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More on Behaviorist Manipulations from the White House,
the Case of Cass Sunstein and Jonathan Gruber

As unemployment rises at a terrifying pace, and the Obama White House pushes an increasingly hated agenda, renewed attention has been drawn to the tactics used by the Obama team to manipulate popular opinion. Just such tactics, combined with the complicity of the mass media and the money from hedge funds, worked amazingly well during the electoral campaign, which catapulted Barack Obama to the presidency. Many have wised up to the fact since then. Some examples:

* Cass Sunstein is a notorious behaviorist economist and close confidant of Barack Obama, who appointed him regulatory czar of his Administration. A paper Sunstein wrote in 2008, when he was at Harvard Law School, was just exposed by civil liberties lawyer Glenn Greenwald in salon.com. In this paper, according to Greenwald, it is proposed 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.

"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.'"

Finally, Greenwald quotes from Sunstein's paper directly:

"What can government do about conspiracy theories? Among the things it can do, what should it do? We can readily imagine a series of possible responses. (1) Government might ban conspiracy theorizing. (2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories. (3) Government might itself engage in counterspeech, marshaling arguments to discredit conspiracy theories. (4) Government might formally hire credible private parties to engage in counterspeech. (5) Government might engage in informal communication with such parties, encouraging them to help. Each instrument has a distinctive set of potential effects, or costs and benefits, and each will have a place under imaginable conditions. However, our main policy idea is that government should engage in cognitive infiltration of the groups that produce conspiracy theories, which involves a mix of (3), (4) and (5)."

To which Greenwald responds appropriately:

"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.' That would require, at a bare minumum, a repeal of the First Amendment. Anyone who believes this should, for that reason alone, be barred from any meaningful government position."

* A blatant case of using so-called "independent voices" has recently been revealed. MIT Professor of Economics Jonathan Gruber has been consistently cited by White House officials as an "expert", who fully endorses the Obama health care reform. He testified to that effect at a Senate committee on Nov. 2, and in countless articles and interviews. Never once did he reveal – or the White House for that matter – that he was being paid by the Obama Administration, to develop proposals for health care. As it turns out, the White House has paid him $392,000 since the beginning of 2009, according to firedoglake.com!

The White House blog has repeatedly posted Gruber's work as that of an "independent expert", and the DNC has sent no fewer than 71 emails touting his work. In particular Peter Orszag, White House Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Nancy-Ann DeParle, Director of the Health Reform Office, have been caught in elaborate lying on the subject.

Jonathan Gruber has written op-eds for the New York Times and Washington Post, on the Obama bill. Although both newspapers asked him whether he was being paid by interested parties, he lied and denied it both times, and both have have had to publish apologies/retractions.

Prof. Gruber claims, in particular, that reduction of employer-provided healthcare benefits – as provided for in the Senate bill — will result in increased wages for the workers, as employers pass their "savings" on to the employees, who will then pay more taxes. (An argument only an MIT economics professor could invent.) In fact, Barack Obama repeatedly attacked John McCain during the presidential campaign for supporting such a measure, but has since betrayed the trade unions.

All this has led some of Barack Obama's erstwhile staunchest supporters to break from him in disgust. A case in point is Harper's Magazine. The editorial in the February 2010 issue of the liberal political and cultural monthly is a devastating indictment of Obama for failing to live up to any of his campaign promises, and for continuing all of the unitary executive, permanent warfare policies of Bush-Cheney.

And Mort Zuckerman, editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report, who was a firm Obama campaign backer, lashed out at the President on Jan. 19, accusing him of having "done everything wrong" and of being on the way down — and the column was written before the massive defeat in Massachusetts.

"He didn't address the main issue.... The fiscal program [stimulus] was a disaster. You have to get the money as quickly as possible into the economy. They didn't do that."

And on the healthcare reform, Obama has shown what to Zuckerman is completely unexpected corruption. "In the campaign, he said he would change politics as usual. He did change them. It's now worse than it was. I've now seen the kind of buying off of politicians that I've never seen before. It's politically corrupt and it's starting at the top. It's revolting."

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