i just want to express my support for what julian assange is doing with wikileaks. listening to the msm, you'd think it was obvious that videos of america's heroes slaughtering civilians should be kept secret. um, why exactly? i guess i could see how some information should be kept secret, though i would define such cases extremely narrowly. this sort of thing is nowhere close; of course they ought to be made public. the question facing the pentagon obviously isn't one of national security; it's mere pr.

or let's say that your view is that, like the abu ghraib photos, such things might turn people against the us. well that would be wrong if the videos were cgi fakes or something. if people turn against you because of what you are actually doing, you need to fix what you are actually doing, not try to pretend you aren't. if people turn against you in virtue of believing the truth, then you deserve your image problem.

winning marts and hinds is all very well, but if that just means hiding or lying about your disgusting actions, then i say you're just redoubling the problem. now they not only oppose what you're doing; they don't believe a word you're saying, for very good reasons. that was the donald rumsfeld approach to getting everyone behind our efforts.

Comments

[mextremist]

winning marts and hinds is one of the best puns i've read in a while: hilarious and witty and terribly true. markets and asses indeed...

one question, mi querido profesor: how do you reconcile your professed admiration of Mrs. Palin and her extreme patriotism and "america" is-never-wrongism and our merc-er armed forces are angelic envoys of good, with your distaste for the u.s. empire and its armed interventions around the globe?

i mean, i also agree the media are fucking scum and have been horribly unfair to her, and admire her confusingly articulated frontierism and independence, but i am terrified of her unabashed imperialistic proclamations.

down south, she sometimes sounds remarkably like monroe to our swarthy ears, the whole preordained-force-of-good-in-the-world, let's bring some culture and "democracy" to these savages kind of blasé atittude so prevalent in the jingoistic confines of the republican party...

[crispy]

honestly, mextremist, i don't want sarah palin to be president. i like her frontierism too, and maybe i sort of crush on her cuteness. it's the 'she's so stupid (=i'm so smart)' thing that irritates me. obama has a higher iq than palin. that doesn't inject content into his bp speech.

[mextremist]

understood, thanks for the clarification. we share the derision for the pundit class, i think. although i find some of her professed views abhorrent, i keep reminding myself it's all a performance and i really don't know this woman: i shouldn't have visceral opinions about someone i've only seen on tv.

i do enjoy how she drives them nuts, though.

[marriotr]

I'm a fan of transparency almost categorically, although there's plenty I don't know about assange. I suspect our views on state secrets are actually pretty similar.

[Jared]

Frankly I've never understood how a democratic government could ever hope to justify state secrets. On the one hand you have the glourious collective governance and rule of the people and on the other men in black ops working behind the curtain. It's so matrix it scares me but in a good way.

And to be honest it has always been a personal dream of mine to lead a group of NRA gun wielding lunatics into area 51 basically out of shear curiousity.