cruxpuppy:

Still waiting.

gerard, December 11 at 6:32 pm:

‘... Wait till some screwball in Congress comes up with a proposal to limit the freedom of access to, or censoring content on the internet as a whole, a la China etc. If so, the FCC would probably not utter a peep of resistance. ...’

I thought Lieberman proposed this back in June.

RE: Your “selective dump” theory

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

it’s not ‘my’ theory - I’m just pointing to it
- click through the links - here’s another going back to July -
the source at which Z-Big hints, in not so cloaked a manner

http://tinyurl.com/23ofztf    [excerpt below]

GORDON DUFF: WIKI-LEAKS IS ISRAEL, LIKE WE ALL DIDN’T KNOW
July 29, 2010 posted by Gordon Duff · 129 Comments

LAME “LEAK” SITE NOTHING MORE THAN THIN COVER FOR “THE TEL AVIV
TANGO”
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

Now “Wiki-Leaks” is busy selling phony bin Laden stories, having the long dead
Osama humiliating the CIA by running around villages in Afghanistan selling
vacuum cleaners.  What is our “leak” site really about?  This is a dead news
cycle.  The World Cup is over, lots of people on holiday and no major stories. 
Only in a dead news period like this, as Oliver Stone pointed out, could the
Israeli controlled media dump a pile of lame rumors mixed in with box loads of
chickenfeed, passing it off as the story of the century. 

And by the way.

I’m still waiting for cruxpuppie’s list of fascist Congressmen calling for Assange’s extrajudicial murder.

fearno:

NOW your catching on! I mentioned several posts ago that the biggest secret is that there are very few serious secrets. “Managed information dissemination” is, as you say, a specialty of intelligence services. Your “selective dump” theory is a corollary of that idea. If it’s true in this case and Assange turns out to be just a tool of some as yet unidentified service, then he, along with all his wellwishers, might ultimately be very embarrassed by the whole affair.

