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Edited on Tue Nov-30-10 02:31 PM by mahina
When Daniel Ellsberg spoke at the ACLU’s event at the Hilton a few weeks ago, he raised a concern that a secrets act may be passed in this legislative session.
Currently no law exists , as I understood him, that makes leaks illegal. (Breaking nondisclosure agreements would be a civil matter).
Mahalo to the ACLU for bringing 500+ people out to learn and listen to the man and his lovely, brilliant wife Patricia.
My take on the whole Wikileaks issue is that it may be crippling to our current processes. I’m sure it will hurt individuals, and it may hurt us in the short term. But our foreign policy needs to undergo major change to synch up with reality. We do not control the world, and we should not be trying. We have over 600 military bases around the world. We have overthrown or assisted in the overthrow of innumerable democratically elected governments in favor of dictatorships, Chile, Iran, and Iraq among them. Most Americans don’t know that. Were these crimes committed to ‘make us safe’, or for the benefit of corporate interests?
We are the most heavily armed country in the history of the world, with some of the least informed people; most of them don’t bother to vote. Our nation was taken to war (again) on a false premise (i.e., a lie) and there is no outrage at this horrendous criminal abuse of our power.
Our military families have buried our sons and daughters for a lie. Why are we not filling the jails until it ends? Why are we not filling the streets?
In the context of recent events, sunshine is the best medicine. Hopefully the wikileaks events will help us to become the country we tell our kids we are.
Meanwhile, we should rigorously defend against new legislation that would make Ellsberg’s historic leaks a crime. That really would be the end of my America, and it would be a heartbreaking shame.
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