"Goodness and Superior Wisdom" - Greenwald tears the Self-Selected a new alimentary port
Mort Zuckerman
Durlan...@yale.edu, Aa...@columbia.edu, gary_w...@nymc.edu,
scientifi...@ostp.gov, pkru...@princeton.edu,
Stanle...@fiu.edu, emcsw...@niaid.nih.gov, afa...@niaid.nih.gov,
Spin...@yahoogroups.com, kshe...@calea.org, fit...@gmail.com,
patrick.f...@usdoj.gov, model...@sbcglobal.net,
jdr...@nejm.org, let...@courant.com, Jgerb...@cdc.gov,
michae...@po.state.ct.us, con...@po.state.ct.us, executive-
edi...@nytimes.com, managin...@nytimes.com, news-
ti...@nytimes.com, biz...@nytimes.com, for...@nytimes.com,
nati...@nytimes.com, dv...@cdc.gov, brigidc...@optonline.net,
tr...@hotmail.com, illino...@aol.com, jle...@courant.com,
tinaj...@yahoo.com, jhorn...@fff.org, thomas...@usdoj.gov,
thoma...@po.state.ct.us, kur...@washpost.com,
georg...@washpost.com, p...@allegorypress.com,
commissi...@po.state.ct.us, brans...@comcast.net,
vts...@comcast.net, o...@po.state.ct.us, freet...@charter.net,
scott....@po.state.ct.us, govern...@po.state.ct.us,
attorney...@po.state.ct.us, randall...@usdoj.gov,
Robert....@yale.edu, edi...@greenwich-post.com,
harol...@yale.edu, sedm...@nswbc.org, rrmcg...@aol.com,
fr...@nytimes.com, dpr...@stmartin.edu
Cc: fra...@ucia.gov, dr-ahma...@president.ir,
eugener...@washpost.com, afa...@niaid.nih.gov,
bmi...@newstimes.com, tr...@hotmail.com, rast...@aol.com,
billc...@gmail.com, amcg...@rms-law.com, rjmu...@aol.com,
paulcrai...@yahoo.com, sidney_b...@yahoo.com,
criminal...@usdoj.gov, karla.d...@usdoj.gov,
christophe...@usdoj.gov, richar...@yale.edu,
harol...@yale.edu, james.p...@yale.edu, inq...@aldf.com,
ly...@idsociety.org, meganm...@theatlantic.com
Subject: "Goodness and Superior Wisdom" - Greenwald tears the Self-
Selected a new alimentary port
Date: Jan 15, 2010 5:27 PM
Yep.
Can't say us'n "crazy conspiracy
theorists" weren't right about Pam3Cys
immune dysregulation:
http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/01/slides/3680s2_11.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=pam3cys[All%20Fields]%20AND%20tlr2[All%20Fields]&cmd=DetailsSearch&log$=details
Or that Yale's Ben Bunney studies
the brain damage caused by psychotropics:
http://www.actionlyme.org/BUNNEY_YALE_BRAIN_DAMAGE.htm
Or 911 Thermate and controlled demolition:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0GHVEKrhng
http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_apc.pdf
Bloomberg on "puts"
http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/sept11/bloombberg_20suspicious.html
Or Saddam's bioweapons and "Plum Island"
strains of mycoplasma:
http://www.actionlyme.org/PIIB.htm
John Loftus was a US Attorney whose
job was to chase NAZIs:
http://www.actionlyme.org/johnloftusbushnazi.htm
"If we combined the 911 investigation
with the Enron investigation, we would
find Bush Senior, trading with the
enemy, once again."
=======================================
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/15-13
Published on Friday, January 15, 2010 by Salon.com
Obama Confidant's Spine-Chilling Proposal
by Glenn Greenwald
Cass Sunstein has long been one of Barack Obama's closest confidants.
Often mentioned as a likely Obama nominee to the Supreme Court,
Sunstein is currently Obama's head of the Office of Information and
Regulatory Affairs where, among other things, he is responsible for
"overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and
statistical programs." In 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Sunstein
co-wrote a truly pernicious paper proposing that the U.S. Government
employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-"independent" advocates to
"cognitively infiltrate" online groups and websites -- as well as
other activist groups -- which advocate views that Sunstein deems
"false conspiracy theories" about the Government. This would be
designed to increase citizens' faith in government officials and
undermine the credibility of conspiracists. The paper's abstract can
be read, and the full paper downloaded, here.