RE: WikiLeaks is entirely a matter of principle

~~~~~~~ exception taken ~~~~~~~~

rather, it’s looking more and more like SOMEONE knows how to play this
orchestra - and it’s being discussed among the world’s top security personages
e.g.
http://tinyurl.com/23y7s2x
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAca9RdGl98

If WikiLeaks Is a PsyOp, Whose PsyOp Is It?
Posted on December 1st, 2010 by Daniel McCarthy  

Steve Clemons draws attention to Zbigniew Brzezinski’s speculation that the
latest WikiLeaks dump might have been selected to further a foreign agenda. I
haven’t seen any evidence that would lead me to think that, but it’s a possibility
that has to be considered. The possibility that a domestic interest or
intelligence agency could engineer a leak should also be entertained.
Manufacturing paper trails is one of the things that “community” does best,
after all.

Selective disclosure and cherry-picking intelligence can be even more useful
than simply fabricating evidence. The authenticity of the diplomatic cables
obtained by WikiLeaks hasn’t been challenged. But one might wonder whether
there’s a particular spin that the disclosures are meant to convey.

17 Responses to “If WikiLeaks Is a PsyOp, Whose PsyOp Is It?”

Philip Giraldi, on December 1st, 2010 at 12:04 pm Said:
“Selective exposure” is precisely the point. The documents are authentic, no
forgeries, without a doubt. So the question has to be what is being kept out of
the huge document dump? Therein lies the tale….

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://tinyurl.com/2fpemm7

[...] the published documents seem to have a ‘gap’ stretching over the period of July
- September 2006, during which the 33-day Lebanon war
took place. Is it possible that US diplomats and officials did not have any
comments or information to exchange about this crucial event but
spent their time ‘gossiping’ about every other ‘trivial’ Middle-Eastern matter?

mdgr:

Well, if you want some complaints about what topics are ignored in truthdig, stand back!

Rico,

Yes, I do. But there is absolutely nothing on the front page that really addresses the Espionage Act, WikiLeaks and Operation Payback. There was the piece by Scheer on Assange/Jefferson, but it was, as it were, a singularity.

A brief intimation of something blowing in the wind, liberal though it was. Instead, as is often the case, there a lot of whining and wanking.

Back to my duck metaphor again. I suppose one should not be surprised.

mdgr:

Don’t you have an “Ear to the Ground” archive link at the bottom of the column? The article is off the front page, but it’s still in the archive and can be posted to.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/post_1394_b_795001.html

From Naomi Wolf of the Huffingon Tabloid. This is chilling, spooky, all too bloody real.

First off, Anarcissie is correct. As I said before, WikiLeaks is entirely a matter of principle, not about results. It’s also about principle, not some adolescent kids pulling a practical joke or, alternately, rebelling against their parents. It’s grown-up stuff. Let’s be honest. Most of us haven’t got the courage to do what WikiLeaks or Operation Payback is doing.

IMO, WikiLeaks’ results have thus far (taking it from Iraq to the memos) been stunning. Each person has a right to their own opinion, however. That’s not the battlefield here. Principle is.

But this link is of fundamental importance. It brings it all back home to the Espionage Act.

I suspect that Mr. Scheer’s obsession with Jim Morrison’s penis yesterday got overly embarassing when, um, WikiLeaks exposed it.

But our beloved editor still seems unwilling to give this discussion—which is of vital importance, as Ms. Wolf points out—more than a passing nod in the far right lower corner of his faux-progressive blog.

The real point of the Huffington Tabloid and Truthdig is not so much to inform, but to use Rico’s term, to wank.

The more wanking and diversion the better, but my goodness, just let it not lead to any significant action steps.

THIS, folks, is the real Bastille.

It presents as an open forum for unlimited wanking, but it’s favorites are always Eugene Wanker, Wanker Dionne, and Wanker Everyman.

If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck. . . .

The far right lower corner may have been good enough for Lucifer in Dante’s Inferno.

It is not good enough when use of the Espionage Act has been resurrected from the dead.

Oops, now—sooner than any other article—I see that this thread has been taken off entirely. Oh, well, I’ll just been to repost it elsewhere. (sigh)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/post_1394_b_795001.html

From Naomi Wolf of the Huffingon Tabloid. This is chilling, spooky, all too bloody real.

First off, Anarcissie is correct. As I said before, WikiLeaks is entirely a matter of principle, not about results. It’s also about principle, not some adolescent kids pulling a practical joke or, alternately, rebelling against their parents. It’s grown-up stuff. Let’s be honest. Most of us haven’t got the courage to do what WikiLeaks or Operation Payback is doing.

IMO, WikiLeaks’ results have thus far (taking it from Iraq to the memos) been stunning. Each person has a right to their own opinion, however. That’s not the battlefield here. Principle is.

But this link is of fundamental importance. It brings it all back home to the Espionage Act.

I suspect that Mr. Scheer’s obsession with Jim Morrison’s penis yesterday got overly embarassing when, um, WikiLeaks exposed it.

But our beloved editor still seems unwilling to give this discussion—which is of vital importance, as Ms. Wolf points out—more than a passing nod in the far right lower corner of his faux-progressive blog.

The real point of the Huffington Tabloid and Truthdig is not so much to inform, but to use Rico’s term, to wank.

The more wanking and diversion the better, but my goodness, just let it not lead to any significant action steps.

THIS, folks, is the real Bastille.

It presents as an open forum for unlimited wanking, but it’s favorites are always Eugene Wanker, Wanker Dionne, and Wanker Everyman.

If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck. . . .

The far right lower corner may have been good enough for Lucifer in Dante’s Inferno.

It is not good enough when use of the Espionage Act has been resurrected from the dead.

that’s right. come around tomorrow, i’ll take you
again.

reynolds:

touche

uncle rico, your presumptuous pedantry reads as
hyperbolic pronunciamento.
but first, let me repeat categorically; wanker.
weight times arm equals moment. right?

