the art and challenge of figuring things out
15 hours ago
January 24, 2009
Vernacular Republicanism and the Obama Administration
In 2005 Professor Aune and I published an essay on a little known farmer and tavern keeper from Billerica, Massachusetts who wrote a political treatise called The Key of Libberty in 1798 to protest what he saw as the corruption of the few. We began our essay with this extract from Manning's treatise:
"In a free government the few, finding their schemes & vues of interest borne down by the many, to gain the power they cant constitutionally obtain, Always indevour to git it by cunning & corruption, contious at the same time that usurpation when once began the safty of the userper consists ondly in grasping the hole. To efect this no cost nor pains is spared, but they first unite their plans & schemes by asotiations, conventions, & coraspondances with each other. The Merchants asotiate by themselves, the Phitisians by themselves, the Ministers by themselves,the Juditial & Executive Officers are by their professions often called together & know each others minds, & all letirary men & the over grown rich, that can live without labouring, can spare time for consultation. All being bound together by common interest, which is the strongest bond of union, join in their secret corraspondance to counter act the interests of the many & pick their pockets, which is efected ondly for want of the meens of knowledge amounge them."
As you can tell from Manning's non-standard spelling, he was no educated gentleman. Rather, Manning was an average guy who worked for a living, yet still managed to find the time to critique the "cunning & corruption" of the few. What he saw in the machinations of power and in his fellow citizens' blind acquiesce not only angered him, but led him to take action. His Key of Libberty, much like many modern day blogs, was his attempt to critique the government, to expose the cabal of the few, and to educate the many so that they might also see the corruption that he saw. Jim and I argued that Manning's treatise was representative of what we called "vernacular republicanism," or a kind of republicanism "that views the few as corrupt and the many as the rightful rulers of the government."
From Manning's treatise we figured that there were four features of vernacular republican rhetoric:
1. An aggressive use of the rhetoric of critique
2. The demand for transparency in public argument
3. The rejection of elite leadership
4. The belief that decisions must be made in the interest of the common good.
Not only did we find vernacular republicanism in Manning's 1798 treatise, but we thought that those four features were fundamental to all reform rhetoric. Whenever someone is critiquing the government or the elite or demanding change then they are relying (whether implicitly or explicitly) on these four features. And it makes sense that reformers would do so. Quite simply if you're not satisfied with the status quo, then you will aggressively critique they whom you deem corrupt, short-sighted, wrong, etc. You will demand to know how those in power arrived at their (wrong) decisions and you will demand that those in power give a full accounting of their actions. You will reject or question the established leadership and you will demand that new policies reflect the interests of the greater good, not just the elite whom you've judged corrupt.
I have to admit that when we wrote that essay I was thinking of the Bush Administration with all of its corruption and deception. I'm not sure if there has been a more duplicitous or less transparent Administration in American history and so I'm happy to see that President Obama has already reversed some of the worst atrocities of the Bush regime including setting a time table for closing down Guantanamo, abolishing torture, and restoring Americans' right to request (and receive) information from their government. While I certainly hope and am hopeful that the Obama Administration will not abuse its power the way that the Bush Administration did, I know that even in a perfect Administration Americans need transparency in government so that we, like William Manning, can watch and critique our government.
That being said I must lodge my first complaint against the Obama Administration's transparency. During the Clinton Administration I went over to whitehouse.gov and signed up for daily, as it happened, email delivery of everything that Clinton did or said publicly. That's right, a transcript of every public proclamation, appointment, news conference, etc. was emailed to me directly, right into my inbox. I could even get the Press Secretary news briefings and speeches and briefings from Vice-President Gore and First Lady Clinton (I did not choose to get Al and Hillary's stuff). On the day that Bush became president in 2001 this transparency stopped and I no longer received email updates. I thought that maybe I needed to sign up again, it being a new Administration and all, but when I went over to whitehouse.gov I could find no way to do so. I queried their webmaster, but received no response. I missed those emails and I certainly would have loved to have known when President Bush made a signing statement late on the evening of Friday, December 30, 2005 reversing Anti-torture legislation, for example.
Just after President Obama was sworn in I rushed over to whitehouse.gov to see if I could once again keep a watchful eye on my president, but alas I cannot find a way to get these kinds of things emailed to me. I tried signing up in their "get updates" area, but nothing. I tried emailing their suggestions and questions folks, but thus far I've not yet received a response. (Yes, I know that they are busy.)
I believe that your Administration wants to be transparent, so why not do what President Clinton did President Obama and send us the information directly instead of making us look it up on your website every day? We want to be active citizens, please help us. Thanks.
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3 comments:
How much transparency is ok? Shouldn't we have some "smoke" to obscure the view for people who would do harm? I think that the Bush admin and the Obama admin are both allowed to operate behind some of a curtain in order to protect America. Think of FDR and Truman. Not to mention Eisenhower, Kennedy and Reagan. Had FDR sent out an e-mail daily it would have significantly jeopardized national security.
Where is the line? Who draws it?
The cabinet? President?
Just a thought. I for one am for the President's right to preserve some secrecy in order to protect me.
But how do you know that they are using the secrecy to protect you? What if they are using secrecy to harm you? You should be enabled to know what your government is doing at all times. It is YOUR government, after all. You want to be able to own guns to protect yourself, why not be able to acquire information for the same purpose? Why give over your right to protect yourself wholly to the government? Who will protect you from them?
Also, I never got "secret" information, only public information, so really the daily emails did not introduce an additional harm into the security equation.
Well, I guess that you just have to TRUST them. I know, I know, you say Brian? TRUST government??? Yes, i feel that they are elected and they know how to do the job better than I... I don't want to tell them how to do their job anymore than I want them telling me how to do mine. My gun is a "micro-protection factor." I trust them for the macro. Unless you want to give me nukes!?! Yay!! Seriously, WWII absolutely would not have been won if we wouldn't have been able to bomb military and civilian targets. No way, no how. Had all info been let out public opinion would have been swayed and we might have pulled out. That would not have been good. Extreme example? Maybe. However, I do believe very strongly that there are just some things that should be kept veiled. No press, no opinions... Sounds communist, but I do think it is in our best interest collectively. Sorry about ur flood. Booooo!
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