Julian Assange. And I thought *I* had a big ego.

[neorichieb1971]

If some country has done something that could start a war with tax payers money then its them who are the assholes not this guy. Don't shoot the messenger comes to mind.

[Ed Oscuro]

If some country has done something that could start a war with tax payers money then its them who are the assholes not this guy. Don't shoot the messenger comes to mind.

Do you call somebody who steals your private mail "the messenger?"

[Ed Oscuro]

First I have to apologize to my homies on Page Two, who brought up some interesting points. It simply takes more energy to try to repeat myself in a way that answers a given question than to write something new, or try a new tack for the whole post that will maybe clarify something. But I will say a few things, which I do say below but maybe should be clarified again: Both mainstream journalism and the Wikileaks style of truth-seeker share some similarities: Both report stories that the government wants buried, though the mainstream journalism will consider government arguments against publishing some stories and will hold back at times; both have employed some Kojak: The Night Stalker-style techniques; both sometimes have embarrassed governments. But the purpose of journalism is, as the concept is taught to journalists, supposed to be to help inform their communities - no farther. Assange is, as a person and as a leader, a horrible journalist (if he is one) because he injects his own brand of rhetoric into the social contract he's seeking with the public. So, to accept Assange, you have to accept that (I believe he's said so more or less directly) that the government system of secrets is unsalvageable and that we all need to enjoy "crushing bastards" and throw the system out. The difference between journalists and Wikileaks is that journalists are aware that the system serves a purpose, and they are a relief valve when the system becomes too puffed up under its own nonsense. They help save the system and keep it working; oftentimes, people in government open their investigations when they discover something for the first time in the papers. Wikileaks, on the other hand, does not make any distinction between white and black lies, or between Good Secrets and Bad Secrets. Would the Manhattan Project or the planning for D-Day be considered Good Secrets? No matter, Julian Assange has done your thinking for you and you can put aside any historical reflections, because he believes the world is a better place without secrets, hence my curiosity about the possibility of extending Wikileaks to the internal thought processes of every person.

If we take this argument to its extreme (I shouldn't distract from my main point, but this is too fun), is it thoughtcrime to harbor secret thoughts, on secrets or otherwise? If a record of everything in a person's mind, taken directly by machine reading (say electrodes or the like) were a government document, Wikileaks has given no apparent indication that they'd hold it back out of deference to the person. Instead of the news, which would say "Taito Daily has received government transcripts of Ed's recorded thoughts," it would be the actual listing of everything in my thoughts. I'm sure it would make mealtimes awkward.

But back to extending the main point: Idle discussion of revolutions and the like is fun, but it's a bit different to just implement it helter-skelter without a thought for stability. We have seen that done in recent world history. And say what you will about American inclination against revolutions as of late - the American Revolution was not a complete revolution of the political system; the Colonies had a lojng history of self-government, and while I still haven't seen evidence that diplomats to Latin America (for example) saw any ironies, they must have seen a large number of nations which were destroying stability (it's not just American business interests / promotion of the free market, though we keep bringing those up to remind people what our obsession is, like beating our heads on a wall) and which had no apparent hope of creating a stable self-government without resorting to the tactics of starving or intimidating their own people into compliance. So while the U.S. has often made things arguably worse in Latin America, it is not because the idea of revolution is universally applicable. (Incidentally, where I come down on the argument of "when can a revolution happen" is that there needs to be a stable and respected system of government, and the revolution probably cannot call into question the formal previous acts of that government, even if they appear to be abuses of power because the old powers that be either will protest and stymie change, or they will need to be killed off enmasse, i.e. 1789 or 1917, which is not a better outcome - but anyway Lenin's idea of the educated proletariat and the idea of a critical mass seem either to be not the whole story or missing the point entirely). There may be a big difference between a revolutionary who has a single issue to tackle, but it would be nicer to get the content (the bad news) without all the rhetoric (the revolution).

This, I think, touches on a whole other subject: as you infer, democracy (and the free market, by happenstance) only works when you're dealing with an informed and empowered public/consumer base, since an ignorant and passive one can easily be manipulated and fleeced by those in positions of privilege.

In other words: Never.

