Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Wikileaks and the death of American badassery.

  
    You know the one thing that blew my mind about Julian Assange and the Wikileaks document dump? The way the US reacted to it. The fact that people read those cables and were shocked, shocked, that the world runs this way! It's as if everyone acted suddenly surprised and found themselves shocked to discover that they were tricked into believing that diplomats were somehow supposed to be different from the rest of us. The leaks made clear that world diplomatic relations between countries are no different from our own shitty relations with each other in regular society, like that contractor who disappeared with the deposit I gave him for my sink repair or the dodgy mechanic who swapped out my tires when he changed my brake pads.

   The world is full of shit. And the world is at war, humans are at war, constantly and on every level. Between nations, between citizens and their rulers, between citizens and other citizens, between you and your own friends. War is the base level of human reality, war for resources, war for status, war for success, war for money, pussy and land. War to prove I'm better than you. Like Clausewitz said, "War is the continuation of diplomacy by other means". It's the point where hate gets physical.

   That's reality.

   Contrary to the world presented on TV by those trying to sell you shit.

   News media presents an image of reality that people sense is bullshit but would like to live up to anyway. As an example, Wikileaks revealed that American diplomats think England's Prince Andrew is a rude asshole, but suddenly that's controversial when it's leaked. Why? Because Prince Andrew probably is an asshole but that isn't allowed to be known, voicing that experience off the record by those who've met him is a non allowable media experience, instead, the media consensus (and so the manufactured one) is that Prince Andrew is automatically good because he's a prince. No reporter ever ran the story of Prince Andrew being a prick as it doesn't make for a good story because the rich don't like the idea of it and the plebs don't need to know anyway. When Wikileaks document dumps the truth that American diplomats who've met him think that way, everyone ends up shocked.

   Wikileaks here reveals a fundamental disconnect between how the world is portrayed as a 'feel good wish fulfillment consumer phantasmagoria' in the media and the actual world you meet everyday when the alarm clock blares and rushes you to your cubicle as a wage slave; all so you can keep the lights on and food in your gut.

   Life is war and you're the civilian.

   My favourite leak is that US and UK diplomats are shitting bricks about the current state of Pakistan and the fate of its ever growing nuclear arsenal. Oh really? I've been shitting about that since 2003. It's only a shocking revelation because the media never reports it. So when we find out that diplomats have no idea who controls the nukes there, that 100,000 Pakistani personnel are involved in the nuclear program there and the Taliban captured the Swat valley with collusion from Islamists in the Pakastani military and government, you know that smuggled chunk of highly enriched uranium is gonna go on the market in some scumbag Albanian dive bar very soon.



   That should make you shit bricks.

   A US city getting glassed by a nuke in an uninspected ship container freely rolled into a US harbor while the TSA searches your granny's tits for a silicon implant bomb. Talk about security theater... It's a story that should be on the front page of every US newspaper everyday. But it isn't. It took a document dump to the world's media to even be elevated to the point of a news story. If that isn't a total failure of popular journalism then I don't know what is.

   Oh, and Bill O' Reilly and Hannity called for Assange's assassination on national TV. I mean here are 'journalists' (LOL) openly calling for the murder of other journalists for doing their jobs and daring not to be spokesmen for the complex.  This is fucking surreal. The death of real balls in America. Truth is now deemed the enemy. In the land of free speech, they want to arrest or kill the only man prepared to hand it to them. Yet we're fighting for 'freedom' in Iraq and Afghanistan.

   These right wing 'badass' appealers to American badassary in war miss the point by so wide a mark that it makes me rage. You know what American badassery is? It's Patton driving through France in '44. It's McAuliffe holding out at Bastogne and writing "nuts" on a piece of paper when asked to surrender. It's MacArthur pulling off that amphibious assault at Inchon in 1950. Hell, it's Custer going down with all hands at Little Big Horn.

   The only badass left in America today is the TSA laughing at your saggy 'bad' ass in your naked irradiated scan at the airport.

94 comments:

  1. "Hell, it's Custer going down with all hands at Little Big Horn." - Custer's particular form of "badassery" included the massacre of women and children, I'd like to point out.

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    1. Well, when you are having trouble expanding your territory because a particular group people are resisting, you can't wipe them out without killing the women and children. They will continue to bred, otherwise.

      Delete
  2. "Hell, it's Custer going down with all hands at Little Big Horn." - Custer's particular form of "badassery" included the massacre of women and children, I'd like to point out.

