Did you ever say anything really mean about someone that you thought was just between yourself and someone else, only to find out they later told them everything? Then it makes everything really UNCOMFORTABLE, maybe even ends relationships? We've probably all been in that situation, hopefully in a younger day, I know who to trust now, also, some things are just better left unsaid because they would be devastating to a person, why do it? And how about the people that repeat such potentially hurtful information? Why do they do it? Nothing better to talk about? Not enough drama in their own lives? Thought it would be helpful? What if you've been the receiver of such news? But I thought we were best friends?!? This is how I view Wikileaks today.
I honestly don't get where Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is coming from. The albino-esqe super intellectual appeared on The Colbert Report a few months ago and I agreed with his views of the media and dumbed-down journalism, his call for more information and more transparency in the world. But I just don't get what these recent leaks have to do with any of that, and how they are helping anyone? The leaks are all just a he said she said collection of non-information about what American diplomats think of foreign leaders, it's all really frank but probably nothing we don't know already. My biggest issue is that Obama does not need another problem to deal with right now, another stupid distraction for American media to focus on. It makes me a tad suspicious as the people who get smeared here are Obama and Hillary Clinton, what's up with that?
Some cursory research on Assange, points to a strange, liberal-nightmare of parenting upbringing with musician, hippy type parents who belonged to a New Age cult that practiced yoga and giving LSD to children, a mix of public and home schooling, as well as being in hiding for five years with his mother and half brother over a bitter divorce battle. He attended University in Australia and became a sort of avant-garde computer hacker, breaking into an Australian University and ,the Canadian, Nortel Communications. The prosecutors found no reason other than the ability to do it and the pleasure in it, I'm sorry but this sounds like the definition of a sociopath. Since his youth in Australia he has lived a sort of life on-the-run, living in Africa and Iceland. He has been called "the ethical hacker" and won Amnesty International Awards for exposing political assassinations in Kenya, Ok, I'm good with that, Africa needs some exposing, maybe a lot of governments do, where the hell were you during the Bush era!?!?
The recent leaks I am not good with, if this leads to the U.S. and Russia falling through on the START treaty, that is not helping the world. I am on the side of we all need to know where and how many nuclear arms and materials are floating around out there, especially the stuff near the Middle East and Afghanistan. If these leaks also diminish Obama more and the Americans elect Sarah Palin as President, that is also not helping, one can only imagine the made up call to war the Republicans will think of next.
I spent the morning trying to find out exactly what the right wing spin will be on this. Too early to say, The Sun newspaper has nothing, I'm not surprised though, they only react and they have to get all their talking points in a row, they are still talking about Portugal getting the UN Security Seat over Canada from months ago! FOX News is taking a National Security side, which is actually the side of the Obama administration, I suppose they have to at this point as their public online poll shows most think it's a threat to the US. My guess is that they will try to blame the victim here, there was an article that gleefully went through all the leaks, can you believe so-and-so said this about so-and-so? OMG! Maybe from a comment thread I figure out the FOX attack in this situation,uninformed comments that ask who leaked this anyway? probably the Obama administration! Ahh, the good old, report half the news and leave out important information to make their viewers angry modus. Their viewers are too suspicious of other news sources so many do not or will not go to the New York Times to see the smiling picture of Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army Intelligence Officer who gave info to Wikileaks previously and is currently in a lot of trouble! Yeah, it's usually something a lot more mundane than Government conspiracy, usually more like self interest.
So what usually happens when someone tells someone else exactly what you think of them? Usually you stop trusting that person with certain information and maybe you stop talking to them altogether. Sometimes you might even become closer to the one you unintentionally offended, because of the guilt and you don't want them thinking you're really that heartless.
As for self-described anarchists, I've met my fair share, they're kind of fun for a while, and then they just become tiresome, they don't want anyone else's rules, just their own.
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