It's a good lesson about the need for transparency.We cannot fully snuff out spin, and we will never be able to guarantee perfectresults from policy choices. But we can increase the chances for successfulsocietal decision-making when we at least know the facts.
That's the common-sense rationale behind oursunshine laws. While courts say we can't ban politicians from raising privatemoney, we can force politicians to disclose who their benefactors are so thatwe know what they really represent. We may not bar sugary foodsbut we dorequire nutrition labels so we can know what we are eating.
More often than not, this was the Americancompromise: We fought about regulations and mandates, but there had beenconsensus support for transparency.
"Had been," mind you, is the keyphraseand the cab-driver-induced war is only the beginning.
In 2008, the NewYork Times' David Barstow reported that 75 retired military officersregularly appearing on television "have ties to military contractorsvested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air."
Collectively, the group represented "more than150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board membersor consultants," and here's the kicker: "Those business relationshipsare hardly ever disclosed to viewers."
Had networks reacted to Barstow's blockbuster with better disclosure,we could have rested easy. Instead, the deceptions persist.
The Huffington Post recently showed how "majortelevision networks continue to host retired generals as military analystswithout alerting viewers to their extensive ties to defense contractors."
Additionally, Wiredmagazine reports that neoconservative think-tankers who directly helped craftthe Pentagon's Afghan escalation are now appearing throughout the media asallegedly disinterested analysts of the escalationagain, without any mentionof their concurrent work.
Considering the sometimes murky relationship betweenadvertisers and newsrooms, it's easy to think this opacity is the exclusivetransgression of commercial media. Unfortunately, it's notit has bled into thecountry's single most powerful economic institution, the Federal Reserve.
This is the bank currently lobbying againstcongressional oversight by arguing it must preserve its"independence"the same institution whose regional board members areelected by the private banks they regulate and whose chairman, Ben Bernanke,quietly cavorts with the bank CEOs he's supposed to be independent from. Evenworse, the Fed is paying many of the ostensibly objective economists who sculptthe debate about Congress's Fed policy.
Huffington Post ace reporter Ryan Grim found thatthe Fed today doles out roughly $400 million a year for"research"much of it to outside economists who then advocate for theFed's agenda without disclosing their Fed ties. For instance, seven of theeight economists on a recent anti-oversight letter to Congress failed to notethey are or were on the Fed's payroll.
That blatant chicanery, though, is not the worst ofit. The real subterfuge is how the Fed's shadowy pay scheme bakes an invisiblepro-Fed consensus into our public discourse. Through its academic largesse,Grim notes the Fed "so thoroughly dominates the field of economics thatreal criticism of the central bank has become a career liability for members ofthe profession."
Ronald Reagan, of course, warned us to "trust,but verify." It was good advice, except for one hitch: What happens whenthe verifiers are the ones who can no longer be trusted?
David Sirotais the author of the best-selling books "Hostile Takeover" and"The Uprising." He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado and blogs atOpenLeft.com. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.comor follow him on Twitter @davidsirota.
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