    ^Ditto this. I read and was agreeing with most of this until I read this comment. There's nothing "badass" about who Custer was.

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  3. murdering thousands of women and children is pretty bad in my books... thus, Custer was a bad ass. Hitler was a bad ass to for that matter. You fools seem to think that bad ass is a positive tag applied to john mcclain type heroes. America has though it was bad ass for murdering women and children in war torn countries for the past 100 years. All these people, Custer, Hitler, and good ol' America are Bad...and they are asses too... BAD ASSES

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  4. "Hell, it's Custer going down with all hands at Little Big Horn." - Custer's particular form of "badassery" included the massacre of women and children, I'd like to point out.

    ^Ditto this. I read and was agreeing with most of this until I read this comment. There's nothing "badass" about who Custer was."

    I'm sure you are ditto quite a few things. Being a piece of shit does not preclude one from being a badass. Custer walked into certain death, and got what he deserved. Don't be a fucking twat.

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  5. Custer was evil. Some people shouldn't be revered.

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  6. > There is something about dying courageously that makes you remembered as a military commander. You put everything on the line and lost.

    Except that isn't what happened...

    Custer thought he was putting the pinch on the natives, and the natives put the pinch on him. He had no idea going in that he was going to die.

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  7. Hannity & O'Reilly are Propagandists, not Journalists & so should never be grouped into that category even in jest because it reinforces the misconceptions we have about the state of Journalism in the US. Some good points here though and a post worth reading.
    -Paul

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  8. great article. what the fuck happened to journalism in america? you'd think they would want news stories like what has been coming out in the leaks..look how much attention Assange gets now, he's WORLD famous now; im sure fox, nbc, or cbs could of made TONS of money if they had been the ones to come out with all this.

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  9. Custer?!? Seriously? How about goddamn Truman, talk about innocent women and children...

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  10. What about the Obama administration which is rumored to want to make this the first journalist ever successfully tried under the Espionage Act?

    Seriously, conservative pundits OK with the government making the claim to regulating journalism, and declaring journalists terrorists is far more scary to me than the same bat-shit insane pundits personally wanting the guy assassinated.

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  11. Custer?! Seriously? Can we get past that sentence and talk about Pakistan? Jeez.

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  12. Are you ****in stupid? After reading the article the only comments you have are about how bad Custer is?Are you really that narrow-minded?
    Aside from that, great article.

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  13. Yes, Pakistan...seems that ol' Gen Musharraf (Ret.) is on the comeback trail, wants to go home and run for office, properly this time. His old troops don't want him, his old staff doesn't want him, but maybe some of the poopulation does because, well, they say things were better when he was pulling the strings.

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  14. The moral issue for me is that Assange illegally took these documents. It's like when the FBI illegally breaks into your house and finds weed. "Aha! We caught you evil doer!" Then you reply, "Well, there's my prescription for the medical marijuana."

    Is it wrong for Assange to steal these?
    -yes

    Is America wrong for some of the things listed in the files.
    -yes.... or is it? Just like you can have a clearance for medical weed so America can be justified for their "wrong doings."

    Other thoughts:
    I liked your first few paragraphs better than the last few. I don't live in a Pollyanna world, because I see reality as you do. I've gotten shafted by the local mechanic, etc..etc.. I don't think the world is like 24, but maybe we're not too far from it. In the words of "A Few Goodman." - "You want me on that wall, you need me on that wall." We know we need shade balls running our country or we'll be Canada. However, since we were badasses turned dumbasses, all the countries we've pissed us will come to our front door.
    Maybe if everyone had pure motives we wouldn't NEED the things that we need. We can't even have a perfect local automotive shop in a town of 6,000 why the hell would we think we can have a perfect world w/ 6 billion.
    If anything these documents make me respect our government. Because the truth of the matter is - we don't want a clean, naive person calling the shots. We want a shady mother fucker who's not afraid. That's why when people hire personal security they aren't hiring ex-cops, they're hiring ex-military who have lived the shady life, they're hiring thugs from the street who know and see things.
    Does Assange deserve death - that's for you to judge. These journalists have their opinion and you have yours. Their voice is louder than yours, because they are better at what they do than you are. Their shows gets millions of views, your blog gets 100s on a good day.

