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Sanya12364 Posts
mmp, Don't psychoanalyze people over the Internet.
Hawk, you are mistaken about the process of Wikileaks with respect to the Diplomatic Cables. As for the first organization of its archetype, I believe that it's great that Assange has reached celebrity status. It creates a draw for more copycat organizations based on the same mission of supporting whistle-blowers.
On the other hand, OpenLeaks appears to make a silly differentiation. They don't want to be in the position to leak their source names? But that has hardly been the problem with Wikileaks. The salient point seems to be that they just don't want any liability for leaks and they are much more loosely associated with the contents of leaks.
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On December 24 2010 02:19 TanGeng wrote:
mmp, Don't psychoanalyze people over the Internet.
Hawk, you are mistaken about the process of Wikileaks with respect to the Diplomatic Cables. As for the first organization of its archetype, I believe that it's great that Assange has reached celebrity status. It creates a draw for more copycat organizations based on the same mission of supporting whistle-blowers.
On the other hand, OpenLeaks appears to make a silly differentiation. They don't want to be in the position to leak their source names? But that has hardly been the problem with Wikileaks. The salient point seems to be that they just don't want any liability for leaks and they are much more loosely associated with the contents of leaks.
Basically, the crux of my argument is that wikileaks does not differentiate between whistleblowers and disgruntled employees looking to rattle cages. Whistleblowers expose corrupt, ethical violations, rule or law breaking, etc. There's a major difference between Daniel Ellsberg, who knew there was corruption before blowing it all up (I'm pretty sure, but it's been a while since I read about that stuff), and someone just taking a whole bunch of classified documents and leaking them, with the hopes of something shitty being in there. One is a hero, the other is not.
That part of the reasoning for starting openleaks, I don't get. Hell, for all we know, it could be just for a business opportunity (wikileaks doesn't disclose its funding and donations, and I'm sure the undisclosed figure that Julian got for his book deal is enticing). However, my point was more about the thing I quoted about his personal politics affecting releases. People have acting as if this new form of media was incapable of such things.
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On December 23 2010 23:08 mmp wrote:
It is also worth noting that it is only the American elites and their political sympathizers at home that seem to find Wikileaks so goddamn boring. As far as I've read, just about everyone else in the free-thinking world seems to be very interested in and supportive of Wikileaks. Nor do they apologize for corrupt officials that hide behind the "might is right" doctrine.
The cultural dissonance between Americans and pretty much the entire rest of the civilized world is really fascinating.
I guess on this particular issue it has to do with the media line the government has been pushing? Selective reporting of the cables that appear to be the least newsworthy while ignoring the others, the demonization of Assange (just look at the disproportionate reporting on Assange as compared to the actual leaks), and just other little subtle snubs cleverly worked in there like all the articles digging at Wikileaks for not financing Manning's legal defense.
It all gives off this image that Assange is a megalomaniac, Wikileaks is releasing useless garbage with a decidedly anti-American slant, and that none of the leaks are important or interesting. And I guess the slandering must be even better than I thought (I don't follow any American news outlets) because a lot of people seem to buy into this image. In the rest of the world where people follow their news on the internet and make their own judgments on issues and don't easily fall into the right-wing browbeating of most American media organizations, there's a decidedly different image of Wikileaks and Assange.
It's all very interesting to see - simultaneously you have in the US average joes who think everything is "obvious" and repeatedly parrot the same "this isn't news" or "everyone knew this already" nonsense whenever new evidence is released by Wikileaks, and elsewhere you have these massive protests in favor of Assange and Wikileaks. I imagine part of that is also because citizens of other nations are probably rightfully pissed that the US has basically been bullying their governments into following American interests.
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On December 24 2010 03:29 Krigwin wrote:
I guess on this particular issue it has to do with the media line the government has been pushing? Selective reporting of the cables that appear to be the least newsworthy while ignoring the others, the demonization of Assange (just look at the disproportionate reporting on Assange as compared to the actual leaks), and just other little subtle snubs cleverly worked in there like all the articles digging at Wikileaks for not financing Manning's legal defense.
CNN just ran a story about an unplanned outage of skype immediately following a (banal) wikileaks update with literally no transition between the two topics. There really isn't any doubt as to what the message is supposed to be there. The logical fallacies people will fall for are absurd.
