Viva La Wikileaks!

Many of you have probably never heard of a little site known as Wikileaks.org. According to its website,

Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we are of assistance to people of nations who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations.

Wikileaks posts tons of documents from within the halls of US government as well, including Congressional Research Service reports (which because the CRS is under the protection of Congress are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act), NATO documents and any other piece of information that reveal government cover up, deception or attempts to keep the public in the dark. Most of the information they get is provided by whistle blower types who see corruption and feel compelled to act. The staff at Wikileaks carefully examines each document for authenticity and, as with any wiki, allows all users to make comments/edit (though not the original document, but a duplicate). This is an invaluable resource for journalists, historians and concerned citizens. It is the latter group that I am primarily interested in, as it best represents me and my interests.

There is a whole area of scholarship that is committed to analyzing the impact of Information Communication Technology on political participation. The past decade has seen a significant increase in the amount of information made available by western governments on the web. The United States provides documents and solicits feedback through various government agency websites, ostensibly in order to improve government performance.

Some scholars have even mentioned that with greater technology comes greater participation, potentially resulting in more responsive government. Theoretically, this sounds promising. But increase participation in what way, you might ask? You should ask! Some suggest that feedback from constituents would be increased and that could provide benefits. I am inclined to agree, but what worries me is that the average person does not possess the education to participate in policy making decisions of an advanced nature. It would be great if people could make their needs heard at the local (municipal or even state) level about community needs (road construction, library hours, etc.), but national policy may be a bit out of their league. Besides, the ballot box isn't dead. Barack Obama, though far from perfect, has enacted legislation that has both turned America around on many policy issues and nudged it down a progressive path. For Federal issues the vote is still the best way for citizens to participate in their democracy and Wikileaks provides citizens with a means of keeping informed on what their government is actually doing and in none less than the government's own words.

In a time when the news media is owned by corporate conglomerates and has less and less of an interest (financially and politically) in living up to its role as the fourth estate, citizens must take upon themselves to fill in the gap in coverage. The technological revolution sparked by the Internet has given birth to blogs, wikis, and social networking sites that provide the citizen with new tools of democratic participation and with new teachers - each other. Working together and with the assistance or courageous whistle blowers and citizen activists, we can force government to be more accountable and thereby more responsive. Long Live Wikileak!

~ Old Major

p.s. Check out the site and if you find it useful consider contributing whatever you can. Wikileaks needs $ to stay online and its one of the few things out there worth paying for.

In response to a pretty sober view of the future of the US and, by extension, the world

Based on this article by James Kunstler (http://www.whiskeyandgunpowder.com/debt-drought-kills-consumerism/) a response:

I happen to agree with this Mr. Kunstler. I don’t believe we can “go home again” (hence the title of this blog). If history has taught us anything, and regardless of whether or not we are willing to learn from it, it is that society – like everything else – is constantly changing and evolving. Just like the natural resources on this planet, which are finite and are drying up, so will our ability to live on borrowed money, borrowed space or borrowed time. The belief, especially in Washington, that the US can return to it’s “good ole’” self is evident in the percentage of tax breaks that comprise the recently approved stimulus package. The future is forward. If we are to avoid a deep and lasting depression with the potential to set off a war (or wars) for control of natural resources, we must accept that reality and crack on.

I believe that our best hope is in increased collectivity among states. The financial crisis revealed just how disastrous the effects independently operated systems of rules governing financial markets/institutions can be. More than efficiency and profitability, it has been crisis that has driven countries closer together and made them more cooperative in their dealings. And it is obvious that we are faced with global challenges (or rather threats) to our collective existence. The state of our ecological system, our atmosphere, the planet itself is at risk and we are all responsible, to varying degrees. Whether or not we believe it to be fair, we must work together if we are to stem the tide of this natural decline. This is the primary challenge for one very simple reason, economic conditions, in-and-of-themselves, are meaningless. Underlying those conditions, however, are the basic needs of the human (as well as animal and plant) populations of this planet. Whether people are out of work is not a material (no pun intended) concern, it is whether they are able to feed, clothe and house themselves that are of principal importance. One need only review Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to understand that an individual’s physiological requirements must first be satiated before any other needs are addressed.

Though it may not happen overnight, I believe that our global society is on a path toward a rediscovery of essential needs and that our societies will adapt to that reality or die out. Unfortunately the past sixty years, – the era of relative peace and significant prosperity for some, economic liberalization (for better or worse) for the others – with its focus on material gain, has not aided society in developing theories of the future stages of our social evolution. Instead, with the fall of the Soviet Union and Communism, quite a few “intellectuals” began to declare that we were at the “end of history”. A naïve concept, even if only used as a prism through which to view global economic systems. Especially given the ideological struggle that framed the Cold War and the post-World War II international order, such a declaration of victory is understandable. Yet, it is wholly inadequate as an explanation of social existence for the simple fact that it ignores the most consistent pattern of history – change. It is not, however, an exceptionally odd occurrence. Thoughts of socio-political transformation are forged in the fire of crisis, struggle, or great cataclysmic events.

This generation (X or Y or whatever) of bourgeois/middle class (the historical agent for change) has frequently been accused of being apathetic as a result of their relatively “easy” way of life. That, in the absence of a great challenge, they have failed (are failing) to have made a great contribution to the development of their society. And so here it is, a crisis point in which our global society will make critical choices that will impact the future of our existence and that of our co-inhabitants. Perhaps our generation will be part of the solution.

- O.M.