164 replies to this topic

[medicineman]

Is it me, or is this world descending into a new age of fascism and thought control, with all this attempt at suppressing truth?????


Im surprised no one started a topic here about this HUGE issue, which not only has political repercussions, but also philosophical and practical ones in each of our lives. No one is surprised by the claims these documents make. Whoever didn't know that American soldiers are not exactly righteous, that Karzai was corrupt, or that Russian government is a big mafia, or the Gulf states have a deep seated paranoia towards Iran, has been ignorant of world affairs in the past 10 years.

What is shocking is the extent of suppression of information. The western world has been highly critical of Chinese censorship of information, suppression of the Tien Mien square incident, etc. and yet the attempt at suppressing this information has been unreal.

Any opinions?

Edited by medicineman, 04 December 2010 - 11:49 PM.

[maxwatt]

Like what you said, basically. No real surprises.

Diplomats have always talked this way to one another in private. Now it's been made public. Had it been a series of slow leaks, a story or two released every week, it would have been little different than the New York Times reporting a series of leaks from confidential sources. The sheer volume of data is what makes it disconcerting. State and CIA should have hacked into the files and planted a huge volume of false stories, some equally embarrassing to what's there, and altered some stories in random ways, then pointed out the files were corrupt so no one would know what to believe.

What does Assange think he's accomplishing? There's hardly a government on earth thinks well of him. If you piss everyone off, there's no place to hide. If you think having the Mafia mad at you is trouble, dozens of nation-states is worse. His life is not worth a rat's fart now. I wonder how he'll manage to release the "Megabank news leak" he's promised for January.

[Rational Madman]

I believe the dumping of 250,000 diplomatic cables to be one of the most captivating stories to come to the surface in perhaps a decade of news, but nothing earth shattering has been uncovered---and I suspect nothing will. This is because the actions of government agencies are highly transparent, and subjected to merciless scrutiny from legislative bodies and the media. So beyond confirming long standing suspicions, I see little point in the entire enterprise. Rather, the biggest losers of this affair will be the champions of transparency, because national governments will respond by increasing the number of classified documents, and slowing the pace of declassification. Furthermore, the leaking of the cables will have the unintended consequence of weakening agencies most committed to averting warfare and interstate-tensions, and whom as a consequence, will be forced to yield significant policy making ground to hawks in the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency. This is because the success of their efforts depend in part on the promise of secrecy, and the comfort with knowing that they have freedom to be candid with their thoughts. But for the foreseeable future, formerly cordial relationships between diplomats will be replaced with enduring suspicions and insecurity, and the independent thinking of diplomats will be almost wholly sacrificed. Inside the department that I was strongly considering future employment, for example, employment interviews have been delayed, background checks have greatly intensified, and employees have been subjected to unimaginable pressure to maintain absolute secrecy, to conform their analyses with the official position, and to work long and arduous hours. As a consequence, I and other candidates are seriously reconsidering employment at the State Department, because we fear it will take years for the agency to recover from these wounds, and don't look forward to working in such a stifling and burdensome bureaucratic environment.

In my opinion, Assange is nothing more than an anarchist, and he's intent on destroying all forms of authority---regardless of ideology. He is a most loathsome figure that's deserving of a life time of incarceration, but I don't want to make a martyr out of him. Rather, I would prefer that his hypocrisy be exposed in an upcoming sexual molestation trial in Sweden, and as his organization inevitably fragments due to his authoritarian managerial style. And by embarrassing nearly every national government on the planet, he is about to live a very lonely life on the run, in incarceration, in ceaseless litigation, and will likely meet possible death at the hands of the illiberal governments that he has incurred the wrath of in his deeply misguided idealistic crusade.

This topic is radiating with energy, but I have no desire to allow it to become a protracted debate on this forum, and will not be a party to such, but I ask that potential defenders seriously consider the consequences of Assange's recklessness. Presently, I'm so seething with anger over this affair that I can barely contain myself, and have not hesitated to end formerly cherished friendships without a second thought, and spew the most spiteful words that I could possibly summon. So in the interest of harmony, I've decided to exclude myself from future discussions of the topic.

Edited by Rol82, 05 December 2010 - 04:42 AM.

