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What WikiLeaks Really Reveals
The third batch of WikiLeaks revelations reveals a lot.
But just not so much where people think it does.
Let's start with what it is not. So far, at least, it does not appear to be anything like its obvious potential model, the Pentagon Papers.
Daniel Ellsberg's revelations were hugely significant, but not, per se, because they were government secrets revealed to the public. Rather, they were important because of the gap in government pronouncements they exposed. Which is a fancy way of saying the ‘lies'. The reason the Pentagon Papers really matter is because, on the most crucial issue of state policy imaginable, the government was saying one thing to the public and even Congress, and something completely different to itself. Otherwise, the documents would have been merely interesting, but hardly consequential.
Which is what the WikiLeaks strike me as, at least so far. The gap that was so wide in the case of the Pentagon Papers is, in this case, rather small. Indeed, remarkably so. I have gotten so used to dishonesty out of Washington that my shock in this case is not that they've been lying to us so much as that they mostly have not been. The WikiLeaks trove does not, so far at least, appear to expose massive disconnects between what the government has been telling us and what it actually believes. This is not Vietnam and the endless lies about that war. This is not the Reagan administration demanding that the world embargo Iran even while secretly selling them missiles, or constantly invoking the great cause of democracy while even more constantly undermining it everywhere on the planet.
Parenthetically, by the way, it is completely unclear that anybody in this country cares enough about such outrages anymore, even if they did exist and even if they were exposed. Americans are so self-focused today, and the government has gotten so expert at shielding people from the short-term, obvious consequences of its pernicious policies, that one has to wonder what the reaction would be to a genuine ‘bombshell' of a revelation, as opposed to these little sparklers.
Or not. Wonder, that is. One of the most astonishing experiences of my lifetime has been to watch the general (non-)reaction to the release of the Downing Street Memos, which conclusively prove most of the key lies the British and American governments were telling about Iraq in 2002 and 2003. It will probably take a small army of socio-psychologists to sort that particular little episode of national psychosis out, but for whatever reason, no one at the time seemed very interested in this smokingist of smoking guns, and they remain that way today. I guess if you don't have to worry about a draft of higher taxes or missing the ball game on TV, why care what your government is doing, eh?
I have to laugh (read: cry), by the way, at all the intense effort that the New York Times is putting into exposing the WikiLeaks documents about not so much in particular, recalling how they handled the Downing Street Memos. The memos were minutes from meetings between the top British and American officials as they planned their war in Iraq and their war of lies to cover for it. They were leaked in Britain in 2005, in an effort to embarrass Tony Blair as he ran for reelection. The Times covered it in that context, in its back pages, never saying boo about the massive domestic implications in the US. It took the blogosphere to get the paper to pay any attention at all to the story's massive American angle. I remember reading their public editor's response to why the paper had not made this story front page news, with screaming headlines. He said the foreign desk editors told him that it just never occurred to them to pass it along to the national desk team. Oh yeah. That seems likely.
In any case, pardon my cynicism, but I'm getting to the point where I don't know whether anything that doesn't take money out Americans' pockets or interrupt their reality show lives would morally move them anymore. What is clear is that what has been released so far by WikiLeaks doesn't come close.
Which makes all the hub-bub and consternation surrounding the revealed documents a bit odd. You'd think that regressives would actually sort of laud the release of these files in a way, since they substantiate the whole war on terror riff, at least in so far as showing that the US government more or less genuinely believes its own rhetoric. It's actually a vindication of sorts for them, against those of us who harbor deep suspicions - post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, post-Iraq - about the ability of the American national security state to speak remotely honestly about anything. You don't generally have here a case of the government saying one thing and then doing something else completely different.
But the scary monsters of the right have not reacted this way at all. Take Peter King, for example. Please. Congressman King - who astonishingly represents a district in New York State, not, appearances to the contrary, 17th century Prussia - is an ever-reliable source of the most jingoistic nastiness a human orifice is capable of generating, and he doesn't disappoint in this case. Giving new meaning to the concept of rank hyperbole, King avers that WikiLeaks "is worse even than a physical attack on Americans, it's worse than a military attack", and it puts "American lives at risk all over the world". And, in words that ought to chill the remaining long-necked ostriches out there who still think Barack Obama is a liberal, "The Attorney General and I don't always agree on different issues. But I believe on this one, he and I strongly agree that there should be a criminal prosecution".
