Thursday, December 09, 2010

The Fed, Big Sis, and Wikileaks: What should we be afraid of?

Much sturm and drang has been circulating about Julian Assange and the Wikileaks fiasco. The ersatz lover-boy whose latest crime is using a leaky condom has become public enemy number one for the conservative crowd and the messiah for the anarchists and left wing loonies. What or where is the truth?

According to Wikipedia,  Julian Assange is an Australian journalist,[5][6][7] publisher,[8][9] and Internet activist. He is best known as the spokesperson and editor in chief for WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website. Before working with the website, he was a computer programmer.[10] He has lived in several countries, and has made occasional public appearances to speak about freedom of the presscensorship, and investigative journalism.

Ok. He likes to expose or uncover information that would otherwise not be known to the rest of the world. This information included over one quarter of a million diplomatic cables, over half of which were unclassified, 40% confidential and 6% are secret. It would seem to even a casual observer of the events that unfolded that the umbrage directed at Mr Assange has more to do with the message than with the act itself. The information released is very embarrassing to the United States, to the State Department, Barack Obama and his administration and ultimately America itself. The real problem is that the king was not only shown to be naked, but to have a small and almost non-existent dick. So where's the beef? More later.

So in the recent news cycle, all is abuzz and aflame with the life and times of Julian Assange. In the mean time we still have problems here at home and this distraction of the day with Assange is just that. A distraction. It's a straw man meant to pull our attention away from more important things. Like the TSA. We were all abuzz with the TSA, the groping, locking people in glass cages for hours, and then nothing. If anyone has been awake at all, they would have noticed that the Obama administration has eroded our personal freedoms in ways the left wing media would love to blame on George W. Bush. We have all our data and voice streams monitored, we are X-Rayed in airports, groped, fondled, and otherwise mistreated with efforts to compromise our dignity. We have a government that tracks all of our financial transactions and through all of this, not a peep. Not much. What I hear is "if I am not doing anything wrong, I have nothing to fear" or If it keeps us safe from terrorists, it's ok with me".

Such fecklessness is the sign of Farm Animals®. We've become so conditioned to trust government because it has become the hand that feeds some of us. Like the wine, beer drinking, cheese and brat eating surrender monkeys of Europe, we will tolerate anything for the promise to keep us safe. In spite of a new covenant in the Declaration of Independence, we have come full circle, embracing the paternal system of feudalism, which we shook off over 200 years ago. Where did we go wrong? A little late for that question, but I can tell you it's been Obama's plan all along. He's a fabian socialist, and his progressive agenda is to move us towards socialism as much as possible before we catch on and hopefully, to him, after it's too late. With the elections of 2010, he's done a lot of damage. Who would have thought even 3 years ago that the government would control what it does today? The intrusion into our lives, and moreover, the control. Like the frog in the pot, the water is warmed slowly until it's too late.

So here we are, how many days and weeks into the Assange conspiracy and we still believe in the straw men created by the press and the government. They expect us to cower, to follow like supplicants or worse like lemmings, to follow whatever tune the pied piper plays. We will find no greater security is hanging Mr. Assange and/or closing wikileaks too. We will find no more security in trying to democratize Afghanistan or for that matter any place else. In fact, ask yourself the question, does the information that has been leaked make you any less free? Does it take away your life, liberty or property? Does endanger you personally?

Where I do part ways with Assange is releasing information that would expose individuals to death or mayhem if their names were revealed. Outside of that, this information has been a revelation to how truly incompetent our President is and who our real enemies are. For his part, Mr Assange is the recipient of the 2010 Sam Adams Award. Samuel Adams, in my opinion, was the father of the American Revolution. He embodied the true revolutionary spirit of this country and he had determination not to be a subject of any monarch, but I digress...

As a country, we have a choice to make. We can chose to be led around by our noses and pricks like some peasant fool that believes in fairytales and magic shows, or we can wake up and see things for what they are. We need to focus on our freedoms, liberties and also economic stability at home if we expect to be a good example to the rest of the world of what a country should be like. We had been at one time, but we've lost our way. No amount of blood spilled in Afghanistan or Iraq will fix that or change it. In fact it's slowly dragging us down and the cost of which has not been fully realized by us as a nation, we will pay for it, at least some of us will.

If Iraq and Afghanistan were about Al Qaeda and Bin Laden, this could have been settled long ago. While it has been said: do not attribute to malice what can be explained through stupidity, sometime I wonder. And if you think I say this from a position of being a dove or antiwar person, you are mostly wrong. No sane human being wants war. Fighting all the time is unproductive, it kills the best and brightest, and it wears a society down. That said, when one does fight, do it quickly, with finality, and go home. We have not done that. We could have.

And lastly, The Fed. If anyone saw Mr Bernanke on 60 Minutes last Sunday, you really should have asked one question, well, at least one: Where does that 600 Billion dollars that you want to by treasuries with come from? Of course the reporter didn't ask it and the answer is, print it. The Fed and Obama and out ideas and at the end of the road. They will either have to white nuckle over the progressive cliff or force themselves to look at reality and realize that FDR-like proposals and thinking will not get us out of this recession. It didn't work then and it won't work now. Again, the side show in the rest of the world is obscuring what lies before us. The Tea Party was born of our discontent, but like a attention span addled child, will they forget why they came to the table? I hope not.

The circus that has presented itself in the last couple years and couple months is indicative of Team Geppetto. As we see our liberties and our money slip away, so will our lives, at least the quality thereof. As the US slips in the world, from number one to number two, we will find ourselves in a place not of our liking, but of our choosing. As much as we are hoodwinked, we also have a choice in it and as much as I think the latest news cycle with Wikileaks is a distraction from our real problems, in a way, Mr. Assange has also brought to fore a lot of the genesis for our current problems and laid bare the man behind the curtain. I don't hold him up as some example of propriety or heroism as some might and I also do not excoriate him as some treasonous monster that must be destroyed. All I say is thank you for some clarity in a world that is so full of shit. Thank you Mr. Assange, wherever you are.

And thank you for reading this blog.

29 comments:

Toaster 802 said...

Quoted and linked at http://greenmnts.blogspot.com/2010/12/who-hell-is-behind-curtain.html

Thanks for a great post!

The Right Guy said...

Thanks for the linkage.

Ran said...

Added you to the blog roll. Should have done that over a year ago.

I'm still ambivalent over Assange. Over his supporters and over PFC Moonbat, my opinions are rather less so.

Good post. Cheers.

The Right Guy said...

Thanks Ran, I appreciate it.

Teresa said...

I agree that we should have handled both Iraq and Afghanistan much better and possibly carpet bombed both places instead of doing this namby-pamby crap. But, I don't think that our Founders would have wanted us to be quitters in spreading freedom and helping others around the globe. To me, our spreading of freedom is one element that has made this country exceptional. I do agree more focus should be spent on here at home, defending our liberties and reversing all the anti-freedom policies which the Obama admin has implemented. The last two or so years have been focused on that and I honestly for the most part only see bloggers covering the Assange stuff minimally so I do think that people are primarily focused on what is going on here right in the USA. Personally, I think Assange should be forgotten for awhile and then maybe some covert action should take care of him since he violated the Espionage Act but then again.... maybe not. You are correct in saying that BIG SIS must be stopped and reduced in size to be little sis.

The Right Guy said...

I don't think our founding fathers were neo-cons and their first concern wasn't spreading freedom to the world. American evangelicalism (or is it evangelical americanism?) would come about towards the end of the 19th century and continues to this day. Our founding fathers concern was to maintain freedom here first and honestly it should be ours as well. As we seek to spread our way of life by the end of a barrel of a gun, we have barry and big sis taking away our way of life here.

As far as a post 9/11 America goes, we had and have every right to pursue those that killed our own. We've failed in that in that Bin Laden and his cohorts are still breathing. If it were me running the show it would be over by now.

I think we can and should spread American exceptionalism where we can. I do not think it is a military solution but a cultural and economic one. Military solutions only last as long as enough force can be applied to suppress opposition. Cultural and Economic solutions appeal to a persons intellect and good sense as opposed to emotions such as fear. I would rather live in a world ruled by rationalism, not emotionalism.

So, to the extent that we are to be the shining city on a hill, we need to shine from that hill first and set a proper example. I think we've fallen down there.

The Right Guy said...

And I might add that the Espionage Act was passed under that anti-liberty progressive Woodrow Wilson.

The Right Guy said...

I would also add that Assange is not a US citizen and did not commit these acts on American soil. I would also assert that the information he disseminated was the truth, not misinformation. It remains to be seen that the information impeded any military operations.

It's my observation that we aren't governed by a military junta, and even still by a thread, an authoritarian society. I would ask you what kind of society do you wish to live in? In the past, this act was used to stifle people who thought differently and disagreed with the government. That is a bad precedent. At it's best intentioned, I'll quote wikipedia:
In United States v. Motion Picture Film (1917), a federal court upheld government seizure of a film about the Revolutionary War entitled "The Spirit of '76" because it claimed that the depiction of cruelty by British soldiers might undermine support for a wartime ally. The producer, Robert Goldstein, a Jew of German origins, was prosecuted under Title XI of the Act, and received a ten-year sentence plus a fine of five thousand dollars. The sentence was commuted on appeal to 3 years.

That's bloody horse shit. It's also not a society that I want to live in and it's anti-american. Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine and even Thomas Jefferson would have been jailed under such an act during our fight for independence with England. Again, what was revealed was factual, and in the vast majority not even secret. For those us that live in "truth", this should be welcome.

Héctor Portillo said...

Again, I agree with you, Right Guy.

May I point out, as a Latin American, that the "spreading of freedom" by the US during most of the XXth century was a disaster for Latin America? Sure, you avoided communism here, but the price was to fund cruel dictators... I mean, it's just annoying to see how most Americans see their country as the beacon of freedom. Yeah, tell that to chilean people who suffered almost 20 years of Pinochet's regime.

Ran said...

"Yeah, tell that to chilean people who suffered almost 20 years of Pinochet's regime."

Uh-huh. Pinochet was a pussy compared to the alternatives like Ché. Note, too, how the industries and companies that got rolling during those "repressive" years today employ and enrich vastly more people than any statist bastards could have done.

Funny how leftists always fail to leave out the other sides of the equations... Without Pinochet, Chile today would be Venezuela West.

Have any more ignorant leftist tropes to sell, Hector?

The Right Guy said...

Ran:
It's a question of US and CIA involvement. While the alternatives aren't good, we usually end up supporting the mafia we like. Governments in a lot of latin american countries are oligarchies of the wealthiest and/or most corrupt families. Because our businesses get more favorable treatment under these regimes, we support them, but make no mistake, they aren't George Washington or Thomas Jefferson types, on either side.

That said, Chile has come a long way and it is one of the best of the latin american countries. The other two that have as modern or more so in terms of economy and progress probably would be Argentina and Brazil, with Brazil being the preeminent economic power south of the border.

Because of our ineptitude, China and Russia are striking deals of all types with latin american countries, none to our benefit. Instead of looking at these countries as places of convenient cheap labor and drugs, we should be developing partnerships.

Ran said...

"It's a question of US and CIA involvement. While the alternatives aren't good, we usually end up supporting the mafia we like."

NFK, Right Guy. Oldest game in power politics. You're preaching to the Bishop.

But that wasn't the point: For all of Pinochet's "evils" there were residual benefits that still anchor liberty and economic activity in that country and neighboring countries that trade. That side of reality is always overlooked by the envious who have no understanding of how it happened.

And DO NOT point to Argentina and Brazil as models. Both of them are seriously in debt, well beyond broke, and neither country has a culture of wealth-generation that will sustain them let alone pull them from collapse. At least Brazil has oil it can sell to productive countries, but it's just a matter of when, not if. Argentina is about to go tits-up, because all it has on tap is a bunch of angry Hectors.

Latin America's pretentiously sanctimonious statist mob have produced absofuckinglutely zero wealth in the jurisdictions where they hold power. Their adolescent zero-sum economic theories encompass no element of how wealth is generated nor do the likes of marx even have a freaking clue how to define 'wealth.'

"America did Evil!" "Tax the Rich!" Let them "trade" with China and see how that turns out.

Chuck said...

Funny how the pompous twits who piss and moan about Pinochet have absolutely nothing to say about the subhuman pieces of shit he was fighting against. It was either Pinochet or the Communists. There wasn't a third option. An honest person who actually gave a shit about human suffering would express profound gratitude for Pinochet.

Leftists are scum.

Chuck said...

By the way: Assange deserves to die for what he's done. There is blood on that little cunt's hands.

The Right Guy said...

Ran:
We are in more debt than Brazil, does that make us more feckless? No. Brazil is poised to become the 5th biggest economy in the world. They are booming while we lay stagnant. Just a fact. Argentina has it's issues, but it's doing better than most down there and so is Chile.

While I don't condone communism I also don't condone fascist dictatorships or authoritarian oligarchies. Let the people decide for themselves and let it be that.

Chuck:
You'll have to elaborate whose blood Assange has on his hands. I thought you were a man of Truth (6% of what he released was classified as secret)? Knowing the facts here, or the truth is a good thing no? I did say f someone got hurt from his releasing a particular bit of information is wrong. That hasn't been demonstrated. The more time goes on, the more this reminds me of vietnam. We've lost sight of why we are there and we have taken on a role that isn't wanted there. It's like an alien landing on earth, taking us back to their world and expecting us to learn how telekinesis or reading minds. It ain't going to happen. It's stone age their and they like it that way. On top of that we went there to kill or capture Bin laden and he's still walking around. We've lost our fucking minds if we think this will work.

Now, if you want real cultural change in Afghanistan or any other antediluvian islamic Coriolis generator, we should follow China's example in Tibet. How about you volunteer to move Ran or Chuck? How about Eric? While I don't agree with it, it works and with a lot less bloodshed.

Chuck said...

"Let the people decide for themselves and let it be that."

And just who the hell do you presume is to do this theoretical letting? Decide how? What the fucking fuck are you talking about?

Assange expected innocent people to be killed as a result of his actions. Maybe you find that entertaining. I find it evil.

He had no good intent. Only ill will. You applaud him while your ass warms a cushion. His victims won't be so comfy.

The Right Guy said...

People will have to let themselves, one way or another. We did.

You haven't proven your points. Specifically tel me who has died? Give me the quotes where he said he wanted that to happen? If you can do that, then there is a case against him, otherwise, it's wishful thinking and opinion.

Chuck said...

"One way or another" isn't an answer. It's an evasion.

Chuck said...

Specifically who has died? Are you really going to pretend to be this fucking obtuse for the sake of winning an argument you don't even give a shit about?

How about you tell us the names of all the confidential informants who will not die as a result of Assange outing them on the internet.

Quit being a fucking 5 year old. It's not endearing. It's sickening.

The Right Guy said...

No evasions. Prove your case, that is all I ask.

Chuck said...

Do it yourself. I'm not writing a fucking term paper here. If you give a shit about what is true, you'll find it for yourself.

Nice evasion, by the way. The dissolution of two subjects into one. You responded to being called on your evasion with a second evasion. Clever. Bravo.

Pride isn't smart. Honesty isn't dumb.

The Right Guy said...

I guess you never took geometry.

Chuck said...

Aced it. Everybody cheated off of me. My proofs were like the Werewolf's hairdo....perfect.

Aaaooooooooooh!

The Right Guy said...

If that is the case then proving Assange's guilt should be easy for you.

Héctor Portillo said...

Ran,
In Chile's particular case, it wasn't Che, it was Salvador Allende, a communist but pacifist (as far as we know) president who started governing as a communist and, as such, was leading Chile to economic disaster. Do you really think he'd have killed off so many people as Pinochet? He didn't have enough political strength to do so. But no, US couldn't allow another commie government in Latin America, so they funded a dictator like Pinochet... Same goes to most of the other Latin American countries.

While Che was, indeed, a murderer (at least since before the Cuban revolution), that doesn't mean it's OK to support another murderer... To put it in terms you security paranoids can understand, America's commie-phobia led US government to support bin Laden against the URSS (hell, even Rambo III shows the radical muslims as nice people who fight for freedom). Was that a good idea?

I'm also amused by you assuming I'm a leftist just because I don't like Pinochet. That only means I don't like a general who takes power by force an then exiles, tortures or kills everyone who opposes him. That's not right. That's wrong.

Right Guy,
I'd say Uruguay is better than Argentina or Chile. It's economy may not be as strong as Brazil's or Chile's, but the life quality there seems pretty OK (as in OECD OK). If it wasn't for the security issues, maybe Mexico would be there, but oh well.

The Right Guy said...

I know Uruguay has changed their immigration and tax laws to increase immigration from wealthier countries. I just think Chile and Argentina are more interesting geographically.

Jim Fryar said...

Thanks for that RG. I tend to think of Assange as a narcissistic little prick but last time I looked that was not a capital offence.

I was initially concerned when there was an indication that he had released the names of informants in Afghanistan and they were to be killed as result, but this seems not to have occurred.

It is nice to see a post that is not calling for his execution or fawning on him.

The Right Guy said...

Thanks Jim. How are things down under?

Jim Fryar said...

Pretty good at the moment, although there is a hell of a lot of disruption caused by the floods. I am well above flooding so I have no problems.

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