The good, the bad and the tea parties 好坏难定的茶党

The good, the bad and the tea parties
好坏难定的茶党

A partial defence of the movement that has transformed the mid-term elections
一场让中期选举改头换脸的运动的片面辩解



IT IS not hard, if you really try, to find good things to say about America's tea-partiers. They are not French, for a start. France's new revolutionaries, those who have been raising Cain over Nicolas Sarkozy's modest proposal to raise the age of retirement by two years, appear to believe that public money is printed in heaven and will rain down for ever like manna to pay for pensions, welfare, medical care and impenetrable avant-garde movies. America's tea-partiers are the opposite: they exhale fiscal probity through every pore. In their waking hours, and in bed at night, they are wracked by anxiety. How is a profligate America to cut borrowing, balance the budget and ensure that its billowing deficit will not place an unbearable burden on future generations?
要是真的想找点茶党的好话来说说也不难。首先，他们不是法国人。因为尼古拉斯萨科齐提出一个不算过份的提议要把退休年龄推迟两年，这些法国新革命分子就大举闹事。他们似乎觉得钱都是老天印出来的，会源源不断地从天上掉下来为退休金、社会福利、医疗和晦涩难懂的前卫电影买单。美国的茶党和他们相反：他们全心全意支持财政节俭。他们不管白天醒着还是晚上躺在床上都忧心如焚。怎样能才让挥霍浪费的美国减少借贷，平衡预算，确保滚雪球一般的财政赤字不会对后代构成难以承受的负担？

The tea-partiers do not just have less selfish motives than the pampered French. They also have better manners. Let the French block roads and set things on fire: among tea-partiers it is a point of pride that their large but orderly rallies leave barely a crumpled candy wrapper behind them. Though some wear tricorn hats, and the movement takes its name from the Boston Tea Party, tea-partiers are peaceful folk. They take the view that one revolution was enough, and that the one America had in the 18th century established a constitution and form of democracy so near to perfect that they can get what they want without taking to the streets and just by working within the rules.
茶党不但动机比那些纵坏了的法国人大公无私得多，连行为举止也比法国人得体。随便他们法国人怎么堵路放火，茶党的集会人数庞大但井然有序，连张皱巴巴的糖果纸都不会乱扔，难怪他们会引以为傲。虽然有些参加集会的人戴着以前士兵戴的三角帽，而且茶党一名取自波士顿倾茶事件，但茶党集会者都是和平不滋事的民众。他们认为一场革命就够了，并认为18世纪的那场美国革命订立的宪法和民主体制几乎称得上完美，因此他们无需上街游行，只需谨遵宪法规定就能达到自己的目的。

Whether they have worked hard enough they will not know until votes are counted after next week's mid-terms, but in one way their labours have already borne fruit. In primaries all over the country they have secured the election of Republican candidates who are "true" conservatives, not the big-spending counterfeit Republicans whom they blame for leading the party astray under George Bush. The impure have been purged without mercy. Senator Bob Bennett, who has represented Utah for three terms, earned a lifetime rating of 84% from the American Conservative Union. He was turfed out for having voted in favour of the TARP, the Bush-era bail-out that may have staved off a financial collapse but has become a tea-party anathema.
茶党付出的努力够不够要等到下周中期选举结果揭晓才知道，但某种程度上来说，他们的努力已经收获了成果。在全国候选人预选中，他们已经选出那些属于"真正"保守分子的共和党人，而不是那些花钱如流水的伪共和党人。茶党指责后者在乔治布什的领导下把共和党引入歧途。这些"不良分子"已经被毫不留情地肃清了。鲍勃班内特已经担任了三个任期的尤他州参议员，美国保守联盟给他评出的终身评分也高达84分（满分100）。但他还是被排挤了，因为他投票赞成"问题资产救助计划"，一个布什执政期间推出的救市措施，虽然暂时避开了金融崩溃，但后来成为茶党的话诟。

America's pontificating class is not yet sure how to take the measure of this strange new movement. Puzzled academics gathered last week at the University of California, Berkeley, to ask, among other things, how tea-partiers were "tapping into and/or managing the populist, libertarian and radical currents on the right, as well as fear, anger and resentment among segments of the American public". The New York Times has published research suggesting that tea-partiers are mostly richer and better-educated than the average. The Washington Post spent months trying to contact every tea-party group in the nation. Having got through to 647 out of 1,400 it had identified, it found that some consisted of only a handful of members, if they existed at all.
喜欢发表高论的美国人至今还不知道该结这场不同寻常的新运动作何评价。上周，不得其解的学术界人士齐集加州大学贝克利分校提出了众多问题，其中一个就是茶党是如何"利用或者说掌握了左翼中的平民主义，自由主义和激进主义的各个趋势，以及美国不同人群中的恐惧，愤始和不满情绪。"《纽约时报》发表的调查表明大部分茶党成员比一般人更富裕，接受的教育也更优越。《华盛顿邮报》花了数月时间联系全国上下所有的茶党团体。目前经联系上已经查明的1400个团体中的647个，并发现有些茶党团体只有一小撮成员，有些甚至名存实亡。