That's a fairly common example out there on the right, which of course includes the Obama administration and all the histrionics coming out of the Secretary of State and others. Madame Clinton said that, "This disclosure is not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests - it is an attack on the international community", proving that Democrats can be just as regressive and just as sickeningly disingenuous as the monsters of the GOP. She goes on to dissemble even more, lecturing us that, "There is nothing laudable about endangering innocent people. There is nothing brave about sabotaging the peaceful relations between nations on which our common security depends." As if worrying about innocent people or peaceful relations is what American foreign policy is all about.
Or there's the reactionary opinion columnist Charles Krauthammer, who writes that we should "Throw the Espionage Act of 1917 at them... Putting U.S. secrets on the Internet, a medium of universal dissemination new in human history, requires a reconceptualization of sabotage and espionage - and the laws to punish and prevent them. Where is the Justice Department? And where are the intelligence agencies on which we lavish $80 billion a year? [Yeah, funny you should ask about that, Chuck.] Assange has gone missing. Well, he's no cave-dwelling jihadi ascetic. Find him. Start with every five-star hotel in England [a tacky little bit of faux class smearing well befitting someone of Krauthammer's ideology] and work your way down. Want to prevent this from happening again? Let the world see a man who can't sleep in the same bed on consecutive nights, who fears the long arm of American justice. I'm not advocating that we bring out of retirement the KGB proxy who, on a London street, killed a Bulgarian dissident with a poisoned umbrella tip. But it would be nice if people like Assange were made to worry every time they go out in the rain."
Note here, on top of all the other ugliness in that passage, the moral cowardice of calling for Julian Assange's assassination without quite doing so overtly. This is the covert ops equivalent of the Bush administration's flock of chicken-hawks. And for what reason should Assange be murdered? Krauthammer gives three examples of the "major damage" done to the United States by the WikiLeaks. First, the exposed lies of the Yemeni president and deputy prime minister as to who has actually been bombing their country, a non-example which merely demonstrates Krauthammer's regressive arrogance and stupidity. Second, the purported lack of trust in the United States from this point forward, as if the government had leaked these documents, and as if most governments and most organizations don't also have to worry about leaks all the time. And, third, the supposed weakness the US shows by not taking out the WikiLeaks people. He writes, "What's appalling is the helplessness of a superpower that not only cannot protect its own secrets but shows the world that if you violate its secrets - massively, wantonly and maliciously - there are no consequences."
This latter comment gives the truth to what regressives really hate about WikiLeaks. Since the organization has not yet actually released any evidence of serious major lies, what then gives with the over the top reaction on the right? What the WikiLeaks episode actually reveals is not any major juicy secrets (so far), but rather that the enemy of the right is truth. What they are defending here - and what they are calling for murder to be used in order to defend here - is simply the privilege to lie, and the right to keep their lies and hypocrisies from being exposed.
That's the true revelation of the last weeks, not anything that WikiLeaks has produced just yet. Indeed, the fact that WikiLeaks has not so far actually dropped such a major bomb and yet has induced a visceral reaction so intense that it includes calls for murder reveals far more about the character of regressives than it does about anything else.
These are people who believe in entitlement. These are arrogant elites who believe the rest of us don't need to know what they're doing with and to our lives. These are people see truth as a danger. These are people who not only actively undermine democracy at home and abroad, but who are fundamentally opposed to, and frightened of, democracy's very essence. They speak the word (endlessly), but the last thing in the world they actually would ever want is rule by the people.
And they know that the people in a democracy just might not put up with their crimes and their lies, and thus secrecy must be jealously guarded, even if that requires the murder of a truth-teller. That, ultimately is the most substantial revelation that the WikiLeaks documents have so far produced.
As Julian Assange has himself noted, "The more secretive or unjust an organisation is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. ... Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance." Well said, brother. Well said.
Assange was asked by Time Magazine what his "moral calculus" was to justify publishing the leaks. Don't you love that? No one asked George Bush or Dick Cheney that question. No one would dare ask the Liars of the Century about their moral calculus, even today, as they run around the world hawking their books and making millions off of ‘memoirs' absolutely riddled with new lies covering up the old ones. No one even asks the timid-as-a-snowflake Barack Obama where he gets off tripling the forces in Afghanistan in support of a regime that - thanks to WikiLeaks - we now know that he knows is thoroughly corrupt and utterly undemocratic. But Assange, whose great crime is exposing truth, gets the dubious morality treatment from Time, that great bastion of hard-hitting independent journalism.