Sunstein advocates that the Government's stealth infiltration should
be accomplished by sending covert agents into "chat rooms, online
social networks, or even real-space groups." He also proposes that
the Government make secret payments to so-called "independent"
credible voices to bolster the Government's messaging (on the ground
that those who don't believe government sources will be more inclined
to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on
behalf of the Government). This program would target those
advocating false "conspiracy theories," which they define to mean: "an
attempt to explain an event or practice by reference to the
machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal
their role." Sunstein's 2008 paper was flagged by this blogger, and
then amplified in an excellent report by Raw Story's Daniel Tencer.
There's no evidence that the Obama administration has actually
implemented a program exactly of the type advocated by Sunstein,
though in light of this paper and the fact that Sunstein's position
would include exactly such policies, that question certainly ought to
be asked. Regardless, Sunstein's closeness to the President, as well
as the highly influential position he occupies, merits an examination
of the mentality behind what he wrote. This isn't an instance where
some government official wrote a bizarre paper in college 30 years ago
about matters unrelated to his official powers; this was written 18
months ago, at a time when the ascendancy of Sunstein's close friend
to the Presidency looked likely, in exactly the area he now oversees.
Additionally, the government-controlled messaging that Sunstein
desires has been a prominent feature of U.S. Government actions over
the last decade, including in some recently revealed practices of the
current administration, and the mindset in which it is grounded
explains a great deal about our political class. All of that makes
Sunstein's paper worth examining in greater detail.
* * * * *
Initially, note how similar Sunstein's proposal is to multiple,
controversial stealth efforts by the Bush administration to secretly
influence and shape our political debates. The Bush Pentagon employed
teams of former Generals to pose as "independent analysts" in the
media while secretly coordinating their talking points and messaging
about wars and detention policies with the Pentagon. Bush officials
secretly paid supposedly "independent" voices, such as Armstrong
Williams and Maggie Gallagher, to advocate pro-Bush policies while
failing to disclose their contracts. In Iraq, the Bush Pentagon hired
a company, Lincoln Park, which paid newspapers to plant pro-U.S.
articles while pretending it came from Iraqi citizens. In response to
all of this, Democrats typically accused the Bush administration of
engaging in government-sponsored propaganda -- and when it was done
domestically, suggested this was illegal propaganda. Indeed, there is
a very strong case to make that what Sunstein is advocating is itself
illegal under long-standing statutes prohibiting government
"propaganda" within the U.S., aimed at American citizens:
As explained in a March 21, 2005 report by the Congressional
Research Service, "publicity or propaganda" is defined by the U.S.
Government Accountability Office (GAO) to mean either (1) self-
aggrandizement by public officials, (2) purely partisan activity, or
(3) "covert propaganda." By covert propaganda, GAO means information
which originates from the government but is unattributed and made to
appear as though it came from a third party.
Covert government propaganda is exactly what Sunstein craves. His
mentality is indistinguishable from the Bush mindset that led to these
abuses, and he hardly tries to claim otherwise. Indeed, he favorably
cites both the covert Lincoln Park program as well as Paul Bremer's
closing of Iraqi newspapers which published stories the U.S.
Government disliked, and justifies them as arguably necessary to
combat "false conspiracy theories" in Iraq -- the same goal Sunstein
has for the U.S.
Sunstein's response to these criticisms is easy to find in what he
writes, and is as telling as the proposal itself. He acknowledges
that some "conspiracy theories" previously dismissed as insane and
fringe have turned out to be entirely true (his examples: the CIA
really did secretly administer LSD in "mind control" experiments; the
DOD really did plot the commission of terrorist acts inside the U.S.
with the intent to blame Castro; the Nixon White House really did bug
the DNC headquarters). Given that history, how could it possibly be
justified for the U.S. Government to institute covert programs
designed to undermine anti-government "conspiracy theories," discredit
government critics, and increase faith and trust in government
pronouncements? Because, says Sunstein, such powers are warranted
only when wielded by truly well-intentioned government officials who
want to spread The Truth and Do Good -- i.e., when used by people like
Cass Sunstein and Barack Obama:
Throughout, we assume a well-motivated government that aims to
eliminate conspiracy theories, or draw their poison, if and only if
social welfare is improved by doing so.
