Don't shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths

The Australian ^ | 12/7/10 | Julian Assange

[SmithL]

IN 1958 a young Rupert Murdoch, then owner and editor of Adelaide's The News, wrote: "In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win."

His observation perhaps reflected his father Keith Murdoch's expose that Australian troops were being needlessly sacrificed by incompetent British commanders on the shores of Gallipoli. The British tried to shut him up but Keith Murdoch would not be silenced and his efforts led to the termination of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.

Nearly a century later, WikiLeaks is also fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public.

I grew up in a Queensland country town where people spoke their minds bluntly. They distrusted big government as something that could be corrupted if not watched carefully. The dark days of corruption in the Queensland government before the Fitzgerald inquiry are testimony to what happens when the politicians gag the media from reporting the truth.

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These things have stayed with me. WikiLeaks was created around these core values. The idea, conceived in Australia, was to use internet technologies in new ways to report the truth.

WikiLeaks coined a new type of journalism: scientific journalism. We work with other media outlets to bring people the news, but also to prove it is true. Scientific journalism allows you to read a news story, then to click online to see the original document it is based on. That way you can judge for yourself: Is the story true? Did the journalist report it accurately?

Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media. The media helps keep government honest. WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, and broken stories...

[SmithL]

I'd say shooting this messenger is entirely appropriate.

[cripplecreek]

This isn’t the way I heard the story about Murdoch’s father.

As Rupert Murdoch told it, his father wrote the story and took it to parliment to give them a chance to correct the situation before publishing his story.

[stilloftyhenight]

The trouble with Julian is that the leaks are one-sided. How about leaking some of those Chinese and Saudi documents? Europe?

[FlingWingFlyer]

Julie is full of himself. Who the hell asked him to be “the messenger?” I suppose that if he was ever on the battlefield, he’d see nothing wrong with sneaking over to tell the enemy’s artillery and mortar crews the exact coordinates to our positions. Message THIS fairy boy!!! I hope they lock your goatsmelling, commie wiki@$$ up!

[PDMiller]

Shoot the PFC who provided the 1/4 million documents first. We’ll argue about this guy later.

[rabidralph]

OTOH, if we had people in the government who took their oath seriously and knew how to safeguard secrets and access to them, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Shame on Julian for blithely releasing information without regard to the consequences but double-shame on us for not protecting our national security.

[pallis]

When Julian is through playing his games, and WikiLeaks has leaked all it is going to leak, the world won’t be any better off, no troops saved, no children fed, no international relationships strengthened. And this rubberless freak will tire of being a hero in prison.

[TigersEye]

Where are the calls to shoot Cong. Jim McDermott?

[SnakeDoctor]

The messenger always says that.

[From the movie '300'] Messenger: Choose your next words carefully, Leonidas. They may be your last as king.

King Leonidas: [to himself: thinking] "Earth and water"?

[Leonidas unsheathes and points his sword at the Messenger's throat]

Messenger: Madman! You're a madman!

King Leonidas: Earth and water? You'll find plenty of both down there.

Messenger: No man, Persian or Greek, no man threatens a messenger!

King Leonidas: You bring the crowns and heads of conquered kings to my city steps. You insult my queen. You threaten my people with slavery and death! Oh, I've chosen my words carefully, Persian. Perhaps you should have done the same! Messenger: This is blasphemy! This is madness!

King Leonidas: Madness...?

[shouting]

King Leonidas: This is Sparta!

[Kicks the messenger down the well]

SnakeDoc

[LomanBill]

>>King Leonidas: This is Sparta!

But this America - not Sparta, and we don’t have “Kings” or, despite the efforts of GoProud queers in the military and elsewhere, “Queens” ruling over us.

[SnakeDoctor]

So?

SnakeDoc

[Gondring]

Shoot the PFC who provided the 1/4 million documents first. We’ll argue about this guy later.

No firing squad for treason.

If he is indeed found guilty, then he should face the gallows. Though we can debate Major André's fate today, even Gen. Washington's fans would agree that the major was a far better man than this private.

[LomanBill]

>>So?

 

So the Spartan buggers  also engaged in eugenic infanticide - is that another part of their culture you would have us aspire to emulate?

 

 

If this...

 

“The Pink Swastika is a powerful exposure of pre-World War II Germany and its quest for reviving and imitating a Hellenistic-paganistic idea of homo-eroticism and militarism.”        
Dr. Mordechai Nisan, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

http://www.defendthefamily.com/pfrc/books/pinkswastika/html/the_pinkswastika_4th_edition_-_final.htm

 

...is the essence of governance today.  

 

Then that is a state of affairs our American founders had something to say about:

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/

And SO the more light shed upon the Truth the better for We the People to decide whether we should render our consent - or NOT.

 

 

[paristwelve]

I agree with Assange. I’m glad he’s releasing the documents.

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[Admin Moderator]

ZOT!

[RandallFlagg]

OOOH!!!!
Nuked ‘em glowing!

[Americanexpat]

I agree with you but I cannot beleive tht this PFC released all these documents by himself.

[Lancey Howard]

I grew up in a Queensland country town where people spoke their minds bluntly. They distrusted big government as something that could be corrupted if not watched carefully.

There he sounds like he sympathizes with normal, working, taxpaying, traditional American families (Republicans).

Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media. The media helps keep government honest. WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, and broken stories...

And there he sounds like a scumbag Democrat.

[Admin Moderator]

Thank you, Sir!

[LomanBill]

Archived versions of wikileaks...

http://web.archive.org/web/20080314204422/http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks:About

...contain links to a wide variety of topical information - including Scientology, East German Stasi, and Climategate. That is consistent with Wikileak’s initial claim of simply desiring to provide transparency in government.

While the present incarnation still mentions those topics - none of the links are there. Now the only links and files present are evidently those targeted at the United States.

Why the change in focus?