Statism and Wikileaks 20 Dec 2010 So, I have not said much about Wikileaks because it is as discussed a topic as can be, but I’m feeling curmudgeonly, so here goes. Regular programming will resume after this rant. Dogs gotta howl, cats gotta kill small things, and states gotta act like secretive bastards. And woe betide anyone who uncovers their secrets. Used to be that the press did this, but ever since they were all bought by the superrich, who also bought governments, the press doesn’t do much of anything any more. Mostly, the press talks about celebrity. When I were a lad, nobody talked about celebrities. Like hell they didn’t. Anyway, I am a bit taken aback at the ferocity of the attack on Assange and Wikileaks, while at the same time not at all surprised that an attack occurred. Nor am I surprised that the same critics who call for Assange to be killed, abducted, imprisoned (when he hasn’t committed any crime, especially not in the jurisdiction of the United States), and generally harassed (leaving aside suspicions about the sexual assault charges being a pretext for extradition to the US) have nothing to say about the media doing effectively the same thing. Nobody is seeking the owners of the New York Times (which is in the US jurisdiction) or The Guardian (which isn’t) for prosecution under the Espionage Act. I’m not even surprised that my own Prime Minister prejudged the case by calling one of her own citizens, who hasn’t been charged with a crime regarding the leaks, and to whom she owe by law protection and assistance, a criminal and a terrorist. The Obama administration is merely acting like all American administrations, as shills for the military, and Australian governments act as shills for America. If you don’t know this by now, I suspect all you have been watching is the panem et circensis of X-Factor or Strictly Come Dancing. Which is, after all, what they are for. No, the real lesson is the extent to which the professional political classes of the west are statists. They have no concern for their citizenry. They have no concern for their economies or even for the corporations or big labor organisations they nominally represent. They only care that they are in power, or might get into power, and so the state is what they care about, so they can have that power. So they, the statists, call Wikileaks “anarchism”, “terrorism”, “criminal” and “dangerous”, even though none of these things are true. One shouldn’t be surprised that American politicians and pundits cannot use English terms correctly, since they call extreme conservatism “liberalism” and fascism “conservatism”, let alone what they do to terms like “law”, “rights” and “justice”. Or “democracy”. But I am slightly shocked, as the last vestiges of my naivety and idealism is burned away, that Australian and British and German politicians would call the free dissemination of information that is clearly in the public interest an act of terrorism. With that kind of Newspeak, I expect that freely voting for representatives in parliaments will become “insurrection” very soon. The first book I ever read was 1984. I am horrified that it turned out to be a documentary of the future of democratic liberalism. We are not in a democracy any more. We are in a statist oligarchy. Enjoy… Censorship Politics Rant
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I wish I knew. Last time we had a Civil War, and a lot of social unrest. I fear that someone will suggest a revolution.
We had a civil war? I thought the closest we had to that was the Eureka Stockade. Hardly a Gettysburg or Cromwellian event.
But, then it’d be our cricket team and the Ashes would be some pathological fraternal squabble. We can’t have that. I prefer my pathological squabbles to be inter, not intra, national. On a more serious note. I think posts like yours and whatever other channels are available to supporters of liberal democracy are the only means we have to support freedom of information and to protest the powers that be. If we pick up the gun, pike or sword, and loose then we’re a seditious rabble. If we do the same and win, we are just the new them. No. We have to find avenues to unite those who get it, and inspire those who are reachable. That’s why I conditionally support Wikileaks. Keep posting fellow secularist.
Can you just skip the Civil War, and move on to the next Glorious Revolution. Mind you, it’s something to ponder that way back in the 17th century when Parliament and Charles I were heading to a showdown, the justifications for Executive secrecy were much the same, and the complaints against them were little different than now. In one corner you had the Sovereign, that delightful Stuart king born and bred on notions of Absolutism, insisting that Parliament had but one job, and that was to provide him with coin for his foreign ventures, but it had no business asking him how and where it was being spent, let alone having any advisory or supervisory role over what was the Sovereign’s rights. In the other corner, you have the Parliamentarians, or at least a reasonable large fraction of them, who thought that what the King was up to in foreign lands, spending the English peoples’ coin on God-knows-what, was their business. Now, once again, we have the Executives of several states making precisely the same argument as Charles I, that the people have no need to know, that they should simply be trusted. What truly amazes me about all of this is the mundanity of so much of the information thus far released. It frightens me from the respect that if governments are keeping even what amounts to court gossip secret, then the notion of state secrets has become a net so wide as to be designed to hide anything, and probably everything. I cannot argue that state secrets are necessary, that some information, if widely circulated, could have deleterious effects upon the United States and its allies, but for a state to keep secrets from its citizens in a justifiable fashion the state must show itself to be trustworthy, and many states have shown quite the opposite; that they, by sitting on even the least interesting bits of information, clearly have “don’t tell” as the default action. It’s hard to say where this will all go. The US bringing charges against Assange is a legally dubious maneuver, but I have little doubt that Sweden, if for no other reason than they won’t long want to hold this hot potato, will happily pass him along to US hands. Some people will of course react angrily to this, but for a revolution of any kind to happen it has to be more than the angry minority, it has to be the average citizen as well. That’s why the Pentagon Papers were so successful, they proved to an already restive public in the US that the Vietnam War was a costly, deadly failure. It turned the growing skepticism into absolute certainty that the US was on the wrong course, and, politically, getting out of Vietnam became absolutely necessary. The real problem with Wikileaks right now is that the information filtering out isn’t nearly provocative enough. The only thing that can save Assange, or at least see a sea change in the public’s view of their governments is real dirt, and not whether or not Prince Andrew tells awkward jokes at dinner parties.
