The other day I said I might write a post on the reaction of journalists to #Cablegate.
Before going on to some analysis of a wider context, let me point to an article in The Atlantic on that very topic, and let me cite (with permission) a response on Facebook by LP’s own Mark Bahnisch:
There’s something interesting going on here. The only slightly redacted and timed/themed nature of the releases implies an ability for the information to speak for itself; or at least to be organised/classified and interpreted in multiple ways, without the imposition of a single frame. Analytically speaking, Assange’s motives and character flaws (or otherwise) are irrelevant. It’s not difficult to define the nature of the threat to journalists as intermediators, and to journalism as personality-focused.
I agree, and hence, I think some of the craziness of those who one would think would be in the business of defending freedom to publish (and in the United States, First Amendment Rights). A small Australian example is the confusion evinced by both Andrew Bolt and News Limited generally about what tack to take (and that’s a bigger thing – witness the increasingly bizarre Mitchell sues Posetti saga from the ‘Right to Know’ crew – on which the latest is documented here).
I want to circle back to the link I posted to Umberto Eco the other day, and to my contention that the “information” now out there isn’t really new, or news. What’s new is the crumbling of the walls of hypocrisy and deniability, and the revelation that much “intelligence” is just banal. There aren’t, therefore, any secrets that imply that foreign affairs wonks, security or intelligence specialists, whoever, are somehow a more learned, acute and astute race of beings than anyone with an education and internet access and the willingness to think and make connections.
On Tuesday, too, I expressed concern about the cutting off of net-based financial flows to Wikileaks. Since then, we’ve seen what Bernard Keane rightly characterises as an internet war, a pushback disrupting online financial infrastructure.
#Cablegate is an information bomb, whose shockwaves are broader than anticipated by most, and among whose implications are the de-domestication of the “information is free” slogan which had been corporatised and contained by all the Googles, PayPals and other businesses putting on white hats. It’s that rawness of information which is disrupting a stack of neat categories for judgement, and showing behaviours and modes of action in different lights – precisely because Assange and Wikileaks’ motives are not specifiable easily, and the releases are only lightly redacted and not pre-packaged to fit one narrative or t’other.
Lurking somewhere in some febrile imaginaries, too, is the spectre of Wikileaks’ ‘Thermonuclear option’, a locked file already widely disseminated, and the stories that Wall Street and the Citadels of Capital are the next release.
Another small Antipodean angle or demonstration – Mark Arbib’s role as a “protected source” for the US. Again, he’s just been talking himself up, retailing stuff about his role in the rise and fall of KRudd (who, for a number of reasons, seems to be having a good InfoWar, perhaps because he was always already a postmodern politician). Bill Shorten explains that it’s perfectly usual for Labor righties to chat to American embassy folks. Julia Gillard, as far as I can see, has made no comment. But it throws another light on what exactly Arbib thought he was up to, and enables a comparison to be made with endless campaigns about supposed Soviet “agents of influence” and hidden Commies in the Labor left, about which there’s been unseasonable obsessing this year.
Then, there’s the disruptions in the feminist force (see Still Life With Cat as well as Guy Rundle).
All sorts of reflex judgements, modes of containment and control, all dissolving. There will be an almighty effort to re-erect walls around a lot of this stuff, and not just by states, and by left as well as right. They will not wholly succeed. That will bring bad as well as good in its wake.
The funny thing is that all this should be very familiar to anyone who ever read Cyberpunk in the 80s and 90s; a predictive infosphere long since dismissed as old hat. I will say that I don’t find Julian Assange himself all that interesting. He’s an archetype of a certain sensibility – and, yes, one from the late 20th century – and someone who I don’t think is fully aware of what forces have been set in motion.
Interesting times.
Note to commenters: I’m mostly analysing, not expressing a judgement here. I think, for reasons implied, the time for that will be later.
NB: Previous discussion on LP here and with reference to the Swedish complainants against Assange, in Anna’s post.
Elsewhere: Some thoughts from Geert Lovink and Patrice Riemens at Eurozine.
Elsewhere: Some interesting thoughts from Geert Lovink and Patrice Riemens at Eurozine.
Thanks Kim, you have succinctly covered most of what I have been thinking and trying (not so eloquently) to point out in discussions on this topic. The feminist discussions I have found odd and troubling. I look forward to seeing the comments on this piece flow..