[niner]

Rol82, I am in complete agreement with you. Assange is just another anarchist asshat, but he's far more dangerous than most. I am very much in favor of transparency, but this latest episode isn't transparency, it's just pointless, destructive stupidity. I do like the idea of pointing a lens at Wall Street, but only if it is done to expose wrongdoing. That shouldn't be too hard.

[medicineman]

no matter how dangerous the truth might be, i dont think it should be a punishable crime...

[chris w]

The western world has been highly critical of Chinese censorship of information, suppression of the Tien Mien square incident, etc. and yet the attempt at suppressing this information has been unreal.

Any opinions?

Yes, but still, bear in mind that a Chinese "Private Manning" would have had his balls electro - shocked by now, and worse to come. If you're going to be an informer/traitor ( whichever one chooses to call Manning ) then as things stand today, only in liberal democracy you have a chance of keeping your head and neck connected, having done that. As twisted as that is, it's a strenght of sorts.

I feel kind of sorry for this soldier ( which isn't that very often ). It looks from all this like he may not be the sharpest tool in the shed and was just used by the celebrity-esque Assange, thinking that he's contributing to some grand good, whereas he's gotten his life wasted so that it could be revelead to the world that "Putin is really the back seat driving alpha" or "Pakistan isn't a reliable US ally", things everybody knew or should've known.

That said, there still are some little poos that did hit the fan - Hillary ordering to "gather data" is just low, it will make American foreign service people get treated like leppers by their counterparts, for some time at least. More important, the Iranian and Korean stuff that got leaked might contribute to further heating things up - Israelis may decide that the ultimate carte blanche is finally theirs, since now it's official that virtually everybody in the region wants the Iranian problem solved, somehow, by somebody. Also the Kims realising that China will turn their backs on them whenever the wind changes couldn't happen in a worse moment than this.

Really, unless Assange in fact does have some major game changers stashed and yet to be revelead, then his just making things worse then they could have been, I think.

Edited by chris w, 05 December 2010 - 01:47 PM.

[Brainbox]

What did wikileaks reveal objectively? Not much. If you read a good newspaper nothing (well almost) could be a big surprise.

What did it reveal subjectively at the level of emotional involvement? Just the fact that diplomats are human. That they use "WTF" type of language and like to make funny associations just like anyone of us.

So what is the big deal? I think the fact that these documents, that describe communication of informal or even personal level that was considered safe, are now in the public domain in stead of being kept within a certain environment of intimacy or even privacy . Consider the following. If my thoughts that I express at e.g. a project meeting at work would all have the risk of becoming public, normal communication would be almost impossible if they were to be judged like the wikileak documents.

The major question might be: Why are these exposed expressions judged like they are? First I think that the level of hype that is caused by the type of journalism that is aimed at quick results is of great influence. The level of attention does not match the objective journalistic value. Secondly, this high level of attention triggers our (otherwise healthy) feeling of suspicion against government administrations. Causing the amplification of the already unbalanced fiction / fact ratio even more. And a form of populist judgement might be something like this: "These a**holes that live from our tax money are no better than we are. We have to obey their rules of engagement they do not even respect themselves".

A kind of Jungian projection of fear, guilt or whatever by the general public? And a likewise disproportional reaction of the establishment?

[david ellis]

Really, unless Assange in fact does have some major game changers stashed and yet to be revelead, then his just making things worse then they could have been, I think.

Assange's "BankOfAmericaGate" is a problem that isn't fully revealed. I don't know what he has but it might be the possibility that most CDO's (Collateralized debt obligations) are not backed by actual mortgages. Countrywide stopped forwarding the mortgage paper work in 2002.

So all of those financial outfits that were rescued in 2008 might have to be rescued again. Because if the CDO's they sold were not backed by actual assets (the mortgage paperwork), the original sellers can be sued for recovery. The financial pain and collapse experienced in 2008 could happen again as we face another "too big to fail" insolvency banking crisis.

I don't think we can know too much about this crisis, so I am looking forward to the release of what Assange has.

[eternaltraveler]

it isn't even theoretically possible for democracy to work if the population isn't aware of what the government does or how it conducts business.

the problem with the information release is that it's being filtered through a biased source who is selectively releasing it to further whatever agenda it has, and it's not even close to enough.

