Why The Ill Informed On Wikileaks Should Shut The Fuck Up

I had a short discussion the other day outside of my office building with a gentleman that, although I did not know personally, we have been working in the same building for years, so we always exchanged pleasantries.

I was waiting for the bus, and it had been raining so I was not actually at the bus stop, but right in front of my building. We got to talking about Christmas coming up, the weather here in Los Angeles recently, and then a couple of political short topics came up. So I asked what he thought about Wikileaks and Mr. Assange. As is so typical with the uninformed, he immediately spouted that the man was a security threat and a terrorist for revealing national secrets! I let him rail on for a few minutes, and then I asked him if he had actually read anything that was put out there by Wikileaks, and he huffed and puffed a bit, but finally had to admit he had not actually read what Wikileaks "leaked," but got his information from the news shows that reported on what was leaked.

Typical. I find it funny that people have all sorts of opinions about a lot of things without actually having read up on or made themselves informed of the very thing they have an opinion of. I sort of left it at that with the man, and said that he should first read what Assange's website actually released before he deems the man a terrorist.

More poignant, as usual, is Glenn Greenwald, and his take on the growing trend of the oneness of journalists and politicians, such that it is apparent that one is spouting the talking points of the other as though they were actually doing their job. It is at this point that being older and wiser hits a home run for me, because I came of age when journalists actually did their job, and weren't merely mouthpieces for the government (and those that were, like the Russian media, were obvious). Today, the Rupert Murdochs of the world who are buying up all the media outlets so they can make deals with the powerful people in charge in the world, shape the news to comport with the powerful (and rich) people who control the destiny of this planet. It is in that mode that we receive our news here in the good ole USA.

From the start of the WikiLeaks controversy, the most striking aspect for me has been that the ones who are leading the crusade against the transparency brought about by WikiLeaks -- the ones most enraged about the leaks and the subversion of government secrecy -- have been . . . America's intrepid Watchdog journalists. What illustrates how warped our political and media culture is as potently as that? It just never seems to dawn on them -- even when you explain it -- that the transparency and undermining of the secrecy regime against which they are angrily railing is supposed to be . . . what they do.

What an astounding feat to train a nation's journalist class to despise above all else those who shine a light on what the most powerful factions do in the dark and who expose their corruption and deceit, and to have journalists -- of all people -- lead the way in calling for the head of anyone who exposes the secrets of the powerful. Most ruling classes -- from all eras and all cultures -- could only fantasize about having a journalist class that thinks that way, but most political leaders would have to dismiss that fantasy as too extreme, too implausible, to pursue. After all, how could you ever get journalists -- of all people -- to loathe those who bring about transparency and disclosure of secrets? But, with a few noble exceptions, that's exactly the journalist class we have.

Read the rest here.