Um, I Think It's Time for a Thread on WikiLeaks

my 'position' is that having more hard info about what's going on in a war your country is fighting is always a good thing, because your country will naturally want to keep anything related to the shitty ugly things it's doing secret, and the less it's secret, the more people might want to say 'hey, that's shitty and ugly, let's stop it.'

assuming, of course, that the people are interested in not being shitty and ugly, which IMO is a massive assumption that is not at all a given

yeah

another thing: really, if this argument is just boiling down to "WL should ~consider things~ before releasing intel willy-nilly" v. "WL should release everything all the time!" then it is imo a pretty fucking retarded argument.

of course, WL is going to evaluate whether or not it should release documents. julian whatever is a rational actor, and unless he has a policy of actually just releasing EVERYTHING he's given, then it's safe to say there's some contemplative process at work.

arguing about the ethical framework that might inform WL's decision-making process might help firm up your own, but imo the only question that has any ~stakes~ here is what to ~do~ about wikileaks. which, to me, is a pretty easy one: nothing.

which is to say: i am comfortable with the existence of a website, run by a guy, that leaks intel about what it has maybe arbitrarily deemed "nefarious doings." worrying about whether or not he'll fuck up and get someone killed is, as i said before, major concern trolling. like, wild-eyed, hair-pulling concern-trolling.

because, what's the alternative? shut it down? appoint a govt attache to WL that will say what's ok and what isn't? replace julian whatever with someone who doesn't make Mordy "wary?" what?

when it gets down to brass tacks, the whole WL issue is either a) do something about it (silencing them) or b) do nothing about it.

(sorry, i have not read the entire thread, so)

Could they be held liable in civil courts by family members of spies, say?

what, like wrongful death? due to intel leakage?

gbx, I think reasonable people can feel uncomfortable about the situation, hope that it will end up for better than for worse, and be attuned to the issue. if WikiLeaks did release something i felt was really destructive i reserve my right to feel like he should be shutdown. I think that's a really reasonable position.

like anything they could ever do would be as destructive as current US policy, yeah right.

knowing that the veil of secrecy allows you to do shitty things out of public view means... those with the power to make things secret will do shitty things! because they can! the principle of free information IS the principle of restraint of power, it IS the counterweight to the monopoly of force. a few more julian assanges around and the calculus for the political costs of military action start to change.

― goole, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 1:48 PM (2 hours ago)

straight fire beautiful post

I don't believe that the government should have to give up every secret but the ones that will lead to immediate, quantifiable, and direct harm to their citizens.

I don't want to be, you know, the kinda of "you side with the Bad Man, ergo you are a Bad Dude" dude like this, ok, but will you concede that it is this reasoning exactly that allowed the previous administration (and the current one, it must be remembered) to withhold information about a network of secret prisons in which unidentified persons have been held, interrogated, and tortured, and probably killed, at taxpayer expense, without accountability to any known authority save the very government that authorized the detention, interrogation, and torture of these prisoners, who are not afforded prisoner of war status nor any legal rights whatsoever? their reasoning for not disclosing this abhorrent policy (and continuing to stonewall on the subject) is this: "if our enemies find out that we are detaining and interrogating people without charge or any recognized international rights, and sometimes torturing them and maybe killing them, our enemies will get all pissed off, and then they might hurt somebody; therefore, nobody has a right to know what we're doing, and, in fact, we have a moral duty to safeguard information about our activities."

Because Dr. Morbz has a very superficial position wrt Democracy + government. He is essentially waiting for a charismatic figure to lift us out of the bonds of history + alienation.

You should be ashamed of yourself for misrepresenting somebody's position so willfully under the guise of providing a fair description of that person's position; Morbius's (otm imo) disgust with the actors in place doesn't mean he is "waiting for a charismatic figure." Despair in current conditions does not imply belief in some later magic solution.

like anything they could ever do would be as destructive as current US policy, yeah right.

― bug holocaust (sleeve), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 1:03 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

that's an unfair distinction though. vast and vastly powerful entities (like government) are far far far more capable of destructive action than small ones (like advocacy groups). in fact, i'd suggest that the casual destruction that large governments necessarily leave in their wake, as the cost of mere existence, necessarily dwarfs the worst that could possibly be accomplished by something like wikileaks.

i don't really get this thread but yeah, that is an odd characterization of Dr. Morbz's politics, though i don't share them.

xp

knowing that the veil of secrecy allows you to do shitty things out of public view means... those with the power to make things secret will do shitty things! because they can! the principle of free information IS the principle of restraint of power, it IS the counterweight to the monopoly of force. a few more julian assanges around and the calculus for the political costs of military action start to change.

― goole, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 1:48 PM (2 hours ago)

straight fire beautiful post

― terry squad (k3vin k.), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 1:15 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

Despair in current conditions does not imply belief in some later magic solution.

except that whenever Morbz is pressed for a suggested solution he invariably veers off into "MAGIC!" territory. I think Mordy's OTM tbh.

maybe that part is true; don't really see morbz as being invested in a charismatic figure tbh

anyway sorry, p sure that's not what this thread is about

"necessarily dwarfs the worst that could possibly be accomplished by something like wikileaks."

insofar as a strategic leak could alter the outcome of elections, the worst case scenarios are on par with govt.

you guys sure have a lot of faith in people

xp to shakey: I think what he means by that is that no solution is forthcoming, not that he expects any magic to occur. The accusation that people dissatisfied with the administration are asking for miracles is a popular one, though.

Destructive to US power, possibly. It seems like a very possible scenario, and as many problems as I have with US governance (stuff like torture, overthrowing democratically elected governments, etc), I'm not so convinced that there's significantly better models out there. I subscribe to the position that Europe is able to curtail many of their military needs because the US has stepped up to that role globally (I first read this in Zizek's new book and later in a few other places), not to mention that different countries have varying historical and even contemporary levels of responsibility (like in the UN). So the question is, assuming US power is limited, who steps up to fill the gap? (To paraphrase Zizek, should our only choice be between American-style civilization and the emerging Chinese authoritarian-capitalist form? If the answer is no, then the only alternative is Europe... But can Europe deliver such a thing?) xp to above

J0hn, I think it's pretty clear that's where his positions lead him. He is not merely dissatisfied but unable to understand how the system itself functions. You have a similar problem -- you've let idealism get in the way of actually understanding how Democracy works. Being idealistic is good, but letting that blind you to the world is silly. The lesson of Watergate wasn't that Presidents had gotten progressively and progressively more corrupt until the contemporary era when they were all bad and so we should go back to the time of honorable men. The lesson of Watergate was that we now have the tools + media infrastructure to expose government corruption. A thoughtful person feels bad about when things don't work in the world and when bad things happen, and then tries to figure out the best way to work within a system to move them. Morbz says that no one can do anything good, everyone is evil and corrupt, and it's not worth playing -- but that something better exists. Except he won't show the steps to get to something better, just his principled feeling that he can. This is not different from the positions of religious people who believe in following a moral, ethical code and that when the Messiah comes, everyone + the world will be transformed.

like, my immediate assumption re: a hypothetical disclosure of the American military being complicit in doing bad things to random groups of dark people is that the average American will shrug and go "oh well, it's not here; pass me my cheeseburger"

those with the power to make things secret will do shitty things! because they can!

hi dere I'm not sure that this can be fairly described as an example of one person having "a lot of faith in people" but it may be that I'm not clear on what faith means in this context

can we not discuss people who are not posting to this thread plz

it would be best if we didnt veer into mordys pet theories about dr morbius

xp

Ok, so apply everything I said to j0hn. It serves as the same critique.

Er, Smith. Sorry.

oh i like where this is going

I should probably just drop the whole thing.

you are assuming that the American people will somehow magically stop being a large group of self-involved xenophobic assholes and care that the government is using the military to hurt people tens of thousands of miles away

like, no one will care unless those people also kill a whole bunch of US military men, in which case the reaction won't be "oh we should pull out of there", it will be "we should thoroughly destroy them"

J0hn, I think it's pretty clear that's where his positions lead him.

I want to be clear and open with you about how I feel about this line, and why I think you say it: it means you don't have to answer anything directly from him, or from anybody who persistently expresses total & permanent suspicion of the admin (or of all admins). your position is essentially an elegant ad-hom. It is not at all clear that "that's where his positions lead him"; it would be odd, indeed, for a person whose positions lead him in a clear way to never articulate that position, even once. Your accusation is essentially "you want a Messiah, you just don't know that that's what your positions mean"; what an insulting accusation that is to make, and baseless.

Ok dude -- how do you feel we should get from here to there?

You're right, maybe there's another ahistorical break, but I think my critique is super solid and not ad-hom at all. You are looking to alter the rules of the world but you won't say how we're going to do it.

I don't understand how thinking, "Since politics is a dirty business, we shouldn't trust anything our legislators and presidents say" is synonymous with "I have a quixotic, Emerald City vision of what perfect representative democracy looks like."

you are assuming that the American people will somehow magically stop being a large group of self-involved xenophobic assholes and care that the government is using the military to hurt people tens of thousands of miles away

oh man you should not get me wrong, I think we are twinned on our actually optimism - I don't think most people will do anything besides eat more pizza & I'll probably be one of the pizza-eating multitude myself - I think I'm maybe a tad less convinced of the total narcissism of the species than you are, but just a tad, and that's just 'cause I like poetry

it's a nice thought to think that Americans would only be nice and peaceful if they knew THE WHOLE STORY but that is ignoring both the culture of willful ignorance that fuels our society and the smug, authoritarian principles on which our country was founded

That's not the synonym, Alfred. The synonym is "Since these politicians are completely corrupt and can't do any good" = "Some other politician will be better, who isn't here right now," = "Who will be coming in the future." If you started with, "I'll work with what I have," then you'd leave in a different direction.

Some other politician will be better, who isn't here right now,"

No one here has said this!

for fuck's sake Mordy, stop trying to win ILX

Ok dude -- how do you feel we should get from here to there?

this question 1) doesn't pertain to the discussion, and is a separate disccusion; 2) doesn't preclude or invalidate even one criticism: "don't complain unless you have a solution!" is woeful management-speak; and 3) is a dishonest conversational move. I don't have any solutions at all, I am just a guy eating a pizza. Do you know what my lack of solutions says qualitatively about any criticism I might make? Nothing whatsoever, that's what. You're advancing the "don't criticize the music unless you can make better music yourself" model of politics. It is absurd, in my opinion, in both spheres.

I mean, the real critique is, "Great, you're idealistic. Who the fuck cares?" because the idealism as practiced that way has no impact on the world. It's just screaming into the wind, or to ask what the stakes are of that idealism, it's just to look good on a message board. You're not changing the world by saying how bad the US government is, you're just complaining.

If you have the time to peruse those exhausting 2008 political threads, you'll find few Obama "stans" – most people said he was the best candidate to come along in their lifetimes, with the talent to keep some longstanding promises. That's not at all the same as thinking there's a magical candidate out there. That's how Republicans think: they're always searching for another Reagan.

btw the pizza in my examples is entirely theoretical, there is no pizza where I'm at, much to my dissatisfaction. but maybe I shouldn't complain that there's no pizza here unless I have an idea about how I might go about making one myself.

That's really what I should post whenever one of these discussions come up. "Yep, morally rightitude on ILX! Rock on!" because clearly any attempt to ever engage that idealism into questions about practical practice are always hunted down for being too conservative.

If you have the time to peruse those exhausting 2008 political threads, you'll find few Obama "stans" – most people said he was the best candidate to come along in their lifetimes, with the talent to keep some longstanding promises. That's not at all the same as thinking there's a magical candidate out there.

The problem, actually, with political discourse around here is that other people then flipped that around to say that everyone thinks Obama is infallible and totally the magic n*gger we can believe in, which seriously pisses me off every time I see it.

that's how Republicans think: they're always searching for another Reagan.

― balls and adieu (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 3:35 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

long may they search! fred thompson '12

Like, when I'm thinking through these issues, I'm not trying to think through them like a man eating a pizza. Maybe that's the big difference. From the pizza-perspective, it's easy to just take the hardline on any given moral issue. "Should we make all information free? Sure, why the fuck not. Information rocks."

I mean, the real critique is, "Great, you're idealistic. Who the fuck cares?" because the idealism as practiced that way has no impact on the world. It's just screaming into the wind, or to ask what the stakes are of that idealism, it's just to look good on a message board. You're not changing the world by saying how bad the US government is, you're just complaining

Yeah but you only use this argument to duck out of defending positions like "it's OK to censor information that might be damaging at some future point to theoretical negotiating interests with unknown parties." It is not "idealism" to call people out on their bullshit; your cries of "idealism," again, are just ad-homs meant to discredit the people making reasonably formed cases against your position.

oy