[DairyProducts]

Did anyone else notice that right after the Bank of America announcement, both Pay Pal and Amazon dropped the site from their servers? I wonder if it was pressure from governments or pressure from B of A that made them do that.

[PWAIN]

If BOA gets brought down by wikileaks, thousands of people are going to lose their jobs in a bad market. If BOA goes down, it could cause an avalanche, crashing the US economy and then the world economy, plunging million, possibly billions into unemployment, poverty and desperation. I doubt they'll have too many supporters then. Although this scenario is unlikely, it is certainly possible given the fragile world economy - honestly when was the last time Italy or Ireland mattered to the world economy?

Some things should be made public, and some things shouldn't. Extreme views on either side of this are like extreme view in every sphere of life - wrong, plain and simple. A balanced middle ground ALWAYS wins out.

Governments are going to clamp down making secrecy a priority and make it nearly impossible to leak information in the future which may well be stuff that should actually be leaked - not some stupid Batman and Robin stuff.

JA comes across as someone with some serious social issues. Can we afford to have international diplomacy and government agents security compromised for what is nothing more than a very naughty little boy???

[Connor MacLeod]

Assange is now going after Obama: article

"The whole chain of command who was aware of this order, and approved it, must resign if the US is to be seen to be a credible nation that obeys the rule of law. The order is so serious it may well have been put to the president for approval," Julian Assange told Spanish daily El Pais."Obama must answer what he knew about this illegal order and when. If he refuses to answer or there is evidence he approved of these actions, he must resign," he added during an Internet chat interview published online.

[PWAIN]

Assange is now going after Obama: article

"The whole chain of command who was aware of this order, and approved it, must resign if the US is to be seen to be a credible nation that obeys the rule of law. The order is so serious it may well have been put to the president for approval," Julian Assange told Spanish daily El Pais."Obama must answer what he knew about this illegal order and when. If he refuses to answer or there is evidence he approved of these actions, he must resign," he added during an Internet chat interview published online.

I think the term "God Complex" comes to mind when dealing with someone like this...

[lunarsolarpower]

Secondly, this high level of attention triggers our (otherwise healthy) feeling of suspicion against government administrations.

If anything it's kind of refreshing how pretty much everything coming out shows that the diplomats were doing their jobs and really there hasn't been anything that would have been too difficult to guess beforehand (with the possible exception of the Saudi king's Iran comment).

The scandal is - there pretty much is no scandal.

[JLL]

In my opinion, Assange is nothing more than an anarchist, and he's intent on destroying all forms of authority---regardless of ideology. He is a most loathsome figure that's deserving of a life time of incarceration, but I don't want to make a martyr out of him.

Wow, you must be a terrible person to want that kind of fate for an innocent guy. What is his crime? What's wrong with destroying authority? Do we need authority? Do you? I don't.

[JLL]

Let me just be the contrarian once again and say that I have the utmost respect for Julian Assange for doing what he's doing. He's risking his life to do something that should be, according to statists, a basic tenet of democracy -- openness. And now the same statists hate him for it!

[PWAIN]

Let me just be the contrarian once again and say that I have the utmost respect for Julian Assange for doing what he's doing. He's risking his life to do something that should be, according to statists, a basic tenet of democracy -- openness. And now the same statists hate him for it!

So you think that this sort of thing is ok then do you??

http://news.smh.com....1206-18mve.html

This about a guy with a problem with authority (strict dad probably), not exposing corruption and wrongdoing. Personally I think his family (mum, wife and son) are probably more likely targets since this will more likely stop him in his tracks than going after him directly. Already they are working on his credibility as a rapist. Watch this space, there will be more.

People may have principles, but if they are wrong, no amount of conviction will make them right. Extreme openness just like extreme secrecy is a bad thing. There is a middle ground here and I think governments do a pretty good job of finding that balance.

[Rational Madman]

Let me just be the contrarian once again and say that I have the utmost respect for Julian Assange for doing what he's doing. He's risking his life to do something that should be, according to statists, a basic tenet of democracy -- openness. And now the same statists hate him for it!