But it's precisely because the Government is so often not "well-
motivated" that such powers are so dangerous. Advocating them on the
ground that "we will use them well" is every authoritarian's claim.
More than anything else, this is the toxic mentality that consumes our
political culture: when our side does X, X is Good, because we're
Good and are working for Good outcomes. That was what led hordes of
Bush followers to endorse the same large-government surveillance
programs they long claimed to oppose, and what leads so many Obama
supporters now to justify actions that they spent the last eight years
opposing.
* * * * *
Consider the recent revelation that the Obama administration has been
making very large, undisclosed payments to MIT Professor Jonathan
Gruber to provide consultation on the President's health care plan.
With this lucrative arrangement in place, Gruber spent the entire year
offering public justifications for Obama's health care plan, typically
without disclosing these payments, and far worse, was repeatedly held
out by the White House -- falsely -- as an "independent" or
"objective" authority. Obama allies in the media constantly cited
Gruber's analysis to support their defenses of the President's plan,
and the White House, in turn, then cited those media reports as proof
that their plan would succeed. This created an infinite "feedback
loop" in favor of Obama's health care plan which -- unbeknownst to the
public -- was all being generated by someone who was receiving
hundreds of thousands of dollars in secret from the administration
(read this to see exactly how it worked).
In other words, this arrangement was quite similar to the Armstrong
Williams and Maggie Gallagher scandals which Democrats, in virtual
lockstep, condemned. Paul Krugman, for instance, in 2005 angrily
lambasted right-wing pundits and policy analysts who received secret,
undisclosed payments, and said they lack "intellectual integrity"; he
specifically cited the Armstrong Williams case. Yet the very same
Paul Krugman last week attacked Marcy Wheeler for helping to uncover
the Gruber payments by accusing her of being "just like the right-
wingers with their endless supply of fake scandals." What is one key
difference? Unlike Williams and Gallagher, Jonathan Gruber is a Good,
Well-Intentioned Person with Good Views -- he favors health care --
and so massive, undisclosed payments from the same administration he's
defending are dismissed as a "fake scandal."
Sunstein himself -- as part of his 2008 paper -- explicitly advocates
that the Government should pay what he calls "credible independent
experts" to advocate on the Government's behalf, a policy he says
would be more effective because people don't trust the Government
itself and would only listen to people they believe are
"independent." In so arguing, Sunstein cites the Armstrong Williams
scandal not as something that is wrong in itself, but as a potential
risk of this tactic (i.e., that it might leak out), and thus suggests
that "government can supply these independent experts with information
and perhaps prod them into action from behind the scenes," but warns
that "too close a connection will be self-defeating if it is
exposed." In other words, Sunstein wants the Government to replicate
the Armstrong Williams arrangement as a means of more credibly
disseminating propaganda -- i.e., pretending that someone is an
"independent" expert when they're actually being "prodded" and even
paid "behind the scenes" by the Government -- but he wants to be more
careful about how the arrangement is described (don't make the control
explicit) so that embarrassment can be avoided if it ends up being
exposed.
In this 2008 paper, then, Sunstein advocated, in essence, exactly what
the Obama administration has been doing all year with Gruber:
covertly paying people who can be falsely held up as "independent"
analysts in order to more credibly promote the Government line. Most
Democrats agreed this was a deceitful and dangerous act when Bush did
it, but with Obama and some of his supporters, undisclosed
arrangements of this sort seem to be different. Why? Because, as
Sunstein puts it: we have "a well-motivated government" doing this so
that "social welfare is improved." Thus, just like state secrets,
indefinite detention, military commissions and covert, unauthorized
wars, what was once deemed so pernicious during the Bush years --
coordinated government/media propaganda -- is instantaneously
transformed into something Good.
* * * * *
What is most odious and revealing about Sunstein's worldview is his
condescending, self-loving belief that "false conspiracy theories" are
largely the province of fringe, ignorant Internet masses and the
Muslim world. That, he claims, is where these conspiracy theories
thrive most vibrantly, and he focuses on various 9/11 theories -- both
domestically and in Muslim countries -- as his prime example.
It's certainly true that one can easily find irrational conspiracy
theories in those venues, but some of the most destructive "false
conspiracy theories" have emanated from the very entity Sunstein wants
to endow with covert propaganda power: namely, the U.S. Government
itself, along with its elite media defenders. Moreover, "crazy
conspiracy theorist" has long been the favorite epithet of those same
parties to discredit people trying to expose elite wrongdoing and
corruption.