“Intelligence” is banal, and diplomatic cables do not even reach that height. AJP Taylor thought you could dig out most info of interest to foreign governments from newspapers, magazines, telephone books, timetables and other sources in the public domain. A CIA experiment in the 1950s proved just that: a team of 5 Yale undergraduates managed to work out the entire US Army order of battle with accurate appraisals of naval and air strength from documents in the public domain.
As Lord Egremont, secretary to then British foreign minister HArold Macmillan once succintly put it: “Much better if the Russians saw Cabinet minutes twice a week. Prevent all that f*cking dangerous guesswork”
But I gather that Wikileaks has, in the past, done better than this latest ho-hum collection of cables. To adapt the words of EP Thompson, Assange as a kind of cyber-urinal against which minor operatives patiently leak in the public interest, must have had triumphs that outstrip this one. Can someone refresh my memory?
In other words, diplomacy. Well, we won’t be needing any more of that, will we?
Personally, I feel that the media focus on Assange as a figurehead has been blown out of all proportion. There is more to WikiLeaks than Assange, although you wouldn’t believe it from the hysterical reactions in the media of the last few days. He is rapidly becoming the Che of information freedom and his image is being hijacked by all sorts of people.
This is particularly troubling in the context of the Swedish allegations, which I think have been a little fancifully perceived by many as an out and out fix. Can you fairly take a “messiah” to trial? What happens when a messiah isn’t quite all that we want him to be?
If you think the leaks are prima facie banal then you’re not going to have a clue about what is going on. This is perfectly illustrated here by this convoluted post.
Timely post Kim. There are (at least) three separate issues raised by the WikiLeaks phenomenon which I would rate in order of importance:
- The effects of digital records and the World Wide Web on the dissemination of information and the implications for existing power relationships in society;
- The implications of the latest documents, still in the process of being released, for nations and interests affected by the disclosures;
- The desirability of ensuring natural justice for Julian Assange and anyone else implicated in the affair, including having the Australian government repudiate if necessary the supine attitude it took to the USA in the case of David Hicks.
I rate the last item as the least significant in terms of its ramifications for our society generally, but that does not make it unimportant. Just as Howard and Ruddock were defined in part by their gutlessness and absence of principle with respect to Hicks, so might Gillard and company’s character be judged by the way they handle the matter if the yanks decide to get rough with Assange.
Actually the parallels of today to John Brunner’s 1975 book Shockwave Rider are amazing. Look it up and get a copy.
This was the proginator of the cyber-punk books. And though the terms he uses are different, the web, etc are all there.
As is the protagonist, Nick Halflinger, a computer hacker expert. Who tries to free the World by making all information, with all the dirty secrets of the corrupt elite in a disfunctional State, available to everyone.
Life copying fiction?
I think Assange is fairly aware of what forces have been set in motion but he’s enough of an anarchist not to let that stop him. A responsible person might end up in analysis paralysis, the potential for disruptive change would make it difficult to take the risk and act. (cf the careful Kevin Rudd)
The reactions of the powerful have probably done themselves more damage than the leaks. Perhaps the ‘messianic’ Assange has deliberately sacrificed himself knowing this would happen.
He may be irresponsible but it’s hard to argue that he’s wrong, and despite what personality flaws he may or may not have, his bravery has to impress. Unless you can disbelieve the potential for a targeted assassination he has done something analogous to lying down in front of the world’s tanks. His detractors would argue that there is no cause to challenge the ‘free world’. But the way his detractors blithely assume US exceptionalism reinforces the need for challenge (even the saner American commentators come out with comments like “it’s wrong for the President to order assassination of US citizens” – what about the rest of us?)
He is ultimately less important personally than the opportunities for change he’s set up. Putting the genie back in the bottle will take real repression.
Something that’s been missed in all of this is that Wikileaks hasn’t actually published the 250,000 or so documents on its website. What it did was to send them to a number of newspapers around the world, which so far have themselves published about 960 of the documents, with whatever redactions they thought necessary. Wikileaks has subsequently put onto its website the already published 960 documents, with the same redactions. You can’t get anything from Wikileaks that you can’t get from the NYT or the Guardian.
See Glenn Greenwald: Anti-WikiLeaks lies and propaganda – from TNR, Lauer, Feinstein and more.
1. This isn’t new in kind. During the 1970s, the Church Committee and other inquiries blew the lid off the US national security state to a much greater degree than WikiLeaks has so far. That is not to say that there may not be some huge revelations still to come from WL. But these WL cables are communications between the centre and the periphery of the US government. In distinction to this state of affairs, the revelations of the 1970s were about how figures at the very centre of the US national security state related to each other.
