家多思考、多討論、和積極行動。

How to Turn Republicans and Democrats Into Americans

An insider’s six-step plan to fix Congress

Mickey Edwards

Angry and frustrated, American voters went to the polls in November 2010 to “take back” their country. Just as they had done in 2008. And 2006. And repeatedly for decades, whether it was Republicans or Democrats from whom they were taking the country back. No matter who was put in charge, things didn’t get better. They won’t this time, either; spending levels may go down, taxes may go up, budgets will change, but American government will go on the way it has, not as a collective enterprise but as a battle between warring tribes.

If we are truly a democracy—if voters get to size up candidates for a public office and choose the one they want—why don’t the elections seem to change anything? Because we elect our leaders, and they then govern, in a system that makes cooperation almost impossible and incivility nearly inevitable, a system in which the campaign season never ends and the struggle for party advantage trumps all other considerations. When Democrat Nancy Pelosi became speaker of the House, the leader of the lawmaking branch of government, she said her priority was to … elect more Democrats. After Republican victories in 2010, the Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said his goal was to … prevent the Democratic president’s reelection. With the country at war and the economy in recession, our government leaders’ first thoughts have been of party advantage.

This is not an accident. Ours is a system focused not on collective problem-solving but on a struggle for power between two private organizations. Party activists control access to the ballot through closed party primaries and conventions; partisan leaders design congressional districts. Once elected to Congress, our representatives are divided into warring camps. Partisans decide what bills to take up, what witnesses to hear, what amendments to allow.

Many Americans assume that’s just how democracy works, that this is how it’s always been, that it’s the system the Founders created. But what we have today is a far cry from what the Founders intended. George Washington and James Madison both warned of the dangers posed by political parties. Defenders of the party system argue that parties—including Madison’s own—arose almost immediately after the nation was founded. But those were not parties in the modern sense: they were factions uniting on a few major issues, not marching in lockstep on every issue, large and small. And while some defend the party system as a necessary provider of cues to voters who otherwise might not know how to vote, the Internet and mass media now make it possible for voters to educate themselves about candidates for office.

What we have today is not a legacy of 1789 but an outdated relic of the late 1800s and early 1900s, when Progressives pushed for the adoption of primary elections. By 1916, all but a handful of states had instituted the “direct primary” system, under which a party candidate was selected by a public vote, rather than by party leaders in backroom deals. But the primaries, and the nominating conventions, were open only to party members. This reform was supposed to give citizens a bigger role in the election process. Instead, the influence of party leaders has been supplanted by that of a subset of party activists who are often highly ideological and largely uninterested in finding common ground. In Delaware in 2010, a mere 30,000 of that state’s nearly 1 million people kept Mike Castle, a popular congressman and former governor, off the general-election ballot. In Utah, 3,500 people meeting in a closed convention deprived the rest of the state’s 3 million residents of an opportunity to consider reelecting their longtime senator Robert Bennett. For most of the voters who go to the polls in November, the names on the ballot have been reduced to only those candidates the political parties will allow them to choose between. Americans demand a multiplicity of options in almost every other aspect of our lives. And yet we allow small bands of activists to limit our choices of people to represent us in making the nation’s laws.

I am not calling for a magical political “center”: many of the most important steps forward in our history have not come from the center at all, including women’s suffrage and the civil-rights movement, and even our founding rebellion against the British crown. Nor am I pleading for consensus: consensus is not possible in a diverse nation of 300 million people (compromise is the essential ingredient in legislative decision-making). And I’m not pushing for harmony: democracy depends on vigorous debate among competing views. The problem is not division but partisanship—advantage-seeking by private clubs whose central goal is to win political power. There are different ways to conduct elections and manage our government—and strengthen the democratic process. Here are some suggestions designed to turn our political system on its head, so that people, not parties, control our government.

Break the power of partisans to keep candidates off the general-election ballot.

State and local governments have abdicated their responsibility to oversee America’s election process. Not only have they turned the job over to political parties, but they take money from taxpayers to pay for these party functions. Because activists who demand loyalty and see compromising as selling out dominate party primaries and conventions, candidates who seek their permission to be on the November ballot find themselves under great pressure to take hard-line positions. This tendency toward rigidity—and the party system that enables it—is at the root of today’s political dysfunction.

More and more, voters are opting out of that system. In some national surveys, nearly 40 percent of voters describe themselves as “independent.” In Massachusetts, where the Republican senator Scott Brown won the seat previously held by the Democrat Edward Kennedy, the largest numbers of voters are not Democrats or Republicans but “unenrolled.” In 2010, Californians voted to create an “open primary” system in which every candidate for a particular office, regardless of party, will appear on the same ballot, and every voter who wishes to participate, also regardless of party, will be able to choose among them. The top two will advance to the general election, even if they belong to the same party. Louisiana has long had a top-two, everybody-runs primary system, and Washington State adopted a similar one in 2004. Their voters have a much wider range of options—Republicans, Democrats, independents, third- or fourth-party candidates. If all candidates could get their messages out through free mailings or free television time, minor-party candidates would have a better chance of finishing in the top two in an open primary than on a general-election ballot that pits two major-party giants against each other and discourages supporters of other parties from voting for long-shot candidates.