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  15. When Keith Olbermann was suspended for making campaign contributions, peopled wondered how Sean Hannity could do the same thing at Fox. Reason was, Hannity does not work for the News arm of Fox News. He's under the "entertainment" section with Family Guy and The Simpsons. Shows you how much esteems he's held in over there.

    Good post. Well said!

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  16. Assange didn't steal anything, they were stolen by someone else and leaked to him. Once in his possession he has a moral obligation as a journalist to bring the facts to light. He even offered the US govt. an opportunity to redact any potentially dangerous information...

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  17. you idiots who are talking about Custer...? really? what about the point of the rest of the article? our own journalists calling for an assassination ala Rushdie (the only basass writer in america standing up for Rushdie was none other than the milquetoast poet Susan Sontag... a woman... but i digress) is an embarrassment. Our freedoms disappeared a long time ago.

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  18. Custer was a bad-ass. No one seems to remember he was a bad-ass in Civil War, charging at the lead of his men, keeping Lee's cavalry away from the main battle at Gettysburg.

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  19. Anthony McCauliffe, acting CO of the 101st Airborne, was actually the guy who said "Nuts". Patton arrived later.

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  20. Good article. Found it on Reddit.

    Above in the comments I see someone comparing Custer to Hitler. I'm still laughing. By the way guys and gals, don't feed the trolls. There is no way someone could rationally hold that comparison in their mind.

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  21. It may be conservative pundits that are calling for Assange's crucifiction, but it will be a liberal Obama administration that orders and administers it.

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  22. Great post other than Custer was a gigantic piece of shit. Also, his little last stand wasn't heroic. He mistakenly led his entire battalion into a no win situation and got every single one of his men killed because of his mis-diagnosis of the situation. What an asshole

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  23. I think some of you miss the point. Custer held out fighting to the death. Paton slapped a soldier for being nervous before battle. But he also charged the enemy on the front lines as if he were immortal.

    The point is that Americans, both good and bad, once fought selflessly to their last with vigor, enthusiasm, and unshakable determination for their rights, beliefs, land, pussy, whatever.

    Now, Americans sit at home and watch television while their leaders trample their rights, steal their money, steal their elections, and don't even bother attempting to live up to their number one fount of pride-inducing rhetoric: security. American leaders are merely rich people who "serve" their country for no purpose other than the further their own wealth, power, and notoriety. They're more likely to care about getting a blowjob than whether a nuke is being brought to port in a major US city.

    Yet the American people suck the collective political dick and choke down mass quantities of lies and propaganda as if from a pig's trough filled with McDonalds french fries.

    I love America because I love what we were taught it stands for. But it doesn't. I'm not sure it ever did. And I'm seething-pist at Americans and utterly distrustful of politicians when it comes to matters of higher than municipal level or some state level issues.

    On the city-scale, politicians are leaders and people are true-blue Americans. On the national scale, we've degraded to a nation of pussies run by criminals and liars. --and nobody can be bothered to care.

    THAT is what was meant when Custer was referenced. Now, let's practice the fine art of missing the point some more, as if the minutiae of historical context has anything whatsoever to do with the actual point being made.

    Now here comes a true Fox-news style reply that says it does while still completely failing to discuss, acknowledge, or likely even comprehend the actual fucking point.

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  24. Always with the negative waves Moriarty. Seriously, this well-formed bit of rant-ument was not an endorsement of Custer – context people, proportion, critical thinking please. For my own bit of rant and impotent fist shaking I have the following to say..

    I wonder who our children's dear leader will be. They must be sure to praise him on their way to Oceana's front lines. Referential conflation aside, we are well and truly fucked. Murdoch is a partisan cancer that has become an inoperable malignancy. McConnell is like a jihadi for rich douche bags. Victory for the soulless and fuck the rest of America. Cantor is an Netanyahu fellator and would probably send US armies to die to support the racist dream of Israel. And Boner is partisan wind bag as long as the checks keep rolling in. They have thwarted the will of the people in the democratic ( with some help from the democrats) landslide and now they are making up their mandate to fit their traitorous bankrupt and destroy ideology. Also, seriously, how is it that Fox news people are nor beaten in the streets for all their hateful misinformation and internet tough guy bravado?

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  25. First:
    Thank you War Tard for writing such an entertaining and thought provoking discourse.

