wikileaks: friend or foe?

[Aegle]

Benzyme and saidin themselves have said that they want war and the destruction of western society and that they see wikileaks as a step towards the realisation of that goal.

I do not want, nor condone war or violence of any type. In fact I believe they are antithetical to the goals at hand. I am meerly pointing out that in times of change, violence can happen and lives can be lost. Think more of Kent State and less Moussolini. Western society is already crumbling, and when it falls (and it will) a lot of chaos is inevitable as people are woefully unprepared for what would result.

The system we have does not work, it is bad for the people and it is destroying this planet. Either something changes and we find a new paradigm or we will destroy ourselves, it is as simple as that. Change is inevitable, it must happen if we are to survive, id rather see it come before its too late, and wikileaks to me is a step in the right direction. More information in the hands of the masses is always a good thing in my opinion.

Anybody can easily convince me that i am wrong. You just need to convince me that either of the following four points are wrong:

1-If you want to fight crime or terrorism you need to keep some things secret.

4-If you want society to change, then this can be done peacefully since peacefull protest is allowed in our society's.

If you can proof me wrong on ANY of those four points, then i will immediately admit that i am wrong.

I'll tackle a couple of your points. First off, one mans "terrorist" is another man's "freedom fighter". To use a broad brush stroke term like terrorist could apply to any and all people who believe in their own soverignity as individual rights and freedoms butt directly up against any and all state entities. Secondly you cannot win a "war" against an ideal. The "War on Terrorism" has done nothing more than create more terrorists and make us less safe. The "War on Crime" creates more crime and less freedom in the name of "security". The "War on Poverty" creates more poverty, the "War on Drugs" more problems with drugs. By focusing attention upon it and labeling it as something to be defeated or eradicated you only perpetuate the existence of said malady.

There is no such thing as a terrorist. It is a word used by one government to set its populace against another whom it deems different or unworthy. It is a fabricated enemy, a ruse to keep the population from looking at the wrongs being perpetuated in their own back yard, and instead to some mythical enemy "over there".

To #4. Yes, I agree that all long lasting and meaningful change should come about by peaceful means. Peaceful protest is allowed in many societies, but it is severly restricted, and has been dealt with heavy handedly quite often. Wikileaks is the ultimate peaceful protest, allowing all to have at their disposal the information to make a reasoned decision as to whether we want the kind of dealings our "leaders" are perputating in our name. They represent US, and I for one want to know exactly what they are doing in that regard.

How can we "elect" people to carry out our will if all that they do is hidden behind closed doors? Or they are allowed to say one thing and do another?

Saidin

Couldn't agree more...


Much Peace and Sunshine

 

[polytrip]

I would want there to be a whistle blower protocol that would offer legal protection to any whistle blower who has information that could either save lives or would reveal any kind of unjustice. I believe that such a protocol would ensure that if anybody thinks he has information that falls into this category he would know what to do.
If THEN somebody would not follow this protocol, you would know he would know for sure he has other than higher moral motives and he could be prosecuted with good reason.

agreed

I apologize for getting a bit riled, I tend to get very antagonistic against anything resembling or supporting neoconservativism; that ideology represents everything that suppresses the common man who helped build the infrastructure to begin with, with no regard to the loss of human life or environmental harm on their climb to the top of the food-chain.
The Halliburtons, the BPs, the Wal-Marts, the Phizers,the Monsantos...the list goes on and on

I suddenly realise that i have the same antagonistic reflexes against anything smelling neocon.

There are strong anti-government sentiments as well on the far-left as on the far-right and i'm allergic to both actually.

The far left anti-government sentiments are of an anarchistic nature and based on the assumption that if there would be no government, there would be no opression, no racism, no sexism, etc.
To achieve this utopia everything is permitted.

I reckon that in america this far-left anti-government anarchism is more rare than here in europe, where especially in greece you see terror attacks regularly as well as other forms of extreme violence from anarchists.

The anti-government sentiment from the far-right is more worrysome, because it is more widespread, both in america as in europe and probably elsewhere around the world.
It is based on a sort of economic semi-darwinism, that idealises socio-economic inequality. It's utopic vision is of a sort of 19th century-like class society that generates huge economic growth at the expence of the economically weaker groups in society.
This anti-government sentiment is often sold as 'economic liberty'. It hails the free market and pretents to do so out of libertarian motives.

This motives are obviously a disguise for the real motives these people have, because on social issues, on civil rights, on individual freedom, these people almost never hold libertarian views. The freedom that's hailed by people like those of the infamous 'teaparty' movement are always solely economic of nature and they're always solely about the liberty's of big company's to exploit the poor and to exploit the earth.

The absence of labour-rights are pretended to be and absence of social restrictions and the irony is that the far right takes advantage of the tunnel-vision mindset, the exploited have as a result of their daily strugle to get by, to fool them into supporting their politic's. the teaparty movement is a classic example of how this is done.
It pretents to be for 'the common man', but in reality it is everything but that. In reality there is hardly any movement thinkable in america at this moment that would be more against the interests of the common man, than the teaparty movement.

 

[benzyme]

anti-gov't i am not...i am anti-gov't coverup..

