Friday, December 3, 2010

Wikileaks #1: Warm-up

There's a lot to say about Wikileaks, so I thought I'd start gently and easily, by making fun of liberals.

A lot of the more radical blogoëlements recently have been talking about how many liberals are frothing mad about Wikileaks, revealing yet again their basic fealty to Power. And it's true--many liberals are reacting that way.

What's more surprising to me is the number of otherwise deeply bland liberals who are all for it. Take PZ Myers, who, the day before the start of the recent round of releases, was thrilled. He doesn't even equivocate about how governments must be allowed to keep some secrets, like even some of his commenters do, and when he says that "we're about to discover the degree of skullduggery that's been going on" he doesn't bother to specify "during the Bush administration," like he and most of his ilk normally would reflexively. For this, and for the present perfect progressive construction of the verb in the last clause of that sentence, he deserves a (teensy) little bit of credit.*

The last part of his post, though, is a pretty hilarious return to form:
It is to be hoped that every major newspaper with some respect for its job has got people going over these documents carefully. The description above is correct: if we're to deserve the title of democracy, we must have an informed citizenry.
Leaving aside the deliciously meaningless cliché salad in the second sentence, do you see how, even when given a huge cache of primary resources, the scientist and the liberal prefers to "hope" (and I've written--or, more accurately, juxtaposed quotes--about that kind of hope before) that he can trust newspapers to sort through it for him and tell him what parts are important?

*Incidentally, I don't mean to imply here that viewing Wikileaks entirely positively is the only stance on the issue I am willing to accept. I do view them very positively--in fact, I'm more excited about them than I have been about pretty much anything in a good long time--but I can definitely understand some types of objections. I should be discussing all of this soon, but it's more complicated; hence this warm-up.

TANGENT linked only by liberal-mocking: it appears that digby has finally figured out that the Democrats actually want to do the terrible things they do. But don't worry: the understanding doesn't go even a centimeter deeper than that, and anyway I'm sure she'll forget by tomorrow. You'd think that the motives of a bunch of millionaires deciding not to raise taxes on millionaires would be pretty easy to figure out, but apparently not!

9 comments:

Justin said...

but why do Democrats keep betraying their inner values?

Randal Graves said...

The only hope that's real is A New Hope.

My favorite revelation so far has to be the gold-plated gun guy.

Word verification: physism. A worldview holding that authority should be vested only in physics teachers.

Ethan said...

Justin, that is the great mystery of our times, isn't it?

Randal, thank you so much for pointing out the gold-plated gun guy, I had missed him. And now I know about him, and my life is much enriched.

Hattie said...

Ah, what bliss. Seeing those bastards squirm makes me feel glad all over.

miguel said...

do you see how, even when given a huge cache of primary resources, the scientist and the liberal prefers to "hope" (and I've written--or, more accurately, juxtaposed quotes--about that kind of hope before) that he can trust newspapers to sort through it for him and tell him what parts are important?

This is a great post but cut the guy a little slack on this here. 265,000 is one fuck of a lot of primary resources. One problem with this kind of transparency is that there aren't too many outfits cut out to review these data dumps. I have to say I am relying on others to sort these out for me, I am just not relying on newspapers.

I saw an interesting theory, based somewhat imaginatively on something
Assange had written, that what Wikileaks is trying to do is make the system so paranoid and secretive that it's various nodes lose the ability to communicate with each other efficiently. I read this after I had heard on Democracy Now that various government agencies are not allowed to access Wikileaks and apparently diplomats in the State Department can't access their own cables in the State Department database.

I thought that take was interesting, because I think a lot of people see this is as all about telling the people. It is about telling the people but apparently it's also about making the system suffocate on its own secretiveness.

Ethan said...

Miguel, oh, yes, I understand that it's a huge amount of data to sift through. I'm certainly not doing much poking through it myself. It's just the disconnect that fascinates me--he knows things have been hidden from him, he says he wants to know what they are, and he's going to let the same corporate media that's conspired to keep this stuff secret in the first place decide for him what's important in it?

I assume the essay you're referring to is the zunguzungu one. It's excellent, and much of what I plan to be writing about wikileaks is from that perspective. That essay is what started me being as excited about it all as I am.

miguel said...

That essay is what started me being as excited about it all as I am.

And me also. I worry, though, that if the theory becomes well-known, the various players in the 'conspiracy' can start to respond more adroitly and imaginatively.

Distributing the leaks so slowly seems like a tactical mistake, but who the hell am I to say.

Viva Assange! Viva Wikileaks!

Ethan said...

I hadn't thought about the speed of it, but perhaps releasing them slowly makes it more of a constant nag?

davidly said...

As much as I'd like to relish these, I cannot. Remember that insofar as 'leaks' are intentional - they most likely serve the leaker in some way.

It seems to me that the desperate squirming is but more political theater than anything else.

Who, after all, benefits from the leaks? A State, whose curtain being lifted creates the semblance of unwanted transparancy and who, at the end of the day, enjoys the fact that it doesn't really matter anyway.