D.J. Tice, commentary editor and columnist with the Star Tribune and a writer, editor and publisher in Twin Cities journalism for nearly four decades, suggested this past week that, “A renewed zeal for secrecy in government seems abroad in many quarters.”
One wonders where he has been conducting his research?
If he happened to be listening in on recent meetings of the Cook County assembled decision makers— county administrator, county attorney and board of commissioners— you’d no doubt understand Tice’s agitated foreboding.
Tice justifiably asks, “Just how much confidence should the public have in establishment institutions’ ability and inclination to scrutinize themselves?
“The whole rationale for open government laws and for conducting public business in public—the whole rationale for journalism and all other troublemaking watchdogs, for that matter— is a conviction that trusting government to keep an eye on itself is not good enough.
“Government agencies have ‘been entrusted’ to keep politics pure? What could possibly go wrong?”
Here, on the home front, we’ve seen what can go wrong when no one’s paying attention. Need I resuscitate the laundry list of miscalculations, snafus and false moves?
Roll back the calendar a couple of centuries—“nothing new under the sun”—to Noah Webster’s oration on the 26th anniversary of The Declaration of Independence, which he delivered in the coastal city of New Haven, Connecticut:
“Nations, like individuals, may be misled by an ardent enthusiasm, which allures them from the standard of practical wisdom, and commits them to the guidance of visionary projectors [people who take others for a ride on a journey to a destination they would rather not go]. By fondly cherishing the opinion that they enjoy some superior advantages of knowledge, or local situation, the rulers of a state [county] may lose the benefit of history and observation [common sense], the surest guides in political affairs; and delude themselves with the belief, that they have wisdom to elude or power to surmount the obstacles which have baffled the exertions [plain hard work] of their predecessors.”
Let’s traverse to the other side of the country to another city located near water: Puget Sound, Seattle, Wash.
Award-wining investigative journalist Mike Adams recounted last week, “Local reporter Eric Johnson recently released a documentary called Seattle is Dying which dared to document the city’s collapse into Third World status. But instead of working to resolve the root of the problem, the city’s elite launched a public-relations campaign to brainwash local citizens with engineered happy messages that are dutifully broadcast by local news networks.
“The Seattle campaign is a case study in what writer James Lindsay calls ‘idea laundering”—creating misinformation and legitimizing it as objective truth through repetition in sympathetic media.” (Ahem . . . excuse me while I take a moment to clear my throat at this point.)
Anyone who dare challenge their “official narrative”—“ messaging” as our county administrator likes to call it—is demeaned, discredited, deplatformed (prevented from utilizing a platform to express their opinion), and ultimately disbarred from any association with the wealthy elite of society.
Adams concludes, “So now, Seattle’s wealthy elite are trying to brainwash the population into rejecting the evidence right in front of their own eyes.” (You may want to pull out your property tax statement at this point)
It’s nonsensical!
Time to contact your commissioner and voice your opinion. As James Madison— who coincidentally happens to be born in a city near water, Port Conway, Virginia, on the Rappahannock River –admonished, “The right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon …has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right.”
“A renewed zeal for secrecy in government” is a trend that needs resisting.
Remember, “What you allow is what will continue …”
Former Cook County Commissioner Garry Gamble is writing this ongoing column about the various ways government works, as well as other topics. At times the column is editorial in nature.
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