Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Is WikiLeaks the antidote to the Washington K Street Kool-Aid?

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, July 30, 2010

Is WikiLeaks the antidote to the Washington K Street Kool-Aid?

by Sibel Edmonds from Boiling Frogs.

This former FBI worker and heroic whistle-blower looks at the significance of the recent WikiLeaks disclosures.

The sheer scope of the growth and the extensive privatization of intelligence and security was so profound that it represented “an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in oversight.”

...The perpetual Taliban/Al Qaeda threat fueled a perpetual war that could never be won, justifying an endless string of restrictions on civil liberties and governmental transparency, which then prevented Americans from seeing how their money was spent. Locked out of this “alternative geography of the United States,” Americans have become helpless to stop their democracy and their economy from being lifted right out from under them.

IMO they are not helpless, but feel helpless because they have not yet figured out who is deceiving and oppressing them. Once they figure that out, and WikiLeaks is making a big contribution to that process, they will then come up with their own solutions.

Thanks to the revelations the word was finally out that whatever impact the “war on terror” had made on terror worldwide ( which many claimed it made only worse) it was above all, a spectacular boondoggle.