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On December 24 2010 03:29 Krigwin wrote:
It's all very interesting to see - simultaneously you have in the US average joes who think everything is "obvious" and repeatedly parrot the same "this isn't news" or "everyone knew this already" nonsense whenever new evidence is released by Wikileaks,
I think this aspect is more limited to delusional idiots on message boards who want to be bigger than they are. And, even if something does seem "obvious" it needs proof. Which should in fact be obvious, but isn't to people who think these things are all "obvious."
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On December 24 2010 03:29 Krigwin wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2010 23:08 mmp wrote:
It is also worth noting that it is only the American elites and their political sympathizers at home that seem to find Wikileaks so goddamn boring. As far as I've read, just about everyone else in the free-thinking world seems to be very interested in and supportive of Wikileaks. Nor do they apologize for corrupt officials that hide behind the "might is right" doctrine. The cultural dissonance between Americans and pretty much the entire rest of the civilized world is really fascinating. I guess on this particular issue it has to do with the media line the government has been pushing? Selective reporting of the cables that appear to be the least newsworthy while ignoring the others, the demonization of Assange (just look at the disproportionate reporting on Assange as compared to the actual leaks), and just other little subtle snubs cleverly worked in there like all the articles digging at Wikileaks for not financing Manning's legal defense. It all gives off this image that Assange is a megalomaniac, Wikileaks is releasing useless garbage with a decidedly anti-American slant, and that none of the leaks are important or interesting. And I guess the slandering must be even better than I thought (I don't follow any American news outlets) because a lot of people seem to buy into this image. In the rest of the world where people follow their news on the internet and make their own judgments on issues and don't easily fall into the right-wing browbeating of most American media organizations, there's a decidedly different image of Wikileaks and Assange. It's all very interesting to see - simultaneously you have in the US average joes who think everything is "obvious" and repeatedly parrot the same "this isn't news" or "everyone knew this already" nonsense whenever new evidence is released by Wikileaks, and elsewhere you have these massive protests in favor of Assange and Wikileaks. I imagine part of that is also because citizens of other nations are probably rightfully pissed that the US has basically been bullying their governments into following American interests.
Well said.
Some people speculate that Wikileaks is forking on account of internal dissent about the leadership. This is entirely reasonable without labeling Assange a megalomaniac.
There is a desire to get out a lot of smaller stories, but the organization says they have more material than they have time and manpower to go through - so they have to go for the hardest-hitting stuff before deciding to analyze, filter, and release it (if that at all answers Hawk's complaint).
And there are already other groups that are trying to get into the internet leaking business, but it is actually quite dangerous and requires experience and professionalism or truly calamitous fuck-ups will happen. People complain about Wikileaks being irresponsible -- they don't understand how good they have it.
I was watching one interview with Assange where this issue came up and he said that their leadership frequently discouraged other groups from becoming too active, encouraging them to join Wikileaks, because as he saw it their operations were dangerously sloppy, inexperienced, and insecure. Leakers would be well advised to talk with an outlet that is experienced and trustworthy, and unfortunately you do not get that kind of reputation as an organization without first earning a high profile.
Back to megalomania though, rumors say that Assange runs Wikileaks like an autocrat; that there is a very small circle of trust. This is probably true, but it isn't clear whether any rival leaking group can be successful without a core team of security and intelligence professionals -- they set the agenda, they call the shots. Additionally, although I'm sure in addition to rival leakers, volunteers are lining up to help out Wikileaks, it is a lengthy process to build trust with new recruits. I think meritocracy is preferable to democracy here.
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On December 24 2010 02:19 TanGeng wrote:
mmp, Don't psychoanalyze people over the Internet.
Well I don't think Hawk is making a very interesting point. He says he is angry about people that might have certain views about Wikileaks. He mocks these hypothetical people. Then he moves on to make speculations about the organization that are as paranoid as they are counterfactual.
My feeling is he doesn't like Wikileaks, so he is attacking it on all fronts without ever offering a factual argument. But he won't just come out and say that and make his case against Wikileaks.
