During the next week, Chicago will play host to two political rallies: the "A New Way Forward" (ANWF) demonstration taking place tomorrow and the "Tax Day Tea Party" on April 15.  The two events share some similarities: Both are part of nationally coordinated efforts.  Both are also premised on frustrations with the economic plans being pursued in Washington.  But there is a crucial difference between them: One is advancing a specific policy alternative, while the other seeks to ... well, we're not sure exactly.

Today, the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan took the time to dig through the literature put out by the tea party organizers and found himself "befuddled" by what exactly these protests are trying to achieve:

As a fiscal conservative who actually believed in those principles when the Republicans were in power, I guess I should be happy at this phenomenon. And I would be if it had any intellectual honesty, any positive proposals, and any recognizable point. What it looks like to me is some kind of amorphous, generalized rage on the part of those who were used to running the country and now don't feel part of the culture at all. But the only word for that is: tantrum.

These are not tea-parties. They are tea-tantrums. And the adolescent, unserious hysteria is a function not of a movement regrouping and refinding itself. It's a function of a movement's intellectual collapse and a party's fast-accelerating nervous breakdown.

Steve Benen echoes Sullivan's confusion:

[W]hat are these people whining about again? They don't like economic recovery efforts, but the stimulus has already passed and it's a little late to rally opposition to it. They don't like budget deficits, unless they're run by Republican presidents. They don't want their taxes to go up, but Obama has already passed a significant tax cut.

Now let's contrast the tea parties'' "amorphous, generalized rage" with the ANWF protests taking place tomorrow in over 60 cities nationwide.  The whole point of this mass action is to speak out in favor of an "idea" for how to solve the financial crisis -- and a very specific one at that: