Wikileaks & administrations that rely on concealing reality from their own citizens.

[kpete]

...yesterday's leaks are a bombshell. The fact that there are things in there about Iran, are secondary. After all - Iran is sitting on real estate that would connect one of the last great oil reserves with the Persian gulf. It's no big surprise big oil wants to keep the focus on them.

For me, as a reader, the first and most significant impact of the leaked documents upon my voting decisions is realization of the scope and breadth of corporate interests in our modern American political process - and the need to commutate them. The cables that were leaked yesterday - were difficult to read at first because the site was out of service for a while - subjected to a distributed denial of service attack. But when they were released, we discovered that the American diplomatic corps has been .... well... let me redact whatever I would say here. You can read them for yourself. And you should.

What is important, for our government - that this technology brings to light - is the difference between corporate interests, and our own.

Here is a quote from the wikileaks site - that I can cut and paste anywhere, because it is all open source. And no corporation is going to sue me to keep me from posting it somewhere.

(Begin Quote)

Sufficient principled leaking in tandem with fearless reporting will bring down administrations that rely on concealing reality from their own citizens.

It is increasingly obvious that corporate fraud must be effectively addressed. In the US, employees account for most revelations of fraud, followed by industry regulators, media, auditors and, finally, the SEC. Whistleblowers account for around half of all exposures of fraud.

Corporate corruption comes in many forms. The number of employees and turnover of some corporations exceeds the population and GDP of some nation states. When comparing countries, after observations of population size and GDP, it is usual to compare the system of government, the major power groupings and the civic freedoms available to their populations. Such comparisons can also be illuminating in the case of corporations.

Considering the largest corporations as analogous to a nation state reveals the following properties:

1. The right to vote does not exist except for share holders (analogous to land owners) and even there voting power is in proportion to ownership.
2. All power issues from a central committee.
3. There is no balancing division of power. There is no fourth estate. There are no juries and innocence is not presumed.
4. Failure to submit to any order may result in instant exile.
5. There is no freedom of speech.
6. There is no right of association. Even romance between men and women is often forbidden without approval.
7. The economy is centrally planned.
8. There is pervasive surveillance of movement and electronic communication.
9. The society is heavily regulated, to the degree many employees are told when, where and how many times a day they can go to the toilet.
10. There is little transparency and something like the Freedom of Information Act is unimaginable.
11. Internal opposition groups, such as unions, are blackbanned, surveilled and/or marginalized whenever and wherever possible.

(end quote) - from Wikileaks.org

http://mydd.com/users/trey-rentz/posts/the-lesson-of-wikileaks

Wikileaks’ next target: A major US bank
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/wikileaks-target-major-bank/

[MineralMan]

1. Unrecommended for the reason below:

Individuals who are not U.S. Citizens should not be deciding whether a U.S. administration should be brought down. That is reserved to the voters in this country, not to individuals from other nations.

I consider this to be unconscionable.

See my signature line if you're tempted to attack my position.