    Second:
    "You fools seem to think that bad ass is a positive tag applied to john mcclain type heroes. America has though it was bad ass for murdering women and children in war torn countries for the past 100 years. All these people, Custer, Hitler, and good ol' America are Bad...and they are asses too... BAD ASSES"

    Thank you for pointing that out. Bad-ass, as any trait, is a neutral state of being until acted upon in either a positive or negative way (which is then portrayed and viewed as either a positive or negative to others). :)

    Third:
    Here is are a few quotes yall might enjoy:

    All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
    Thomas Jefferson

    Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
    Thomas Jefferson

    Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
    Thomas Jefferson

    Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
    Thomas Jefferson

    Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
    Thomas Jefferson

    I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
    Thomas Jefferson

    I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.
    Thomas Jefferson

    I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.
    Thomas Jefferson

    My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.
    Thomas Jefferson

    No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.
    Thomas Jefferson

    Compliments to:
    http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/thomas_jefferson.html

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  26. You sre a fool. A tree hugging, limp fool

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  27. Props to Gnostic Philosopher as well. ;)

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  28. All things considered, well done 'Tard!

    And for all you Monday morning quarterbacks, fact checkers and yes-plus-one-more-thingers STFU until you do something half as well thought out and productive in the public view.

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  29. http://www.templeoftheblacklight.net/library/chaosophy/the_three_dark_veils_before_satan.html

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  30. Excellent article. Fuck these fuckers who have their panties in a knot over Custer. They obviously missed the entire point.

    Another commenter mentioned that Hannity got away with campaign contributions b/c he's filed under entertainment at Fox rather than news? That's rich considering how he rips on Jon Stewart for being a comedian.

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  31. Applause to you MOFO! Applause! Applause!

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  32. Your Clausewitz quote is incorrect and taken out of context. Have you even read Vom Kriege?

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  33. There's a bigger story here, and it's the demographic culture shift. You write about World War II as if that was the last generation of 'Real American Men'. Well, what happened after that? They all came home and raised the most self-important generation of humans in the past thousand years. So while they deserve credit for defeating Nazis and Japanese Imperials, they also deserve full blame for unleashing the safetyprone boomer generation.

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    1. This is so true. The WWII generation are the ones who really destroyed this country.

      It makes sense. The real heroes died. The ones who saved their own butts came back and entered politics.

      Delete
  34. I like your background. im pretty sure you need a dinosor somwhere.

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  35. Yeah, you're an idiot. Typical macho pseudo-intellectualism.

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  36. Seriously, my earlier post got deleted. Why?

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  37. Badass? Wasn't that something a mullethead pseudo "Rockstar" once MTVeed about?
    What about "Guts" or "Integrity" or just plain "Courage" (What's the Frequency anyway?)
    It's all a show, from the fabric of the titties to the fabric of the Nation. You seem well educated and literate, and also care enough to care. But what does it all mean?
    It's either a Gawd or Gold that gets people killed, and in this case, it's both. We need Obi Wan and Mr. Wizard, and maybe even Captain America, but all we have are Talked Heads, Buzzed Heads, Towel Heads, Crowned Heads and a few Be-Heads.
    It's time for a change, a "Reproduction of a new breed, Leaders, Stand Up, Organize!"

    Unfortunately it's just the same as it ever was. Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

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  38. Custer was a victim of his own Hubris.

    There are plenty of historical events that would fit the bill. That isn't one.

    Otherwise, good post.

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  39. Anything even closely related to truth has long been censored in America. fact that blacks have an average iq of 80, can't mention that. Over 53000 interracial rapes happened last year black on White, while the amount of White on black rape was nearly not even large enough to register. (0-2) was official number. Lefty fucks need to get their heads out of their ass long enough to see we are being overrun by people that hate us.

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  40. I'd have subbed out the Custer comment with one about the Alamo. Everyone forgets the Alamo.

    THEY KILLED CROCKET AND BOWIE man.

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  41. People who hate people... COME TOGETHER!

    NO.

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  42. Re: Anonymous' racist BS -- off topic much?

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  43. Yea O'Reilly said assange should be executed after being found guilty of treason(which is the maximum penalty). The author obviously expected no one on reddit actually watching Foxnews to read this. Dont be fooled by his lies!

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  44. War Tard, good article. Don't worry about the haters. Let them comment. When your shit gets posted on Reddit, you just have to go with it bro.
    http://www.ted.com/talks/alexis_ohanian_how_to_make_a_splash_in_social_media.html

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  45. "custer was evil"

    yeah and mlk was a womanizer, doesn't mean what he did despite his flaws wasn't badass. Same for Cust.

