An integral part of candidate Barack Obama's presidential platform, was a promise to maintain a transparent administration; with the predictable caveats (for national security & etc) in place. Undoubtedly, this President and his Cabinet, have been more readily accessible to the news media, than his predecessor was. Meanwhile Organizing for America ─ the grassroots organization behind Obama's election campaign ─ has been leveraged to trumpet his message across the landscape of new media.
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His efforts at transparency have included ─ a televised summit with Republican leaders, in an effort to publicly bridge the political divide surrounding Healthcare Reform ─ the production of weekly addresses to the public, available online, and reminiscent of Roosevelt's Fireside Chats ─ production of other videos by members of the Cabinet such as the White House White Board and West Wing Week ─ and, in a novel move for a sitting president, upcoming appearances on MythBusters and The Daily Show.
All of that, of course, has been shrugged off by detractors, as mere political theater or sinisterly as propagandizing for the liberal agenda. In March 2010, the AP broke a story indicating that the Obama administration hadn't lived up to his campaign promise, of open governance, apparently despite an executive memo dictating that federal agencies should err on the side of disclosure. The story was treated as a back-page news item by the pop-media and didn't get a lot of play, I'd guess because of the White House's response and because, when you look past the apparent hypocrisy suggested by the numbers ─ which showed a moderate drop in FOIA requests, contrasted with a sharp increase in denials for information ─ FOIA requests were being acknowledged and dealt with (if slowly), instead of hanging in bureaucratic limbo such requests were met with during the Bush years.
Still, transparent government transcends accessibility to either officials or requested information. True transparency requires a different political vernacular, than we get from politicians: a rhetoric that acknowledges, if not embraces, the realities and jargon of policy making, rather than the reductionist and banal tripe fed us.
In this weeks presidential address, Obama mentions a Wall Street reform bill ─ in the video, he plays off the Republican threats to "repeal this important legislation," it's an election year, so the politicking is somewhat forgivable ─ but is this address effective? It plays on the fear that the Republican party will gain enough congressional power to undo legislation, which the Democratic base (hypothetically) supports, enough to turn out the vote in a midterm.
If the only goal is an appeal to the base, it may be effective campaign propaganda. But it's an opaque 3-minute 30-second speech, with weak emotional appeal and little informative value, on legislation that was signed into law 4 months ago.
To add some transparency to this weeks address:
The bill in question was H.R. 4173, [full text] titled the: Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. It was signed into law July 21, 2010. House Republicans voted as a block against the bill, tho 4 Republicans broke rank in the Senate to support it's passing ─ Congressional Democrats don't adhere so strongly to the party line ─ this makes the threat of legislative repeal of H.R. 4173 far more plausible. Still, considering the nature of the legislation, I doubt a blanket repeal would happen: it just wouldn't make good political sense.
In essence, what the bill does, is to unify the various financial agencies of the government, under a new Financial Board, chaired by the Treasury Secretary, in a way that not so much consolidates power, as builds a framework for sharing knowledge and generating unified action. Agencies were also created to collate and report financial data to congress. Powers of the FDIC and sister agencies were expanded to cover more of the major corporations, in a way that allows action before financial giants begin to topple, thereby removing the need for future bailouts. Several types of trading that led to the current financial crisis are outlawed or restricted. Provisions were put in place to phaseout the current system of bailouts and restrict the governments ability to issue bailouts. More strident regulations and rules for what and how financial institution must report to the federal government were enacted. A multitude of amendments to consumer & credit law were made, which benefit the working classes.
The Democrats passed a bill which benefits; us, meaning the vast majority of Americans, the 97% to whom they point, time and again ─ as well as regulation which protect the US economy from future recession. Yet, the Republicans seem to be in the stronger position this election cycle, by virtue of having served 2 years acting, effectively, as a roadblock to legislation and playing off the fallacy that all government regulation is bad government regulation. The reality is, we are the government, it is in our interest to regulate unscrupulous and predatory business practices, in every industry, in order to protect the environment, the quality of our lives and our individual sovereignty.
Personally, I don't vote along party lines and despite broadly endorsing and defending the Democratic agenda, the important thing to me is that we all vote, keep informed and participate in the dialog. With that in mind, please share this post and feel free to comment.
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