2. Most “intel” is utterly banal. Most interesting is how personnel at the centre analyse and spin this intel into policies, actions, and interventions in the world. And again, the material of the 1970s was about these processes.
I assume the government’s checking whether Mark Arbib has broken any Australian official secrets laws in his talks with the Americans.
Im most interested in Mclelland’s thoughts on the matter.
Either way, its certainly “grossly irresponsible”, wouldn’t you say, Jools?
Referenced, or at least implied in the post, SJ. I thought that was widely understood.
Indeed, but then the bound volumes of the transcripts of the Church Committee, and some of the very interesting work done on its findings/revelations are of a different order of things: careful sifting of an edifice and its informational base over several years. This is relatively unanalysed, only loosely categorised, data released at a much quicker speed, and the speed of the response/attack/counter-attack, I think is pretty unprecedented.
In a sense the Church Committee used better, more prudent, and more careful and slow analytical intelligence techniques against the intelligencers (to borrow a 17th/18th century term). This ain’t quite the same. It’s more of a dump/infobomb.
Certainly not. I’ve been following this reasonably closely, and I didn’t pick it up. It’s something that needs to be explained more widely. I meant no crticism of you, Kim.
Ok, thanks, SJ, appreciate that. Point noted, and I’ll make that as clear as can be in subsequent posts.
Er… don’t take that as read from SJ Kim.
It’s true that wikileaks haven’t released all the cables, but it’s not true that they only publish what’s already been covered by news sources, and it’s not true that they’ve sent the full (usable) archive to anyone at all AFAIK.
As usual…
Step One: Assume a can opener.
*sigh*
@17 – doesn’t it ever make you weary, j_p_z, assuming that world weary pose?
Nota Bene, what’s at the beginning of that bit by Qoheleth the Preacher ending, in the KJV, with “nothing new under the sun”.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+1&version=NKJV
@16 – FDB, would appreciate a clarification very much.
The late Chalmers Johnson put together a sort of hypothetical National Intelligence Estimate for Harper’s a few years ago. In one of the footnotes he wrote:
National Intelligence Estimates seldom contain startling new data. To me they always read like magazine articles or well-researched and footnoted graduate seminar papers. When my wife once asked me what was so secret about them, I answered that perhaps it was the fact that this was the best we could do.
We see something similar in those cables from the ambassadors to State, which are the ones the press seem obsessed with. The apparent expectation is these will be interesting or revelatory because the local operatives have super-secret-special sources and gnarly powers of analysis, but in fact of course they are usually local press reports cobbled together with a bit of gossip. The press focus on them is partly precisely because they’re entirely trivial, and partly because the press holds to the bizarre fantasy that the in-going cables provide a window on reality, a source of information both true and not otherwise available. (In the Oz media’s case there’s also the usual pathetic cultural cringe at work – oh, look what the Americans are saying about us!)
The “Rudd Slammed by US” beat-up is a classic case. Even the SMH’s own article included the quote pointing out the characterisation of Rudd as a control freak came partly from media reports, belying the notion that these cables vindicated the media’s bullshit narrative that Rudd lost the leadership because of his personality flaws and not because he was proposing policies that pissed off the mining lobby. That the Herald decided this self-exculpatory grift would be the first thing they revealed about the cables in their possession speaks volumes about their degeneration as a news organ, particularly given that they buried the lede – that the US charge d’affaire had sources within DFaT – in paragraph 16. Though, in fairness to them, the next day’s story was about similar “secret sources” (interesting euphemism).
The fact is it’s not what the embassies are saying to head office that matters, it’s the information we’re getting about the memos coming the other way. There has been some coverage of this stuff, but not enough, and once reported it’s mostly only being repeated by non-mainstream outlets.
Bernard Keane layed it out today in Crikey. As a result of working with legacy media organs to increase publicity of the publishing of leaks (because hacks are too obsessed with His Girl Friday nonsense like “scoops” to report on the material simply published on the website and available to everybody) Wikileaks have risked the nature of the material being twisted to suit the trivial (and, in the case of the New York Times, pro-imperial) agendas of the mainstream outlets. The obsession with Assange himself is a product of a similar strategy. Having a public face for the organisation was also adopted as a method of publicising the organisation’s work – although also to stop idiots claiming falsely to be the group’s spokesperson – which strategy has worked, but at the cost of feeding the media’s infantile mania for celebrity and, more unfortunately, creating an (albeit blackly hilarious) spasm of magical thinking from state entities and their authoritarian fans. “Hey, if we take out this white-haired freak we can kill the Internet!”