I don't care for them coddling big businesses deemed "too big to fail", and banks, and insurance conglomerates. In short, I suppose it's not gov't I have a problem with...I have an issue with large corporations having such strong influence on government. This backscratching business really needs to stop. IMO, they've caused wayyy more harm than good.

my solution? get informed with what businesses have been doing, support local businesses over franchises, learn self-sufficiency..

these are things that could be implimented after becoming informed about what treacherous nonsense corporations have been involved with. These politicians are in power only because of the money they raise from corporations we support.
If I had to choose a side, i'd say i have moderate libertarian ideals. you're right, it doesn't make sense to lean too far to either side.

 

[burnt]

You nailed it polytrip with fake libertarianism and tea party. People who like to manipulate people love to convince the easily duped that individual freedom is the same as corporate freedom.

Benz: The worst relationship between business and the government is in the areas of military and law enforcement. This is the scariest relationship with business and government in my opinion and the first one that needs to go. The problem is we can't boycott prisons and weapons manufacturers because we are not the "consumer" the state both domestic and foreign is. I see no easy solution to this other then to expose it in a way thats so blatantly obvious people can't ignore it anymore. This is why I think wikileaks is doing a huge service.

 

[polytrip]

And the irony is that all these dirty backdoor deals we're not supposed to know about don't even give these company's a competitive edge, most of the time.

Company's constantly lobby against all sorts of regulation. This lobying usually exists for a great part out of spreading doomsday scenario's how bad it will be if this new regulation would make it through the whole parliamentary procedures.

But once a new regulation is there, it hardly ever means the end of the world as predicted and since it automatically aplies to every busines there is no competitive disadvantage for anybody.

If this weird regulation for cars that would legally make them fall in the category of large trucks so they could dodge safety and environmental regulations in america, would never have been there for instance, i'm sure GM would have been in a much better state.
While GM has been the greatest proponent of this weird legal designerloophole.

 

[polytrip]

Western society is already crumbling, and when it falls (and it will) a lot of chaos is inevitable as people are woefully unprepared for what would result.

The system we have does not work, it is bad for the people and it is destroying this planet. Either something changes and we find a new paradigm or we will destroy ourselves, it is as simple as that. Change is inevitable, it must happen if we are to survive, id rather see it come before its too late

I very much fear that you are right.

I am a westerner in every way, though my mother was born and raised in asia. I have in many ways become accustomed to being a westerner and i have loved western culture, it's history, architecture, diversity, art, music, philosophy.

But the rise of anti-islamic sentiments and xenophobia in europe have made me seen another side of western culture for wich i've been blind for a long time.
Although i am still convinced that the vast majority of europeans is not anti-islamic nor xenophobic, in many ways we are betraying the values we claim to hold on a daily basis.

We are dancing on the edge of a cliff and though a part of me still has hope that we will make a turn somehow to the right side, it increasingly looks like we won't be able to do this.

The sad thing is that we may have fucked up the planet so enormously that other civilisations will plunge with us into chaos and poverty.

 

[aetherbound]

If wikileaks can help put a stop to things like this from happening again then I am all for them!

http://humantrafficking.change.org/blog/view/wikileaks_reveals_us_tax_dollars_fund_child_sex_slavery_in_afghanistan

Aetherbound

 

[olympus mon]

ia agree aetherbound i hope so too.

only we the people can stop these atrocity's from happening. wikileaks is just the wake up call to the soundly sleeping masses that will hopefully motivate change.

 

[polytrip]

Sometimes it seems as if all the horror sci-fi scenario's written many years ago from brave new world to 1984 and so on, have all become reality in an even more scary way than any writer could have imagined.

But the most scary part is that we're to blame for it ourselves, because we've all been accepting how this stuff was forced upon ourselves and others.
We've just been selling out our own lives. And some other stuff with it, like our souls.

It's time for a cultural revolution.

 

[hummus]

http://greenanarchy.info/

 

[Cheeto]

wow, im amazed at the things im reading here, for a minute i was thinkg the whole world was crazy and needed to just die, reading the responses from people on wikileaks articles(Washington Post, NYT...). For some odd reason, most of the responces i read where what i would consider the opposite of humane. like "He should be executed for exposing government deception". While ignoring the information presented.

Im not sure if any of you remember, but i knew Ron Paul should have been elected as president, and most people don't even know he ran....even though he broke a record for fun internet donnations. He see's wikileaks as a good thing and posses the same reasonable question, "People are ignoring the problem presented while shouting to kill the messanger". I've even talked to a few people who just seem to have wierd, inhumane ways of viewing the situation. Like one for example, i showed the helicopter video to said, "well, things like that happen in war, they should have not messed with us to cause the war, i wouldn't mind if we just bombed and killed them all, women and childrean".

I still think there something about 9/11 thats untruthful, we either did it ourselves, or allowed it to happen as an excuse to go to war.

 

[benzyme]

like "He should be executed for exposing government deception".

there are a lot of trolls out there, people who just like to get a rise out of liberal types

and there are a lot of lackies.
maladaptive, "god-fearin'" types

in short, people who lack the ability to use critical thinking.