For starters, folks in this thread have already pointed out some of the more salient Cables revelations, and there are numerous ones that haven't been mentioned here. If you actually read the news (instead of American opinion columns and blogs) you can actually learn about these stories. Similarly, if you actually read the news you can read about the protests and anger around the world as people learn about the things that have been hidden from them by their governments.
Hawk & the skeptics already know what's going on all over the world. They're in the in circle, they got the memos. But they're clearly not well-informed -- many of these stories have not been previously documented (in some cases there are real conspiracies) or were under-reported by the shitty press. So these skeptics must be talking about only a small subset of the stories that they believe are most significant.
Second, even if you are aware of all of the shit that goes down -- why is your anger exclusively reserved for the messenger that sought to inform you, to help you? A lot of people in these threads (Americans like myself) seem to be unmoved because they know America is the top dog and by virtue of its power is expected to act competitively. But that doesn't give a license to unlawful and abusive conduct by the government. Aren't you interested in seeing misdeeds exposed and ultimately remedied?
And the bottom line here is that the abusive conduct doesn't leave the Americans at the butt of international bullying, so it's not their pride that is on the line. Americans may have been hoping from the Cables something alike to the Pentagon Papers, evidence of how their government had screwed them over. Not surprisingly some things just aren't about us, as broad international support for Wikileaks confirms.
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On December 24 2010 11:21 mmp wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2010 02:19 TanGeng wrote:
mmp, Don't psychoanalyze people over the Internet. Well I don't think Hawk is making a very interesting point. He says he is angry about people that might have certain views about Wikileaks. He mocks these hypothetical people. Then he moves on to make speculations about the organization that are as paranoid as they are counterfactual. My feeling is he doesn't like Wikileaks, so he is attacking it on all fronts without ever offering a factual argument. But he won't just come out and say that and make his case against Wikileaks. For starters, folks in this thread have already pointed out some of the more salient Cables revelations, and there are numerous ones that haven't been mentioned here. If you actually read the news (instead of American opinion columns and blogs) you can actually learn about these stories. Similarly, if you actually read the news you can read about the protests and anger around the world as people learn about the things that have been hidden from them by their governments. Hawk & the skeptics already know what's going on all over the world. They're in the in circle, they got the memos. But they're clearly not well-informed -- many of these stories have not been previously documented (in some cases there are real conspiracies) or were under-reported by the shitty press. So these skeptics must be talking about only a small subset of the stories that they believe are most significant. Second, even if you are aware of all of the shit that goes down -- why is your anger exclusively reserved for the messenger that sought to inform you, to help you? A lot of people in these threads (Americans like myself) seem to be unmoved because they know America is the top dog and by virtue of its power is expected to act competitively. But that doesn't give a license to unlawful and abusive conduct by the government. Aren't you interested in seeing misdeeds exposed and ultimately remedied? And the bottom line here is that the abusive conduct doesn't leave the Americans at the butt of international bullying, so it's not their pride that is on the line. Americans may have been hoping from the Cables something alike to the Pentagon Papers, evidence of how their government had screwed them over. Not surprisingly some things just aren't about us, as broad international support for Wikileaks confirms.
I don't think I can make it any clearer than
On December 24 2010 01:03 Hawk wrote:
People are uninformed, people mistakenly think that wiki/julian are free of bias, most of the leaks are void of any kind of real value beyond shock (OMG US diplomats think that Berscolini is a whore monger!). It is TMZ-ish stuff. Occasionally news-worthy stuff comes out, but most of it is shit.
I pretty much agree with all points stated in that well written article
but hey, keep on going Freud! I like hearing how I'm some terrible, information suppressing right winger because I inject a little common sense into the discussion!
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By the way guys...
I don't know where everyone gets the picture that the attacks on Assange are just "right wing browbeating." The American liberals have it out for Assange every bit as much. Just look at the Obama administration attempting to force people not to look at the site. Are you going to tell me that Obama and Hilary Clinton are right wing politicians? Are you going to tell me that the NY Times and Washington post, which openly favor Democrat candidates for office, are right wing news outlets?