So: summing up – don’t judge the importance of publishing the leaks by the trivial press coverage; and don’t judge that importance by the glorified press clippings and scuttlebutt being sent from the periphery to the hub – what matters is what we’re learning about the marching orders being sent from the hub to the periphery. And there’s much more to come.
What saddens me is that even as the mainstream media criticise Wikileaks they’re still using it as one last chance to hammer the last nail into Rudd.
Men (and women) of good character will take note and we will lose a whole generation of good politicians.
Of course I’m naive and ill informed as everyone keeps telling me that ‘he’s worse than Whitlam you know.’
They just add ‘and this leak from Wiki proves it.’ As if gossip from the Bush government should ever be a moral standard to live up to.
Part of what’s new about it is that it gives us all an insight into how decisions and judgements are made by people in power; that it’s all bits and pieces and conversations and gossip and hearing others’ judgements and changing your mind a bunch of times and reacting to opportunities and changing approach based on what others are saying and doing…
As Kim says, it allows anyone who cares to spend the time to comb over the mountains of day to day reflections to piece together their own narrative.
But I wonder if another effect will be to show how important that stuff is for figuring out what’s going on. Like the episode of Yes Prime Minister when they’re excited to go to a funeral because they’ll have the chance to do some real work because no-one expecting them to, perhaps it may give us more respect for the process? Or people may be disappointed that it’s not exciting enough and devalue it even more.
Guardian piece on “Operation Payback”:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-visa-mastercard-operation-payback
And more at The Economist’s “Babbage” blog: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-visa-mastercard-operation-payback
Kind of cool how the electronic credit/finance companies are being attacked from the internet — the thing which has made them so powerful, or even caused their existence, in the case of paypal.
Now if they could only do that to Goldman Sachs for a couple of days. I have a cunning plan: Everyone could just ring Goldman Sachs up at the same time, so that all their phone lines were busy…
Do you think Joe Lieberman has the faintest idea how even a computer works? He looks like he doesn’t even tie his own shoelaces up in the morning. Why do we have these idiots in power? Has anyone else noticed the resemblance between the Emperor in Star wars and Joe Lieberman? Do you think George Lucas did that on purpose? (Maybe they should withdraw his mastercard?)
But seriously, what are Julia Gillard’s or Tony Abbot’s qualities, which make them fit for leading the country? Is it commonsense? Need for attention? Desire to change the way other people live?
Sorry, lost control of the question mark key half way into the post and didn’t correct in time.
Mind you, “attacked” is a bit of an exaggeration. The soldier of the future evolved out of call center operators of the late 1990s. Equipped with a speed dialer, cofee and a big phone book from the enemies major urban centers…
You hit the nail on the head, Kim.
Arbib isn’t really a ‘confidential source’ for the benefit of the Americans, and if the SMH quotes are anything to go by (and I find it hard to believe they didn’t source the Arbib cables worth noting) then he is really just giving them a thin gruel of gossip that was already available through the local MSM, interlaced with gems such as how the great Mark Arbib is a bigger foriegn policy hawk than Kim Fucking Beazley(!)
Forget about the old ‘agent of infleunce’ or ‘Communist tool’ rhetoric, the most pertinent historical analogy is David Coombes of the ‘Coombes Ivanov affair’—a commercial lobbyist on the make with people from a big, new, lucrative market, not a man looking to implement the dictates of a foriegn power out of any sense of mission.
I’ve proud to say I’ve been ambivalent about the man ever since I learned his much vaunted advisory board is a sham (Phillip Adams has been making light of the ridiculousness of his own status as ‘a respected elder advisor’ to Wikileaks.)
Of course this shouldn’t impact the work Wikileaks is doing, but seriously, lets not kid ouselves: it doesn’t matter if Daniel Elsburg or John Pilger want to believe with all there hearts that Assange is a true believer, because if Assange’s messy personal life and nearly complete lack of political sociability plays out like I think it will, then Wikileaks is over. And it better be over, as it’ll soon be a running joke that discredits all radical freeform media.
The next Wikileaks will only succeed in upsetting (hijacking) the discourse once it can prove it owes nothing to this creepy guy. Hopefully that wont take too long, what with the digital era making intellectual ADD so respectable.
This is Culture Jamming at its finest.
All we are getting from the SMH is Rudd bashing at it’s most internse. Does no other political party interact with the Americans? Who is Philip Dorling?
Is there any analysis at all happening in the Faifax media or at News Ltd?