rico:  Most of the time I think you are dead wrong.  With this statementof yours:  “But I think that any serious ‘howls of rage and threats of death’ don’t reach much beyond the Huckabee/Palin orbit and so can be discounted.”  I hope (and even pray) that you are totally right. It’s too early yet to be sure, however.  Wait till some screwball in Congress comes up with a proposal to limit the freedom of access to, or censoring content on the internet as a whole, a la China etc. If so, the FCC would probably not utter a peep of resistance.  Freedom of communication hangs on a thread here these days, as you probably know.
  As evidence of such danger, I cite the immediate proscription on downloading, accompanied by the threat of rendering (what a word!) oneself guilty of some unstated “crime” and disqualifying oneself for some Federal job or other in the unlimited “future”.  Chilling!

The DDoS attacks were serious. And getting kicked off the various financial networks was fairly serious, since it was about money and may be actionable.  It seems that some sort of self-replicating internal panic must have taken place, which is rather suggestive.

Anarcissie:

You agree with my suspicions. It was the act, not the results. But I think that any serious “howls of rage and threats of death” don’t reach much beyond the Huckabee/Palin orbit and so can be discounted. I also have a sneaking suspicion that Assange’s supporters are hyping the “howls of rage” to assure his martyr status should anything untoward occur.

rico—According to Assange’s theories as published, the point is not the stuff brought out from inside, but that fact that somebody can get inside and bring stuff out.  Before the current excitement occurred, if he had asked me what I thought would happen, I would have said that the U.S. government would pay little attention to the kind of material that was leaked, because they would have ways of concealing the really exciting stuff internally.  But the howls of rage, the threats of death, the illegal DDoS attacks on the web site, all seem to confirm Assange’s view and argue against mine.

mdgr:

I have a feeling we are emphasizing two different things here. You seem to be praising the effort for its own sake. I am yawning at the results. You seem happy that he breached the Bastille. To the extent that the gatekeepers of the Bastille are pissed merely for the breach, that is the measure of his impact or “success”. What he actually did once inside, to you, seems secondary in my opinion.

I am not trying to belittle Assange. I don’t begrudge him his hero status. I am trying to say that the fact that leaks DIDN’T expose little green men tells me this story is more about smoke and less about fire.

Do you think Assange is disappointed by the actual content of the leaks, irrespective of his success at bringing them out? I bet he feels like you must- having put a painful stick in the eye of secretive governments and corporations is the actual prize and how much blood was drawn is secondary.

diamond, cruxpuppy:

That wasn’t an answer, it was a deflection. Name me a “fascist” in Congress who wants Assange “murdered.” Support it by a quote. Do you really think Lieberman (!!) and McConnell are “fascists”? And can you cite where they called for his “extrajudicial murder”? Palin’s a twit and Goldberg is a journalist who merely wondered why someone hadn’t killed Assange. Do you really equate Goldberg’s speculation with a personal desire to murder him?

When you throw words like “fascist” and “extrajudicial murder” around indiscriminately like beads at Mardi Gras, you really shouldn’t be taken seriously.

Obama campaigned on a platform which pushed a message of transparency in Government.

I guess you have to be careful what you wish for.

For all you agnostics and atheists out there, God works in mysterious ways.

‘Please tell me you can name a fascist in Congress who is calling for Assange’s murder. I am so desperate to find serious posters here.’

Joe Lieberman wants him dead or locked up. Mitch McConnell wants him dead or locked up. Sarah Palin wants him hunted down like a wolf or was that a terrorist? Her voice makes my ears buzz so I’m not sure. Jonah Goldberg wrote that he couldn’t understand why Assange was still alive…and on and on it goes. People who once merely thought America was a Fascist empire now think it’s a lunatic asylum run by psychopaths.

Didn’t mean to post that very last stray link that I didn’t see lurking there at the end.

By rico, suave, December 11 at 3:31 am:

>“And yes, they actually did reveal that torture was very widespread.” Really? Where? Can you put that in the context of the wikileaked material?

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/10/24/iraq-wikileaks-documents-describe-torture-detainees

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=21604

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

>Little greeen men? Yes. That would move it beyond Lindsay Lohan. But what’s your point?

That your standard of evidence regarding WikiLeaks is overly high. You seem to want something that would be tantamount to producing a flying saucer (using my example), not just citing a top secret burying of a finding.

>Nobody, not Fox or MSNBC is arguing about transparency and its value.

Fox News thrives of secrecy and obfuscation. Fox is characterizing its publication of this material as a violation of the espionage act. Two of it’s presumptive presidential candidates for 2012 (Huckabee and Palin) want to actually lynch him. Attorney General Holder has got him in solitary confinement for allegedly not using a rubber. How symbolic can that be?? The unanimous message here is clear.

>I don’t think Assange is heroic. I don’t think he’s a villain. The point is, I don’t care. Please understand that for me not to care is not the same as thinking ill of him and his efforts.

I respect your right to feel that way. What I objected to was what I perceived to be a rather belittling tone toward WikiLeaks and Assange. If you’re an agnostic, I’m cool and I apologize. If you’re a critic, I’m still cool, but I’d withhold the apology pending the presentation of your case.

>If you think he will change the world, fine. For the sake of comity, I’ll agree. Just keep me posted on the changes you think he’s made as this drama unfolds.

Please indulge me by not just skimming this, but chewing it over.

Respectfully, I think whether he changes the world is to put the cart before the horse. Rather, I think the world is changing in some ways that none of us expected, and WikiLeaks/Assange seem to reflect the quintessential patterning of that change. 

I hope that doesn’t sound too mystical. At certain times, we know that there is often a simultaneity of discoveries, independently executed by different people. The same is true about memes.