So, looking at it that way - not that I think we should (though certainly US politics often work this way, unfortunately, but it's not the ideal), is it better to have complete anarchy or at least effective isolationism where no countries work together, or is a little bit of 'bedding down' tolerable to at least be engaged, however indirectly, with people who may or may not be plotting to take over the world, to keep tabs on them? And, as I mentioned before, Wikileaks has done nothing to loosen ties between nations that have been even more irresponsible than the U.S. - any of us can point out countless foreign policy escapades, big and small, that the U.S. has been involved in that seem to have been conceived along simplistic "containment" or push-back routines which ultimately didn't seem to have an endgame planned out thoughtfully, but one can also point to ongoing, decades-long intrigues within and between other nations.

The entire point of Wikileaks is not to act like spies or investigators, uncovering misdeeds for the authorities, but to rally the public against policies, essentially to turn them against their governments.

Wikileaks may think that leaking embarrassing information globally is possible, but I suspect they will find very few brave souls willing to risk execution or run for asylum to uncover a pitiful few documents which will be denied as "CIA forgeries" anyway - if the Wikileaks dream of opening up all the Western Democracies to root out corruption holds true, support for better, more open societies goes down as people do not realize the uncovering of corruption is a better prospect, however stinging, than simply not having any stories about corruption because they are covered up. Furthermore, as we have seen in the U.S., groups within government that may have use for this information - like soldiers in the Army, where this is thought to have been leaked from - will no longer get information that lets them know what their diplomats think about the situation in countries they may be fighting in. While a lot has been said about how soldiers ought to actually be diplomats (forgetting what their job is), and that they should be doing the work of feeling out their communities anyway (which I agree with), they may now be limited to their own resources. And that's not a pro- or anti-war issue; a lot of people must have been able to look at those cables before and think "man, we're in this over our heads."

Even if you did get information out through Wikileaks, how can that do anything to change politics in, for example, North Korea? Even in the U.S., military personnel and even defense contractors (i.e. at Raytheon) are being asked, humorously, not to access information because it's "classified," in order to try to limit the flow of classified information. It's the punchline to a joke, with people arguing that this actually puts people who shouldn't be more poorly informed at a disadvantage to the general public. But again, bureaucracy loves as narrow a focus as possible - the discontent and questioning that secrecy naturally provokes being supposedly outweighed by removing natural sources and focuses of criticism, and in general using the "what you don't know can't hurt you" rule.

Other countries will react just as the often-blamed right-wingers here in the U.S. have, tending to bury their heads in the sand. They will promote their people seeing it as an attack on their country. Some other countries have very efficient means of rallying the people against "imperialism" and "foreign influence" and at the very least probably feel justified anyway in that they suspect Wikileaks is a covert US plot anyway - or at least they might say so in public. There was no upside in the Wikileaks revelations about Middle Eastern countries distrusting Iran, as I've said before. While Iran won't really credibly say "this is a U.S. plot to discredit us," since it obviously discredits their neighbors, they are able to promote themselves to the people of those nations as the one true friend in the face of corrupt relationships between the U.S. and their local governments.

It is the universal rule that bureaucracy and official secrecy causes some level of damage democracy, and that while sometimes bureaucracy does have a legitimate need for secrecy (planning in times of war is the most obvious), bureaucracy prefers to hide its shame forever - so there is a legitimate need to out true scandals when the perpetrators will never do so. But likewise, as I've stated, to merely engage with other nations, which hold their own semi-secret positions, you have to respect their wishes for secrecy. And in regards to our own secrets, their time may come, and people shouldn't disregard the power and influence of journalism. If Wikileakers were 9/11 "Truthers" or looking for JFK documents, or the existence of programs like Operation Northwoods, they appear to have come away embarrassingly empty-handed.

The idea of the Wikileaks center, namely Assange, that people simply don't want a government to act like ours apparently does and that they will actually overthrow such a system, are simply offering up their opinion - on both points it's certainly debatable that Americans prefer an alternative to the American system of bureaucracy. If there was a known workable alternative, and Wikileaks were promoting it, maybe they'd have a point - but no matter how hard they try, their supposed "alternative" of an open society is not only unworkable, but it makes them blind to the possibility of reforming the current system. No, they haven't been trying to reform the system - you either keep secrets or you don't, and if you can't, then you are destroying that system.