But Japerz, at least your tax dollars (assuming that you do, indeed, pay tax) must be providing you with entertainment value.
I’m entertained. But on the other hand I’m not paying for the entertainment.
I’m sure Assange is losing a lot of sleep over this.
The very least that Assange can be credited with is establishing a cyber site complex robust enough to withstand the assaults of the world’s only superpower. That is no mean feat.
And he has caused his methodology to go viral.
Anthony @3 http://sowhyiswikileaksagoodthingagain.com/
Katz, that was my way of saying I’d figured him for a wrong’un based on him playing fast and loose with his actual supposed activist skills, not his messy personal life, the turning point for others to distance themselves from the Little Albino God of Truth. (I was also dismayed by the fact he went on Colbert and allowed that genuinely anti-conservative host to get the impression Wikileaks was saying all American troops were guilty of war crimes in Iraq. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Not media smart—in fact, a sad misuse of the Apache helicopter footage in front of millions of Americans who can’t be relied upon to be little Frankfurt School students.)
Nice to see the Albino isn’t in your bad books.
I might come around to liking Assange if he’s actually created a media format that needn’t rely on his celebrity to function. Online dissemination of classified information can’t be allowed to get tied to a polarising Hugo Chavez-esque figure, it doesn’t matter how much theory one throws at it. Ugly Christlike figures repel digital consumers in the real world.
This ‘infobomb’ is the Woodstock of the Cyberpunk generation — people who grew up reading Gibson, Stephenson, and the rest.
Like Woodstock –
– It is attributed all kinds of cultural significance by people who weren’t there.
– It’s muddy, messy and smelly.
– It is emblematic of a particular set of sensibilities and beliefs about the way society ought to operate (as Kim pointed out, a very particular late 20th century mindset that combines anarchism, hyper-individualism and cynicism).
– Establishment figures hyperventilated about it being the downfall of society.
– In itself, it entailed nothing much of substance, however over time it catalysed and came to embody a (certain subset of a) generation’s idealised self.
‘I might come around to liking Assange if he’s actually created a media format that needn’t rely on his celebrity to function.’
I think you’ll find that he has, but does anyone really give a FF if some pompous commentator on a blog comes around to liking him or not.
If he hasn’t I’ll be laughing at you and your useless Albino fake God.
Jesus, what is with the cult of personality around this fucking rapist?
What is it with Nickws and this pathetic mudslinging extravaganza?
James Fallows as always considered and some excellent links.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/12/wikileaks-updated/67751/
joe2, are you talking about this thread or the other one?
Here, on this thread, I stand by everything substantive I said, though I shouldn’t have so blithely mentioned the Assange rape allegations in response to Adrian of all people. And, er, sorry to you too, Julian, if you’re reading this. I believe you are innocent until proven guilty. Sorry to throw mud at you(?!wtf!?)
Otherwise I reckon that for someone who has never opposed the actions of Wikileaks, and has only been critical of this recent infodump because it lacks the substantive material of the last one, I’m gobsmacked that I’m apparently A BAD POSTER.
I think certain pure Leftwing people really, really don’t like the free discourse of ideas that include thoughts about how the role of Assange is now that of a reality show celebrity. (It’s because he’s a local boy who’s made it to the bigtime, isn’t it? This must be the cultural cringe that makes people turn on a supporter of Wikileaks who dares try to contextualize—oh, pompous—the whole phenomenon of Julian Assange, disaster industry superstar.)
Nickws. Alleged rapist is what you meant to say.
Anyway this is turning out to be a party for rightwingers. Watching the left turn on itself and being in a lose lose situation.(Pro wiki? Then you must be defending alleged sexual assualt. Why does the left hate women so much. Anti wiki? Then you must hate freedom of the press. Why does the left always want to control what people say.)
And it’s also a boon taking what is essentially opinion and gossip and twisting it to their own ends.
See Rudd. Not only is he now seen as an angry inept control freak, but now apparently he’s a coward.
All we need is Howard to come forth and declare how disappointed he is but he always knew Rudd didn’t have the ticker.
Secrecy and lies hurt. But even the truth can be twisted to anyone’s purpose.
Anyone else think Rudd will be sacked next year because of these leaks?
Lloyd there are some very thoughtful pieces there. Many thanks.
