"There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn’t turn over, because harming people isn’t my goal. Transparency is." So said Edward Snowden professing his faith in the god of transparency, sort of. Apparently transparency--even for Snowden--is not always right.
A number of years ago a cynical graffito read "Revolution is the opiate of the intellectual." This is an unsettling notion, that all progress, all efforts at change, whether intentional or accidental, are placebos. So the Clinton health plan, now the Obama plan, was originally designed to control costs in health care but now is sold as an expansion of coverage. All federal studies on guns have shown a random association with violence but we try to outlaw them anyway to decrease violence. We raise our budget commitment to education without any proof money helps. We trumpet equality without any consideration for its declared antagonist, liberty. And now transparency.
The levers of government certainly should be in plain sight. But should all the government acts be scrutinized? Indeed, do they have any such intention? Or is this banner just another placebo?
In the last generations many examples might jump to mind that highlight the question of transparently but the argument can be made that the assassination of JFK is a virtual embodiment of the question. Libraries of information have been generated over the event. And rumor and conspiracy love disconnected information.
And remember, even now, 50 years later, thousands of pages of investigative documents remain withheld from public view. And this lack of transparency, coupled with intended and unintended deception, have fed into a culture of suspicion, cynicism and general disbelief. Rumor and conspiracy love a vacuum.
This blog will raise some of these questions in the next days on this, the 50th anniversary of the murder.
A number of years ago a cynical graffito read "Revolution is the opiate of the intellectual." This is an unsettling notion, that all progress, all efforts at change, whether intentional or accidental, are placebos. So the Clinton health plan, now the Obama plan, was originally designed to control costs in health care but now is sold as an expansion of coverage. All federal studies on guns have shown a random association with violence but we try to outlaw them anyway to decrease violence. We raise our budget commitment to education without any proof money helps. We trumpet equality without any consideration for its declared antagonist, liberty. And now transparency.
The levers of government certainly should be in plain sight. But should all the government acts be scrutinized? Indeed, do they have any such intention? Or is this banner just another placebo?
In the last generations many examples might jump to mind that highlight the question of transparently but the argument can be made that the assassination of JFK is a virtual embodiment of the question. Libraries of information have been generated over the event. And rumor and conspiracy love disconnected information.
And remember, even now, 50 years later, thousands of pages of investigative documents remain withheld from public view. And this lack of transparency, coupled with intended and unintended deception, have fed into a culture of suspicion, cynicism and general disbelief. Rumor and conspiracy love a vacuum.
This blog will raise some of these questions in the next days on this, the 50th anniversary of the murder.
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