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>JimWallis: 'We urgently need a new social covenant between citizens, businesses, and government. Contracts have been broken, but a covenant adds a moral dimension to the solution that is now essential. By definition, this will require the engagement and collaboration of all the "stakeholders" - governments, businesses, civil society groups, people of faith, and especially young people. >Social covenants should all include shared principles and features - a value basis for new agreements, an emphasis on jobs that offer fair rewards for hard work and real contributions to society, security for financial assets and savings, a serious commitment to reduce inequality between the top and the bottom of society, stewardship of the environment, an awareness of future generations' needs, a stable and accountable financial sector, and the strengthening of both opportunity and social mobility. >Such a covenant promotes human flourishing, happiness, and well-being as social goals, and it elevates the movement from a shareholder model to a stakeholder model of corporate governance. Such new social covenants are already being discussed in a variety of settings and countries. The discussion itself will help produce the conversation leading to the results that we need. >A moral conversation about a social covenant could ask what a "moral economy" should look like and for whom it should exist. How can we do things differently, more responsibly, more equitably, and yes, more democratically? >Lack of trust is bad for politics, bad for business, and bad for overall public morale. It undermines people's sense of participation in society as well as their feelings of social responsibility, and makes them feel isolated and alone-more worried about survival than interested in solidarity. Because the "contract" was broken, a sense of "covenant" is now needed, fused with a sense of moral values and commitments. And the process of formulating new social covenants could be an important pa

"The government safety net was created to keep Americans from abject poverty, but the poorest households no longer receive a majority of government benefits. A secondary mission has gradually become primary: maintaining the middle class from childhood through retirement. The share of benefits flowing to the least affluent households, the bottom fifth, has declined from 54 percent in 1979 to 36 percent in 2007, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis published last year."

Brooks commends Obama as a thoughtful, disciplined pragmatist, not an ideologue. Nevertheless, he sees Obama's gargantuan appetite for reform in many sectors as an "over-stepping" that provokes American anti-government suspicions. He advises one year of demonstrating how government is a humble servant, rather than an imperious leviathan.

Liberalism should be popular, but isn't, because people don't perceive that government is honest or helps them. Liberals haven't worked on cleaning house.

Brooks states Obama mistook 2008 landslide as American readiness for a new New Deal, rather than a referendum on GWBush. Americans are reacting against "government over-reaching." He sees 2 alternatives (among 4 available): Harsh&Arrogant (pass health reform by reconciliation) vs. Weak&Feckless (switch to incremental changes). Brooks favors the latter as less likely to bring a political rebellion that will "decimate policy-making for a generation." (He thinks the actual current "alternative" being pursued is "Incoherent & Internecine."

The Coffee Party was formed on the opening premise that the federal government "is not the enemy of the people."

In addition to pondering the notions of changeability and continuity that watching a stream flow into a river tend to prompt, I was also counting and weighing glass eels, tiny transparent fish only two or three inches long that enter the tributaries of the river each spring. Which is to say, I was practicing something called citizen science, loosely defined as scientific research in which amateurs help experts gather data. Eels are tiny envoys from the realm of the inconceivable. Scientists have never been able to document their mating or birth in the North Atlantic's Sargasso Sea, nor do they know what governs their voyage to the coast's freshwaters.

Murray ignores economic/government reasons for "collapse of middle class" and focuses only on "social structure"

"So perhaps, it might be argued, abortion can be safely limited only when the government does more to cover women's costs in other ways - in which case Texas might still be flirting with disaster. But note that this is a better argument for liberalism than for abortion. It suggests, for instance, that liberal donors and activists should be spending more time rallying against Perry's refusal to take federal Medicaid financing than around Wendy Davis's famous filibuster. It implies that the quest to "turn Texas blue" should make economic policy rather than late-term abortion its defining issue. And it raises the possibility that a pro-life liberalism - that once-commonplace, now-mythical persuasion - would actually have a stronger argument to make than the one Texas's critics are making now.

Argument that the scientific frame of mind played a leading role in the emergence of democratic governance and individual rights.

Brooks suggests Obama should get out on the road, as a "saner" version of Perot, with charts & graphs, to educate Americans on how dysfunctional American government has become, and to ask for the political support needed to change things. If Obama doesn't do this, someone else will come along and do it.

But only 1/8 very familiar with Tea Party, with favorable ratings split. Sarah Palin has lost popularity.

Mark Lillo charts how both right and left libertarianism & radical individualism have led to "communities of like-mindedness"; and now to an angry movement that wants to be free from government agencies that protect their health, wealth, and well-being; free from problems and policies too difficult to understand; free from parties and coalitions; free from experts who think they know better than they do; free from politicians who don't talk or look like they do.