I'm not really trying to defend the right wing in this, for example the comment made by Palin that Assange should be hunted down like Osama bin Laden was totally out of line. Most conservatives are operating under the false illusions that Assange has given away vital intel in the Middle East that is costing American lives and the lives of American informants. In truth, that news was released 6 months ago and not a single death has been linked to Wikileaks as far as I am aware. The media is unable to provide such an example.
My point is that the left wing in this country is just as guilty. Because in international relations, American politicians are skunky. It doesn't matter if they are "right" or "left." If anything, some of the worst offenders have been from the left, Lyndon Johnson, Woodrow Wilson, and Harry Truman being prime examples of Presidents with the dubious intention of bringing political change to foreign nations.
"Change" is needed in this country. But not Obama's change. Wikileaks has proven that he's a part of the problem. The change we need is a removal of this cancer known as corruption. Mr. "I'll promise to end rendition and then secretly bully foreign nations into accepting American prisoners."
I consider myself "slightly conservative." I support Assange. Democracy cannot function without some measure of transparency and in some key ways we clearly do not have enough.
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On December 25 2010 02:00 Mortality wrote:
By the way guys...
I don't know where everyone gets the picture that the attacks on Assange are just "right wing browbeating." The American liberals have it out for Assange every bit as much. Just look at the Obama administration attempting to force people not to look at the site. Are you going to tell me that Obama and Hilary Clinton are right wing politicians? Are you going to tell me that the NY Times and Washington post, which openly favor Democrat candidates for office, are right wing news outlets?
I'm not really trying to defend the right wing in this, for example the comment made by Palin that Assange should be hunted down like Osama bin Laden was totally out of line. Most conservatives are operating under the false illusions that Assange has given away vital intel in the Middle East that is costing American lives and the lives of American informants. In truth, that news was released 6 months ago and not a single death has been linked to Wikileaks as far as I am aware. The media is unable to provide such an example.
My point is that the left wing in this country is just as guilty. Because in international relations, American politicians are skunky. It doesn't matter if they are "right" or "left." If anything, some of the worst offenders have been from the left, Lyndon Johnson, Woodrow Wilson, and Harry Truman being prime examples of Presidents with the dubious intention of bringing political change to foreign nations.
"Change" is needed in this country. But not Obama's change. Wikileaks has proven that he's a part of the problem. The change we need is a removal of this cancer known as corruption. Mr. "I'll promise to end rendition and then secretly bully foreign nations into accepting American prisoners."
I consider myself "slightly conservative." I support Assange. Democracy cannot function without some measure of transparency and in some key ways we clearly do not have enough.
THIS
good post, agreed with pretty much everything
User was warned for this post
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On December 25 2010 01:46 Hawk wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2010 11:21 mmp wrote:On December 24 2010 02:19 TanGeng wrote:
mmp, Don't psychoanalyze people over the Internet. Well I don't think Hawk is making a very interesting point. He says he is angry about people that might have certain views about Wikileaks. He mocks these hypothetical people. Then he moves on to make speculations about the organization that are as paranoid as they are counterfactual. My feeling is he doesn't like Wikileaks, so he is attacking it on all fronts without ever offering a factual argument. But he won't just come out and say that and make his case against Wikileaks. For starters, folks in this thread have already pointed out some of the more salient Cables revelations, and there are numerous ones that haven't been mentioned here. If you actually read the news (instead of American opinion columns and blogs) you can actually learn about these stories. Similarly, if you actually read the news you can read about the protests and anger around the world as people learn about the things that have been hidden from them by their governments. Hawk & the skeptics already know what's going on all over the world. They're in the in circle, they got the memos. But they're clearly not well-informed -- many of these stories have not been previously documented (in some cases there are real conspiracies) or were under-reported by the shitty press. So these skeptics must be talking about only a small subset of the stories that they believe are most significant. Second, even if you are aware of all of the shit that goes down -- why is your anger exclusively reserved for the messenger that sought to inform you, to help you? A lot of people in these threads (Americans like myself) seem to be unmoved because they know America is the top dog and by virtue of its power is expected to act competitively. But that doesn't give a license to unlawful and abusive conduct by the government. Aren't you interested in seeing misdeeds exposed and ultimately remedied? And the bottom line here is that the abusive conduct doesn't leave the Americans at the butt of international bullying, so it's not their pride that is on the line. Americans may have been hoping from the Cables something alike to the Pentagon Papers, evidence of how their government had screwed them over. Not surprisingly some things just aren't about us, as broad international support for Wikileaks confirms. I don't think I can make it any clearer than Show nested quote +On December 24 2010 01:03 Hawk wrote:
People are uninformed, people mistakenly think that wiki/julian are free of bias, most of the leaks are void of any kind of real value beyond shock (OMG US diplomats think that Berscolini is a whore monger!). It is TMZ-ish stuff. Occasionally news-worthy stuff comes out, but most of it is shit.