Tssk, if the scared as hell thing was Rudd personally scared to visit Afghanistan the coward charge might stick but it’s pretty clear once you get past the headline that the statement is concern for how events will pan out for the whole coalition of the willing policing exercise. This just means Rudd isn’t blindly stupid – I can’t see it as long term damage, it could even be good for him. Anyone that isn’t scared about the success of our actions in Afghanistan has their head in the sand
And, of course, there’s this:
http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2010/12/09/us-still-demanding-extradition-of-royal-family/
Not a peep in the Aussie media about it, though.
On a more serious note:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9200659/Pro_WikiLeaks_cyber_army_gains_strength_thousands_join_DDoS_attacks?taxonomyId=82
Not being a geek, I’m not sure, but I think it tells you how to join the pro-Wikileaks cyber-attack.
The anarchist in me … [walks away whistling.]
Hey, Nickws let us know when you come around to liking this ‘useless Albino fake god’ ‘rapist’.
And cut out the pointless diatribes- ‘pure left wing people’ where? ‘Reality show celebrity’? ‘Disaster industry superstar’?
If you checked you hysterical hyperbole for any connection with reality or context it might make more sense. You might think you are contextualising but I think you are doing the opposite, and it reeks of personally motivated bullshit.
You don’t like Assange? Fine, I and most people here I’m sure don’t see him as some sort of god (yet another tedious strawman), but when it becomes so personal and so irrationsl, maybe it’s time to give it a rest.
At its worst, Wikileaks may be banal gossip. But it beats hearing about Oprah’s Australian tour.
Yes Down and Out, it’s all relative. Although if the SMH runs one more screaming Rudd …… headline.
Paul at 42. I agree. Most people won’t get past the headline though.
Oh, Merc. Kids these days…
Wikileaks and Woodstock parallels:
You have a better idea than anyone about what, from your point of view, might be the desirable amount of “substance”. But then again “substance” is such a metaphysical concept. It might mean nothing. then again, it might mean everything.
Since Woodstock, every half-arsed promoter and self-promoter has attempted to counterfeit the “Woodstock of our generation”. They have all failed. From my point of view, the most “substantial” thing about Woodstock is that it happened at all. All those subsequent counterfeits have erased that element of surprise.
Let us apply that principle to WikiLeaks. Of course, it is undisciplined, not analytical, perhaps even ego-driven. But those qualities are compelled by circumstances. WikiLeaks cannot order the production of documents. It must await the actions of others. The malign attentions of governments of the world necessitate secrecy, opportunism, flexibility, cunning. Given all of the forces dedicated to the extirpation of WikiLeaks, like Woodstock, the surprising and glorious , and “substantial”, thing is that it happened at all.
If anyone is looking for an example of the way net anonymity allows someone to spray childish venom without either restraint or rationality, they need look no further than Nickws.
Like I said on another thread, LP would be a lot better for some robust moderation of comments.
Daniel Elsberg’s blog
http://www.ellsberg.net/
latest post of his is “EVERY attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time.”
and that’ll be two lls in Ellsberg
At the same time they deplore the shallowness of the ‘cult of personality’ around Assange, people like NickWS desperately need to believe the personality is more important than the actions of Wikileaks.
The personality is all they can take down – they have no answers except attacking the man, and no way of justifying the clumsy efforts to deny him a voice except to argue that Assange isn’t deserving of our sympathy, that he’s not like us, and therefore it’s fair to treat him, his organisation, and his actions illegally and in contradiction to our professed principles
I’ve been finding very entertaining to see ho discombobulated our politicians have been by Wikileaks. They don’t have a script to follow for this. So, we have Gillard jumping the gun with her illegality schtick. We’re not hearing that now.
Abbott has been thunderously silent. no doubt in fear that the next leak will be about him.
Much of what we’re read has been gossip we’ve already known, or could pretty much guess at. Rudd a control freak? OMG! But what is interesting is that we’ve also seen that much of this diplomacy is just gossip and reporting what the media has said, or what jumps up little turds like Arbib reckon will happen.
Sometimes it feels like the real stuff still hasn’t been released. Or perhaps there is no real stuff.
At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. — HST
“Sometimes it feels like the real stuff still hasn’t been released. Or perhaps there is no real stuff.”
Well, it looks like the real stuff might just be tucked up in bed, unreleased, if as it appears, MSM is still acting as gatekeeper of what is released and creaming it up for their own purposes.
Certainly, in the case of Rudd, the spin that Fairfax are putting on it as being ‘completely embarrassing’ is bullshit.
He comes out looking engaged, straight talking and even funny.
Yes joe2 – the Fairfax agenda seems alarmingly personal.
I am still waiting for the forces of retribution and enlightenment to close down financial services for Fairfax.