So, here's his moral calculus: "We are an organization that tries to make the world more civil and act against abusive organizations that are pushing it in the opposite direction."
That's a dangerous thing. WikiLeaks is apparently about to go after Wall Street banks next, among others. That should be really amusing to watch. You start messin' with the money, the oligarchs really get mean, man.
We live in a time where only a fool would not be despondent about the state of our country. Almost everything about our condition is ugly.
There are a few reasons, however - if only just a few - to be a bit more hopeful.
One is the power of the Internet.
Another is the new generation of Dan Ellsbergs.
Put them together and you get WikiLeaks.
- Posted in
56 Comments so far
Show All"Time, that great bastion of hard-hitting independent journalism"
that rag isn't even good enough to wipe my ass.
Though it certainly would be tempting with any issue that had Dick Cheney or George Bush on the front cover.
He's right about the Downing Street memos being much more damning than all the Wiki leaks combined. But the Empire just keeps rolling along, like a huge truck with no wheels careening down a cliff.
This is an excellent essay by David Michael Green. It is so on the mark. However, I see no generation of Daniel Ellsbergs as of yet.
I was at a political get-together last night and Wikileaks came up. Surprising how few really knew anything about it, more than that some secrets had been published and everyone was out to get the guy who did it.
I wish I had read this post before I went. Actually I wish I had made copies and handed them out.
Nice post, Dr. Green. Really nice.
Wow, where to start? Well, here's a good place:
"In any case, pardon my cynicism, but I'm getting to the point where I don't know whether anything that doesn't take money out Americans' pockets or interrupt their reality show lives would morally move them anymore. What is clear is that what has been released so far by WikiLeaks doesn't come close."
Very true. Dead on true, actually.
After all my mental machinations and solutions for all that ails us, I always land in this square. The institutional problems that are afflicting this nation can only be solved by vigorous (some might even say, forceful) action by the people. Trouble is, most of the people are dull and fat and working hard and somewhere between snoozing off their turkey dinners and making 3:00 AM hadjis to the local meccas at the mall.
How can we count on anything effective rising to the occasion when so many are so ineffective and dulled?
Then, there is this:
"These are people who believe in entitlement. These are arrogant elites who believe the rest of us don't need to know what they're doing with and to our lives."
We know this. These fucks call any moneys distributed to the down-and-out, the "little people," as entitlements. But we know that we live in a culture of entitlements. And while I take the author's meaning about the elite entitled class, I can't help but think that some dirt-poor schmuck living in a slumhole in Calcutta views the whole of our society as an entitled class, and he would love to live like us. While the rich may be reaping the largesse of entitlement, we (collectively) all live too large. How do we address that?
And then there's this:
"There are a few reasons, however - if only just a few - to be a bit more hopeful.
One is the power of the Internet."
I have to smile, and honestly, a little sardonically. The Internet has the potential for being a great leveler and an open form of communication, but I fear not for long. Look at what the United States is doing to WikiLeaks - having one and then another server and domain name shut down. Not to mention that the government can spy on any and all communication going across the Internet.
Not for long.
Yes people in the U.S. seem apathetic. But we all know that we are going to die someday and as long as our health is generally good we try to mostly ignore that fact after buying appropriate life insurance. Perhaps ignoring a multitude of huge and seemingly insolvable problems is a realistic approach. Today we are faced with problems of: greenhouse gases, peak oil, global labor arbitrage, massive public and private debts, imminent extinction of a huge number of species, groundwater depletion (was that on your list?), nuclear proliferation...etc. And we are given the option of voting for senatorial candidate X or senatorial candidate Y. Neither of those candidates is likely to be very helpful in solving any one of those major problems. So why not just watch the SuperBowl? I keep up with the issues facing the human race but for me it is because I find it much more entertaining than any sports game. And instead of betting on a team I buy stock in some European bank. Lots of fun.
It doesn't matter what Americans think about the latest Wikileaks. What does matter is the other people/countries of the world. Unlike Green, I think the revelation that US diplomats were ordered to behave like CIA agents is significant. To me, it rings of the foolishness perpetrated by the USSR during the Cold War. Surely It undermines the trustworthiness of the United States in diplomacy--diplomats are expected to behave according to international standards--at least by other diplomats, if no one else. Wikileaks also reveals the ineptness of America both in establishing foreign policy and in keeping secrets. In short, we have become a laughingstock.