What I see here is a kind of dance between several different extant or emerging principles. One of them involves rigid crystallizations and monolithic forms. Corporations fit that bill, and so do governments, but there are a lot of other institutions that fall under it (religion, economics, beliefs, etc.).

Now, I am not suggesting that structure and form is bad in and of itself, merely that what surrounds us in our world at this time seems to be very, very rigid.

I am suggesting that a countervailing theme appears to be on the ascendant at this time. It’s not about “hope or change,” no. It simply seeks to step outside the rigid box, and the thing it appears to seek is transparency.

It isn’t trying to create a new “ism.” It’s not progressive nor capitalistic. All it wants to to break-through the rigidities and reveal what is true.

WikiLeaks/Assange are mere exponents of that principle, now on the ascendant.

And yes, Operation Payback is growing exponentially (10,000/day reportedly).

See below for more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/world/europe/11anonymous.html
BTW, on another subject, Mr. Scheer seemingly just got rid of his “Jim Morrison’s penis post.” Hmmmm. I hope I didn’t offend him by calling him out on his journalistic priorities.

He still hasn’t given much attention to WikiLeaks, however, nor to Operation Payback.

I bet that will change in a week or two.

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/10/24/iraq-wikileaks-documents-describe-torture-detainees

fearnotruth, points well made. Chomsky’s response to US ME policy was to note how profoundly our diplomats hate democracy. He pointed out that polls conducted by the Brookings Institute showed how radically different opinion on the Arab street is from the official voices of dictatorship.

Our government hates democracy abroad, it is contemptuous of it at home. The electoral process is completely corrupted. The compartmentalization of information denies citizens any substantial knowledge of what is really going on. Our government is in a condition of cold war with its people.

Pay attention, students, and do not leave any proof that you have read Wikileaks material if you are planning any kind of government career. You must develop the capacity to lie to yourself and to the people if you want to work in government.

Rico, check out the remarks of John King, fascist and paranoid congressman on Julian Assange. He is not alone is his desire to “go after” this pale fornicator.

mdgr:

I don’t know a thing about Operation Payback.

“And yes, they actually did reveal that torture was very widespread.” Really? Where? Can you put that in the context of the wikileaked material?

Little greeen men? Yes. That would move it beyond Lindsay Lohan. But what’s your point?

Nobody, not Fox or MSNBC is arguing about transparency and its value.

I don’t think Assange is heroic. I don’t think he’s a villain. The point is, I don’t care. Please understand that for me not to care is not the same as thinking ill of him and his efforts. If you think he will change the world, fine. For the sake of comity, I’ll agree. Just keep me posted on the changes you think he’s made as this drama unfolds.

RE: The most compelling thing about this Wikileaks adventure is not the
revelations, but the response. And the response of posters here is also very
unsettling. It’s like you all don’t see the forest for the trees. The US National
Security State is able to command US corporations to do its bidding.

actually, some would contend that the globalists compel the principal
intelligence nexus (CIA/MI6/Mossad + US Military) to do its bidding;

nevertheless, it seems actually, that the most compelling thing
about the ‘leaks’ is the ‘received’ knowledge of the ‘real’ Middle East.

e.g: http://tinyurl.com/268sef2

GORDON DUFF: ISRAEL WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG
December 6, 2010 posted by Gordon Duff · 141 Comments

MORE RIGHT THAN EVEN THEY KNEW
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

Forever, Israel told us that the Arab nations couldn’t be trusted, that they were
ruled by duplicitous back stabbers.  Now, Wikileaks has proven that right
beyond question.  It turns out, the Arab world, all those nations that we
thought were preparing to attack Israel, you know, the ones whose tanks were
getting ready to close in on Tel Aviv, were actually on Israel’s side.  Wikileaks
tells us that, since 1979, the countries the US has given Israel more than a
hundred billion dollars to protect themselves from where actually working with
Israel all along.

The Press:  For decades, the press has grossly misrepresented political
alignments within the Middle East, creating an atmosphere of fear and threat,
terrorizing the Jewish community in the United States with decades of outright
lies and total fabrications.  Do we cheer liars and criminals?  Sure we do. 
Hurrah for the press, champion liars of the world!!

crux:

Sorry, just read your whole post-

“Fascists in Congress are calling for his extrajudicial murder.”

Please tell me you can name a fascist in Congress who is calling for Assange’s murder. I am so desperate to find serious posters here.

cruxter:

“All that matters to me is that you’re not a fascist in the employ of some intelligence agency.”

Rest assured. If I were, Assange would have outed me.

Got your goat, didn’t I, Rico? I won’t apologize. I wanted to know who you are and you let me know. All that matters to me is that you’re not a fascist in the employ of some intelligence agency.

I have not paid much attention to the substance of the leaks, and I am grateful to mdgr for the analysis of a pertinent nugget of info relevant to Israel’s situation.

At the same time, I agree with Rico that there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot to these leaks. The response of the USG is disproportionate. No damage has been done to “national security”, the perps of 911 have not been revealed, no spy has been lit up like a cockroach in the kitchen. Diplomats have been embarrassed and US credibility has taken a hit, as though that is news to US counterparties. Truth be told, I cannot judge the ramifications. The most obvious result will be that the State Department is more careful in the future to hide its precious classified crapola.

The most compelling thing about this Wikileaks adventure is not the revelations, but the response. And the response of posters here is also very unsettling. It’s like you all don’t see the forest for the trees. The US National Security State is able to command US corporations to do its bidding.

Does that bear repeating? Assange has not been formally designated a “terrorist”, yet per the Patriot Act, he and the organization are being targeted. He’s a journalist for crissake! Fascists in Congress are calling for his extrajudicial murder. Do you see that this National Security State is a lawless entity?

