Tag: Wikileaks

As more and more comes out of the Wikileaks’ latest deluge of secret documents released, the more I am shocked by what I learn. I’m pretty cynical by nature and yet some of this shit makes my jaw drop. I’ve already wrote about those that would rather stay asleep listening to Obama’s siren song and are calling for the silencing (or even killing) of these leakers. Now, I read on Mother Jones about how Obama worked with the GOP to quash any potential investigation into Bush’s torturous presidency. I guess at this point I shouldn’t be surprised.

I was heartened by news that Spain was preparing to investigate Bush and Cheney’s administration. Though I was still a liberal, still crazy in love with Obama, I was really saddened by Obama’s stance that we (as a country) should look ahead and not in the past, with regards to Bush’s torture. The logic of the argument didn’t even make sense and came across as something a parent would say to a child just to shut them up about a topic they didn’t want to talk about. We should look ahead? No crimes occur ahead, all crimes are in the past – so if we are constantly looking ahead, no crime ever would be investigated. It smacked of a man who was either too timid to do what was right, or didn’t want to give up the power he had inherited from Bush. The more I see suggests the latter.

This has been a depressing week. These week, we’ve seen the disgusting things our government does on a regular (but secretive) basis; Obama has frozen the pay of two million fellow workers; agreed he needs to work closer with the GOP; Obama’s deficit commission has come out recommending tax cuts for millionaires, and increases for retirement ages; and this is just this week. I guess I can hope for something cool to come out of NASA’s press conference on astrobiology today, something to distract me.

It seems to me now that Obama is hoping to out-conservative the Republicans in hopes of winning reelection in 2012, much like Clinton did in ’96. I guess all that’s left is to take Obama’s own advice: I need to look forward. Forward to a day when we force a destruction of the status quo and truly emancipate ourselves from our torturers.

An eventful holiday season this seems to be! Right now, I seem to hear about the evils of Wikileaks from almost everywhere. Liberal blogs froth at the mouth, furious at the privilege of receiving more information on what their cherished Obama administration is really up to. I think it’s an anger analogous to someone refusing to be woken up in in the morning after a late night of drinking. The alarm goes off, but the rude reality – that it is indeed morning – is angrily denied and the alarm is silenced, or smashed. The ever-growing infamy of Julian Assange has become dangerous around the world. I wonder if he will take Ecuador up in their offer of residency? Will he be silenced?
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As someone who spends a good deal of both my working and recreational hours on the internet, I’ve grown quite fond of it. It has been the greatest communications device ever created, the ability for humanity to share information on such a scale helps to make the world much smaller for important ideas to travel. However, this freedom is at odds with the society the modern world finds itself in. Free speech, information, and ideas are not congruent to the ever-strengthening police state of Empire. Were people able to freely exchange these things we might actually have an emancipatory world where defenders of the status quo would be unable to continuously divide us amongst ourselves or retain their power. Should it be any surprise that congress is considering a bill to insert a “kill switch”, controlled by the president, to our access of the internet?
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