"It undermines the trustworthiness of the United States in diplomacy..."
All one would have to do to find out what kind of trustworthiness the US government holds is to look at the history of treaties that we signed with the indian tribes.
The real news here is not that we have become a laughingstock, it's the lifting of the veil of illusion that exposes the rot at our core.
Yeah, so many disasters in the making, so little time.
But, I wonder: Do you look into your children's eyes while saying things such as this? And if so, do they say "Thanks for nothing, and oh by the way, go to hell, Dad?" If not, they've learned well from you.
I feel helpless too. I guess I'm just maladjusted to it.
I was smart enough (or selfish enough?) not to have kids.
Ah, say no more.
“…it is completely unclear that anybody in this country cares enough about such outrages anymore…”
Our fellow citizens have been brainwashed by the corporate media who serve the interests of the oligarchs, who control our government. It used to be that the media would report on the stories affecting our lives and acknowledge the outrage that may accompany those stories. Not any more! The corporate press, including unfortunately PBS and C-SPAN, are not going to tell the American people anything that would upset the status quo. The fourth rail of politics – the media – used to be our expression of outrage. Now it’s merely a means of propaganda to invoke nationalism and right-wing ideology. Even Democracy Now fails miserably in exposing the biggest lie – 9/11. Until it is exposed that 9/11 was a conspiracy – not of box cutter wielding Saudis, but of elements inside of our own government (that ordered NORAD to stand down); of very wealthy Zionist financiers (Silverstein – the owner of the WTC); and agents of the Israeli government (Mossad), America will never again be a “free” country (which we presently are not).
So in my view, the problem is not that “Americans are so self-focused”, which they are. The problem is that they are “conditioned” to be that way by constant exposure to marketing techniques that make them feel marginalized if they don’t buy a certain product, or don’t believe a certain way. Americans have been poisoned by Capitalism – which is antithetical to a truly democratic society. The expansion of Capitalism is resulting in the loss of our democracy.
Great article Michael Green. I particularly liked the fact that you pointed out that the biggest revelation of all is that the wikileaks documents reveal that the government actually believes its own rhetoric. The fact that so much time is wasted demonizing Iran, justifying our support for dictatorships and undermining dangerous democracies, I find it amazing that these people are even in a position of authority.
At no time do the documents reveal any diplomats being concerned with human rights, poverty, climate change or public opinion which is a tragic reflection of the governments narrow focus.
I also have to agree with your observation of just how apathetic the American public is after the non-reaction of the Downing Street memos. If Wikileaks had actually exposed some juicy tidbits, such as diplomats discussing the stupidity of American voters or their allegiance to a particular corporate sponsor, I doubt it would have had any effect on the general populace anyway.
David Michael Green." These people see truth as danger ". Our government has become sooooo corrupt and deceitful that Wikileaks printing the truth, is demonized as a crime. Most progressives have known this for a long time, but not a lot of other people, because they have been able to hide their corruption and evil ways under the canard of national security, when it has been their security they have been concerned about! From my perspective,the most revealing expose'by Wikileaks, is that it shines a light on some of the covert corruption and has made it overt. The truth hurts the people the most, that are the most extraordinarily evil and corrupt, so people that are offended, like Krauthammer, Time Magazine, Fox News, Peter King, Hillary,ect. reveals that Wikileaks has a visceral reaction with these people so intense, that it includes the calls for murder, exposes these regressive, fascists for what they are to more and more people. To me,that is what Wilkileaks has revealed so far more than anything else.
"Our government has become sooooo corrupt and deceitful..."
What really hurts is finding out that our government has always been corrupt and deceitful. From the start.
Talk about a verbose article that says nothing! Why does CD publish this tripe?
Perhaps you would be more comfortable here: http://www.time.com/time/
They have lots of pictures and colorful illustrations too.
Yeah, but the problem is: Time uses some arcane and esoteric words.
I like reading Time 'cause I like video arcanes!
Struggle = Corporate troll.
Contact numbers for the Swedish embassy in Washinton:
Tel: 1-202-467-2600
Fax: 1-202-467-2699
E-mail: ambassaden.washington@foreign.ministry.se
BOYCOTT AMAZON AND PAYPAL!
Tony Vodvarka
Already have, but thank you for your post. Paul
Did that as well. No response yet... must be very busy.
