Wikileaks exposes everything that's wrong....with the American media
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Wikileaks exposes everything that's wrong....with the American media
The Wikileaks saga is a hard one -- for me there's been something that's been bothering me about the episode from Day One but -- as inarticulate as I've been lately -- I unsurprisingly couldn't quite articulate it. That's why God invented Glenn Greenwald, who of course wrote the uber post on the American media sticking up yet again for the powerful instead of speaking truth to power:
Nonetheless, our government and political culture is so far toward the extreme pole of excessive, improper secrecy that that is clearly the far more significant threat. And few organizations besides WikiLeaks are doing anything to subvert that regime of secrecy, and none is close to its efficacy. It's staggering to watch anyone walk around acting as though the real threat is from excessive disclosures when the impenetrable, always-growing Wall of Secrecy is what has enabled virtually every abuse and transgression of the U.S. government over the last two decades at least.
In sum, I seriously question the judgment of anyone who -- in the face of the orgies of secrecy the U.S. Government enjoys and, more so, the abuses they have accomplished by operating behind it -- decides that the real threat is WikiLeaks for subverting that ability. That's why I said yesterday: one's reaction to WikiLeaks is largely shaped by whether or not one, on balance, supports what the U.S. has been covertly doing in the world by virtue of operating in the dark. I concur wholeheartedly with Digby's superb commentary on this point yesterday:
My personal feeling is that any allegedly democratic government that is so hubristic that it will lie blatantly to the entire world in order to invade a country it has long wanted to invade probably needs a self-correcting mechanism. There are times when it's necessary that the powerful be shown that there are checks on its behavior, particularly when the systems normally designed to do that are breaking down. Now is one of those times. . . . .As for the substance of the revelations, I don't know what the results will be. But in the world of diplomacy, embarrassment is meaningful and I'm not sure that it's a bad thing for all these people to be embarrassed right now. Puncturing a certain kind of self-importance --- especially national self-importance --- may be the most worthwhile thing they do. A little humility is long overdue.
Of course, some would say that the real threat from the Wikileaks' disclosures was another blow to American exceptionalism, the new hot-button issue of 2012. Perhaps. But that's not the media's job to worry about that, only to worry about that truth. A fully functional press -- now that actually would be exceptional.
So when are you giving up the treasure trove of "phillynews" emails sent and received by every editor, journalist, and staff member from the DN and Inky? Puncture your self importance. WE DEMAND TRANSPARENCY FROM PHILLYNEWS!— Mr. Smith
I learned about our Central America policies and the Mexican War while in high school and have never felt "my country right or wrong" made sense since then. Nothing in the current Wikileaks should be much of a surprise. Of course, we did hope that America was an exception to the hidden agendas of other, lesser nations, but that part of American Exceptionalism does not seem to work. Certainly as the first true democratic republic (Athens a democracy, Rome before Empire a republic) the United State has led the way. Furthermore, we prospered by welcoming immigrants from all over the world, or at least we did once in the past. The American seemed to be a different kind of human. The nation led the world and tried to police it. But another country might also claim to be the exceptional leader. China has a history reaching back as far as history reaches back. It contributed at least two major philosophic movements. Although it dropped the ball of world leadership, it is certainly trying to pick that ball up again. So I wonder and worry about Chinese Exceptionalism.— Archimedes- So, just murder a couple hundred million dissidents, and we'll be right back on track, Archie?— Mr. Smith
I suppose every memoir, auto biography of previous presidents, secretaries of defense, state, ex Pentagon brass, generals, etc should all be considered leaks. Recounting history, the truthful information about how decisions were made, upon what factual basis, and for whose benefit, all published year in and year out, but unfortunately too late for current debates, is precisely why wikileaks is important. But having someone a whistle blower can go to and not be worried about being hung out to dry, is really the problem. The 60 Minutes fiasco, as recounted in the Al Pacino film, THE INSIDER, shows that even if you try to do the right thing for something as apparently bad as cigarettes, you can't count on even CBS to get the story out without being intimidated. There will always be great risk in exposing the fraud, the criminality and the lies of business, government, the church, the media or any other powerful institution. Wikileaks is the medium, the active receiver of powerful material that lets a democratically controlled republic have access to its own government, its own society and its own destiny. The people who choose to come forward and expose what they know, are even bigger risk takers. Now, a too big to fail bank is in the cross hairs of transparency. People need to go to jail over what will be revealed, because it will independently confirm what is spilling out into the courts under sworn testimony, the total break down of the rule of law, the lack of due process, the concentration of financial power into nothing short of a cartel that controls the entire economy, from the levels or employment, to the formation of the amount of business enterprise, to the taxes that are the life source of our social order. The republicans have fox news, the rest of us have wikileaks.- Anyone else find it funny that the party who complains that the progressive government is secretly trying to bring about a socialist movement is also the ones complaining about Wikileaks? Poor schizophrenic conservatives have no idea what they want till the talking heads start babbling.— HandNik
- So nations or parties who are vulnerable to retaliation or destruction for cooperation in a greater good/responsible action are not allowed to have any expectation for a confidentiality that would protect them?
The only ones who will be hurt by this are the weaker participants, which completely disagrees with your clumsy opinion, but b/c you are totally unable to step outside your polarized perspective the mental diarrhea keeps spewing from your brain.— notojm - HandNik, when are you going to answer me? What is racist about enforcing immigration laws lol?— texas.troubadour
- Haha. All "support the troops". Here, Karzai is freeing the bad guys fast as those soldiers of ours who aren't dead can catch them. Nice. Way to spend a trillion. And Wiki is the problem. Talk about neanderthal.— CiceroSpuriousDeodatus
- I guess those overly emotional and underthing HandJob and Cicero know better than Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty Internation, where both organizations condemned WikiLeaks. Keep it up, Professors!— Catch22
- correction... should read underthinking and International. (It's much too early for this stuff.)— Catch22
Comment removed.- Comment removed.
HandNik, of course the wankers are complaining. How can they peddle their global islamo-socialist conspiracy theories without government's diplomatic cloak of secrecy intact? As for Bunch's thesis, he again misses the forest for the weeds. The old journalism was always compromised by the traditional costs associated with disseminating the news. From printing presses to sattelite feeds, journalism had to rely on advertising dollars and a marketplace in which money is the only thing talking truth to power (i.e., talking to itself). Truth isn't a commodity, anymore than the air we breathe is a commodity. That's the lesson of Wikileaks.
Thank God for sockpuppets like Greenwald, who have the uncanny ability to feign righteous outrage at the drop of hat. Bush lied, although the rest of the world's intelligence community agreed with the US assessment. Indeed, the US assessment was built with intelligence shared by the world. And heaven forbid that countries act in their own best interests, spying on other countries. How evil we must be to carry on a practice thousands of years old!! Much ado about nothing. The last "leak" probably will get Afghans killed. This lead embarrasses people. Which one is drawing more attention? Yes, shame on the liberal media.— rudytbone- Comment removed.
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