Some call the tea parties an "Astroturf" phenomenon―not grass-roots types at all but the dupes of big business. To others they are merely the most recent incarnation of an ugly right-wing and sometimes racist populism that has surfaced before when times are hard. Such allegations are misplaced. Corporate money has indeed found its way into tea-party coffers, but if you attend a tea-party event you will generally find that it is indeed a self-organised gathering of citizens dismayed by what they see as the irresponsible behaviour of an out-of-control government. Strands of racism can be found on the movement's fringe, but most tea-party groups have done their best to snip these off.
有些人把茶党称为"得富草皮"现象－但他们根本不是什么草根阶层，反而是那些大企业里的家伙。在其他人眼里，每逢艰难时世总免不了要浮现一股丑陋的右翼平民主义，有时甚至带有种族歧视的色彩，茶党不过是这股平民主义眼下的另一个化身而已。这样指控茶党就大错特错了。企业资金确实流进了茶党运动内部，但如果你参加过茶党的集会，你一般会发现它确实只是一个自发组织的集会，组织集会的都是那些不满一个失控政府种种不负责任行为的市民。茶党运动可能偶尔出现几丝种族歧视主义，但大部分茶党团体都尽快把这些不良风气驱之于外。

Along with the liberal disparagement comes a dose of wishful thinking. Some Democrats hope the tea parties will drag the Republicans so far to the right that mainstream voters will be scared away. That looks increasingly unlikely. Few tea-party candidates are as hapless as the overexposed Christine O'Donnell, the former campaigner against masturbation and present ignoramus whose selection as the Republican candidate in Delaware will probably cost the party a precious extra seat in the Senate. Other Senate candidates who were once deemed too radical to win, such as Rand Paul in Kentucky and Sharron Angle in Nevada, have adjusted the volume if not the content of their messages and now look eminently electable. Here and there―in Florida and Alaska, for example―tea-party pressure has split the conservative vote, but in the grand scheme that is a small price for Republicans to pay for the revivifying energy the movement has imparted to a party that looked dead in the water two years ago.
除了自由派的不屑以外，还有一些人心怀鬼胎地打着小算盘。有些民主党人盼着茶党运动会把共和党拉到极右的一端，把主流选民都吓跑。但这似乎越来越不可能了。几乎没几个茶党候选人会像那个曝光过度的克莉丝蒂奥唐纳尔那么倒霉，这个人不但曾经发起过运动反对手淫，现在还是无知不减半分，选她当特拉华州的共和党参议员候选人很可能会害共和党损失一个宝贵的参议院席位。其他参议员候选人也一度被认为激进有余，难以获选，例如肯塔基州的兰德保罗和内华达州的莎朗安吉拉。虽然他们要传达的信息内容没变，但量已经有所调整，现在看起来非常值得一选。全国上下－以佛罗里达州和阿拉斯加州为例－茶党的压力已经分去了一部分保守分子的选票，但从大局来看，共和党人要借这场运动的活力让两年前奄奄一息的共和党起死回生，就必须付出这个小小的代价。

Not French, not fabricated and not as flaky as their detractors aver: these are the positives. Another one: in how many other countries would a powerful populist movement demand less of government, rather than endlessly and expensively more? Much of what is exceptional about America is its ideology of small government, free enterprise and self reliance. If that is what the tea-party movement is for, more power to its elbow.
不是法国人，没有掺杂不良成分，也没有抨击者说的那么疯癫：这些都是茶党好的方面。还有一个：在别的国家里，有几个声势浩大的平民运动会要求政府减少开支，而不是加大开支的？美国的过人之处很大程度上在于它的意识形态是政府要节俭，企业要自由，个人要自力更生。如果这就是茶党运动的最终目的，那么我们更应该对其大加支持。

Can they be serious?
Ideology is one thing. But if the tea-partiers do well next week, especially if the Republicans capture the House, they need to move past ideology into the realm of practical policy. This means having something serious to say about how actually to bring spending under control. To date, they have preferred breezy slogans. Will they cut into pensions and Medicare, and if so how? Will they accept that taming the deficit will require hikes in taxes as well as cuts in spending? Will they continue to oppose reflexively every measure of a Democratic administration, or have the courage to share responsibility for the painful decisions the times demand? It has been all too easy from the outside to conjure up a mythic America of limited government, sing hymns to the constitution and denounce the federal bureaucracy in all its forms. Once they are in government themselves, that gig will be over.

他们能认真起来吗？
意识形态是很重要。但如果茶党下周大获成功，尤其是如果共和党获得众议院多数席位，他们就不能再大谈意式形态，而是要踏入制定切实可行的政策的阶段。也就是提出如何遏制政府开支的可行意见。迄今为止，他们只打出一些无伤大雅的口号。他们真的会缩减退休金和医保吗，如果会又有什么具体措施？他们会赞成要降低赤字就要加大税收，同时减少开支吗？他们会不分青红皂白地反对民主党政府提出的每一个措施吗，还是鼓起勇气分担责任，审时度势，作出该作的的痛苦决定？幻想出一个限制政府权力的美国，对宪法大颂赞歌，对各种形式的联邦官僚作风大加谴责，对于在草野的茶党来说，简直易于反掌。但一旦当选，这种戏码就唱不下去了。