So you think that this sort of thing is ok then do you??

http://news.smh.com....1206-18mve.html

This about a guy with a problem with authority (strict dad probably), not exposing corruption and wrongdoing. Personally I think his family (mum, wife and son) are probably more likely targets since this will more likely stop him in his tracks than going after him directly. Already they are working on his credibility as a rapist. Watch this space, there will be more.

People may have principles, but if they are wrong, no amount of conviction will make them right. Extreme openness just like extreme secrecy is a bad thing. There is a middle ground here and I think governments do a pretty good job of finding that balance.

I've reached the point where I've decided to stop dignifying obtuse ideologues, because engaging them comes with too many opportunity costs, and is so very draining. For many, it would take a seismic phenomenon to force a reevaluation of their dogmatism, so there is very little that the sound minded can do to transcend the barriers that they've erected around their minds.

[JLL]

Let me just be the contrarian once again and say that I have the utmost respect for Julian Assange for doing what he's doing. He's risking his life to do something that should be, according to statists, a basic tenet of democracy -- openness. And now the same statists hate him for it!

So you think that this sort of thing is ok then do you??

http://news.smh.com....1206-18mve.html

Yes.

People may have principles, but if they are wrong, no amount of conviction will make them right. Extreme openness just like extreme secrecy is a bad thing. There is a middle ground here and I think governments do a pretty good job of finding that balance.

Well you must live in a dream world of your own then.

[medicineman]

Julian Assange's swiss acount which has approximately 40,000 euros has been frozen..

Authoritarianism kicked into high gear!!

Edited by medicineman, 06 December 2010 - 08:10 PM.

[Brainbox]

it isn't even theoretically possible for democracy to work if the population isn't aware of what the government does or how it conducts business.

the problem with the information release is that it's being filtered through a biased source who is selectively releasing it to further whatever agenda it has, and it's not even close to enough.

In principle I agree. Do we need to know all the greasy details that obfuscates the essence when we already did elect a parliament that does the democracy bit in a professional way? The way wikileaks does implement the openness looks a lot like diplomatic pornography to me. Maybe appealing at a first glance but only delivering a short term satisfaction that kills the appetite for the real thing.

The scandal is - there pretty much is no scandal.

Exactly. Wikileaks, the place where hoax and hype collide.

[medicineman]

this story is unfolding in a painful manner. Assange is arrested for failing to wear a condom in one instance and for continuing sex despite a broken condom in another instance. this is horrific.

[EmbraceUnity]

For many, it would take a seismic phenomenon to force a reevaluation of their dogmatism, so there is very little that the sound minded can do to transcend the barriers that they've erected around their minds.

Truer words were never spoken. Maybe someday you will look back and wonder why you ever thought such ridiculous things.

You would probably be wise to read this article.

http://www.independe...icle.asp?id=798

In that passionate and ideologically inspired tract, Mills explicated a concept that I have called to mind frequently over the years—never more however than in the past year and a half—the concept of “crackpot realism.”

For Mills, this signified a frame of mind characteristic of what another elite theorist, Thomas R. Dye, has called “the serious people” of the governing circles. Such people are to be distinguished from the glad-handing, back-slapping buffoons who seek and gain election to public office. The electoral office seekers are specialists: they know how to get votes, but as a rule they know nothing about how to “run a railroad,” whether that railroad be a business, a government agency, or any other sort of large operating organization. So, after the election, the elected office holders always turn to the serious people to run the show—the Dick Cheneys and the Donald Rumsfelds, to pick not so randomly from the current corps.

The serious people always pretend to be the grownups, as opposed to the starry-eyed rest of us, who couldn’t run Halliburton or G. D. Searle & Co. if our lives depended on it. These are the sorts of executives who are tempted to, and sometimes actually do, roll their eyes at the silly questions journalists ask them at press conferences. Visibly pained by the necessity of spelling out the facts of life, they explain that childish things, such as keeping the country at peace, simply won’t get the job done. Sometimes, the public must recognize that as a no-nonsense response to the harsh situation we face, the serious people have to drop some bombs here and there in order to reestablish a proper arrangement of the world’s currently disordered affairs. The serious people are frequently to be found “stabilizing” something or other.

