The Wikileaks story has been treated by the establishment as a dangerous expose of imperial mind management and led to suppression, damage control and vindictive retribution. Meanwhile much of what passes for an anti establishment has expressed cynical disregard for what seems like old news, or treated the entire episode as another of the products of an all controlling deity-like complex of near invisible forces. These involve theories of manipulative plots and conspiracies to plot conspiratorial manipulations, all of them unknown to any but a chosen sect who seem to understand everything but how to stop the evil conspirators. The most extreme members of this cult are dangerously close to believing sunrise, sunset and the seasons are the result of machinations by a group of Talmudic billionaire Mossad agents sitting in a room in Tel Aviv or New York. In often mentally disabling ways these sources almost make the dangers of global capitalism and Zionist dominance of the American government pale in importance or even existence beside the threat of seemingly invisible forces that conspire to arrange just about everything. But many establishment figures, among them some of the foremost jackals and hyenas of the foreign policy establishment, have joined in cynically asking “who is manipulating us here?” All but totally submerged in consciousness is the risk that has been run by the Wikileaks group and its sources, nor is there enough awareness of the panic among keepers of the public mind and their lashing out in ways as irrational as some of the critics, though far more threatening.
Along with near comical “illuminati” based theories of conspiracies, plots and counter plots, we have defamation of the character and intelligence of people taking heroic risk in making public what was once private. They are maligned as criminals, fools or enemy agents. A citizen of Australia is accused of being a traitor to America while Sweden charges him with a horrendous sex offense seemingly invented by otherwise sane Scandinavians: he refused to use a condom! It is almost bizarre enough to be funny but the potential tragedy is hardly humorous. The Wikileakers are subjected to death threats and demands for their execution by irrational voices in and out of government while small, shrill voices claim they are counter-counter-counter spies or dupes of dupes of dupes. Just what is going on here?
Instead of being grateful to people informing the public about matters normally kept secret from them, we have a variety of suspicions on the one hand, and the spinning of cables and messages by corporate media on the other. When major sources reveal only those parts of the information that fit the governing mind control operation and focus on Iran or China, it is not those media sources that are charged with misinforming but those bringing the information out of the darkness and into public light. Instead of often mindless speculation about what motivates Assange we would all do better to heed his warnings that the so-called journalistic process itself is nothing more than “a craven sucking up to official sources,” as is clearly indicated in the editorial opinions rendered and major media reportage of this story. This giant step towards democracy and anti secrecy is reduced to the vicious charges being made by some of the most scurrilous and murderous individuals and institutional forces in the society. Indeed, what is going on here? Imperial business as usual, and what else is new?
Calls for the execution of Assange have been made by elected fanatics and their addiction rehab counterparts in media, with segments of the public whipped into a frenzy over his alleged treachery and nonsense that these leaks risk the lives of military personnel, despite not one shred of evidence to indicate anything of the sort. In fact and with rare exceptions, care has been taken by the Wiki leakers to omit what might indeed be dangerous to innocent employees of the empire. And the heroic military worker who turned the information over to Wikileaks is in a cell and facing a fifty-year prison sentence for the crime of actually serving his people and not their rulers. The murderous pretenders to democracy who send thousands to their death in foreign wars now shriek that Manning and Assange are endangering the lives of those who would be safe in their homes if not for these political employees of global capital and its Zionist affiliates who allegedly serve “public” interest with their bloody and racist militarism.
Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and their cohorts are definitely a threat to diplomacy that hides reality from the public when not totally distorting it, and to perverted government policies of war carried out in the public’s name and called dedication to peace. Establishment leaders and their stenographers in media treat this assault on logic, language and morality as patriotism. Meanwhile, efforts to bring information that should have reached us long ago if corporate media were not under control of the very forces it supposedly reports on, are seen as treason, disregarded as nothing new or treated as an adventure story. Maybe we’d be better off is all of this were just the sort of conspiracy from a supernatural realm that some suspect, but it is very real and demands the concern of all who wish for a different reality. Assange, Manning, and all their cohorts yet unknown in this drama need and demand the support of all who believe in peace, social justice and open democratic government to achieve those things. They have given the lie to the notion that there are, or should be, secrets in an open society or that there should be behind the scenes manipulation of nations, governments and media sources.
The Wikileaks group are sending a signal that we can know and should know everything that is done in our name and that in this electronic age there are no longer any secrets that can be kept from us, if we would simply demand completely open government and defend those who take great risk to bring it about. The first call ought to be to come to the aid of Assange, and especially Manning. If we allow either of them to be made scapegoats and suffer more than they already have for their acts on behalf of humanity, we may all suffer far more ourselves. And we will deserve it.
Frank Scott writes political commentary which appears in print in the Coastal Post and The Independent Monitor and online at the blog Legalienate. Read other articles by Frank.
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