Thanks, Tony.
Two down, one to go.
"BOYCOTT AMAZON AND PAYPAL!"
I agree but we must have alternatives in place worth turning to for the boycott to be successful.
Why? Are either one of them essential?
In the case of books, most communities have a library and/or retail book seller (independent is best!).
Boycotts are targeted at offending companies. No water or alternatives are necessary.
I seem to remember someone saying something to the effect of, "the truth will set you free."
Can't have any of that now can we?
Now, DMG, you are getting to the heart of the matter.
All of the followers of Leo Strauss within our government/business world get so mad when someone calls them on their BS because - surprise surprise - that's all they have.
They would like us all to believe that they are so much smarter, brighter, more serious and savvy than the common American.
They need us to believe that they are "serious" people with real "skills" that are needed to do the jobs they are grossly overpaid for.
But in reality, all they are is a bunch of f*cking psychopathic liars.
They're not smarter than us or more clever.
They simply lack the ability to feel shame.
So, when something like Wikileaks comes along EVERY LAST ONE of them - be they on the left or right - will defend their profession to the bitter end.
Sure, they'll tell us it's a matter of security, diplomacy, etc etc, but all they're really doing is defending their scam, the fantasy world in which they reside that allows them to feel they are actually significant human beings when in reality "human" is the last word one would use to describe them.
Robert Graves in the novel, "I Claudius", has Claudius lament that the corruption cannot be controlled and so has to run it's course, which probably means the collapse of the Roman empire. In another vein, it as though our entire society is chasing the black tulip.
Historically, all empires have collapsed. We're just in the unenviable position to be able to see it coming.
I think we can do things to soften the blow. A lot of connecting with others and learning how to live right.
Or, as many know, pills help.
""This latter comment gives the truth to what regressives really hate about WikiLeaks. Since the organization has not yet actually released any evidence of serious major lies, what then gives with the over the top reaction on the right?""
************
It sets the stage, or should I say congress, to enact more 'national security' measures to protect those who feel they will be exposed for their criminal behavior.
Another pertinent and concise assessment.
SAMO: You're a good strategist, and I think you're onto something in this prescient post. Thank you for sharing your insights.
I keep seeing, and agreeing with implications moving in this direction.
A purging, and repositioning of international diplomatic channels.
Reinforcement and repositioning of tenuous positions and postures held by the US power structure.
Reinforcement of the sense of loss of secrecy, and power. A new perception of America, under threat by outside agents. Providing ample basis for deeper levels of security and counter-leaking measures.
Providing a potential springboard for incitement against Iran.
.
.
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Until Assange and Wikileaks starts actually leaking something that earns them the undue ire they have been receiving, I'll continue speculating as to the actual purpose and true intent of this entire phenomenon. What I've read comes across as highly admiable, but still somewhat quixotic if one were to ask me.
Think about it... the Downing Street memos were far more damaging, far more revelatory of official malfeasance and dishonesty. But how was that handled? Why the big discrepancy?
Salusa: The Downing Street memo was part of an engineered run-up to war, another aspect of the case being fixed FOR war. Wikileaks, and Julian's efforts, are designed to pull the fig leaf away from war's phony pretexts. So Downing poses no threat to an establishment, MIC fueled, that's tasked with creating causes FOR war. Whereas Julian represents the voice that advocates for peace, by exposing the folly of war, and the lies warriors (and their political enablers) tell.
"WikiLeaks is apparently about to go after Wall Street banks next, among others. That should be really amusing to watch. You start messin' with the money, the oligarchs really get mean, man."
It's a fair bet that if/when Assange and Wikileaks drop the hammer on the big banks, Wikileaks will get scrubbed of the 'Net for good, and Assange will probably be found face down in a seedy European hotel, drugged off his ass, with a dead mutilated hooker (and if we know anything about the headcases in the CIA, said hooker will be underage. And male).
No better way to silence and smear... and right out of the CIA playbook. And incidentally, no better way to scare other potential dissidents. All the MSM Corporate mouthpeices have to say is: "Look how Julian Assange wound up...". People will get the hint.
I wish WikiLeaks would do it NOW, before they can't.
Exactly. I am sure Assange is well aware of where this is likely to lead. Given this knowledge, it's an awesome demonstration of courage, especially going after the banks.