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  46. "...look how much attention Assange gets now, he's WORLD famous now; im sure fox, nbc, or cbs could of made TONS of money if they had been the ones to come out with all this."

    Can't say this would be exactly true. Especially for FOX. If they had reported this (which they never would), Murdoch would have shit his pants and gotten it off the air asap. It's all a machine, and FOX News is just a cog. So are the majority of other news stations. There's a reason this wasn't reported earlier.

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  47. This is how FU**** we are.

    The guy writes about how it took Wikileaks to put a clear and present nuclear existential crisis on page 5 of the 'feel good wish fulfillment consumer phantasmagoria' journal, and all you self-absorbed chub spankers want to comment about is who you would more like to share a beer with, Custer or Patton.

    Christ, how badassed is that?

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  48. Oreilly and hannity called for his "assassination"??? Propaganda is everywhere

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  49. Great article, but I agree that the points of your post would be better debated in the comments without that last bit about Custer. That was like feasting on a delicious multiple-course meal only to find what may or may not be an eyelash in the dessert.

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  50. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
    Now that I have said that, lets look at the big picture of why some of these leaks are wrong.
    YOUR GIVING THE ENEMY THE IDENTITIES OF MORE THAN 100 AFGHAN SOURCES.
    It's allowing the enemy to grow. Their lives are different from most of us. They believe in different things. But to think that material such as this should be delivered to people around the world may be wrong. Anyone with A LOT of money can turn this information into a weapon. And have better means of getting what they are looking for. For example the LOCATIONS of CLASSIFIED NUCLEAR PLANTS WHERE URANIUM IS ENRICHED. Oh wait, they know more about that shit now, so what's next? I guess we will all have to wait and see.
    And please, take in the thought of a insane fuck with a weapon that could wipe out hundreds of thousands of people.
    Nations around the world have been fighting this situation for so long now. Whats the next step to take?

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    Replies
    1. Please put your tinfoil hat back on.

      Delete
  51. Anonymous at 11:10 AM,
    Number of whites who perpetrated fraud on Wall St. vs number of blacks.
    If we spoke that truth, whites would be 2nd class citizens.

    Berto

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  52. Wow, After all of this information that was just pasted in your brains, you bitch about Custer. Our comments prove his point.

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  53. I agree with this human post. Most humans who do not follow foreign policy are shocked at the revelations or cry for Assange to be tried for treason. Shouldn't american humans be more upset with the fact that the leaders of North Korea and Iran are CRAZY and need to be stopped. Wiki Leaks has replaced the press, but who will replace wiki leaks when all comes crumbling down?

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  54. 1. The only thing that has ever worked to keep up safe is not having people around who want to kill us.

    2. Invading countries, killing innocents, having no clear plan, is a sure way to make sure people will want to kill us.

    3. Any jizwad that thinks the TSA and the Patriot Act can overcome items (1) and (2) probably also concedes that the Constitution and American values cannot survive the times we live in.

    4. Any putzflapper that thinks that the leak is worse than another 20 years of increasingly failing foreign and national policy of secrecy and unaccountability will find solace in more tinfoil wrapping on their head.

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  55. So much truth in this post. Thanks for telling it how it is, unlike the most of the hapless media that doesn't do its job properly.

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  56. I hereby invite all the crypto-fascists who call themselves Neo-Cons to move to North Korea where they can fit in.

    In North Korea it's illegal to question the government, most of the budget is spent on the military and they even have state mandated religion! It's a Neo-Con dream! Just look at how successful and innovative it is.....

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  57. Just to set the record straight, O'Reilly did not call for "Assange's assassination on national TV". This is typical of the hysterical hyperbole of the blogosphere.

    He offered the opinion that those who leaked the classified files to WikiLeaks were traitors. Important distinction. Someone who took an oath to protect those classified documents broke that oath. O'Reilly is offering an opinion that that is treason. He may be right... that's for a court or court marshall to decide. The penalty for treason is....imprisonment or death.

    Assange is not an American citizen, so I'm pretty sure that charging him with treason isn't even possible.

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  58. Good post, thanks. Also thanks to the philosopher for pointing out what so many seemed to miss.

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  59. Very poor taste reference to Custer. He wasn't a hero. He murdered innocent women and children. Killing Indians and taking their land under the guise of friendly treaties is one of the darkest chapters in American history, which was perpetuated from the top down.

