今天我要向大家谈谈正在我们国家发生的一场政治革命,这场革命正在我们的眼前改变着我们的整个政府体制。不祥的是,在我们进行20世纪最后一轮总统选举时,民意测验显示,为数惊人的美国人似乎不仅对政治和政治家彻底失去了敬意,而且对代议政体本身也彻底失去了敬意。我们从民意测验者、社团领导人、新闻工作者和学者那里听到了很多有关公民价值观衰退、选民的参与率低和我们极其不信任我们自己所选举的政府情况。 Today I want to talk to all of you about the political revolution that is taking place in our country. This revolution is transforming the entire government system before us. Ominously, as we conduct our final round of presidential elections in the 20th century, opinion polls show that an alarming number of Americans appear to have lost both their political and politician slasher, and their complete loss of respect for the representative government itself. We hear from opinion pollsters, community leaders, journalists and academics a great deal about the decline of civic values, the low participation of voters and the fact that we have a great deal of distrust in the government we have chosen.