Yet Assange is not Wikileaks, and from what they've said, the leaks will continue regardless of what happens to him. So it seems somewhat pointless to attack the figurehead, when it's the actions of the group itself that does the real work. Maybe it will send a message. Or maybe it will lead to even more massive dumps. Either way, I do think they will find others willing to take his place, should the need arise.
The really illustrative point for me is the over-response of the government, and the undoubtedly USG-based DDOS attacks on their website. It suggests that there is far more incriminating information in those cables, yet to be released. And the response of the USG to dictate to private companies which websites they may or may not host, all under the guise of national security, only exposes their fear of the truth. For goodness sake, they even wrote emails to college students telling them not to read the cables, even at home.!? WTF? These people are living in fantasy land if they think anyone should believe anything coming out of their mouths when they are so afraid of us seeing the evidence and making our own judgments. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear. Isn't that what they've been telling us since 9/11? Gotta love that double-standard. Hypocrisy is alive and well in the US.
And sad to say, if Assange ends up as you suggest, it will be an indication to me that he and wikileaks is the real deal. The fact they he is being extradited on trumped-up sex charges already is a pretty good indication of that. TPTB are fond of those sex scandal kind of things. Just ask Elliot Spitzer.
"And they know that the people in a democracy just might not put up with their crimes and their lies, and thus secrecy must be jealously guarded, even if that requires the murder of a truth-teller. That, ultimately is the most substantial revelation that the WikiLeaks documents have so far produced."
_____________________
This is indeed one of DMG's more insightful articles.
The cruel irony is that DMG's "regressives"-- the "they" in the above-excerpted quote-- have much less to fear from "the people in a democracy" than they think. Their reactionary, paranoid secrecy fetish causes them to overrate the vanishing prospect that "... the people in a democracy JUST might not put up with their crimes and their lies" [emphasis added].
However, as established in the rest of the analysis-- and leaving aside the problematic descriptor "in a democracy"-- there is no convincing evidence that the thoroughly cowed and alienated populace within the Imperial Amerikan Matrix will assert boundaries or limits to what it will accept.
Teevee news readers still throw around terms like "unthinkable" or "horrifying", but in truth the Viewing Audience will sit still for any government or military outrage or atrocity-- and at worst, change the channel to a more uplifting variety of infotainment.
In general, the pernicious meme that "9/11 Changed Everything" and the institution of the Imperial Amerikan Global War on Terror caused the Amerikan public to thrust itself into a strait-jacket of fear, complacency, and compliance with its increasingly authoritarian police-state government.
There are exceptions-- islands and channels of resistance. But I believe that DMG is correct to believe that US citizens have become too freaked out and future-shocked to remain capable of the kind of mass moral outrage that would pose a real threat to the authorities.
I often think of a now-retired co-worker who I've made into an Amerikan straw-Everyman and present here as such. He's a decent, good-hearted, well-meaning guy whose Quaker parents were devastated when he enlisted in the Army during the Vietnam War.
He did so partly because he was a classic All-American boy who naïvely bought into primitive notions of patriotism-- "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori", etc.-- and partly because he was a mediocre student struggling and unhappy in college. He was a runner in high school, but not outstanding enough to become a successful college jock.
Fortunately, he never got to 'nam and spent his tour in Germany, learning to sing garbled German beer songs with enthusiasm.
I bring him up because he gave me a daily ride to work beginning shortly after 9/11. We actually didn't talk politics much, but his reaction to events like the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan was always the same: he ALWAYS humbly and diffidently opined in so many words that it wasn't his place to doubt, question, criticize, or judge Amerikan political and military leaders or second-guess their decisions.
He thought that all one could do is vote for the best candidate available, and then trust the duly-elected incumbents to do the best they could. I think this remains a popular attitude-- a kind of civic sportsmanship.
It seems harsh to reduce this pleasant, beer-drinking, foster-child adopting runner to just another Authoritarian Follower. I accept that he honestly believed that critiquing government policies and actions was above his pay grade.
But I see him as a latter-day Good German in a nation of Good Germans. Like my brother-in-law on Thanksgiving, he would also probably dismiss the entire TSA search and surveillance controversy by saying, "I'd rather walk past some machine than be frisked; case closed."
I'm keeping an open mind regarding DMG's final feathers of hope: the Internet and a new generation of Daniel Ellsbergs. But I'm not sanguine about the prospects. To paraphrase a beloved rhetorical question from the Sixties counterculture: "What if we blew the whistle and nobody came?"