Just the act of establishing an open primary would break the partisan and ideological chokehold on the general-election ballot and create a much truer system of democratic self-government. As a result, members of Congress would have greater freedom to base their legislative decisions on their constituents’ concerns and on their own independent evaluations of a proposal’s merits. They would be our representatives, not representatives of their political clubs.

Turn over the process of redrawing congressional districts to independent, nonpartisan commissions.

In 1976, I became the first Republican elected to Congress in my Oklahoma district in 48 years. Nearly three-quarters of the voters were Democrats. Because I easily won my next two races, Democrats were pessimistic about their ability to recapture the seat, and they used their majorities in the state legislature to redraw the district’s borders. Instead of encompassing a single urban county (Oklahoma City, in the center of the state), my new district stretched north to Kansas and east nearly to Arkansas, in a huge upside-down L. The goal was to put as many Republicans as possible in my district in order to make neighboring districts, from which those Republicans had been removed, safer for Democrats. My new district was much more rural, embracing five new counties filled with wheat farms and cattle ranches. Rather than being represented by a member of their own community, familiar with their concerns (which is why the Constitution requires that senators and representatives be inhabitants of the states that elect them), these voters were “represented” by a congressman unfamiliar with the agricultural issues on which their livelihoods depended. And the urban and diverse communities I had represented in Oklahoma City were now served by a congressman who simultaneously had to represent a very different constituency.

In the end, the strategy failed; the state became more conservative, and in addition to my own district remaining Republican, adjoining districts also began electing Republicans. And the attempt to lock in party advantage had sacrificed the important constitutional guarantee that a legislator serve as the voice of a community; community interests had been subordinated to the interests of a political party.

Things don’t have to be this way. Although legislative majorities continue to draw district lines in most states, 13 states (most recently, California) have established nonpartisan or bipartisan redistricting commissions, and two additional states have created merely “advisory” commissions. The systems vary—some use commissions to propose plans that legislatures must approve; others strip the legislature of all redistricting authority—but each of the 13 recognizes that the partisan drawing of congressional-district boundaries has hurt the democratic process, leaving elected officials dependent on, and beholden to, the party bosses who draw their districts.

Allow members of any party to offer amendments to any House bill and—with rare exceptions—put those amendments to a vote.

On the day I was sworn in as a member of Congress, all of us “newbies”—including Al Gore, Dick Gephardt, Dan Quayle, David Stockman, and Jim Leach—were a single band. But moments after taking the oath of office, we were divided into rival teams: first came the vote to elect a new speaker, then to adopt House rules written by the majority, then to consider the membership of committees, with party ratios decided by the majority. From that moment on, during the 16 years I served in Congress, and every day since my last term ended, I have seen the United States Congress as it actually functions, not as a gathering of America’s chosen leaders to confront, together, the problems we face, but as competing armies—on the floor, in committees, in subcommittees—determined to dominate or destroy.

One need not deny the majority the chance to lead in agenda-shaping (electoral victory, whether by margins large or small, does matter), but before Jim Wright ascended to the speakership, in 1987, most debates, even under the decidedly partisan Tip O’Neill, allowed ample opportunity for dissent and amendment. In recent years, however, to be in the minority is essentially to be made a nonfactor in the legislative process. Leaders of both chambers have embraced the strategy of precluding minority amendments, out of fear that even members of the majority party might vote for them, because they believe either that it is the right thing to do or that it is what the people they represent prefer. Such “closed” rules, preventing members from offering amendments, simply tell citizens their preferences don’t matter.

Speaker John Boehner deserves credit for promising greater opportunities for the minority party to have its amendments considered. Under his speakership, the Republican-dominated House has actually accepted some Democratic amendments. The House now has fewer closed rules and more “modified open” rules (which permit at least some challenges to the leadership’s agenda). But whether the procedure will be open or closed on any particular matter remains at the discretion of the majority leadership, and in cases where the political commitment is particularly strong (for example, on the Republican challenge to health-care legislation passed during Democratic control), the promises of openness have been quickly abandoned. The House should adopt rules guaranteeing that any proposal receiving a significant level of support—say, 100 co-sponsors—would automatically be allowed a committee hearing, an up-or-down vote in committee, and then, even if it fails in committee, a vote on the House floor. Some majority members may abandon the team and vote with their constituents (or their own consciences), but isn’t that what we elect representatives for? And since the rules for House floor debate are determined not by parliamentary procedure but by a Rules Committee constituted anew for each session of Congress, equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats should sit on that committee (as opposed to the current practice of conferring a big advantage on the majority).

Change the leadership structure of congressional committees.