Actually, Joe Lieberman has called for the investigation of the NYT on Espionage Act grounds, on Fox News. As you say, enjoy.
The NYT already went through this with the Pentagon Papers. It’s a whole lot of bluster, which is all Lieberman is good for any more.
The first book I ever read was 1984. I am horrified that it turned out to be a documentary of the future of democratic liberalism. We are not in a democracy any more. We are in a statist oligarchy.</blockquote. Very well said, and very troubling. I'm not a big fan of wikileaks. However, it provides a needed service. I am appalled by the vitriol being directed at Assange. If we have all become slaves to the oligarchy, then I'm afraid that we (as US citizens) have shown by our actions that we deserve it.
Democracy without meaningful public information is at best just a big game of Let’s Make a Deal: “Well, Mrs Kresky, do you want what’s behind curtain number one or what’s behind curtain number two?” An informed public is impossible unless elites want it to happen; but our ruling classes, the plutocrats and the technocrats, don’t have democratic values and haven’t for many years. Unfortunately, it isn’t just the movers and shakers who privately think “authoritarian capitalism is the worst form of government except for all the others.” There are obviously a lot of reasons why things are turning out as they are, but the hollowness of our political piety is one of them.
I liked the take of one pundit that “hactivism” is the new way to deliver a social message – insurrection without the sickles and hammers. At the point that the “normal” citizenry gets involved in a non-physically violent way (“normal” as less than 1% or people have the skills, let alone the inclination), and starts mounting DoS attacks en masse on PayPal and etc, then boycotting services, and this snowballs, the internet becomes the next battleground, and the powers that be discover just how fucked up their playing space can get when they take on everyman. You say you want a revolution? The net is the next step in our cultural evolution, which started with the printing press..then there is the whole business of faux “representative government”, (the “lobocracy”, thanks JW) which could be substantially avoided if people got to choose where their own, personal income tax money went, dollar by dollar… wouldn’t that destroy the whole power-structure.
What kind of convoluted thinking connects the sexual assault charges in Sweden to the U.S.? Not your nonsense, theirs. Did Assange ask for help from the Australian Embassy in the UK, to be turned down?
I don’t know about the embassy help: our PM effectively said he was a terrorist, and had to back down when challenged largely by bloggers and independent MPs. But it is not beyond belief that the US State Department might have pulled some strings to get Assange charged so he would be in custody and thus extraditable for Espionage Act charges (which are right now being prepared). The sexual assault charges would thus be a useful pretext. I am not presuming he is innocent of breaking Swedish law, however. Still, it is suspicious that he was cooperative, interviewed, granted permission to leave Sweden, and that the charges were withdrawn, only to be resubmitted by a separate prosecutor later. That has a smell about it. Especially since apparently that prosecutor is a known extreme conservative.
I liked the take of one pundit that “hactivism” is the new way to deliver a social message – insurrection without the sickles and hammers. At the point that the “normal” citizenry gets involved in a non-physically violent way (“normal” as less than 1% or people have the skills, let alone the inclination), and starts mounting DoS attacks en masse on PayPal and etc, then boycotting services, and this snowballs, the internet becomes the next battleground, and the powers that be discover just how fucked up their playing space can get when they take on everyman. You say you want a revolution? The net is the next step in our cultural evolution, which started with the printing press..then there is the whole business of faux “representative government”, (the “lobocracy”, thanks JW) which could be substantially avoided if people got to choose where their own, personal income tax money went, dollar by dollar… wouldn’t that destroy the whole power-structure.