Curtains
These days it seems that there is a lot of discussion about political transparency, and that’s a most needed discussion, which has been a long time in coming. However, while this is a positive approach to stating what must take place within politics, it is prompted by its negative aspect, which is more to the point of the problem and to which we will here call political curtains.
Though not widely used, the term ‘curtains’ can refer to the hiding of information and actions of which the public should be fully informed. Often politicians will state that certain ideas be held from the public for the public’s own good. This may be true in times of war (and thus one of the reasons that the United States has a war of one sort or another every 4 years or so (Cf. Smedley Butler’s “War is a Racket” for more information on this), but there are limits to such acceptance.
In fact, this is a grave argument against modern war in general. Not only does it impinge upon the lives and well being of soldiers and the enemy, likewise, it harms the people of the United States, or any other nation practicing the use of curtains. The reasons for this are that rights are stricken greatly or even completely, as with martial law in general, and more specifically, as with the Patriot Act and all of its subsequent modifications.
This is not to say that such programs are bad per se; only when they are abused or used for means other than which they were created. For instance, President George W. Bush now faces being censured by congress due to possibly overstepping his constitutionally-given powers for conducting wire taps without a warrant. (This is in no way to defame (or defend, for that matter) the president, but to provide an example of political maneuverings which are purely unconstitutional and meant to be hidden from the American people.)
Other examples of curtains -or political escapades, accidents, snafus, or faux pas that initially utilized political smokescreens are the Clinton-Lewinsky sex scandal, the Savings and Loan scandal, the little spoken of Exxon Valdez cleanup bill (which was quietly paid for by taxpayers), the Iran-Contra Affair, and of course, the mighty Watergate scandal.
While everyone has their own opinions about the levels of severity of each of these scandals, the simple fact is that all of these situations began in secrecy -behind closed windows with “you-know-what” closing those windows, metaphorical or not. It is the job of every citizen, politician, and journalist to honestly and impartially expose and weigh the value of such secrets and what they mean to America, the world, and to decency.
