Julian Assange and Hypocrisy
I find the outrage over Wikileaks hypocritical. It is curious how we so easily defend truth and then when it is uncomfortable run and hide. What happened to all this horsepucky about freedom of the press. Where is that 'liberal' media we hear about so often? What about the Pentagon papers or Deep Throat, were they not helpful in presenting just a bit of the backroom shenanigans? Or are the insiders the only ones allowed to spread information even when it is total BS.
A single day of Fox talking heads is so full of distortion, lies, and omissions that a person's head should spin. The nuns told us omission is sin too! Remember Colin Powell's pack of BS to the UN? Is that OK but truth not? Consider the distortions in the New York Times, as well as most MSM, leading up to Iraq, was that OK. Thousands died over that bit of baloney. Can Beck, Limbaugh, Coulter, and other right wing talking heads say any idiocy so long as it is untrue or exaggerated? Consider the WMDs that Cheney found daily and are still found by some, to this day, on a weekly basis? Is that OK? Corporate MSM media had a real scare and wants freedom only in slogan.
"Jack Goldsmith has seven thoughts on Wikileaks, and they may surprise you: “I find myself agreeing with those who think Assange is being unduly vilified. …” “I do not understand why so much ire is directed at Assange and so little at the New York Times. …” http://themoderatevoice.com/94806/the-war-against-wikileaks-julian-assange-and-the-first-amendment/
"Julian Assange, founder of the notorious website WikiLeaks, should be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom."
"Ultimately, of the 251,287 leaked dispatches dating back to 1966, none were labeled “top secret” and only 15,652, or 6 percent, were labeled “secret.” The rest carried the lower security classifications of “confidential” or “classified.”" http://www.nwfdailynews.com/articles/wikileaks-35481-assange-medal.html
A single day of Fox talking heads is so full of distortion, lies, and omissions that a person's head should spin. The nuns told us omission is sin too! Remember Colin Powell's pack of BS to the UN? Is that OK but truth not? Consider the distortions in the New York Times, as well as most MSM, leading up to Iraq, was that OK. Thousands died over that bit of baloney. Can Beck, Limbaugh, Coulter, and other right wing talking heads say any idiocy so long as it is untrue or exaggerated? Consider the WMDs that Cheney found daily and are still found by some, to this day, on a weekly basis? Is that OK? Corporate MSM media had a real scare and wants freedom only in slogan.
"Jack Goldsmith has seven thoughts on Wikileaks, and they may surprise you: “I find myself agreeing with those who think Assange is being unduly vilified. …” “I do not understand why so much ire is directed at Assange and so little at the New York Times. …” http://themoderatevoice.com/94806/the-war-against-wikileaks-julian-assange-and-the-first-amendment/
"Julian Assange, founder of the notorious website WikiLeaks, should be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom."
"Ultimately, of the 251,287 leaked dispatches dating back to 1966, none were labeled “top secret” and only 15,652, or 6 percent, were labeled “secret.” The rest carried the lower security classifications of “confidential” or “classified.”" http://www.nwfdailynews.com/articles/wikileaks-35481-assange-medal.html
Joe Bageant on WikiLeaks
ReplyDelete"Still, I for one am in favor of giving Assange the Médaille militaire, the Noble Prize, 15 virgins in paradise and a billion in cash as a reward for his courage in doing damned well the only significant thing that can be done at this time -- momentarily fucking up government control of information. But "potentially stimulating a new age of U.S. government transparency," (BBC) it ain't."
Take the world recent shaking WikiLeak's "revelations" of Washington's petty misery and drivel, which are scarcely revelations, just more extensive details about what we all already knew. Come on now, is it a revelation that Karzai and his entire government is a nest of fraudulent double-crossing thieves? Or that the US is duplicitous? Or that Angela Merkel is dull? The main revelation in the WikiLeaks affair was the U.S. government's response -- which was to bring US freedom of speech policy firmly in line with China's. Millions of us in cyber ghettoes saw it coming, but our alarm warnings were shouted inside a cyberspace vacuum bell jar.
Read article here.