“very negative security implications”

i.e. embarrassment and possible loss of status or jobs
within the military. 

Bring it on!

Most of the information in the wikileaks release has
been known (at least among those of us who read) for
years.  What the release does is make the information
common knowledge.

As far as classified information goes, in 2004
information was classified at the request of the
president or designated agency heads 45.6 million times
(at a cost of $7.2 billion, by the way.)  Right off the
bat, that horrendous number seems to trivialize the
actual content of ‘classified’ information.

There is nothing shocking to hear that many US soldiers inflicted unbearable pain
on prisoners. It would not even be shocking if many waving the white flag were
shot between the eyes. The blame should not be cast only on Americans at war,
but on Mother Nature or God for creating life.

http://warlogs.wikileaks.org/

I have studied and very carefully too. The use of the word “mere” wasn’t meant as a pejorative, but it was rather intended to point to certain limitations in the model of civil disobedience that’s played out historically thus far.

If you’re expecting civil disobedience from Americans of the kind you’re currently getting in France, you’ll be waiting a long, long time.

We can agree to disagree about alternate options, of course. The disagreement can be friendly even if radical in nature.

On another subject, the Guardian’s earlier prognostication of Wikileak’s future was, apparently, at least partially wrong.

The 400,000 documents signaling round-two are, in some cases, already being reported as having just occurred:

http://english.aljazeera.net/

http://www.google.com/search?q=wikileaks&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Bears repeating:  “But US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates said in a letter to the head of the Senate Armed Services Committee that the leak had not revealed any “sensitive intelligence sources or methods”.” —from the complete article and regarding the first Wikileaks release.

mdgr concludes:

“Whether that involves mere civil disobedience or something out of Derrick Jensen’s “Endgame” is yet to be determined.”

My conclusion:  It had much better be the former.  And that takes knowledge of strategy and tactics, willingness to adopt, practice and believe in the strength and efficacy of nonviolence as a creative force.  Civil disobedience and other forms of nonviolent resistance are not “mere” however. They are probably the best known alternative.  Study up.

Well, either BBC is lying or the Guardian is. The latter has stated that Wikileaks has been all but closed down due to their funding conduit’s abrupt withdrawal of its services. One thing is clear, however. Obama and the Brits are in bed together, just as Obama’s in bed with Wall Street. Inflated expectations, disappointment, disinformation: It’s bad and it will probably only get worse.

On another subject, and here I’m playing the role not just of a squeaky wheel but, hopefully, of an unapologetically corrosive acid:

I admire the courage and integrity of Chris Hedges, including his stating that violent confrontation is almost certainly going to backfire. But what Mr. Hedges’ is not saying out loud may be even more significant as what he is saying.

For more on that, you might find his Q&A answers of interest http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/chris_hedges_on_the_death_of_the_liberal_class_20101018/.

I find it equally telling that Mr. Scheer took that article down from Truthdig’s Home Page just three days after it was posted.

I see it as one of the most incisive offerings on Truthdig—ever—and Mr. Scheer most recent article suggested that he just had an epiphany about the two party system (Vichy/Berlin).

But maybe not.

Maybe Mr. Scheer’s premature removal of this video/post actually suggests that he too is a collaborator—which is exactly what David Sirota also suggested when he pointed to many so-called progressive groups are really just shills for Vichy.

In both the short and long term, Mr. Hedges is talking about Resistance and, in the end, a violent collapsing of the State, though rather down the road.

He is emphatically not talking about peace marches from the 60’s where we sang “We shall overcome.”

He is also talking about how at some point—his words, with appropriate understatement—we may need to break the law.

Whether that involves mere civil disobedience or something out of Derrick Jensen’s “Endgame” is yet to be determined.