In our current system, in which a small majority may have all the power and a large minority none, the chair of a congressional committee or subcommittee (always a majority-party member) decides whether a proposal will be considered and whose views will be solicited. We should change congressional rules to provide for a chairman from the majority party and a vice chairman from the minority (no such position exists in today’s Congress, except on certain special non-legislating committees); the vice chairman need not ascend to the chairmanship in the chairman’s absence, but each would have the authority to bring a bill forward and to invite expert witnesses to offer testimony. The process might be slower, but consideration of alternatives would be more thorough.

Whichever party holds the majority will resist these changes. Party leaders see committee hearings not as a means to evaluate proposals, but as tools to advance predetermined agendas. The current committee process is transactional, not deliberative. But using committees to bypass true deliberation undercuts the very purpose of a people’s legislature.

Fill committee vacancies by lot.

When I served on the Republican committee that decided other members’ committee assignments, I watched as party leaders sometimes refused to grant a slot to a member who was seen as unlikely to “go along,” or too inclined to exercise independent judgment, or “too nice” to spearhead the combat that had come to characterize committee “deliberations.” I was reminded of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta H.M.S. Pinafore, in which Sir Joseph, a former member of Parliament who has been appointed Lord Admiral of the Queen’s Navy, recalls how he achieved such great success: “I always voted at my party’s call,” he sings, “and I never thought of thinking for myself at all.”

The derivation of leadership in Congress from an internal version of the party primary or convention is an artificial construct. In every informal congressional subgroup—the Human Rights Caucus, the Rust Belt Caucus, the Flat Tax Caucus—leaders are chosen without regard to party affiliation. Imagine how different the congressional dynamic would be if that practice prevailed in committee assignments. If three seats became open on a committee and five members sought appointment, the House could fill the positions by lot, thereby appointing committee members who were not beholden to party leaders for their selection and therefore not fearful that crossing party lines would cost them their position. They would be freer to vote as they saw fit. After all, their constituents chose them not only for their policies but for their temperaments, knowledge, experience, and values. Eventually, entire committees would be formed without any party division at all—merely members of Congress drawn together to consider problems and potential solutions.

Choose committee staff solely on the basis of professional qualifications.

Congressional staff members, who provide the research that senators and representatives use in their deliberations, are chosen to reflect the preferences of the individual members they serve. On the other hand, committee staff members, who schedule the hearings, invite witnesses to testify, prepare background materials for committee members, and negotiate with staff members from other committees in the House and Senate, are generally selected by the committee chair and the senior member of the minority. In effect, they are party appointees. But if the goal is to legislate for the country, not for a party, then committee staff members should be selected by a nonpartisan House or Senate administrator and obligated to serve all members equally without regard to party agenda.

If we really want change—change that will yield a Congress that is more representative and more functional, change that can be replicated in state and local governments—we need to rethink the party-driven structures we have so casually accepted for decades. This change would produce another important effect: it would strengthen Congress’s ability to discharge its constitutional role. The Constitution grants Congress most of the federal government’s real powers—to spend, tax, create federal programs, declare war, approve treaties, confirm federal court appointments. By thinking of the House and Senate in constitutional rather than partisan terms, we would eliminate party-driven links between Congress and the president and avoid the spectacle of legislative leaders acting as though they were either members of the president’s staff or his sworn enemies. The Constitution intended the legislative branch to be separate, independent, and equal; to be the people’s voice; and to exercise, when necessary, a check on the executive, an obligation rendered moot in the context of party-versus-party governance.

In a democracy that is open to intelligent and civil debate about competing ideas rather than programmed for automatic opposition to another party’s proposals, we might yet find ourselves able to manage the task of self-government. Our current political dysfunction is not inevitable; it results from deliberate decisions that have backfired and left us mired in the trenches of hyper-partisan warfare. Political parties will not disappear; as a free people, we will continue to honor freedom of association. The goal is not to destroy parties but to transcend them; to welcome their contributions but end their dominance; and to take back from these private clubs control of our own elections and our own Congress.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/07/how-to-turn-republicans-and-democrats-into-americans/8521/

10 Myths That Politicians Want You to Believe

John DeFeo, 06/07/11

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The financial system is on the brink of collapse after trillions in bad loans were issued by greedy bankers. If you were a U.S. political figure, would you: A.) Tell everyone to suck a lemon, and (maybe) let the economy implode.

B.) Fire the bankers who made the bad loans, prosecute the guys who broke the law and guarantee a portion of the loans in a grin-and-bear-it show of good faith.

C.) Reward the bankers who made the bad loans with billions of dollars in bonuses and guarantee every loan with U.S. taxpayer money (with interest, because we borrowed the money from China).

If you answered C, then maybe you should run for office, support laws that funnel billions to insolvent companies, retire from politics and start working for one of the companies you helped bail out. Heck, that's what former Republican-senator Judd Gregg did (newly hired by Goldman Sachs).

But don't worry, the revolving door between Wall Street and government is just a "myth", and here are 10 actual myths that politicians want you to believe:

10. Quantitative Easing Helps the Economy

Make no mistake, quantitative easing is a gift to bankers and nothing else. Let's take a deeper look:

Quantitative easing is when the United States' central bank, the Federal Reserve, buys U.S. Treasury bonds.