I agree that Rudd comes out of this looking good. There was also an embarrassing article by Barry Cassidy at the Drum. Can this bloke get over his fixation on Rudd ‘cos he wouldn’t go on ‘Insiders’?
This piece by Tony Kevin is worth reading.
Without stretching an in-depth sociological appraisal too far, the music made at the Woodstock Festival is better than what’s currently available on Wikileaks.
Nickws,
Man, you have done what I didn’t think even the leftiest leftist could do.
You have declared that even Wikileaks, an organisation run by a hacker techno-anarchist with long standing human-rights transparency achievements under his belt, is too mainstream and compromised by “the man” for you.
You are truly the hippest hipster in all of hippland. Here, smoke a beret.
On second thought I’d like to retract that comment as it was intemperate and probably shouldn’t have made it through moderation.
Instead I’ll say that I find it bleakly amusing to see, yet again, the reflexive instinct on the left to pillory anyone who seems to be actually achieving anything as being compromised. Getting transparency into the public eye by using the traditional media (effectively forcing them to do proper journalism by saying “here is a big story – take it or leave it”) is a big deal. Enjoy it.
I’m not sure if this has been said here or elsewhere but I just want to point out that there are lots of reasons to be dubious about the “transformative” nature of the wikileaks model.
Firstly, assange himself is running around the world trumpeting his model, but he’s hardly going to be pulling hot swedish girls if he tells them “I run a website” is he? It’s in his own carnal interests to talk it up.
Secondly, this particular series of leaks is being released in conjunction with old media, so it’s not like he (or we) are able to utilize the information for any powerful use in and of itself. We still need the old mediators to help us.
Thirdly, the flaws in our intelligence services have been patently obvious since 9/11 and very little that these leaks show us says anything new, either about what they know or what they use their secrecy for. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in the cables but it’s not transformative of our relationship with the security services – that was already pretty wrecked.
Fourthly, the “information war” was a dismal failure, a few kids doing a DDOS that barely worked. We shouldn’t exaggerate those undercurrents.
Fifthly, for every person who says they have a society-transforming internet app, a new wanker is born. This is just a website, with some interesting information. At the core of it is the age old process – a brave person in an institution risked their career and freedom (and lost!) to publish information we wouldn’t otherwise have known. Given wikileaks are collaborating with the Guardian et al to release this stuff, what is the difference between giving it to wikileaks and giving it to the newspapers? I don’t see any.
So frankly I suspect Assange is bluffing about the thermonuclear info too. We all know George W Bush shags puppies and Obama is a muslim from Kenya. What else could he possibly have? He’s just saying these things so he can pull.
As a progressive feminist lefty type I have been at times, thrilled by the naughtyness of the current wikileaks spill, and at times bored and infuriated by the msm reportage of info. I have been quite appalled (as has Kim and various other commentators) by some of the violent and unnecessary discussion about the Swedish allegations and the women involved. I am also a bit disturbed some of the ‘cult of personality’ that seems to have taken hold of many people contributing analysis, commentary or opinions on what is happening. But I HAVE been wondering to myself how WLs is meant to actually change the status quo? Or, if that is its intention at all.
I was pointed in the direction of this analysis of some writing that Assange posted in 2006. This blog has a link to Assange’s original essay, plus some analysis of what it may mean.
http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-and-the-computer-conspiracy-“to-destroy-this-invisible-government”/
Far from being SIMPLY an egomaniac looking for a headline or a hacker stirring the pot, I was surprised to see that he appears to have a relatively sophisticated analysis of the threat of conspiracy and authoritarianism, and the role of technology in breaking down conspiracy and rendering it less destructive.
I have no doubt he harbors troubling personal qualities (as do so many of us), not the least of which is his willingness to be such a public figure (in itself a strange desire IMHO).
I would rather see a focus on analysis of the short and long term effects of groups such as wikileaks on freedom and democracy, rather than one man, but I am beginning to think he is someone acting with serious intent, not just a freak at the wheel of a vehicle out of his control.
Assange is not trying to produce a journalistic scandal which will then provoke red-faced government reforms or something, precisely because no one is all that scandalized by such things any more. Instead, he is trying to strangle the links that make the conspiracy possible, to expose the necessary porousness of the American state’s conspiratorial network in hopes that the security state will then try to shrink its computational network in response, thereby making itself dumber and slower and smaller.
http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-and-the-computer-conspiracy-“to-destroy-this-invisible-government”/
BTW I do feel very sorry for that poor US Private who allegedly passed info on to WikiLeaks. He seems to be rotting in a US military prison, and we all know how horrible they are…
Ahh ‘cult of personality’ you forget that’s how the system works. Personality Presidents, Personality Prime Ministers
Don’t you see by attacking Assange, you’re not destroying the movement at all?