I pretty much agree with all points stated in that well written article but hey, keep on going Freud! I like hearing how I'm some terrible, information suppressing right winger because I inject a little common sense into the discussion!
You call that common sense ? plz!
Just because you refuse to look at the evidence doesn't make you any more right.
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On December 25 2010 02:00 Mortality wrote:
Are you going to tell me that Obama and Hilary Clinton are right wing politicians?
You said it, both american parties are just different flavors of same shit.
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On December 24 2010 01:50 Hawk wrote:
And no, the TMZ-type irrelevant stuff is released by wikileaks. There's no news value in confidential assements of foreign diplomats by there American counterparts. Etc etc. Most things have no shown any real corruption or anything of value. It's more 'hey, look! we can get confidential stuff from disgruntled workers!'
While it's true that most of the cable contain almost no new information that doesn't devalue the ones that do. Suggestions that the president of Sri Lanka was behind the massacre of civilians; Prince Andrew criticising corruption investigations against BAE; British training for Burma police unit known for human rights violations; Lybia blackmailing the UK over the release of the Lockerbie bombers etc.
When people focus on the irrelevant or well-known stuff (like the article on stratfor) they are engaging in an act of deception themselves.
You could argue that wikileaks should have released these cables but not the others. But even the less interesting cables can be important in their own ways. It might not be news that Berlusconi is friendly with Putin and that some of his decisions are probably influenced by his personal financial interests. But this information is much easier to dismiss when coming from his opponents than outside observers and his own political allies from Italy.
Actually, it's very difficult to draw the line correctly. Does the offhand comment that the new Spanish government has 1 year to enact unpopular legislation has any value? I would argue it does. The more people know governments explicitly use this kind of thinking the better. It also suggests good strategies for fighting against these proposals. Just knowing that the government only has a small window of opportunity can energize activists.
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And as to the above, in order to establish wikileaks as actually having a negative influence on governments and diplomatic relations as a whole and by association, us as people, you would need to outline one simple thing.
Why the damage caused by some of the cables, that have been described as unimportant, unneccesary, only for shock value, and other criticisms levied; has had greater negative effect, than the revelations that have come forth from these latest releases, some of which hypercube has outlined, and furthermore a greater negative effect, than the revelations wikileaks has brought forth into the public domain so far in it's history, so that we, as citizens of the world, can have direct access to truth unfettered.
When someone argues this compellingly, and has clear evidence to back up this conclusion then I will concede, and it will bring into doubt the position I hold, that democracy aims for the freedom of all people to choose the character of their governance, and that the restriction of information is that which is most corrosive to true democratic freedom.
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does anyone know the best way to donate to wikileaks these days? I kinda wish I got in before they blocked paypal
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Best way might be to send the money to the Wau-Holland-Stiftung. They are the foundation that manages the donations for wikileaks. You can find an english version of their homepage HERE.
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Found some more interesting cables today and thought I would share them for those interested.
1. Germany plans to build and deploy spy stallites in cooperation with the US. Oficially, these satellites are said to be used for ecological research but the cable reveals that they will be used by the German Intelligence Service (BND). 30% of the satellites' capacity will be used by the BND, the remaining 70% will got to US enterprises which leaves exactly 0% for the oficially claimed purpose.
Link to the corresponsing cable
What made me extremely angry is that tge German news agency Der Spiegel which has access to the leaks did not report on this until the norewgian news magazine "Aftenposten" did. I hope Der Spiegel was not keeping this under closure on purpose.
2. Bolivias president Evo Moralez apparently staged a terorist and framed opposition leaders which are now in jail.
Link to 1st corresponding cable
Link to 2nd corresponding cable
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EPT