[neorichieb1971]

If some country has done something that could start a war with tax payers money then its them who are the assholes not this guy. Don't shoot the messenger comes to mind.

Do you call somebody who steals your private mail "the messenger?"

Going back to the wife thing..Hyperthetically!!!!

If friend no3 was banging your wife, if friend no2 was getting blown by your wife.. And no1 found out the secret.. Wouldn't you want friend no1 to tell you? No matter the consequences.

If it were my wife, I would.. I'd fucking kill her.

The truth is almost always the most unpleasant thing to hear. Secrets are the most cruel things to bear and making huge fucking mistakes in this world going unpunished is just the sort of shit we need cut out of our lives.

Yes I live with ideal philosphy's. My parents taught me right and wrong. Pity then it only applies to fools like me.

[Ed Oscuro]

First off, I don't think you have a right to know. If hypothetical wife / PCB / the dog / whatever is blowing your best mates' gay girlfriend's ex-hamster's roommate's lawyer, whatever, I don't think we really have a right to know, because it's between them. Obviously there is a medical risk to Hubby, but that's a trust issue between the people in that relationship.

And speaking of morals...you say one second that you'd "fucking kill" the perp but then say you have morals next? See, this is why you probably shouldn't know. I know you're not speaking seriously (I hope) of killing anybody doing this, but again, for the sake of familial enhancement, it's probably for the best.

Besides, none of the Wikileaks I've seen reported on are about the reasons for going to war in Iraq, around which there is a pretty clear consensus that it was not the best thing we could've done. Since the diplomatic cables go between diplomats at their posts and Washington, it's not clear that U.S. diplomats had a need to send cables about issues in Iraq, or at least not many of them. We had no embassy in Iraq (at least not that I know of, though you maybe still had the potential of a cable going from our contacts with an intermediary, like Switzerland's embassy in Iran representing our interests there). From what we know (again, know, versus stuff we don't and which would therefore be a revelation) is that folks in the White House more or less cooked the plan up by themselves - especially Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz. But perhaps there's some being held in reserve by Assange & Co. - we'll have to see.

For whatever reason, there simply hasn't been any indication that the Obama White House feels the need to look seriously at prosecuting the previous Administration - that old nicety about Presidential Immunity being, as far as I can tell, just a nicety partly going back to that thing about hiding one's shame, but also to prevent the partisan warfare in the U.S. from being inflamed further than it already is. Besides, Obama would have to pardon Bush. Perhaps some in the U.S. might welcome it, even if it leads to Republicans opening retaliatory bullshit investigations against Obama once out of office, but it makes the U.S. look weak and unstable to have the government constantly in such turmoil. Of course, you're from the U.K., and reading the opinion columns in your papers it often is made out that somebody not putting enough coins in the parking meters is the scandal of our times, so it's refreshing to get that level of hyperbole to institute a sense of urgency even when sweating the small stuff.

[neorichieb1971]

In all seriousness I can't kill anyone.

As for the rest of the agenda you spoke of. Politics is about power at the end of the day. There is no moral judgement when a big lump of cheese is there waiting for the taking. Yesterdays wrongs may make a better America tomorrow, it is clear to see where some peoples consciences balanced out. However, somewhere between the ages of 5 and 15 humans develop a hunger for secrecy, fucking one another over and doing all kinds of bad shit. My point is, we shouldn't be taking leads from these people. The fact is if they lie in office, they lied to get in office, which means they lied in order to become nominees. Yet, everytime we fall for it. I just want to see more truth in the world you know!! I think i'm a moral guy but if I found out someone did some evil shit I'd be first in line to throw rocks at his dumbass head.

[Ed Oscuro]

Alright, I've seen enough.

In all seriousness -> throwing rocks at heads? You really love casually incorprating images of violence into your posts, you ought to get that checked out. Anyway, what's with the revenge complex? There's justice, and it takes time. Anything else is a shortcut. I think we're going off into la-la land here, though.

[neorichieb1971]

Julian Assange speaks for a fair amount of people who like things done more openly. If the government were allowed to close him out, shut him down, condemn him to the levels of terrorism which is what I'm reading I feel its a loss. Its a loss because it just sets an example that you can do bad stuff as long as you can get away with it.