Just like when you bad mouth one politician you don’t destroy the government
—
Also, side note: Wikileaks had no face for years before Assange went public. Suddenly it got attention, bungy cording off the drugs of the same cult it’s trying to bring down
Baby, you’ve been Trotskied.
Yes, and his plight is also being obscured by the intensity of focus on Assange. I was thinking about the parallels between Manning (should he prove to be the source) and Hugh Thompson, the helicopter pilot who witnessed and intervened in the Mai Lai massacre. Immediately afterwards Thompson was sent on increasingly dangerous scouting missions without the usual gunships to provide cover, was brought down by enemy fire 4 times in 11 days and barely survived his fifth crash. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that his superiors hoped he would not survive these missions. On return to the US he was threatened with court martial. By this standard, Manning is relatively fortunate but still faces persecution, demonisation and imprisonment for many years if he is indeed responsible for bringing the Collateral Murder video and other military abuses to light. Another 30 years and they may well give him a medal.
Let’s be forensic about this.
I think I am right in saying that so far all we have seen is reports by diplomats from the field.
From those, it is possible to infer what Foggy Bottom ordered diplomats to do (i.e., steal info from UN personnel).
We have not yet seen any minutes of high level meetings or even, so far as I know, outgoing memos.
In all likelihood, a person in Bradley Manning’s position would not have had access to this sort of material.
Nevertheless, the richness and time-span of the available material will provide historians with a rich lode of information about the operational methodology and culture of the US State Department. Everyone will have to be patient, however. These patterns will take a long time to emerge at the present rate of revelation.
There is real stuff. Maybe not original, but backing up a previously released story:
Texas Company Helped Pimp Little Boys To Stoned Afghan Cops
or the Government being very evasive about it’s dealing in Yemen:
Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip J. Crowley was extremely economical with the truth with regards to Yemen
or the US Government confirming their illegal abduction of a German citizen, subsequent appalling treatment and then pressuring the German government to do nothing about it.
or Shell’s nefarious behaviour in Nigeria.
It is more than just gossip. The examples above reveal for all to see the lying and dissembling that is happening all the time. Starts to make Noam look a little less nutty.
@67- the outfall.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/anger-at-slave-trader-assange-wikileaks-loyalists-decide-to-break-away-20101210-18s0w.html
Splitters!
Pfizer in Nigeria too Aidan, testing Drugs on children and then trying to blackmail their way out of resulting Federal charges.
murph @ 71,
yes. That’s an interesting revelation. One wonders, though. The resumption of the rape charges in Sweden (leaving aside the debate as to whether they are genuine/will stick or not, etc), now this revelation of Assange’s management style. I await with eagerness what other anti-Assange stuff is going to come out that is new. If a great deal of fresh anti-Assange stuff suddenly starts to surface one has to begin to wonder if its just journalists digging, whether its being desseminated from another source, eg the CIA, or just coincidence. I’m not romantic enough to believe in coincidence except in novels and movies, where, so long as it is well-executed, I suspend my disbelief. I guess its a little too early to tell – yet.
And then there is this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/10/julian-assange-lawyers-us-charges
Another coincidence? Or are too many things piling up?
Continuing from Aidan’s comment and #72, it is interesting that both the Shell and Pfizer stories had already been covered in traditional investigative journalism pieces. In the case of Pfizer, Joe Stephens from the Washington Post began filing articles about Pfizer using Africa as a testing ground for drugs back in 2000 in “Where Profits and Lives Hang in Balance; Finding an Abundance of Subjects and Lack of Oversight Abroad, Big Drug Companies Test Offshore to Speed Products to Market Series: THE BODY HUNTERS: Exporting Human Experiments”. He followed the story right up to last year’s settlement. Wikileaks has added the damning detail of the alleged attempt to blackmail the Nigerian Attorney General but it has also brought the story back into the public consciousness, a good use of its current notoriety I would say. The cable relating to Shell in Nigeria came hot on the heels (deliberately no doubt) of The Independent on Sundaypiece revealing eyewitness testimony of Shell’s alleged involvement with Ken Saro-Wiwa’s murderers.
That link should be: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/ken-sarowiwa-was-framed-secret-evidence-shows-2151577.html