Trouble is, Mills explained, these serious people are fools. They seem to know what’s going on, and how to right what’s wrong with the world, only if one accepts their own view of how the world works. So “practical” are these serious people, however, that they understand nothing beyond their noses and outside the circle of their own constricted understanding and experience. Strange to say, the power elite does not get out much—remember the first President Bush’s amazement when he, a former Director of Central Intelligence, visited a supermarket and encountered for the first time the mind-boggling technology of a bar-code reader at the checkout counter. Especially when these movers and shakers deal with matters of war and peace, they continue to make the same sorts of disastrous decisions over and over, constantly squandering opportunities to maintain the peace, almost invariably painting themselves into corners of their own making, and all too often deciding that the only option that makes sense in their predicament is to bomb their way out.

[medicineman]

The independent institute?? what the hell!?

EmbraceUnity, i didn't think you read from sources such as the independent institute.

[EmbraceUnity]

The independent institute?? what the hell!?

EmbraceUnity, i didn't think you read from sources such as the independent institute.

I was just looking for a good article on Crackpot Realism, and that happened to fit the bill. It was written about the Bush Administration but applies well to the US government generally, especially people like Rol.

I don't really mind the Independent Institute, though clearly I would have a lot of issues with their right-libertarian authors, but they don't seem exclusively right-libertarian.

[e Volution]

Isn't WikiLeaks for whistle blowing? What's wrong with whistle blowing, isn't it a good thing? The problem is that I think most/all of us agree that some aspects of WikiLeaks is good, like for example WikiLeaks and Julian Assange winning Amnesty International's UK Media Award for the 2008 publication of "Kenya: The Cry of Blood – Extra Judicial Killings and Disappearances". So it is futile saying X is good or X is bad, because human nature is so diverse that there will always be people on both sides of the debate. So I think you either need to argue WikiLeaks or anything like it should be banned entirely (totally ridiculous), or STFU and deal with it!

I think it is silly focusing on Assange in this whole thing. The Internet has opened up a new age, where any information good or bad can be made available to every human being on the planet. This has never before been possible, and has nothing to to with Assange, he just happens to be the head of this initial movement. Wikileaks is mirrored by more than 800 different websites, the hacking group known as anonymous are now massively Denial of Servicing (DoS) any company who has severred ties with WikiLieaks and Assange. Seriously, this is not about one guy or one website. I just hope everything works out for Assange, because his living future is looking rather bleak right now. The movement will go on regardless, I would bet the house on that one.

[niner]

Isn't WikiLeaks for whistle blowing? What's wrong with whistle blowing, isn't it a good thing?

Yes, whistle blowing is a good thing, but the latest information dump doesn't appear to be whistle blowing; it appears to be little more than vandalism. International relationships and trust were damaged without any beneficial effect. Transparency is great, but there are some places where transparency is not needed, and may well be harmful. This latest event seems more like ripping the curtains off the bathroom window than providing sunlight where it's needed. Wikileaks should have skipped this one and gone directly to BofA, where a little more transparency might be useful.

[Rational Madman]

As I said before, I don't want to get drawn into a protracted debate on the subject, which invariably gives rise to childish ad-hominem, hyperbolic, provocative, and facile discourse. But I think I'll post a portion of the text of a recent communication with another member, and just allow the debate to proceed at its own momentum:

In consideration of the credibility of the critics, I very much hope that the evidence against Assange is substantive, and I'm skeptical of the politically motivated charges for the following reasons:
-Both of the accusers are long standing members of the Social Democratic Party.
-The second accuser---other than Ardin---has not gone on the record publicly, and originally was alleging rape. So I suspect the prosecutor's office has additional details that they haven't made public.
-Assange's claim of wanting to cooperate with the prosecutors seems disingenuous, otherwise, why the evading tactics?
-I've examined the history of the Swedish prosecutor, Eva Finne, and unless I'm mistaken, she doesn't seem to have a record that suggests a strong political ambition. More than anything else, her history indicates a devoted interest in women's rights issues.
-Even with the Moderate Party in power, Sweden has never distinguished itself as being a slavish follower of American foreign policy. Rather, its foreign policy has been strikingly independent, and even under conservative rule, its embrace of the United States has been very cautious and politically calculated.
-Because both incidents occurred within a short period, I suspect that Assange's behavior is pathological, and once the trial begins, it's likely that more victims will surface. This is what Assange probably fears the most, and likely formed a large part of the basis of his reluctance to cooperate.