On the flip side of the coin. Anyone like Julian Assange is a threat to anyone who perceives unearthing secrets as scary. Lets just hope if he unearths anything really serious that whomever is affected lets it be dealt with internally to the group/nation that caused the havoc in the first place.

I have never voted for a UK Prime minister. I do not believe that any of the problems of any nation can be rectified by one person over one term. I do believe Julian Assange can make people angry enough to see as voters that they need to vote differently next time. That the next person taking the healm knows this Assange guy exists to crucify him at every turn (if need be).

[BulletMagnet]

Obviously there is a medical risk to Hubby, but that's a trust issue between the people in that relationship.

Methinks that's kind of the point - when one's trust in someone else (or one's government as a whole) is not only misplaced, but being used as a curtain to conceal and enable further wrongdoing, the former's well-being (in one sense or another, possibly several) is likely at risk, and said curtain deserves to be lifted (the point at which "unorthodox methods" are warranted to accomplish this is a whole other debate). Frankly, I think I DO have the right to know who my government is screwing, seeing as it promised me it was keeping its pants on this time.

For whatever reason, there simply hasn't been any indication that the Obama White House feels the need to look seriously at prosecuting the previous Administration

As much as the situation incenses me, I can understand (though not condone) why Obama and Company have been hesitant to take any action along those lines (he's been kissing Republican butt almost constantly since he took office, and yet they still call him every ludicrously overblown name in the book, whilst openly stating on the record that their primary goal above all else is to make sure he's a one-term President, with zero fear of backlash), though considering that their ranks saw fit to waste heaven knows how much time and taxpayer money to harass Clinton over (fittingly enough) a handful of blowjobs, even as their most sanctimonious howler was cheating on his own wife (again, no resulting harm to his career!), such an investigation would certainly be fitting, even discounting the long-overdue light that would be shed on that disgraceful period in our history.

[Michaelm]

Do you call somebody who steals your private mail "the messenger?"

Wrong comparison.
Yours, his or my private email have nothing to do with it as we do not represent anybody but ourselves.

[BryanM]

We're torturing Manning right? At least with the relaxing fun of total isolation in the dark - at the minimum?

One bizarre thing I read was Nixon supported a plan to streamline and make the welfare state more fair by getting rid of the gatekeepers and giving a living wage to everyone. Which passed through the congress critters but didn't even reach a vote in the senate. What was the gist of that plan?

If this was a real democracy, you'd think the fourth most powerful party in the country could have managed to have one fucking seat in the house. Hell, they could win a presidential election if the media wanted them to. We didn't choose Obama, he was chosen for us.

I don't know if anyone's ever put out much hard data on that front, but I'd be willing to bet that those at the top of the societal heap vote against their own interests (especially without knowing it) FAR less frequently than those beneath them do...then again, that's just a "hunch" on my part to begin with, heh.

Will Wright donates to the fascist party.

The South is a strange place. They fought for rich people to keep their slaves, and now ten thousand years later in the year of 3010, they're still fighting for them. Very strange people. Who can't read charts.

kissing butt

Uhhhh that's really more of a rim job. I have to change the channel when the TV randomly shows some of that pornography. FCC is slacking.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

(I havnt yet read any of the most resent posts)

I wonder if the reason theres so much hate towards him is due to the fact WL is forcing them to face the truth about their country and has broken their perception that the US (and its allies) are the good guys who are fighting a moral crusade against the forces of evil.

Yup, because all Americans must be mindless sheep. For fucks sake, give that sentiment a rest

OFC not all americans are sheep, what i do believe is a good number of americans and ppl from the rest of the world are ignorant, either through lack of information or denial.

I mean this in all sincerity, but while some you are criticizing the U.S. and its allies, or commenting about the tyranny of the U.S., do you ever think about your own ideals? Are those ideals necessarily a fit for everyone?

My ideals and the laws we as citizens of supposedly civilised countries tell me what is right and wrong. And I support anything that in some way acts as a check and balance against governments and multi nationals that seem to be doing whatever they want.

I do agree with that certain cloak and dagger shit needs to be kept secret but not things like war crimes or corruption

[djvinc]

You know what ? Simple people have difficulties with abstract concepts. They need to associate peoples and faces with them.