 

[Cheeto]

in short, people who lack the ability to use critical thinking.

ha, i've been saying that for years. Its easy to read something and simply spit it back out at someone, its harder to use your head to question what you've read and gain your own opinion.

 

[polytrip]

like "He should be executed for exposing government deception".

in short, people who lack the ability to use critical thinking.

People who still think that ordinary iraqi's had anything to do with 9/11 are a bit worse than that; they WILLINGLY lack the ability to use critical thinking.

 

[proto-pax]

Wiki leaks won't do anything. No one has even read the cables, it's just news filtered down through the agencies. No one would know about it and no one does except from carefully selected bits and pieces that the 5 oclock news deems worthy.


nothing will get done from this it they aren't good or bad its just more garbage to create a clog and draw attention away from the real issue that is the total marginalization of anything outside societal norms. assange is being played like a puppet. Soon we will have a wikileaks that caters to every political spectrum. it's all clogging up the airwaves nothing new.

 

[endlessness]

I understand the anger but can you please tone down your language, proto-pax? Im sure youve seen in the attitude that we want to maintain a certain level of communication here. Thank you (no offense intended)

 

[proto-pax]

Sorry, I just see this thread and I think that even us, about as far out as you can get from normal society are still buying into the garbage if it's packaged right.

I mean are we honestly debating this? IT's completely irrelevant towards anything, they may not control what wikileaks releases, but they will control what we see from those leaks.

 

[Saidin]

I mean are we honestly debating this? IT's completely irrelevant towards anything, they may not control what wikileaks releases, but they will control what we see from those leaks.

Do you realize that you can go to wikileaks site and read the entire cables as they are released? I guess not. You don't need your Main Stream Media outlets to redact them for you...

 

[polytrip]

Sorry, I just see this thread and I think that even us, about as far out as you can get from normal society are still buying into the garbage if it's packaged right.

I mean are we honestly debating this? IT's completely irrelevant towards anything, they may not control what wikileaks releases, but they will control what we see from those leaks.

It is not irrelevant. Assange is being hunted like a fox. I can't believe that anybody could even think there isn't any relation between the swedish/british judicial bullshit against him and wikileaks. It's obviously a political trial that's taking place and this is something everybody should agree on whether you like wikileaks or not.

An international arrest warrant goes out in a case that the swedish prosecuter initially had dismissed as irrelevant, years after the suposed 'crime' was commited but almost simultaneously with wikileaks release of information, considering a case of consentual sex between adults where the 'crime' would be that during this, a condom got damaged and the women in case being not very pleased with this afterwards.
This whole afair, to make it even stranger is surounded by vagueness about whether it was sweden or the UK who came up with the very idea of extradition. If i'm correct it was a swedish request based upon british judicial advice to do this request.

The whole case is just so extremely unlikely. There are international illegal armsdealers who don't even have international arrest warrants gone out against them. There are people who commercially trade child pornograhy who don't even have international arrest warrants gone out against them.

Wikileaks would be relevant for the western governments responses alone.

 

[dumbstruck]

Interesting developments here. I apologize I have not read most of this thread but I don't believe any of what I am going to mention has already been said.

First. If anyone is aware of Cryptome, it is essentially wikileaks but has been around since 1996. "Cryptome welcomes documents for publication that are prohibited by governments worldwide, in particular material on freedom of expression, privacy, cryptology, dual-use technologies, national security, intelligence, and secret governance—open, secret and classified documents—but not limited to those.".

Cryptome has been publishing lots of info in the past couple days about Wikileaks. Cables are being edited, entire paragraphs have been removed, other things changed for usually a clear end. http://www.privetbank.com.ua/cablegate/index.html is a website with a big green button saying "download cable diff now!". It is being constantly updated as things are edited. Also on Cryptome is other intriguing developments such as questionable funding and charging newspapers or other sources an exorbitant amount of money.

I loved Wikileaks since I became aware of it. I have recently (past month and a half or so) been questioning their long term effectiveness. Too much centralized power. Such things always lead to corruption or dishonesty eventually. You can imagine my SHEER DELIGHT upon reading about Openleaks! You may remember a falling out with some of Assange's closest members in the news a couple months back. Well, they have crystallized their issues and provided a new method addressing them. News article here -> Wikileaks defectors to launch Openleaks alternative .

Essentially it gives any place that wants it the power to install a "leak button" on their site. So any source can be leaked to directly. I am most happy with the mention in the article about how it will increase the ability for local situations to be dealt with. It is fairly difficult to expose corruption in your town or county through a system like Wikileaks. This system also has the benefit of being decentralized and therefore run less of a risk of nefarious manipulation.

You will have to read the article for the specifics. I am hopeful with these ideas. That is not to say this system would be without issues -- it certainly would. But it will require significant discussion to produce even a rudimentary understanding of the (completely different) implications involved.

edit: The following site has the deleted and changed cables online, on the left hand side bar. http://www.mein-parteibuch.org.nyud.net/cablegate/ . At the bottom of the initial list is links to a change log, changes over time, most recent changes, and also a blog type entry discussing the issue.