Who is it who relentlessly spread "false conspiracy theories" of
Saddam-engineered anthrax attacks and Iraq-created mushroom clouds and
a Ba'athist/Al-Qaeda alliance -- the most destructive conspiracy
theories of the last generation? And who is it who demonized as
"conspiracy-mongers" people who warned that the U.S. Government was
illegally spying on its citizens, systematically torturing people,
attempting to establish permanent bases in the Middle East, or
engineering massive bailout plans to transfer extreme wealth to the
industries which own the Government? The most chronic and dangerous
purveyors of "conspiracy theory" games are the very people Sunstein
thinks should be empowered to control our political debates through
deceit and government resources: namely, the Government itself and
the Enlightened Elite like him.
It is this history of government deceit and wrongdoing that renders
Sunstein's desire to use covert propaganda to "undermine" anti-
government speech so repugnant. The reason conspiracy theories
resonate so much is precisely that people have learned -- rationally
-- to distrust government actions and statements. Sunstein's proposed
covert propaganda scheme is a perfect illustration of why that is. In
other words, people don't trust the Government and "conspiracy
theories" are so pervasive is precisely because government is
typically filled with people like Cass Sunstein, who think that
systematic deceit and government-sponsored manipulation are justified
by their own Goodness and Superior Wisdom.
UPDATE: I don't want to make this primarily about the Gruber scandal
-- I cited that only as an example of the type of mischief that this
mindset produces -- but just to respond quickly to the typical Gruber
defenses already appearing in comments: (1) Gruber's work was only
for HHS and had nothing to do with the White House (false); (2) he
should have disclosed his payments, but the White House did nothing
wrong (false: it repeatedly described him as "independent" and
"objective" and constantly cited allied media stories based in
Gruber's work); (3) Gruber advocated views he would have advocated
anyway in the absence of payment (probably true, but wasn't that also
true for life-long conservative Armstrong Williams, life-long social
conservative Maggie Gallagher, and the pro-war Pentagon Generals, all
of whom mounted the same defense?); and (4) Williams/Gallagher were
explicitly paid to advocate particular views while Gruber wasn't
(true: that's exactly the arrangement Sunstein advocates to avoid
"embarrassment" in the event of disclosure, and it's absurd to suggest
that someone being paid many hundreds of thousands of dollars is
unaware of what their paymasters want said; that's why disclosure is
so imperative).
The point is that there are severe dangers to the Government covertly
using its resources to "infiltrate" discussions and to shape political
debates using undisclosed and manipulative means. It's called "covert
propaganda" and it should be opposed regardless of who is in control
of it or what its policy aims are.
UPDATE II: Ironically, this is the same administration that recently
announced a new regulation dictating that "bloggers who review
products must disclose any connection with advertisers, including, in
most cases, the receipt of free products and whether or not they were
paid in any way by advertisers, as occurs frequently." Without such
disclosure, the administration reasoned, the public may not be aware
of important hidden incentives (h/t pasquin). Yet the same
administration pays an MIT analyst hundreds of thousands of dollars to
advocate their most controversial proposed program while they hold him
out as "objective," and selects as their Chief Regulator someone who
wants government agents to covertly mold political discussions
"anonymously or even with false identities."
UPDATE III: Just to get a sense for what an extremist Cass Sunstein
is (which itself is ironic, given that his paper calls for "cognitive
infiltration of extremist groups," as the Abstract puts it), marvel at
this paragraph:
So Sunstein isn't calling right now for proposals (1) and (2) --
having Government "ban conspiracy theorizing" or "impose some kind of
tax on those who" do it -- but he says "each will have a place under
imaginable conditions." I'd love to know the "conditions" under which
the government-enforced banning of conspiracy theories or the
imposition of taxes on those who advocate them will "have a place."
Anyone who believes this should, for that reason alone, be barred from
any meaningful government position.
© 2010 Salon.com
Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights
litigator in New York. He is the author of the New York Times
Bestselling book "How Would a Patriot Act?," a critique of the Bush
administration's use of executive power, released in May 2006. His
second book, "A Tragic Legacy", examines the Bush legacy.
"[Real] scientists are *fiercely* independent. That's the good
news."-- NIH's Top Fool, Anthony Fauci