This is not funny, Rico. You can’t fly above this because there is no air space not under the control of the state.

This government would kill Assange if it were not for the international community. Russia is laughing and nominating Assange for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Our government is sick, mentally ill, and this is very dangerous. It’s no joke, Rico.

Typo correction:  ... neither Manning nor Assange have had any chance at all ... etc.

Has anybody noticed that everybody and his/her uncle has had ten or so days of top media limelight to put in his/her nickel’s worth on the “leaks”, Assange, threats, excoriations, Manning, freedom, danger, “terrorism” and imprisonment.  BUT ...
  So far, neither Assange nor Manning have had almost no chance at all to tell the world why the “leaks” were made, and certainly WikiLeaks has not been asked for a statement.  All I have seen since the beginning was the site I mentioned earlier:  Zungu.Zungu.com.  I don’t know whether that is still online or has been deleted.  It was comments on an essay Assange wrote, and a few direct quotes of his were inserted.  That’s all I’ve seen. Why hasn’t it been “leaked” and on the contrary, has it been deliberately withheld?
  My question:  What does this say about people’s right to defend themselves, when anything they say can and will be used against them? And conversely, what does it say about the people’s right to know what their government is doing with “foreign policy” if they can’t find out because whatever diplomats say or do can be used against them?  Surely we are in one grand muddle here, and we the people have the obligation to help sort it out and see that openness is enforced and the right of free speech is upheld.
  Electronic media have brought us into a different world, and a dangerous one if we try to shut it down or use it to promote either secrecy or retribution.It is this puzzle that Assange knew he was setting before us for solution, and he deserves thanks for bringing it to our attention—whether we want to solve it or not. Punishing him, Manning or WikiLeaks, or the internet as a whole,  amounts to just trying to shove it under the rug.  Like most innovations, it can’t be evaded, and that is clear from the get-go.

Rico,

Glad you added the needed nuance, but I still respectfully disagree.

So let’s say that WikiLeaks discloses diplomatic cables that the major governments of the world deliberately buried evidence showing that little green men have visited us. Does that meet the standard of gravitas, in your opinion, for it to be characterized as outside the range of diplomatic theater?

Or would WikiLeaks have to lead us to an actual flying saucer, presumably with still-working photon torpedoes?

I think that your post tended to trivialize the importance of what WikiLeaks has done and is doing. Nor did it really acknowledge that this wasn’t diplomatic theater at all. What WikiLeaks is purporting to do is burn the theater down.

The principle here is about the importance of transparency and conversely, the invidiousness of the secrecy attached to the diplomatic cables.

And yes, they actually did reveal that torture was very widespread.

Now, I agree with some of your wishlist. It would be nice if diplomatic cables revealed XYZ (make up whatever you want). But they can do only what they can do, and because of its fearlessness and commitment to principle in revealing them, Assange is being persecuted and there are threats on his life.

I would characterize what he has done in the most heroic of terms. You can have a differing opinion, of course, but then I would expect you to defend any trivialization that you would put forward.

BTW, someone said that Operation Payback is off the air. That, apparently, is true relative to the link I posted—not with a recommendation that people download it (couldn’t do that, since Obama might come after me), but out of respect for the number of downloads.

This was reflected on but one site, however. There will be others. This appears to be a very determined, group. It is very progressive, in the best sense of the term—unlike Truthdig.

Mr. Scheer took off the whole thread in which that link appeared, preferring to showcase Morrison’s penis.

There we have it.

ejreed

The so-called “insurance file”, is on a bit torrent site called Pirate Bay for all to download, and many have. All you need is the key to unlock it. The key, can be released in all sorts of ways. I’m sure his lawyers have been instructed on if and when, and how.

Michael Cavlan RN,

I think George Carlin pointed out, in 1992, that the media in this country, is nothing more than “...unpaid employees of the Department of Defense, and who, most of the time, function as an unofficial public relations agency for the US government.”

Well

I tried to contact this group, via their advertized website.

It has been taken down. It would appear that they are actually doing something to
take on the power structure. Rather than blog on endlessly and/or debate about
stuff.

God bless them.

God Speed Anonymous.

Fred:

Of course I have. And since just about every consumable in our world is hydrocarbon/sugar based, what’s the point?

“corn syrup is cheaper than sugar because corn is subsidized.” Is that true? Don’t we subsidize the shit out of cane and beet sugar in the US as well?

How can corn syrup be cheaper than subsidized sugar if so much corn is being used to make ethanol?

I don’t know the economics, so I’m only asking. Enlighten me with the numbers.

And this has to do with Assange how?

rico, suave

Have you ever heard of agricultural subsidies? All of the comodidity crops in the US are subsidized, including cotton. Coke is made with high fructose corn syrup, because in the US, corn syrup is cheaper than sugar because corn is subsidized. Especially, now, with the ethanol subsidies. And, that corn is used as feed, so chicken, beef and pork are subsidized, as well. With the rise in commodity prices across the board, recently, due to the devaluation of the dollar, I expect those subsidies will be increasing, soon.

So in this vein, I am going to try and contact Operation Payback and point out how
the corporate media has been attacking Julian Assange.

Hope I can get thru to them. They are heroes, just like Julian Assange

Nurse Cavlan:

Did I say something to offend you?

I hope that Operation Payback targets the media. The corporate media have
been smearing Julian Assange.

Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, New York Times

ALL OF THEM.

The corporate media are now officially the enemies of an informed American
public. That makes them the enemies of a real, functioning, representative
democratic republic.