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  60. It doesn't have to be this way:
    www.thevenusproject.com

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  61. How did "the US" react to it? Did you notice that the stock market is up maybe 2 or 3% since the story came out? When people actually risk their money on something, then it means something. You're taking yourself a little bit too seriously.

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  62. @War Tard: "A US city getting glassed by a nuke in an uninspected ship container freely rolled into a US harbor while the TSA searches your granny's tits for a silicon implant bomb. Talk about security theater... It's a story that should be on the front page of every US newspaper everyday. But it isn't. It took a document dump to the world's media to even be elevated to the point of a news story. If that isn't a total failure of popular journalism then I don't know what is."

    Funny... Conservative talk radio has been bitching about this exact kind of scenario for fucking YEARS man. You sound like most of the guys I've listened to over the years in that quote man, including bitching that "mainstream media" journalism is a joke and the TSA is useless against real threats.

    Besides, don't for a minute think that we also aren't taking precautions against that kind of scenario. We track virtually every fucking thing that flies or floats and you almost never hear about the operations we conduct to prevent this from happening.

    It should be front page news every day, but don't forget the millions of people not mentioned in the dumps who are working daily on this and many other problems.

    It's funny: the same people who will rail against the "unelected bureaucrats" mentioned in these posts will also say we should trust "unelected bureaucrats" with health care decisions, regulatory powers, etc and expect everything to turn out perfect because "they" will obviously never succumb to the same human and organizational pressures that affect an entity like the State Department. It's amazing how partisan politics will often blind people from realizing the hypocrisy of their own positions.

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  63. @Dave

    You assume all sorts of things not evident from his post. You assume he's liberal, you assume he wants universal healthcare, you assume you, assume. It says less about him and more about you.

    You don't have to be a liberal to see that conservatives are a bunch of fat chickenhawk chickenshit assholes and proud totalitarians to boot. I'm proof of that, I'd love to see a plague that just targeted people proud of ignorance regardless of political ideology. I hope it would be slow, so we would have time to laugh at them, and our children would have a chance to learn from them.

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  64. other than complain about the structure and perceived errors of the author...what are YOU going to do about the state of affairs that our nation and world are awashed in? Sit on the sidelines and bitch and moan and not get in the game. Just bitch and moan. They have you where they want you. On the sidelines out of the game. You lose. The world loses. They get the marbles. You get the dirt. Suckers.

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  65. Custer.... CUSTER?!? And WHAT about black on white rape!?

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  66. Custer or no Custer, this article uses a little amount of words to provide the big picture. Really makes you think for such an easy read. Very nice in my book!

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  67. Good article. True dat about the people working to protect against floating and airborne threats, though in the end it won't matter at all. The smart and real enemy is dynamic, you can build walls but they will only go around. No one ever seems to really delve into why the hajjis wanna kill us. Apparently its for our freedoms...(lol). I think they care less about what freedoms we do and don't have and more about the fact that we are constantly f****** them over. Building illegal prisons where we torture them, exploiting and killing their populace, and installing puppet governments in the countries which rule with an iron fist. If someone was doing that to me, I'd be pissed too.

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  68. Hah, I've taken a few classes on the American Revolution recently. Your style pretty accurately captures Paine's Common Sense. You may not pick up a gun for the revolution, but you sure as Hell will say something to convince people to start a fight.

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  69. Authors Steven Dubner & Steven Levitt of Freakonomics fame discussed the topic of "Fakeness". The conclusion of the study was that the peoples of the world must possess at least some amount of Fakeness in order to get along. Ever hear of the saying "The Truth Hurts"? Their point was if we always spoke the truth to each other, we would constantly be at war. That is why we have diplomats. We send them to our enemies, and even our allies that we may not necessarily like either. They smile and tell lies about how pretty they look in that dress, basically with the idea of peace-keeping. That is why Assange's mission will only create a more dangerous world. We already know that pretty much the entire world hates us, but won't attack us because our economy supplies them with $$$, and because we have enough bombs to destroy the planet multiple times over. Assange is removing the Fakeness from diplomacy, and when Iran, for example finds out that Saudi Arabia supports a U.S. attack of them,...uhhhh, let's just say Iran now has one more bullseye to hit once they obtain nukes.

