Momentum shift

Every day lately we are bombarded with news, commentary and demagoguery about Wikileaks and its director Julian Assange. "U.S." officials are outraged about the release last month of thousands of diplomatic cables. There is also much outrage about the pending release of documents related to the 2008-2009 bank bailouts and related financial fraud.  Interpol, the international police organization, put Assange on its "Red list," making him a most wanted criminal because "Sweden" wants to question him about a possible crime.  Politicians and pundits say he should be tried for treason, apparently unaware that treason is a crime of betrayal against the country of which one is a citizen. Assange is "Australian."

Not lost in all the clamor is that the cables reveal the hypocrisy, cynicism, underhandedness, and deviousness of government officials at all levels, especially the highest. It isn't exactly revelatory that what goes on behind the scenes is less dignified and honorable than the public face of our elected officials, cabinet secretaries, diplomats and negotiators. The depth of the divide, though, is startling to most.

It didn't surprise me. It is no accident that over my entire life the international actions of the country of which I am a citizen have consistently been one of support for dictatorship, assassination, subversion, invasion, occupation, overthrow of governments, embargo, "sanction," and support for military oppression. For a synopsis of what is going on domestically, click here.

What I do find significant is not Wikileaks itself, but how the embarrassing information came its way. Wikileaks came to prominence earlier in the year for releasing a video showing "American" soldiers in "Iraq" wantonly killing innocent civilians, including children. An Army private first class, Bradley Manning, has been charged with "unauthorized disclosure of classified information." Not exactly treason, but he could be in jail for a long time.

How, I wonder, did the massive amount of diplomatic cables get to Wikileaks? Conventional wisdom has it that Bradley Manning or someone like him loaded them all on a USB drive. Some believe that Assange and his partners "hacked" the information from government computers. No one really knows. Hence, the international warrant for the arrest of Julian Assange. Get him down to "Guantanamo" where we can waterboard the truth out of him, it seems.

Maybe it is hacking, but I like to think that the document dump is a result of the honor and integrity of employees of government agencies, horrified at the criminality and complete lack of ethical standards at the highest levels of our government. The same may be happening in the banking system. So far the CEOs and senior managers of our nation's largest financial institutions have gotten off scot-free, and have reaped huge bonuses in the millions for their misdeeds. That has to rankle lower-level employees who actually care about other people, to say nothing of their own personal moraliity.

This is something hopeful. If governments and large corporations are just big machines that swallow people up like the "Borg" in Star Trek: The Next Generation, we are doomed. If, however, people are not automatons, but living, breathing, feeling conscious beings with a sense of right and wrong, then there is not just hope, but possibility. Wikileaks has opened a can of worms, so to speak, or opened the flodgates for disgruntled and principled people worldwide to risk everything for the planet an human civilization. This could be the momentum shift we've been waiting for.
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Here's an example of a video released of "NATO" military killing civilians in "Afghanistan." Here's another.

Here's a list of the top campaign contributors to Barack Obama in 2008.

For a little more about Barack Obama, man of the people, click here.

Here's a video to watch.