Never mind the right wing nut jobs like Rico Suave or the rest. They are here to
distract. Nothing more and nothing less.

Ignore the right wing fruitloops.

So I agian hope that Opperation Payback targets the corporate media.

Go get’em kids.

mdgr:

I wasn’t clear. I didn’t equate the leaker(s) or Assange with Lohan’s adolescence, I meant that in the grand scheme of things, their and the leaks’ relevance to our general well being is the same to me, cultural theatre.

You first comment asked if I was calling them adolescent, a fair question. But the rest of your post assumed I was, before I even had a chance to answer, and you peppered every remaining argument with that assumption, which is unfair.

To be perfectly honest, I haven’t studied any of the leaked files. I’m only going by what the MSM is reporting. It seems to me that the “lede” of most stories is about the leaker and Assange, NOT about the embarrassment caused by any particular group of leaks. I view the whole episode as a foray by Assange into the sausage factory of international diplomacy: Lots of nastiness involved in trying to present the pretty packaging they want us to see.

But let me respond to your examples anyway, even thought I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Burma-North Korea. Will public knowledge of their cooperation change anything between the two totalitarian states? If anything, it confirms our suspicions about how states like that cooperate with each other. Yawn.

Hezbollah/Hamas rockets. Israeli intelligence knew about them and most sober Israelis shouldn’t be surprised. On the other hand, the news should be embarrassing to apologists for the Palestinians who have always claimed that they are defenseless and just want to get along.

The shortcomings of Israeli civil defense were brought to light by the Carmel fires themselves, not by wikileaks. It wasn’t a secret fire. It didn’t take the leaks to demonstrate Israel’s unpreparedness for a massive attack. It just took the fire. Israelis should be worried, but the leaks are irrelevant to this story.

The reason conservative and liberal commentators are treading lightly around this issue is that everybody’s ox is being gored to some extent.

Again, for me, there’s just nothing really juicy here. Where’s the info about all the US’s secret rendition torture prisons around the world? About US payoffs to Iran? About who really attacked us on 9/11?About the US military preparations to attack Iran? About whether bin Laden is dead or alive? About the sweetheart deals between US oil companies and the Iraqi oil ministry? About the US’s preference for a successor to Mubarak?

The more I think about it, Assange has a lot more work to do. He hasn’t even scratched the surface.

Again, if I’m not clear on a position, just ask.

Mr. Scheer has managed to insert a well-placed story on Truthdig regarding Jim Morrison’s penis.

Would the intellectual luminaries who have hijacked this thread so that it pivots around the issues of coke and bubble gum care to contribute to that worthy subject as well?

Freddy:

” The American bottled Coke is partially funded by taxpayers.” Isn’t that a stretch? And if true, then is there anything NOT partially funded by taxpayers?

fearno:

Talk about somebody with too much money!!

an update:
Swedish Cold War Bunker Houses WikiLeaks’ Secrets  
The US has announced the investigation of the ongoing cyber attacks against the websites of companies that have cut ties with WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing website. The actual location of Julian Assange’s data is not in the US, however, but in Sweden. http://www.newslook.com/videos/273333-swedish-cold-war-bunker-houses-wikileaks-secrets?autoplay=true

fearnotruth

Yes. In Mexico they use real sugar. Why? No subsidies on corn and no tariffs on sugar. The American bottled Coke is partially funded by taxpayers. An “unintended consequence” of Ethanol subsidies. Go figure.

Burma, Israel and WikiLeaks:

Thank you, Rico.

OK, your premise seems to be that the WikiLeaks memo leak is like Lidsay Lohan. Adolescent. Juvenile. Sensational.

Since we’re talking again—and I do enjoy talking to you, since you’re committed to the principle of intellectual honesty and you’re on the other side—let’s look at your claims.

Are you saying that the Iraqi/Afghanistan outings is irrelevant? I think what you’re saying about THAT is that we all knew it anyway, and it served our enemies’ interest. You don’t much like that. I do.

Are you comparing WikiLeaks’ most recent outing of Burma’s cooperation with N. Korea to develop nuclear weapons to a Lindsay Lohan story?

You imply that fighting for principles (transparency, in this case) is adolescent?

Let’s look at the implication of one such adoelscent outing, shall we?

Now, please remember—before you begin going off again—that I’m as Jewish as, well, Allan Ginsberg was. I’m not anti-Semitic, but then again, I’ve been on the side of the Palestinians since I was a lad.

Now, WikiLeaks recently disclosed that its enemies had the capacity to blanket it in thousands of rockets. I think the number used was about 10,000, and it said that there was no part of Israel off-limits. That’s something that most Israelis probably didn’t know, and its government sure as hell didn’t want raised to a high-visibility standard. Now, suddenly, it was outed.

Then there was that Carmel fire that ostensibly started with an errant hookah pipe and was the most serious in Israel’s history. It was revealed that Israel had no viable large-scale firefighting equipment or strategies. Major oversight, and many folks with Haaretz are calling for Netanyahu’s resignation.

The issue here is that everyone on both sides of the aisle now know that if Israel attacks Iran at this time, Israel will burn out of control. That’s not speculative. That’s not Lindsay Lohan either. It’s tit for tat, as I said, and now everybody knows that it. White phosphorus and napalm would probably have far more impact than any conventional explosives.

Without WikiLeaks recent disclosure, this “inconvenient truth” could have been buried yet deeper. Now it can’t. If Israel thought it was in a Catch-22 before—that the United States would come to its aid like Mother Goose and save the day—it knows full-well that that scenario is hopeless.

It will burn.

And that’s the way things are going to be for the next year at least, probably two or three—until Israel can get enough of its own firetrucks, so to speak.

I don’t think of Lindsay Lohan in these terms, but maybe you do. I mean, WikiLeaks has had enormous impact in this one leak alone.

Now, I’m not saying it will give a continuing “pass” on bombing Iran or attacking Lebanon. Cornered animals often act very irrationally. But that’s rather irrelevant to my point.