Treasury bonds are a future obligation of the United States, paid out with Federal Reserve notes (dollars).

Federal Reserve notes are a current obligation of the United States, redeemable for goods and services.

If the Federal Reserve purchases bonds directly from the United States Treasury, they are electronically creating dollars (current obligations) in exchange for future obligations. This is inflationary if the amount of obligations (money) is increasing faster that the amount of capital (goods, services, products and ideas). But the Federal Reserve doesn't buy bonds from the Treasury, it buys them from "primary dealers."

Primary dealers are a network of banks (including Goldman Sachs(GS_), JPMorgan Chase(JPM_) and Citigroup(C_)) that are obligated to buy bonds from the U.S. and serve as a trading partner with the Federal Reserve. So Goldman Sachs can buy a bond from the Treasury on Monday and sell it to the Federal Reserve on Tuesday (at a profit) -- the blog ZeroHedge has named this game "Flip That Bond." 

Bottom Line: If Americans weren't already saddled in debt, quantitative easing might work. But as things stand, the Federal Reserve is giving bankers risk-free trading profits and causing food and gas prices to surge (making it even harder for Americans to get out of debt).

9. Republicans Are Fiscal Conservatives

Since 1968, the U.S. national debt accelerated fastest under President Ronald Reagan until President Obama claimed this distinction. The national debt does not take inflation into account, so perhaps we should look at inflation-adjusted deficits instead. According to research by Dave Manuel,

From 1946-2010:

Democratic President

Total Years: 29

Average Inflation Adjusted Deficit: $150.73 billion

Republican President

Total Years: 36

Average Inflation Adjusted Deficit: $202.28 billion

A president is not solely responsible for the nation's deficit, but he does sign the budget into law. And Republicans have put their John Hancock on some really short-sighted budgets while preaching conservatism.

8. President Obama Is an Enemy of Wall Street

When he was on the campaign trail, then-candidate Obama had some tough words for those who repealed Glass-Steagall (the law that prevented banks from acting like hedge funds), calling the process of deregulating banks a "legal but corrupt bargain." But get a load of this:

The two men who served as principal negotiators for banking deregulation: Gene Sperling and Larry Summers.

The two men who President Obama appointed to become his top economic advisers: Gene Sperling and Larry Summers.

Two guys who happen to be paid millions of dollars in consulting and speaking fees by "too big to fail" banks: Gene Sperling and Larry Summers.

President Obama is the best friend Wall Street could have.

7. The Financial System Is Safer Today Than in 2008

The Federal Reserve, which neglected to use regulatory powers to rein in the last crisis, has been awarded more regulatory powers. The majority of "too big to fail" banks are even bigger. And while the government is guaranteeing fewer mortgages through Fannie Mae(FNMA_) and Freddie Mac(FMCC_), it's made up the difference by guaranteeing mortgages through the Federal Housing Authority. "Good as cash" money market funds are full of mortgage-backed securities backed by the government (who needs to borrow money to back them up).

Meanwhile, high-frequency trading is alive and well and the causes of the Flash Crash have not been addressed. In fact, the solution of stock-specific "circuit breakers" (the percentage a stock can plummet before it stops trading) will guarantee future crashes. Here's why:

Having a defined breaking point provides high-frequency traders with an arbitrage window: If they can create an event that causes a stock to temporarily plummet, they can use "sweep to fill" orders (a special type of order used to buy stock rapidly, in small increments) to buy the stock back up to fair value. The size of the circuit breaker limits the size of the profit, but this removes the uncertainty of what trades will be honored or killed.

6. The 'Bush Tax Cuts' Increased Tax Revenue

Washington has always had a spending problem, but since the "Bush Tax Cuts," we have a revenue problem as well. From 1990 to 2000, U.S. tax revenue had a period of exceptional growth. Following the 2001 tax cuts, revenue plummeted -- then recovered -- then plummeted again. You can attribute the sustained revenue growth of the 1990s to the fact that the decade didn't have a recession, but if you expand the timeline to 1965, we've had numerous recessions without substantial drops in revenue.

5. 'No One' Could Have Seen the Financial Crisis Coming

No one -- except for everyone who did. TheStreet has interviewed numerous economists and money managers who have been pounding the table for years.

4. If You Support Capitalism, You Support Big Business

Can a corporation be socialist? Well, let's analyze an unnamed company:

A small, centrally located corporate management of fewer than 50 people plans the operations of hundreds of thousands of "associates." Corporate managers can make more money in one hour than an associate makes in one year. The majority of corporate managers have never worked as an associate. The benefits of corporate managers and associates are very, very different. Corporate managers are trained to respond to dissent by using propaganda to turn one associate against another.

Corporations and governments are very similar entities, and both can have capitalist or socialist leanings. If a politician praises big business while chastising big government, or the other way around, be skeptical.

