Posts by Keir Leslie
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Has there ever in the course of history been an example of this tactic working? I am not asking for theories about why it might work, but actual real evidence of times leaking has lead to either an increase in openness or transparency, or else a degradation of government's ability to conspire* in a way we might consider positive.
(Hindering communication may be the point, but it does nothing to decrease the conspiratorial nature of government, & in fact makes it worse.)
Think: which group in the US gov't does this empower? The national security apparat --- the part of the gov't the most conspiratorial.
* This is the difficulty; if Assange merely wants to make it hard for government to function, I have no support for him at all. He has to show that the effects of this will be positive, and I continue to reserve judgement.
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With reference to woman sf authors, one must mention Joanna Russ.
(In general, the Women's Press had an interesting sf imprint.)
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If the cables are actually that interesting, then there is nothing stopping anyone from saying interesting things about them.
There is however something quite frustrating about the insistence that the conversation dwell on one specific aspect of the issue, and that alone.
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I’m inclined to agree with Seriatim on page 10. The timing alone of the charges leveled against Assange should raise eyebrows, and one should be able to question their authenticity without being labeled a misogynist. There seems to be a great reluctance to question the facts as presented to us by the powers-that-be in this particular case.
No. This is where not being a misogynist actually really really matters: when it hurts. This is when you actually have to make a fucking choice. It is easy to avoid misogyny when it is Tony Veitch. We don't, after all, like him.
There is not, in actual point of fact, a great reluctance to question the facts of the case here. There is instead an absolute insistence by a great many people that Assange is obviously innocent, because it would be good for the CIA (or the US, or whoever) if he were not. There is a very complete willingness to accept that the complainants are lying, and that the entirety of the charges are trumped up attempts to discredit Assange.
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Or, alternatively, Prince Andrew is a proper patriot, and he reckons what's good for British business is absolutely good. (I mean, really, not a difficult proposition, and it is what the actual Britons I know read it as.)
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But Wikileaks makes it harder for an entire elite political class to operate in secrecy. That’s not building a new world, or overturning the rule of law, or allowing Assange to decide what is secret and what is known, it’s trying to make the currently existing system function the way it’s supposed to.
`the way it's supposed to' is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
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Well, no, he didn’t discover America either. That was done by some person wandering over the Bering Strait.
At most, he discovered the relationship between America and Europe.
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1. Assange’s an arsehole
2. Government needs to keep secrets
The first is debatable, but the second is obviously true --- say, an impeding currency devaluation, or things to do with my personal status, or whatever. So governments sometimes need to keep secrets. But at the same time, sometimes they don't. So how do we decide which things the government can keep secret? I think many people are just very very leery of letting Assange be the person that makes that decision, given it's basically the antithesis of the rule of law.
Personally, I think that Assange, inasmuch as he is operating in what is essentially a spying mode, where information becomes the battleground over which two entities fight, amplifies the conspiratorial nature of government. (Leaking is an operation fundamentally distinct from openness. Leaking depends upon and reinforces secrecy by emphasising control of information; disclosure emphasises rule bound and orderly sharing of information.)
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Likewise, ever try to get away with a pop song longer than five minutes? You might get away with six on a good day etc.
I quite agree it's unfair to make people dress in suits all day long, but I think that saying suits all look the same is basically wilful blindness. The people who wear them can clearly tell the difference, which suggests there's something going on there.
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Does this really affect anybody’s ability to think like a conspiracy? The most likely effect of this, as Yglesias (forgive me) put it, was that US diplomats will communicate confidential stuff over the phone from now on. That doesn’t degrade the ability to act conspiratorially, and in as much as it minimises openness and accountability, probably aids it.
I don’t think that any of the leaks really are that interesting. Everything is either stuff we already knew, or stuff that barely matters. Most of the diplomatic outrage is utterly insincere — Putin is upset that the US thinks he’s authoritarian? Well, yeah.
So really, discussing the character of a major actor on the world stage is not that surprising. I have difficulty seeing why it should be a bad thing to do — it isn’t like Assange has any right to my positive opinion of him, and even if the CIA wants me to think he’s a tosser, it is entirely possible he is a tosser.
Assange embarrases the most powerful people in the world, immediately afterwards Interpol puts him on their global most wanted list.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc! Come on.
PS. you know how we know that the CIA didn’t do it? It hasn’t been bungled yet.