Now, my point too isn’t America-bashing, per se. Nor is it Israel-bashing, nor Burma-bashing. This has gone viral, so to speak, and by “this” I mean the very unexpected meme that WikiLeaks brought down from the nether-regions.

That meme—which has everything to do with transparency and a bold declaration of open war (Operation Payback)—isn’t about pissing in the wind or the plaintive kvetch of liberals who prefer to scratch their ass over doing something about it.

By “liberals,” BTW, I include Arianna and Mr. Scheer—note how all of the stuff of WikiLeaks has been shunted off the the lower right corner of the page. It’s got to be the MOST important story of our time, and all our editor can do is give it a patronizing and grudging nod.

RE: the Coke recipe

a different recipe in Mexico - preferred by many - you, rico, will likely appreciate
this:

I chatted once with the personal pilot to the principal owner of a mega-media
corp. (unmentioned here for his privacy),  who shared the story of getting a middle-of-
the-night call ordering him to fly ASAP from Hong Kong to Tijuana to ferry back
12 cases of 2-liter bots. - the party couldn’t stand the taste of Hong Kong Coke.

So, we still want the FCC to control “Net Neutrality”?

There’s “good” government, and “bad” government? No. There is only government control.

All of this, however, is exposing all of the self-identified libertarians for the true statists they really are. I’m taking notes. Two of the more prominent libertarians in support are, Ron Paul and Judge Andrew Napolitano. I am actually very impressed by the Judge’s coverage and his defense of the Freedom of the Press. I’m sure he’s ruffling quite a few feathers over at Fox.

“BTW, Why CAN’T somebody get the Coke recipe, or the 13 herbs and spices, or
Obama’s transcripts? You know, if Assange can figuratively put a man on the
moon…”

Rico, even if that wasn’t intended to be a serious question, it makes me think.  I
think many people are confused by the mission of Wikileaks.  There is a
difference between hacking an organization’s system and providing a medium
for the information obtained.  Assange and his counterparts are not necessarily
doing the hacking.

But more importantly, the difference is in motivation.  The individual
responsible for the hacking, or the leaking of secret material, whether it be Top
Secret correspondence or the Colonel’s original recipe, faces serious
consequences under the law.  Seems to me that someone would only risk being
subjected to those consequences for something they really believed in.  I could
see someone risking it all to expose international war crimes and diplomatic
nonsense, but Coke and the Colonel?

And really, what birther would have the capacity to hack state records?

mdgr:

Good to hear from you!

Yeah, I’m sorry, I went off on the cruxter. Unguarded moment.

First of all, I’m completely agnostic about, actually bored with, the leaks. The governments and corporations who have been embarrassed are, for the most part, grownups (I know, big leap there) and will be able to take care of themselves- they’re in the self-preservation business. But, as far as I’m concerned, this belongs in the Lindsay Lohan section of the newspapers. The technical aspects of how it was done are interesting, but that’s about it for me.

If I sounded strident earlier, it wasn’t about the leaks issue per se. Once again mdgr, the only thing that gets my “panties in a bunch” is sloppy thinking, over-the-top tin foil hat pronunciamentos, and outright America bashing. If I got pissed every time I read a progressive thought, I obviously wouldn’t be here. The reason why I am here, is to discover what street level progressivism is all about. Unfortunately, there isn’t much valuable wheat to find among the considerable volume of chaff strewn over these posts.

BTW, Why CAN’T somebody get the Coke recipe, or the 13 herbs and spices, or Obama’s transcripts? You know, if Assange can figuratively put a man on the moon…

“One can cavalierly compare Paypal and North Korea, but the comparison is false. This attack wasn’t against Paypal. It was again the non-transparency that WikiLeaks challenged. It was against a principle.Same with the other targets.”

Just a point of clarification so I don’t get hammered on a technicality. I misspoke here. The attacks were against specific corporations that retaliated against Wikileaks for outing all the governments on the planet. They seemingly did the bidding of those governments in executing that retaliation, and as a consequence, they got hit.

That included bringing down the Swedish government site as well. Given the pretextual whorishness of Sweden in this matter, it would appear that it deserved it.

It’s tit for tat, Rico. I wouldn’t have figured that you would have run for the hills so readily when a declaration of war was called.

And let’s make no mistake. That’s exactly what it is, even if most Americans have their collective heads in the sand.

It’s still a matter or principle, however, no less than the French Resistance was. Thank goodness someone on the left is finally doing something meaningful besides saying, “Goodness, gracious me,” while sitting in a collective knitting circle.

Rico,

Not to be too transparently sexist, someone has clearly got your panties in a bunch in this thread.

What bothers me about the thread is the totally tepid article it leads off with. Let’s be clear here.

Everyone on the left has been kvetching and feeling like a victim. Robert Scheer and Arianna, while quick to complain, haven’t once called for any real action steps. The sanity rally (sorry, Gerard) was a sop; it was bubble gum. Rightly or wrongly, no one has called for a general strike or a strong an vigorous boycott. The narrative has mostly been about the betrayal by Obama, how crazy and dangerous Palin and her friends are, and how corporations are killing us. Our sense of POWERLESSNESS has been all-pervasive, and sites like the Huff—which have become nothing more than liberal tabloids—have only made it worse.

Now comes some people with balls. The fight back, and they bring down—for hours in some cases—some of the very corporations that pulled the carpet out from under WikiLeaks.

One can cavalierly compare Paypal and North Korea, but the comparison is false. This attack wasn’t against Paypal. It was again the non-transparency that WikiLeaks challenged. It was against a principle.Same with the other targets.

Well, the storyline has changed overnight.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/12/09/wikileaks-operation-payback-hacktivists-legal/

Thus says Fox News:

“The most obvious question is what laws are these hackers violating? In America, there are probably several but the one that stands out from a civil perspective is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. This Act provides both criminal and civil penalties for accessing a computer network without authorization.”

This warning, however, is rather disingenuous. All that the “offender” is doing is downloading a piece of software quite legally and allowing his computer to access the public URLs of public websites. No hacking into any networks occurs, not even an attempt. This isn’t industrial sabotage. It’s equivalent to typing http://www.amazon.com.

So Fox and the people who are weighing in here are pointing to criminal codes that have absolutely no applicability to what is happening.

If they think it will scare these people, guess again. The download rate for this code is occurring, it is said, at about a thousand pieces an hour, and it’s just beginning to ramp up. This is really quite exponential, geometric. It was 1000 yesterday. A couple of hours ago is was 43,000. It’s called distributive networking. To make it illegal is to make about over a hundred million computers in America illegal, since zombie computers are everywhere.

They are trying to scare the public as a deterrent, of course, but my guess is that it will backfire, not unlike jailing Assange did.

The close of this article was probably slipped in when Roger Ailes wasn’t watching. It concludes with a battle cry to which the left, ironically, isn’t fully listening.

Operation: Payback seems unconcerned with the legality of its actions, comparing the online activism to other acts of civil disobedience in U.S. history.

“During the Civil Rights Movement in the United States in the 1960s access to many businesses were blocked as a peaceful protest against segregation. In their efforts, the protesters of the time managed to make drastic changes to police and governments by refusing to be silenced.”

“In the spirit and memory of that movement and many others we will refuse to be silenced. We will protest!”

* * *

BTW, the Twitter feed is pretty funny. This has to be emerging atop some pretty strong adolescent hormones, courage and a sense of invulnerability.

Thank goodness for the Goths.

right oh - need a little compassion, common, rico - before scripting the
gunplay, how about making an offer she can’t refuse - a little Kentucky Fried
Colonel for the pup in exchange for a halt to the blithering

but seriously, you make fine points: Indeed, how does one explain that [...]
the published documents seem to have a ‘gap’ stretching over the period of
July - September 2006, during which the 33-day Lebanon war took place. Is it
possible that US diplomats and officials did not have any comments or
information to exchange about this crucial event but spent their time ‘gossiping’
about every other ‘trivial’ Middle-Eastern matter?

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/12/07/18665978.php

What I love about Truthdig is how friendly all these commenters are with each other. So intelligent.  So level-headed.  So understanding of each others’ short-comings and so tolerant of differences.  So forgiving.  So ... well… in a word.. democratic.

crux:

“And this is a “free” country?”

Yeah, it is. If you’re having trouble with Paypal here, move to North Korea.

cruxpuppy:

“It should be shocking to everyone that the US National Security State, a collaboration of some very creepy individuals, all friends of our friend, Rico, Suave,...”

You’re a blithering idiot and I’m going to have one of my creepy friends shoot your puppy in the crux. Don’t bother locking your doors.

It should be shocking to everyone that the US National Security State, a collaboration of some very creepy individuals, all friends of our friend, Rico, Suave, can put pressure on private business, PayPal, Amazon, MC, VISA, to force them to target people they don’t like. In his case, a journalist. And this is a “free” country?

PayPal, Amazon, MC, VISA, and any other corporation that is so cowardly that they will betray their own mission statement because some ass-hole from the DHS, or the CIA, or wherever, some ass-hole with an impressively intimidating voice, calls them and threatens them, nicely, to protect the almighty National Security State, from this skinny, pale, delicate looking fornicator, Julian Assange, I say that any of these corps that buckle under this “pressure”, should learn there is a price to pay for cooperating with these totalitarian ass-holes, friends of our friend, Rico, Suave.

I tried to use PayPal to make a contribution to ProPublica, a very fine journalistic operation, which I encourage everyone to support, and PayPal didn’t work. Great! And I hope Amazon can’t sell it’s crap, either. They must pay for caving into our home grown fascists.

And we’d better wake up and realize what’s going down. It may already be too late.

I heard a good one today. But first let me repeat categorically. I am NOT a birther. I do NOT associate with birthers. And let me confess, I like Coke better than Pepsi, but KFC (owned by Pepsi) is the BEST!

Now then. “Why hasn’t Assange been able to come up with Obama’s birth certificate or his college and law school transcripts? Or the formula for Coca Cola or the 13 herbs and spices in the Colonel’s secret recipe? Surely some Hawaiian records department, or Coke headquarters would be easier to hack than the State Deptartment, wouldn’t you think?”

As I said on another post, having held a Top Secret clearance while I was in the Air Force, I discovered that the biggest secret is that there are very few important government secrets other than nuclear weapons tech and the identity of, and methods used by, spies. We are all suckers for John Le Carre novels and “Casablanca” and we use them as psychological tools, or excuses, to understand the unknown in terms of grand conspiracies and nefarious “Dr Evils”.

Of the hundreds of thousands of documents (loosely defined) outed by Assange, how many are truly earth shattering? Ooooh, the US ambassador’s wife thinks the Saudi ambassador’s wife looks fat! Hillary thinks Putin is buff! Ooooh.

Some cyberwar——more of a lashing with a wet noodle.  All they did was prevent access to the website by overloading it——that is so retro!  What they did to do is interfere with the core operation; namely, prevent access to personal accounts/information management and thwart credit card operations.

Or the black hats versus the white hats. an update.. on barbed wire in the open range frontier.
Cyberwar Erupts Over WikiLeaks
A cyberwar is being waged over WikiLeaks. It began after MasterCard, PayPal and Visa refused to take payments for WikiLeaks, which runs on donations. In retaliation, a hacker group calling itself “Anonymous”, has launched Operation Payback. http://www.newslook.com/videos/273122-cyberwar-erupts-over-wikileaks?autoplay=true