Microsoft -> Bill Gates
Apple -> Steve Jobs
Chrisitanism -> Jesus Christ
USA -> the president
Facebook -> Mark Zuckerberg
etc., it's true for almost any organisation

and Wikileaks -> Assange

It's in human nature and it's more entertaining like that.
Also easier to find a guy guilty than an organisation, and listening to a spokesperson than reading communiqués.

[Taylor]

"There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person," says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex.

[djvinc]

"There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person," says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex.

Touché.

[neorichieb1971]

A persons ideal is nothing relative to the swag in his back yard.

The US is an imperial force. The imperial part is what is wrong with them. If you don't like someone being different (especially for fighting religious wars) then let them fight themselves. Don't try to be the world police.

I think all these wars are a con as well. All I see on TV is a bunch of English and American soldiers shooting people 8 miles away from behind a wall. Last I heard, thats not war.

[djvinc]

Last I heard, thats not war.

It's not war, it's training camps.
Every 10 years since 1940, USA invents a war out of nothing but fear (very far from US soil), mainly for training purposes.
The only exception to this rule is the last 10 years period, where the training camps are now open 24/7 and use franchised soldiers.

[antron]

Last I heard, thats not war.

It's not war, it's training camps.
Every 10 years since 1940, USA invents a war out of nothing but fear (very far from US soil), mainly for training purposes.
The only exception to this rule is the last 10 years period, where the training camps are now open 24/7 and use franchised soldiers.

So you think the UN is in on this too? You would have to, because they approved the Afghan and Gulf wars.

The only recent exception is Iraq, but why would we need to train when we already had a war? We went there for oil.

[Super Laydock]

If some country has done something that could start a war with tax payers money then its them who are the assholes not this guy. Don't shoot the messenger comes to mind.

Do you call somebody who steals your private mail "the messenger?"

Since when has a state a "right" for privacy?
the state is there for and by the people it represents and has no rights by itself.

and those people have the right to know what their government/state* is doing on "their" behalf.
And since the state isn't transparent about their actions, nor wants to be, this is a fine way of actually knowing what it is doing.


*(yes, government and a state aren't synonyms, I know)

[Kakizaki]

Last I heard, thats not war.

It's not war, it's training camps.
Every 10 years since 1940, USA invents a war out of nothing but fear (very far from US soil), mainly for training purposes.
The only exception to this rule is the last 10 years period, where the training camps are now open 24/7 and use franchised soldiers.

So you think the UN is in on this too? You would have to, because they approved the Afghan and Gulf wars.

The UN was also involved in the Korean War.

Also, since 1940? How enlightening to find out that the United States manufactured a roll for itself in WW II....and that France wasn't involved in French Indochina prior to the United States...

[djvinc]

1940 is the trigger. Actually WW2 was more meant to train logisticians, computer scientists, aviation, and the nuclear bomb.
I won't deny, except for Nagasaki and the aftermath of war, that USA did a great job that time.
(I don't have any opinion about the UN btw, it's like Gaiden episodes in shmups to me)

But let's stay focused on Assange and today's issues

[Kakizaki]

1940 is the trigger. Actually WW2 was more meant to train logisticians, computer scientists, aviation, and the nuclear bomb.
I won't deny, except for Nagasaki and the aftermath of war, that USA did a great job that time.
(I don't have any opinion about the UN btw, it's like Gaiden episodes in shmups to me)

But let's stay focused on Assange and today's issues

Sorry, if we are meant to focus on the issue at hand, Assange, you shouldn't just pop in a throw out a nebulous and poorly supported conspiracy theory that supposedly began in 1940. I'm not even entirely sure why you picked that date. Focusing only on Europe? Why not push it back into the 1920s and 30s when American bankers were inadvertently financing Japanese actions in Manchuria?

I'm sorry but you are grossly oversimplifying U.S. actions of the past. If you don't want to talk about it, don't bring it up.

[Ed Oscuro]

Do you call somebody who steals your private mail "the messenger?"

Wrong comparison.
Yours, his or my private email have nothing to do with it as we do not represent anybody but ourselves.

I agree that it's not a very good comparison, unfortunately, but guess who takes the rap for that one?