3. Republicans Are a Bunch of Fat-Cat Millionaires

Well, this is true -- but a "half-truth" in the context it is usually told: Both Republicans and Democrats are a bunch of fat cats. The average congressperson is a millionaire, and if you break down the 50 richest members of Congress by political party, here's the split:

Republican: 22

Democrat: 28 

When it comes to political contributions, Wall Street gives both parties lots of love (recently favoring the Democratic party).

2. The U.S. Has the Highest Standard of Living in the World

According to the United Nations' most recent Human Poverty Index (from 2008), the U.S. standard of living ranks 17 of 19 among developed countries. The ranking is a composite of life expectancy, literacy, long-term unemployment and income equality -- while this data is over three years old, it's not unthinkable that our situation has worsened in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

1. U.S. GDP Is Growing

U.S. GDP has increased by 4.26% from 2007 to 2010, according to data compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the same period of time, the U.S. national debt has increased by 61.6%, according to the U.S. Treasury. Looking at these numbers, you don't need to be an economist to see that something is very, very wrong.

Charles Hugh Smith makes an excellent case that questions the viability of a debt-fueled U.S. recovery, you can read his article here.

How You Can Fight for the Truth

America is still a great place to live -- we've just lost our way, misled by Republicans and Democrats alike. If you're fed up with the way things are and you want to make a real change, don't buy into the hype around political parties. Political parties are like unions: They do the absolute minimum to keep constituents happy while doing everything they can to raise money and hold on to power.

In the days of the Internet and free-flowing information, there is never a good reason to vote along party lines. Vote for the best man or woman -- he or she might be a Democrat, Republican or independent. When people say things that make you uncomfortable, they might be onto something and are at least worth listening to.

Bill Bernbach, one of America's most innovative businessmen, used to carry a slip of paper in his pocket. It read: "Maybe he's right."

http://www.thestreet.com/story/11142443/1/10-myths-that-politicians-want-you-to-believe.html?cm_ven=outbrain&psv=outbrainevergreen&obref=obnetwork

2012: The Year Tea Party Divides Will Come Into the Open

Chris Good, 06/10/11

There will be no single tea-party candidate in the GOP presidential primary race. Get ready for some activist in-fighting.

If you like squabbles, then the 2012 presidential primary is for you.

Not only will we be treated, this time around, to squabbling between the candidates and their respective teams (which has already begun, with some hearty badmouthing between Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, and Rep. Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin), but we'll get to hear the gradually amplified bickering of tea-party activists, many of whom have disliked each other for years. Until now, they haven't had to pick sides in a national race; if anything can bring out their differences, it's the 2012 White House race.

Case in point: Mitt Romney's candidacy is already dividing activists, and the sniping has already begun between Tea Party Express and Tea Party Patriots, two groups that have been at odds, on and off, since 2009.

"Whoever the Republican nominee is will have to have the support of the Tea Party movement, the entire Tea Party movement," Tea Party Express co-chair Amy Kremer told "Fox News Sunday" this past weekend, even if that nominee turns out to be Mitt Romney.

With former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's group FreedomWorks already opposing Romney, Tea Party Patriots fired back at Kremer in a press release specifically about her statement:

Last weekend, a tea party "spokesperson" told Fox News that the grassroots would support any candidate opposed to President Obama.

"A pledge of allegiance to the Republican party, or any other party, violates what the tea party movement is all about and is completely out of touch with grassroots Americans," said Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder and national coordinator of Tea Party Patriots. ...

"As national coordinators of the largest tea party group in the country, we've heard little support for Romney in the movement as we interact daily with local coordinators and activists," said Mark Meckler, co-founder and national coordinator of Tea Party Patriots. "We believe it's premature to say whether anyone would support him if he were the nominee, and anyone who says that tea partiers would support him is certainly not speaking for the movement at large.

It's a not-so-widely acknowledged fact that lots of tea partiers actually can't stand one another. That's true of the leaders of Tea Party Patriots and Tea Party Express, two of the movement's most influential groups.

The 2012 presidential election will force activists to take sides. TPP doesn't endorse candidates, but they can clearly be angered by other tea partiers making statements about what the movement as a whole will or will not do -- and they don't seem too thrilled with the idea of Romney snagging the nomination, either. For that reason, the 2012 presidential race may just bring the intra-movement squabbles of the tea party into full focus, tint and brilliant hue for the first time on a national stage.

The presidential race will be fun to watch, because, while the tea party movement has by now become synonymous with angry Republicanism, we'll see a lot of competition over which groups get to call themselves the true believers, and which candidate lives up to the "tea party" name. It's just an added dimension, on top of everyone competing to be the next Ronald Reagan, but it could involve a lot of emotion and drama.

Make no mistake: There will be no one tea-party candidate in 2012. Different parts of the tea party movement will pick different sides, and there will be plenty of intra-tea-party in-fighting.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/06/2012-the-year-tea-party-divides-will-come-into-the-open/240153/

許多人常批評美國的民主制度。今年初選中美國茶黨在各地頗有斬獲，可見美國的民主政治有它充滿活力的面向。其基礎應該是民眾對於自己的處境和事務具有積極主動的處理方式。我相信這是社會科學中所謂「主動性」的概念。其次，當然是組織的能力、機制、和合群/互信的生活習慣。

台灣和中國的民主治要成氣候，大概這兩個基礎也也需要有一定程度的普及性和穩固性。

What is the Tea Party? A growing state of mind

Susan Page and Naomi Jagoda, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON -- The "Tea Party" is less a classic political movement than a frustrated state of mind.

