Partisan politics have grown so extreme that the ongoing battle
between the two major sides in Washington, D.C., amounts to America's
second war.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16349093

"the age of hyperpartisanship," in which almost every force related to
our political life "operates as an integrated machine to push the
parties apart and to sharpen the disagreements in American life."

"What's unusual now is that the political system is more polarized
than the country," he writes, and "the impulse to harmonize divergent
interests has almost vanished from the capital"; increasing
divergence, "not the breadth of the underlying divisions itself, is
the defining characteristic of our era."

when it comes to such matters as border security, budgetary concerns,
greenhouse gases and fighting terrorism -- we are stalemated by either/
or choices and kept from "the constructive compromises between the
parties required to confront these problems."

On Feb 8, 10:34 pm, Immortalist yahoo.com> wrote:

On Feb 8, 8:04 pm, kevirwin comcast.net> wrote:

The author shows how the level of polarization in the parties is not
matched by the level in the general public which is much more
moderate.

These parties have hijacked forms of media and seel things like
advertisers do. If advertisers spend millions they must be
manipulating human nature in some way.

On Feb 8, 11:15 pm, Immortalist yahoo.com> wrote:

"A popular government without popular imformation or the means of
acquiring it, is only a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps
both."

-- Madison 1822

Fast forward to 4 minues and 3 secons (4:03)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=dO2i9aX2Xzs

On Feb 8, 8:25 pm, Bret Cahill aol.com> wrote:

FEDERALIST PAPER NO. 10

Among the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union,
none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to
break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular
governments...

On Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:34:16 -0800, Immortalist wrote:

Simply Voting along party lines does not make the political system more
polarized. What is wrongly taken for granted here is that the options, or
what exactly is being voted on has some real difference.. for instance..

In voting on Defense Spending as an example.. one side wants a $100
billion increase while the other wants a $200 increase.. this is not
being politically polarized.

NAFTA? anyone? Campaign Finance Reform? Tax Reform? Illegal immigration?
War? Homeland Security? Government Expansion and Spending? ..

The Democrats and the Republicans maintain a status quo that is becoming
more and more exclusive to fewer and fewer. All their so called
differences are kept inside of this.

Trotting out this propaganda of political diversity at election time is
nothing new.

Exactly. The media put on a big production deploring voter "apathy"
but the only activism they really want to encourage is restricted to
very minor changes or social issues.

In reality they will vilify any activism that gets near significant
economic issues.

You can be for flag burning or against flag burning but you cannot be
for free speech on economic issues.

You can be for abortion or against abortion but you cannot be for
popular control of national economic policy as clearly stated in the
plain language of Art. I, Sec. 8.

The _NY Times_ will brand any politician suggesting referenda on the
discount rate a "populist" the adjective they reserve for Hitler,
Stalin, Ross Perot and David Duke.

On Feb 9, 10:47 am, Bret Cahill aol.com> hallucinated:

Like in Venezuela?

Oh, poor Brat, don't be discouraged.

You can always move to N. Korea.

Fred Weiss