If some country has done something that could start a war with tax payers money then its them who are the assholes not this guy. Don't shoot the messenger comes to mind.

Do you call somebody who steals your private mail "the messenger?"

Since when has a state a "right" for privacy?

Since you and Michaelm have raised this point, I guess I'll address it - again.

Does bureaucracy often try to hide its activities for reasons that we might not like? Yes, for many reasons - to cover up crimes, or at least to cover up activities that rival organizations (within or outside government) might decry as unethical, or, even if there's nothing bad happening, just to make the operation of the secret state normal business, to give them an edge in both of the previous conditions (i.e. if something goes wrong, or just to keep their opponents in the dark). So that is obviously not a good situation.

But what is getting lost in all the love for Wikileaks is that responsible journalists already uncover a lot of wrongdoing. Congress does sometimes, like in Senator Tower's investigation of the CIA in the 1970s. FOIA is another source of uncovering secrets.

Back to the point, I'm less of the opinion than some that the Wikileaks "revelations" are going to get very many people killed (at least not as a direct effect), but the main causes are that it is hurting relationships even with democracies whose leaders will not want to be embarrassed by intimations in the papers that they are ugly, dumb, have emotional issues, or whatever. This is true of people in democracies (German PM Angela Merkel was described as "risk averse" and "rarely creative") and with people who are not part of democracies but are probably better partners than others (i.e. the case of Saudi Arabia vs. Iran).

At the very least, I do think there is a sense of "lesson learned" among the diplomatic corps to be perhaps more discreet in their writing, but if they can't write "so and so is ugly, and also dumb," then they fall back on bureaucratese that doesn't convey any useful information. I am not going to second-guess the Secretary of State asking if Madame Kirchner is on her meds - it appears the diplomats thought better than to go spying as asked (like for credit card numbers, even), but a lot of the information being spilled is basically peoples' private correspondence, and I think there is a marked difference between letters between people setting up arms deals and between people sharing thoughts about a person's reputation or whatever.

If they were uncovering evidence of modern-day variations on Iran-Contra or even just low-level corruption, that'd definitely be a journalistic intention. But I do not at all agree with the idea that people working with the government never need secrets. Even people in regular desk jobs may have need of some secrets. And what about compartmentalization - where people working on various tasks aren't told what other people are working on, even if it's similar (like at the Groom Lake test facilities)? During the Cold War, compartmentalization meant that if somebody defected to the Soviet Union that they would be less likely of spilling everything. Yet it still happened, and people still got killed. Now, we haven't any indication that Wikileaks has anything like that to release, but the intimation that they will release something like that out of spite if Assange is prosecuted makes me very concerned.

I don't think Assange has really thought the endgame through. If he releases information that gets people killed (not that he would), it will ultimately not serve a greater purpose because the secret state, for better or worse, is here to stay. I do understand the contention that the secret state is so well entrenched that it is hard to budge it without taking drastic action, but all the reaction it's gotten from the government so far is to just send us further in the direction of compartmentalization, "need to know" restriction, and it ultimately strengthens the rationalization of the secret state. He has reinforced the rationale for government agencies not to share information with each other and it may make it that much harder for journalists and others to get at necessary facts in the future. Regardless of what shrill voices are saying about blood on his hands, I think is the real disaster of Wikileaks, and while nobody may die yet, it does mean that when people do die unnecessarily due to government negligence or malfeasance that it will simply be buried further and for longer.

[Ed Oscuro]

Sorry, if we are meant to focus on the issue at hand, Assange, you shouldn't just pop in a throw out a nebulous and poorly supported conspiracy theory that supposedly began in 1940. I'm not even entirely sure why you picked that date. Focusing only on Europe? Why not push it back into the 1920s and 30s when American bankers were inadvertently financing Japanese actions in Manchuria?