A year and a half after the idea of a Tea Party burst into view, three of 10 Americans describe themselves in the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll as Tea Party supporters -- equal to the number who call themselves Republicans -- though many of them acknowledge they aren't exactly sure what that allegiance means.

"I don't really understand it, but I like what they stand for," says Terry Rushing, 63, of Greensburg, La., who was among those surveyed. "They just support everything I'm looking for -- lower taxes, less government. ... All the good things, you know."

"What we need is to push the tea over the edge of the boat, and the Tea Party is trying to do that," says Dale Jackson, 37, a school bus driver from Jefferson City, Mo., mentioning his concerns about illegal immigration and government bailouts.

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Jackson's comment and the group's name hark back to the nation's revolutionary beginnings in its tax revolt against England, and the Fourth of July holiday this weekend has become a rallying cry for supporters who plan a gathering in San Antonio, a fair in suburban Atlanta and more. To look at who the foot soldiers are in the nation's newest political army and what motivates them, USA TODAY combined results from national polls in May and June and did additional interviews.

The portrait that emerges fits a traditional conservative group. The ranks of the Tea Party include somewhat more men than women, and they are more likely to be married and a bit older than the nation as a whole. Residents of the South and West are the most likely to endorse the Tea Party, but it is unmistakably a nationwide movement: 28% in the Midwest and 27% in the East call themselves backers.

They are overwhelmingly white and Anglo, although a scattering of Hispanics, Asian Americans and African Americans combine to make up almost one-fourth of their ranks.

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What unites Tea Party supporters is less their geography or demography than their policy views: a firm conviction that the federal government has gotten too big and too powerful and a fear that the nation faces great peril. Nine in 10 are unhappy with the country's direction and see the federal debt as an ominous threat to its future. Almost as many say neither President Obama nor most members of Congress deserve re-election.

They are much more downbeat than those who are not Tea Party supporters, who by 21 percentage points are more satisfied with the country's direction and by a yawning 49 points are more likely to say Obama deserves re-election.

The Tea Party supporters who were interviewed bristle at the suggestion that the group is extremist, and some distance themselves from rhetoric that seems to advocate violent revolution. "As with anything, there are some factions that wig out," says Bonnie Jones, 60, of Independence, Ky.

They deny that bigotry or rejections of Obama because of his race are part of the movement's appeal, a perception fueled by YouTube videos showing racist signs at some Tea Party rallies. Even so, they do have a distinctive perspective on race.

Those who embrace the Tea Party movement are much less likely than others to see discrimination as a threat to the nation's future and a hurdle for minorities. More than three in four say racial minorities have equal job opportunities; half of non-Tea Party supporters agree. They overwhelmingly reject the notion that economic disparities between blacks and whites are mainly the result of discrimination.

Nearly half say blacks lag in jobs, income and housing "because most African Americans just don't have the motivation or willpower to pull themselves up out of poverty." One-third of non-supporters agree.

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Tea Party supporters are much less sympathetic than others to illegal immigrants. By 4-to-1, they say illegal immigrants in the long run cost taxpayers too much by using government services rather than becoming productive citizens. That view is hardly out of the mainstream, though -- it's held by 52% of those who are not Tea Party supporters.

"The Tea Party (gatherings) are not some radical meetings; it's just average folks," says Tim Brazil, 54, a small-business owner from Chesterfield County, Va., who has attended several local meetings. He says Tea Party members are agitated about the way things are going in the country, and for good reason: "Washington doesn't hear us, and the Tea Party is waking them up."

Engaged and skeptical

On the last big Election Day, in 2008, the Tea Party didn't exist. Now the name encompasses the most energized segment of the electorate, one that has denied members of Congress renomination, created a new constellation of political heroes and pushed the GOP to the right.

Even so, the movement is less a party than an anti-party, with no clear consensus about whom its national leaders are and a generally dyspeptic view of organized political power.

"It's a party opposed to the idea of parties," says Jill Lepore, a Harvard historian whose book about the movement, The Whites of Their Eyes, is scheduled to be published in October. The Tea Party reminds her more of a religious revival than a political movement. She compares it to the Second Great Awakening in the 1830s, a religious resurgence that helped fuel temperance and abolitionism.

What emerges from the polls and interviews is a deeply engaged, highly skeptical group of people -- even toward others in their ranks.

Jones voted for Rand Paul in Kentucky's GOP primary, one of the movement's most celebrated victories this year over an establishment Republican candidate, but says she is "kind of undecided" about whether to support him in November. "When you see his ads, you think, 'Yeah, he's not one of the mainstream politicians,' but his dad's a politician," she says. (Ron Paul is a seven-term Texas congressman and former Republican presidential contender.)