'To paraphrase a beloved rhetorical question from the Sixties counterculture: "What if we blew the whistle and nobody came?"'
Mmmm, yeah.
There was another pithy quote from the Sixties: "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem."
Great post. I'm reminded of what one of my students said the other day. In her Black Studies class, the professor was talking about student protests of days gone by and asked the class what they might consider protesting about in our time, on our campus. Not one student provided a suggestion.
These students' indifference mostly stems from a different source than your Good German friend. While some think that Big Daddy is taking good care of them and we can't possibly be expected to understand why he's doing all those odd things, many more assume it's all lies, so why bother? In fact, I've noticed that students are suddenly eager to opine that 911 was an inside job--or more have watched Loose Change or Zeitgeist, the two videos they most often bring up--and whenever someone makes such a comment, I ask the class to raise their hands if they question the official account of 911. I'm getting about one-third hand-raisers. No wonder they pay no attention to the news.
The duckspeak coming out of Hillary, the MSM, et al. is all too familiar by now, as is the reaction of the populace, which is about the level of interest of the proles in 1984: free to think and speak, but ill-equipped to do so due to a declining level of education and/or a feeling of helplessness and thus fear or, more often, indifference. That a member of Congress feels comfortable calling for the murder of a whistleblower tells us all we really need to know about the current state of affairs. There is no rule of law and thus murder is a fine alternative to due process. The vast majority either excuse this truth, are ignorant of it, or take it as a dire warning.
O.S. You really are an excellent writer, and I hope you will consider writing a novel. Your sketches of character are vividly drawn and wonderfully expressive. You really drew an apt portrait of the American Everyman, and it should remain part of the American lexicon.
among the few legally actionable news in the wikileaks release is that gates, clinton, and possibly obama --if he did micromanage the honduras coup and its aftershocks-- committed a felony by conspiring to undermine the enforcement of an american law and by suppressing a well-argued and documented denunciation by a usa government official, in the honduras embassy of the usa, that a fact punished by american law, a coup d'etat against a democracy, had taken place.
because of their behavior after the honduras coup, gates, clinton, and possibly obama have made themselves *impeachable* for violating their oath to both defend the american constitution and make every possible effort to respect and enforce the laws of the usa. [and congrats to lanny davis!]
You are right. Of course this sort of complicated stuff won't get nearly the play that unflattering characterizations of world leaders will get. Besides, in America if the government does it, it's automatically legal.
The best explanation of the non-reaction to the message while violently attacking the messenger was given by Assange himself:
"The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds [or better, bleating of sheep], free. In states like China, there is pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and power is scared of it. We should always look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that jurisdiction. The attacks against us by the US point to a great hope, speech powerful enough to break the fiscal blockade."
It could well be that Assange will go the way of Martin Luther King, Gandhi, JFK, John Lennon etc. etc. and become another martyr and hero! I hope it will be different for him!
junior and his side-kick dick had no need of "moral calculus" - they had a faux electoral mandate.
how dare a mere citizen like Assange try to make the world a better place!
Time to crank out the "I'm hiding Julian" bumper stickers. Millions of 'em.
Thank you, David Michael Green, for laying bare what is at stake in Empire's vicious reactiveness to Wikileaks's latest release and for making explicit the political implications of that reaction -- the fact, namely, that the political cynicism and massively anti-democratic ways of Empire make it an ever more totalitarian enterprise.
The more I learn about the actions of our government, the more depressed I become. I try to go on learning, but it is terribly disturbing.
Our government attacks a small third-world country without provocation, absolutely destroys its infrastructure, kills hundreds of thousands of people (mostly civilians), creates several million middle-eastern refugees, adopts torture as a deliberate instrument of practice, arrests hundreds of mostly innocent people and holds them for years in a place where they are largely beyond the reach of US law, allows its President to decide by himself which laws he will enforce and obey, devastates the US and world economies and refuses to hold the culprits accountable and, further, actually rewards their behavior, resolutely refuses to even acknowledge the existence of environmental problems, etc., etc., etc.
And then the voters restore the criminals to power.
And then, when some courageous individual tries to expose these misdeeds, he is widely attacked by the very "press" whose duty is to actually carry out such exposure. And various public figures urge that he be murdered.
Thanks, David Michael Green
The US really is a rogue state that is a profound danger to the rest of our world.
Jim Shea