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  70. I want the policy to fail. It isn't working. The policy has nothing to do with goals, and the goals are laughably naive. The policy to achieve those aims have failed since we began. The veil of pointless secrecy simply enables them to continue. If the US were to succeed at their goal of reducing terrorism, then it would mean living true to Caligula, not to anything we would recognize as victory. Daylight simply shows the cynical bromides the lofty goals spew to be pathetic and corrupted.

    Daylight cuts both ways, and the risk of the downside can't be worse than the best-case trajectory of our policy now. All we have done is repeat the Russian adventure there, and as soon as some Afghans who aren't motivated to remain millionaires by promulgating the war come across some 1980's shoulder fire missiles to render helicopters and drones useless, we will be out of there too, leaving tractor trailers of large denomination US bills. To celebrate, we'll cut off unemployment and social security in the US. And we'll enact more tax cuts (read: Chinese loans) to celebrate it all. Medals for everyone. There's a new season of Dance With The Stars.

    Even faster if someone decides to attack inside the US because we wiped out their family that was eating hummus over an open fire one night, bribe the guy who has been extorting the entire town's wealth and forcing his nephews and nieces to slave away in his poppy fields and his bedroom. It could be anything- anything at all. A few hundred dollars' worth of terrorism means billions in borrowed Chinese loans -err- Homeland Security Response, and billions more in additional celebratory tax cuts.

    To say if we don't "stay in the game, we lose" is plain sick. You pay attention to too many erectile dysfunction drug ads. They lose more every day we are there. We are the cause of it. The guys I know coming back from there tell me this- and have the pictures, videos, and stories to shove these facts down your velvet throat.

    Call it what you will, but throwing away the lives, arms, legs, and brain function of our soldiers and innocent Afghan civilians doesn't create worth or meaning for their sacrifices. It's a cynical, pointless, human tragedy. It is the ultimate cynical disrespect for them, and calling it out is simple reality, not disrespect for the soldiers. They fought and died for nothing.

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  71. I love this post. The media, our supposed "watchdog" Fourth Estate is letting us down at an ever-increasing rate. Rather than inform us they help to blind us for their own capitalist interests. I just wrote an article about giving the corporations that control these media interests less power. I'm actually in the midst of writing an article about the corruptness of mass media which is why a friend sent me this link and I'm glad he did! (Would you be opposed if I quoted/linked this article in my next post?) Anyways, check out my take on related issues if you have the time: http://letschangesomethings.blogspot.com/

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  72. I say we are NOT fighting for freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we are fighting for oil, and the freedom it can bring to the USA who entered another country illegally!

    And, for that we have already lost our good fight and are fighting for a lost cause, just like every other country who tried to conquer and have failed.

    I loved the article....

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  73. "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

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  74. Everyone was worried about the Custer bit, but no one cares about my grandma's tits being abused for the amusement of my government...

    Are you people serious? Way to miss the forest for the damn tree...

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  75. Jesus stop harping on the Custer thing!! haha have you ever heard of Trail of Tears (Indians from the east coast starving to death and disease ridden while walking to Oklahoma)? Sorry they may come off racist and trust me I am not, because I know there are some good high educated natives and natives that contribute to our society, For the most part though I think paying them to live on Reservations is absurd. You don't see blacks making us pay them because we enslaved there ancestors? United States has done some bad things, but jesus Christ get over it!! The good can't be good without the sour!

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  76. for that we have already lost our good fight and are fighting for a lost cause, just like every other country who tried to conquer and have failed.

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  77. If Wikileaks is a bad response to gov't corruption, what other solutions would work?

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  78. Why is Wikileaks bad for disclosing information, but the New York Times is not?

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  79. In this post, some guy with a shit life universalizes his own melodramatic angst in a vain attempt to lessen his alienation from society.

    And this is coming from someone who actually has depression. Get over it, asshole. The world is neutral.

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    1. ROFL, the world has not been neutral for over 400 years!!! WAKE THE FUCKUP!!!

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  80. Can I get the link to the Pakistan Taliban leak you referenced?

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  81. One must don a medieval robe and speak hither and tither if they are too blind to see that Wikileaks are one of the last bastions of truth in this world. It boggles my mind that people can be so deluded into thinking they are the enemy. Assange is one of the last 'badasses' (and insane for the risk he takes) of freedom and all things good.

    Great post war tard, hit the nail on the head. (aside from the Custerfuck)

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  82. I have to say I am pleasantly surprised that American opinion is turning positive toward WikiLeaks, but why?

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