Posts by giovanni tiso
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Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Don Christie,
Governments have far too many secrets
On the post-Nixon history of which, see Aaron Bady, in a follow-up post. It doesn't apply to New Zealand in remotely those terms, granted, but.
Jeez Brown is desperate quoting Friedman, globalism's compliant whore.
Oh yes, we should start referring to other posters in the third person as if they weren't here, because it's not at all what a douchebag would do. I applaud this.
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Hard News: The Public Address Word of…, in reply to Sacha,
Hark. Stephen Fry using the word twazzock
It pays to remember, however, that he's a tweetcock.
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Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Russell Brown,
I’ll be in the pub nursing some mixed feelings if you need me ;-)
Wikileaks is an insurgency - so, yes, you don't get to have a say in how they operate. That's not to say you don't have a right to analyse and criticise it, and surely if it is to bring about any form of social change it will have to learn to work with other organisations and movements.
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Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Russell Brown,
Well, as things stand, I do think I have more of a vote in the way my state operates than I do in Assange’s glamorous but untried utopian fait accompli.
Indeed, my potential influence on Assange's actions is precisely zero.
More of a vote, sure, but it's still not all that much more than zero. We're talking decimals. And I'm not sure if you'd expect Assange to be the first revolutionary in world's history to put his ideas to a vote, but if you are then I don't like your chances.
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Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Russell Brown,
I suppose I could be talked into the right utopia. I'd prefer to have, say, a vote in the matter though.
Why, do you think you have a vote in how power operates in your state? You really, really don't.
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He reminds me so much of Ben Kingsley's character in Sneakers - it's like the screenwriters modelled him on Assange. And of course since it was an American film the guy who wanted to end secrecy had to be the villain.
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Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Russell Brown,
But anyway, about those cables ...
I'm not terribly interested in the contents of the cables to be honest. There is nothing that jumps at me as a revelation of great import - what matters is that they were released. I thought the Bady post I linked to yesterday covered it pretty well. "...the practical strategy for combating that conspiracy is to degrade its ability to conspire, to hinder its ability to “think” as a conspiratorial mind". Mission well on its way of being accomplished, it seems to me.
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Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to HORansome,
but, at the moment, well, I think we should assume simpler, non-conspiratorial explanations
After the pentagon has said that wikileaks must be stopped, and republicans have called it a terrorist organization, I think you may want to consider the possibility that the CIA is in fact one of the simple explanations.
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Sorry guys, no time or indeed head space to read the thread - but I must pass on this wonderful close reading of Assange's theoretical approach by the always excellent Aaron Bady. HORansome will find it especially interesting I imagine, but really it's for everyone.
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Hmmm indeed. Especially in light of the striking hues in the LotR movies (yes, I still haven't got over the bad brown middle-eastern pirates, thanks for asking).