I've never seen such an assault on the Press. My thoughts on Wikileaks

It's sad that even Ellen Degeneres out of all people is jumping on the Wikileaks-hatin' bandwagon. Today she referred to it as "very bad" what they are doing. I also imagined the freakout from the far-right and National "Security" war-hawks. This is exemplified by calls from Mike Huckabee (who currently holds the lowest rated show on FOX "News" after losing his bid for president) calling for Julian Assange's (wikileaks founder and editor) assassination.

Mike Huckabee: "Whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason. And I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty."

and Caribou Barbie chips in on the action:

Sarah Palin: 'Assange is not a "journalist," any more than the "editor" of al Qaeda's new English-language magazine Inspire is a "journalist."

'He is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands.

It's funny that all these Tea Party Patriots- in all their skepticism of "Big government" are being so vicious to the same people exposing the injustices of our government. Cognitive Dissonance? A trademark of right-wing warhawks.

Some of the more interesting cables released have to deal with the populist movement in Latin America. After being raped and pillaged by the US and other colonial powers for the longest time-they are now trying to move towards integration, which is a precursor towards independence. It seems that Colombia is the only staunch US ally left in the region.

The cables also shed more light on our support for a dictator known as Manuel Noriega, who has been on the CIA Payroll from the late 1950's to the mid 1980's and a graduate of the School of the Americas (known as the "School of Assassins" by many, because other dictators and coup leaders were trained at this American military facility, which is still in operation near Fort Benning, Georgia. The name has been changed to WHINISEC, possibly to confuse people, I guess)

According to a document obtained by Wikileaks:

THE OPPOSITION LEADERSHIP QUIETLY
HOPES THAT CLANDESTINE (AND OTHER) U.S. ACTION,
POSSIBLY COUPLED WITH ANOTHER COUP WILL REMOVE
NORIEGA.

Apparently, we have to be the policemen of the world. The Noriega case is an interesting one because we enthusiastically supported him, and it wasn't until we found out that he was helping Cuba get around the embargo, and helping the Sandanista fighters in Nicaragua-- that we actually decided to do something.Oh yea, and he trafficked drugs. So it was totally worth vaporizing 500 Panamanians over.Don't get me wrong, Noriega was was a terrible guy. He sent "dignity batallions" to beat up people protesting against him. But the United states supported him when it knew he was doing this bad stuff! It's funnywhen we hear about other countries' human rights violations when those countries do things we don't like.Well, onto other nuggets from Wikileaks:

Russian arms sales are consequential, totaling approximately USD 6.7 billion in 2006,according to official figures. This amount reflects a 12 percent increase over 2005,and a 56 percent increase since 2003.

...As former Deputy Prime Minister and senior member of the Duma Defense Committee Anatoliy Kulikov told us, “Russia makes very bad cars, but very good weapons,”

Some of these documents are quite interesting to read.

Moreover, what does it say about us when people at the top of our government are thinking about invoking the Espionage Act of 1914 to try to silence Wikileaks?

Well, people are finally starting to rise up. And people are finally starting to "get it." Glenn Greenwald for example:

...But that sort of legal scheming isn't even necessary.  The U.S. and its "friends" in the Western and business worlds are more than able and happy to severely punish anyone they want without the slightest basis in "law."  That's what the lawless, Wild Western World is:  political leaders punishing whomever they want without any limits, certainly without regard to bothersome concepts of "law." Anyone who doubts that should just look at what has been done to Wikileaks and Assange over the last week.  In this series of events, there are indeed genuine and pernicious threats to basic freedom and security; they most assuredly aren't coming from WikiLeaks or Julian Assange.
People often have a hard time believing that the terms "authoritarian" and "tyranny" apply to their own government, but that's because those who meekly stay in line and remain unthreatening are never targeted by such forces.  The face of authoritarianism and tyranny reveals itself with how it responds to those who meaningfully dissent from and effectively challenge its authority:  do they act within the law or solely through the use of unconstrained force?

Wired Magazine (which is a fairly mainstream publication) is actually saying Wikileaks is good for America.

Adbusters Magazine (which I will be discussing in other blogs, because I read them a lot)gives us the rallying cry we need:

"Suddenly we’re at a pivotal moment.Wikileaks is exposing the corruption among the global power elites on a level never seen before. They realize that this is an existential threat to them and are starting to apply the full weight of the CIA, Espionage Act, etc., to nip this thing in the bud. Don’t let them get away with it! An opportunity like this comes once in a lifetime. So let’s seize it! Let’s all become whistle blowers, let’s all start talking truth to power and, over the next few months, change forever the way the world does business."

Hacktivists of the world UNITE!

oh yea, and as I'm typing this, Wikileaks has 932,472 Facebook 'likes'!