If you go back to the 1920s we could talk about the Philippines and South America. One of the men who was sent to promote business interests, General "Old Gimlet Eye" Smedley Butler, wrote a speech and a book called "War is a Racket" that deals with these issues. I don't know about "training" - but it certainly has been the case that business often gets its way in the U.S., and until relatively recently the military has been an appendage for that interest (it'd be a stretch, but even a relatively benevolent, as far as I can tell, exercise like Teddy Roosevelt's "Great White Fleet" was promoting American business, as a consequence of its obvious mission to promote American military power), instead of its own organization. It's probably not until WWII that the military really started to become a state unto itself, although there are examples that can be found before that of it acting the same way. But I would just make the point that there is a difference between business interests having a voice in a democratic society (gasp, who would've guessed) and with the leaders of government actually starting wars just for business reasons.

WWII, at least the beginning of it, is a particularly terrible example to use of government supposedly being in alliance with business to promote war; that is probably what some folks claimed President Roosevelt were doing when Congressional isolationists prevented the President from aiding Britain more openly, then fighting the War of Britain with mainly a handful of overworked pilots. I think history has proven them wrong, even if we don't make the obvious Appeasing Hitlerism = Condoning Mass Genocide argument; just the argument to help safeguard Britain's, France's, and other countries' liberties were reasons enough.

[Kakizaki]

Sorry, if we are meant to focus on the issue at hand, Assange, you shouldn't just pop in a throw out a nebulous and poorly supported conspiracy theory that supposedly began in 1940. I'm not even entirely sure why you picked that date. Focusing only on Europe? Why not push it back into the 1920s and 30s when American bankers were inadvertently financing Japanese actions in Manchuria?

If you go back to the 1920s we could talk about the Philippines and South America. One of the men who was sent to promote business interests, General "Old Gimlet Eye" Smedley Butler, wrote a speech and a book called "War is a Racket" that deals with these issues. I don't know about "training" - but it certainly has been the case that business often gets its way in the U.S., and until relatively recently the military has been an appendage for that interest (it'd be a stretch, but even a relatively benevolent, as far as I can tell, exercise like Teddy Roosevelt's "Great White Fleet" was promoting American business, as a consequence of its obvious mission to promote American military power), instead of its own organization. It's probably not until WWII that the military really started to become a state unto itself, although there are examples that can be found before that of it acting the same way. But I would just make the point that there is a difference between business interests having a voice in a democratic society (gasp, who would've guessed) and with the leaders of government actually starting wars just for business reasons.

Yes, the American desire to preserve open door policy in East Asia, specifically China, and to prevent regional trade blocs from developing during this period (early 20th century) did at times fall victim to businessmen who were utilized as diplomats.

[Ed Oscuro]

That's an interesting way of looking at it. I'm no expert in the area. But does the goal of opposing 'trade blocs' have much to do with Mexico and South America?

[Kakizaki]

That's an interesting way of looking at it. I'm no expert in the area. But does the goal of opposing 'trade blocs' have much to do with Mexico and South America?

In a round about way yes (maybe). Meijii and early Showa era bureaucrats and some politicians attempted to justify Japanese involvement in China by comparing it to U.S. policy based off of the Monroe Doctrine. The U.S. was weary that Japan was treading dangerously close to carving out a sphere of influence in China (thus threatening U.S. open door policy within China and hindering trade). However, I believe some U.S. politicians, including Teddy Roosevelt did take into account how sensitive an issue Japan's relationship to China was (in regards to outside intervention) when it was compared to and framed within the context of U.S. - South American relations.

[`Throwdown]

Julian Assange... lol...

[BulletMagnet]

But what is getting lost in all the love for Wikileaks is that responsible journalists already uncover a lot of wrongdoing.

Not nearly as much as they should be uncovering - if current trends in media ownership and misplaced acclaim continue, there's no way in hell we'll ever see another Watergate (just more Lewinskys). The fact that a total waste of space like Maureen Dowd makes six figures a year and spends it on polish for her Pulitzer (and don't get me started on the TV and radio idiots...can you imagine Cronkite or Murrow so much as giving them the time of day?) is enough by itself to convince me that most so-called "journalists" are far more concerned with their own bottom lines than telling people what they truly need to hear.

[neorichieb1971]

US media is ineffective. I've never seen anything so one sided in my life. When I lived in the USA if you agreed with the DJ he would let you talk for 10 mins. If you disagreed he would cut you off, call you names and let someone on that agrees with him.

And that Fox guy, he is just so full of himself. Can't put a foot wrong that guy. I bet Julian Assange is the devil to him and his loyal supporters lol.