I think it's evident that Assange is seriously mentally ill, but what's more, he was playing with dynamite without any serious restraints. And although I agree with the notion of transparency, and reducing the incidence of war, I don't think his efforts have made meaningful contribution towards these goals. Instead, the potential of diplomacy has been greatly reduced, the position of the hawks has hardened (and strengthened), governments will be inclined to be substantially more secretive, bureaucratic behavior will become exponentially more dysfunctional, and overall, the incidence of conflict between state and non-state actors will consequentially increase. In my opinion, I think a journalistic filter is requisite, because journalists usually have no reservations with making enemies with governments, and they and their organizations have the capacity and objectivity to distinguish newsworthy items with dangerous items. Wikleaks has never had the staff, or an apparent desire to make these distinctions. Indeed, Assange has demonstrated a callous disregard for the potential costs. In an exchange with Amnesty International, for instance, he expressed a stunning indifference to their plea to remove the names of the nearly 100 coalition collaborators that were left in the contents of his Afghanistan dump. His desire to leak documents about Bank of America is also exceedingly troubling, because the interconnected nature of our economy means that it takes only one failure of a major financial institution to lead to the onset of a crisis of credit, confidence, and output. In these crises, they are most acutely felt by the bottom quintile, because of their reduced capacity to absorb the shock. Overall, people like Assange represent extreme threats to societies, because their targets are indiscriminate, and their level of personal restraint is almost non-existent. So even if I personally find the tactics being employed as questionable and troubling, I think the ends more than justifies the means.

On a personal note, I've been informed that the scheduled oral examinations for State Department job candidates has unofficially been put off indefinitely, and that chaos has ensued in the department since the latest dump. Current employees are under tremendous pressure, in the form of crippling scrutiny of their backgrounds and work, and harsh treatment of the slightest deviances. Further, there are whispers of a number of ambassadors and staff members being shuffled around the globe, which couldn't come at a better time, of course. So I'm thinking about accepting a job with a forecasting company in Texas, but I have to get my better half to agree first.

Finally, the state of discourse is becoming unbearable, and I'm starting to wonder why I've spent so much precious time on message boards like Imminst. First, participation may lead to a negligence of more immediate relationships. Second, I don't imagine I'll ever meet anyone on this board, and third, the relative reward of participation seems highly dubious. So I think follow the path of so many formerly active members, and spend my time more productively elsewhere. This is not to say that I didn't enjoy myself here, or am not thankful for some of the benefits gained through my experiences interacting with other members. But the amount of pleasure gained through participation has been diminishing progressively, so I think it's time to move on.

Edited by Rol82, 08 December 2010 - 08:30 AM.

[medicineman]

that is unfortunate rol. you have been a very productive member of this forum. reconsider, and at least join us occasionally in some political banter.

[e Volution]

Isn't WikiLeaks for whistle blowing? What's wrong with whistle blowing, isn't it a good thing?

Yes, whistle blowing is a good thing, but the latest information dump doesn't appear to be whistle blowing; it appears to be little more than vandalism. International relationships and trust were damaged without any beneficial effect. Transparency is great, but there are some places where transparency is not needed, and may well be harmful. This latest event seems more like ripping the curtains off the bathroom window than providing sunlight where it's needed. Wikileaks should have skipped this one and gone directly to BofA, where a little more transparency might be useful.

But niner, who is to be the judge where this transparency is needed, or not? You and I as pill-popping Immortalists have vast commonalities in many of our views, yet we disagree on this one. I'm sure the government of Kenya was tooting the same horn you are with the release in 2008. It is ridiculous to think an objective opinion can be made on this matter, so I think you guys are being really short sighted. This is why I said previously that you either need to be outright against the entire concept, or just deal with the fact that throughout history all human technology has been a double edged sword. There are a lot of people still complaining about nuclear technology too, and robots replacing jobs, ad nauseum.

What would you guys be saying when if in the future WikiLeaks is a massively geo-diverse distributed entity, akin to a peer to peer network with no central server or location or person in charge running the show? Are you going to complain about the network of thousands/millions of individuals who believe all information should be transparent? It's not an unrealistic scenario by any means.

Don't shoot the messenger!