Just wanted to say, US Congress has declared Pepper Spray to be a vegetable, but I can't seem to find it at the super-market.. 
Meh. The crowd-control concentration of pepper spray that US cops use is pretty nasty stuff (been sprayed with it myself once), but hardly some great atrocity. Even in the UC Davis incident, the cops appear, from most accounts of the incident, to have attempted to peacefully remove the protesters several times, and only to have used pepper spray after protesters refused to vacate the space. IMHO, protestors do not have a right to obstruct a public service or good (such as a road, a walkway, or a park) unless that specific public service or good is identifiably and directly connected to an active and ongoing injustice (such as lunch counters in the 1960's). Protesting by obstructing a sidewalk in a college town that is overwhelmingly liberal anyways is just childish.
Compromise would possibly allow the current government to actually DO something, which may make them look effective and thus increase their chances of re-election. The opposition here in Australia is doing the same thing, constant negativity and blocking every piece of legislation they can, all on the premise of "holding the government to task and making sure they are accountable" when it is obvious to anyone that can think the reason is purely to hamstring the government to increase their own chance at election. Sure some policies are bad and need to be opposed, but it has gotten to the stage where the opposition party will cripple the country, so long as they are confident they can shift the blame to an "ineffective" government.
That's one interpretation. I actually have an increasingly positive outlook on the matter. The reason is that I don't think politicians are idiots. Evil, maybe, but not dumb.
Most politicians recognize that budgets eventually need balancing. Most politicians recognize that there is no way to balance the budget without some kind of political suicide, especially in a nation where the electorate is extremely radical and polar. In such an environment, "compromise" will create primary challenges that result in MORE radical representatives being elected, and MORE protracted stalemate. Thus the optimal strategy for representatives seeking the "best interests of the nation" is to create situations wherein budgets can be balanced without any party (or possibly the other party) being viewed as the group that "did it," whether "it" is tax increases or spending cuts.
That is, with things like the supercommittee and last-minute brinskmanship and apocalyptic deal-making, representatives can make some kind of cut without having to take full political blame, meaning that electorates won't hold them as accountable for disagreeable or uncomfortable policy positions, meaning that they won't elect even more intractable candidates.
Think about it. The supercommittee failing triggered huge spending cuts and a (slightly) more balanced budget, composed almost entirely of spending cuts (the remainder being a few technical points and interest deductions), apparently a Republican "victory." Yet it is evidently a politically costly one, but one that also fulfilled something most people know is true but that is political suicide: the Pentagon's budget needs to go on the chopping block.
Somehow, without compromise, a compromise position happened. Conservative Republicans prevented tax increases, which is apparently the end-all-beat-all of their policy platform, and Liberal Democrats basically got to slash somewhere between $400 and $600 billion from the Pentagon's budget.
Brinksmanship and multi-tiered commitment mechanics with major consequences are a reasonable practice in a political environment where passionate activists un-interested in political necessity (or national welfare?) coincide with competent, ideologically committed but moderate representatives of the electorate, who do care for national welfare.