She's not enamored with former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who is a hero to some in the movement. "I don't like her folksy sayings," Jones says. "She's just a politician like the rest of them."

Whether such a loosely organized collection of people can sustain itself as a political force isn't clear, although they have forged a formidable record. Tea Party supporters have helped win the Republican gubernatorial nomination for Nikki Haley in a turbulent South Carolina primary, deny renomination to Republican Sen. Bob Bennett in Utah and push Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter to leave the GOP. (He then lost the Democratic primary.)

The movement's appeal will be tested this fall, when Tea-Party-backed candidates face broader electorates.

Former House Majority leader Dick Armey, who describes himself and his group FreedomWorks as "mentors" for the movement, calls the lack of a centralized structure a defining characteristic and an asset. "It is baffling to the left because it's a group of people who are not centrally organized," the former Texas congressman says, chortling. "There is nobody running the Tea Party movement."

Jim Sagray, 63, a retired high school science teacher from Roseville, Calif., and Tea Party supporter, agrees.

"I don't believe there are any real Tea Party leaders; I don't believe there's any real national leadership," he says. "It's largely just independent groups fed up with how things are going in our nation."

Armey calls them "the biggest swing movement on the field."

Republican vs. Republican

Former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie calls the Tea Party "an organic enterprise" that would reject any suggestion that it is a GOP group, though he predicts most of its backers will vote for Republican candidates in November.

Most Tea Party supporters are Republicans or Republican-leaning independents, but that doesn't mean all Republicans share their views. Their conflict, apparent in some primaries this year that pitted establishment candidates against Tea Party challengers, could signal a battle ahead for the soul of the GOP.

Among Republicans, 57% identify themselves as Tea Party supporters; 38% do not -- and the two groups have distinctly different views. Non-Tea Party Republicans are twice as likely to cite the environment as an extremely or very serious danger to the country's future, for example, and much less likely to see the size and power of the federal government as a dire threat.

Another big difference between them helps explain the Tea Party's muscular influence in the party: An overwhelming 73% of Tea Party Republicans say they are more enthusiastic about voting this year than usual. Half as many, 36%, of non-Tea Party Republicans feel that way.

Tea Party supporters generally are much more engaged in this year's elections than others, fueled by a conviction that the country is at an historic turning point. In the USA TODAY Poll, 85% described themselves as extremely or very patriotic. Their events routinely feature American flags and characters in revolutionary garb.

Their faith in the Founding Fathers is a signature of the movement. Citing links to the Revolution has been a mainstay of American politics since the nation's beginnings, Lepore says, but the way the Tea Party uses those symbols and language is original. "It is a fundamentalist way of thinking of the past: The founding documents are gospel; they come alive for us," she says.

For Rick Barber, a Tea-Party-backed congressional contender in Alabama, the Founding Fathers literally come to life. One video on his campaign website shows him talking to a character dressed as Abraham Lincoln as he likens taxation to pay for bailouts and health care as "slavery." Another features him sitting at a table in a tavern, talking to characters dressed as Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams and George Washington.

After Barber describes the progressive income tax and health care bill as "tyrannical," an angry George Washington growls, "Gather your armies."

Many Tea Party supporters speak of the Founders in familiar terms.

"We've been running deficits for years, and we've been saying we're doing it to win the Cold War or to fight terrorism and fight poverty," says Michael Towns, 33, a linguist from Tallahassee who was among those surveyed. "I think our Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves because they never would conceive that we would do this."

"This country was actually founded that we worked to be represented without taxation," says Charlene Barber, 62, a nurse from West Blocton, Ala., who is pursuing a psychology degree. "I'd love to hear what the men who wrote the Declaration of Independence and Constitution would have to say about this health care bill."

Diverse inspirations

Question: Who is most responsible for the Tea Party?

Answer: Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

Obama's ambitious agenda -- the most activist of any Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson nearly a half-century ago -- created a backlash. Not yet at the midpoint of his term, Obama has bailed out General Motors and Chrysler, won funding for an $862 billion stimulus bill, overhauled the health care system and pushed legislation that would rewrite financial regulations.

Within eight months of his inauguration, a majority of Americans said his proposals called for too much expansion of government power. Six in 10 said they called for too much government spending.

The backlash has significantly increased the number of voters who call themselves conservative. Although 37% of Americans described themselves as conservatives in 2008, according to combined Gallup polls for the year, now 42% do. That's the most since Gallup began asking the question about political ideology in 1992.

The growing conservatism hasn't rebounded to the benefit of the Republican Party, however: 28% of Americans identified themselves as Republicans in 2008; 28% do so now. In 2004, the year Bush was re-elected president, 34% did.

Some Tea Party supporters who might have moved back toward the GOP express disappointment with Bush's backing of the Wall Street bailout and Medicare prescription-drug initiative.

They describe those as just more big-government programs that blurred the differences between the two major political parties.

"Basically, Democrats and Republicans are screwed up, and the Tea Party is the only group that has their act together," says Greg White, 23, an Army soldier from Ashburn, Ga. "Democrats are trying to be Socialist, and the Republicans aren't far off."

"The Tea Party is trying to change the country around because the Republicans and Democrats -- I don't think anyone knows what they're doing in Washington anymore," says Ed Bradley, 54, a retired police officer and judge from Lebanon, Ind. "The Tea Party is trying to change this country to what it used to be."

For right-of-center voters alarmed by Obama's agenda but disenchanted with Bush's GOP, the outburst by CNBC's Rick Santelli on the floor of the Chicago mercantile exchange in February 2009 calling for a "Chicago Tea Party" for "the capitalists out there" struck a nerve.

The Tea Party was born.

Retired high school teacher Sagray says he was intrigued when he drove by Tea Party protesters outside a shopping mall, holding up signs urging drivers unhappy with the proposed health care bill to honk. He parked, picked up literature and signed up for e-mail alerts.

Mary Molitor, 72, a retired mental-health aide from Lodi, Wis., went to two Tea-Party-sponsored rallies at the state Capitol in Madison around Tax Day in April to protest what she sees as a federal government that has overstepped its bounds.

"The government is taking over everything -- the banks, the automobiles," she says. "I want my freedom back."

First in an occasional series looking at the impact of the Tea Party movement on the November elections

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2010-07-01-tea-party_N.htm?csp=1

本文於 修改第 1 次

Has Scott Brown turned out to be a blessing in disguise for congressional Democrats?

Chris Lehmann

When Scott Brown scored his upset victory in January's special election to fill Edward Kennedy's Senate seat, panicked Democratic Party insiders assumed the sky was falling. Brown's election as the newest senator from Massachusetts meant that the Democrats had lost their razor-thin 60-vote majority to counter GOP filibuster threats on major legislation.

What's more, the symbolism couldn't have looked worse for Democrats: Here was the seat held by the Senate's late liberal lion, in one of the bluest states on the electoral map, falling into the Republican column. Activists from the small-government Tea Party movement had flooded the state with volunteers to get out the vote and claim this critical Senate seat as a prize pick-up for the anti-Democratic, anti-Obama insurgency. Election watchers even started talking about the "Scott Brown effect," as polling started to look grim for other established liberal lawmakers from traditionally deep blue states, like California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.

But barely three months into his tenure, Brown has fallen out of favor with his onetime Tea Party backers, and is starting to looking like something of a silver lining for Democrats. In a no-less symbolic moment, Brown declined an invitation to appear at a Tea Party rally in Boston this week headlined by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Brown cited pressing legislative business as the reason for his no-show--but his fledgling legislative record is precisely what has conservative activists so angry at him. On Monday, he furnished a critical swing vote to tamp down a threatened Republican filibuster on a bill to extend federal unemployment benefits. And in his first major break with conservative activists, he voted for a Democratic jobs bill in February, earning him thousands of outraged comments on his Facebook page from Tea Party backers who felt betrayed by the senator they had worked so hard to help elect. Both votes have also helped Senate Democrats make the case that they are hammering together bipartisan support on important legislation — something that's been an elusive goal in dealing with the filibuster-happy GOP Senate minority.

Even on health care reform — the issue that Brown's election was supposed to help derail — the big GOP turnaround in Massachusetts created a certain "scared straight" effect among key Democratic congressional leaders. In order to stem the rising tide of conservative discontent, Democrats simply chose to bear down and get the health care legislation passed. And the loss of the 60-vote majority also simplified the decision-making for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other top Senate Democrats going forward. Being forced to adopt the budget-driven tactic of reconciliation to win approval on a 50-plus majority was oddly liberating for Senate leaders who had sweated out no end of unsavory deals to get wavering centrist lawmakers on board for the initial Senate health care vote last December.

"If you already paid the bill, you may as well enjoy the meal," is how one Democratic operative describes the thinking of senior Democrats after the Brown upset.

As for Brown, his votes supporting Democratic initiatives are just part of his coming to full awareness of what it means to serve as a GOP senator representing a heavily Democratic state. The operative says: "It's Brown's yearning for re-election that's benefited Democrats. His votes are moving an agenda forward but have added more suspicion amongst Tea Partiers that they can't trust Republicans." And that creates an additional bind for Brown as he serves out the remainder of his term. "After all [Brown's] bluster during the campaign, his votes now come off as more calculated than principled. That will turn off moderates — who are even more critical after Brown took all the energy out of the base that got him elected."

— Chris Lehmann is managing editor of the Yahoo! News blog.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100413/ts_ynews/ynews_ts1593;_ylt=AklaAakH7J3Qi1apz4e_F_gUewgF;_ylu=X3oDMTM0M3FxZ2NsBGFzc2V0A3luZXdzLzIwMTAwNDEzL3luZXdzX3RzMTU5MwRjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRjcG9zAzUEcG9zAzUEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNoYXNzY290dGJyb3c

關於美國當前Tea Party的抗爭活動請參考：

Tea Party protests

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_protests

Tea Party movement

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement