He's fascinating isn't he. But........every time I listen to him I feel as if I'm being conned somehow. He makes beautiful sense in just about everything he says and then lines like "what I've discovered is that every war over the last 50 years has been caused(?)by bad journalism( or something like that). I was so mesmerised by him that that comment almost went into my brain without challenge, and he does that all the time. His main preface for all his Wikileaks work seems to be.. the world would be a better place if society had access to ALL secrets held by government... and I just don't agree.The releasing of that footage of the helicopter pilot opening fire on the people mover, you know the one where they killed the whole family,thinking they had a rocket launcher seemed to disturb everyone but I really didn't see the point, beyond the showing of the brutality of war and what a large calibre gun will do to someone on the wrong end of it. So what did it prove, innocents die in war, people make terrible mistakes, people can be plain dumb, some people can be heartless. We ALL know these things dont we?Do we need to be reminded? Even in our closest relationships there are secrets that we hold close. in the same way that most of us self censor ourselves in ordinary conversations with others. If we say everything that enters our head in a conversation like a turrets syndrome sufferer then it seems to me that conversations will be unworkable. I'm not saying running a country like the old East Germany is the way to go , but also saying lets run the world where everything that is written or spoken is open to be published, to me seems unsophisticated and dangerous.
^^ Don't forget that the video was released with a headline that was something like "US Murders Innocents" or some equally sensational words.
I heard an interview recently where he was asked if editorialising whistle blowing leaks was a contradiction to what he purported to be.
He said that he guaranteed two things to whistleblowers as part of his philosophy :
to do everything possible to protect their identity
to do everything possible to maximum the politcal impact of the information
I am not too sure that doing everything possible to maximise politcal impact is necessarily any better than doing anything possible to minimise political impact - presumably the thing he dislikes the most.
my mum said "Just because you can say it doesn't mean you should say it."
you "know" what you "know", because they who control what you "know" decide what you will "know"
government censorship, protecting you from reality