wiki leaks

Secrecy is the cornerstone of all tyranny. Not force, but
secrecy...censorship. When any government, or any church, for that matter,
undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not
see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression,
no matter how holy the motives. Mightily little force is needed to control a man
who has been hoodwinked; Contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free
man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not
anything. You cannot conquer a free man; The most you can do is kill him.--
Robert A. Heinlein, Revolt in 2100

i am having trouble believing the cacophony of voices i am hearing complaining about the latest revelations from wikileaks. from hillary clinton, (who let's face it is just doing barack obama's bidding,) to a hack of a cornell law professor; william a. jacobson, myriad commenter's have been decrying wikileaks for making public so much secret or classified information.

this is a fundamental issue because as heinlein so aptly pointed out, secrecy is part and parcel to tyranny. in america too often we are told we cannot know certain information. if you have seen 'loose change,' you have an idea about the conspiracy theories around the 9/11 attacks on new york city, the pentagon and united airlines. what we can absolutely know about those theories is that they serve as a reminder there is too much secrecy in our government.

did america stage thee events of 9/11? i doubt it. is there a good reason america could not see the video footage from the shell station across the street from the pentagon? i doubt that, too.

are there things in the wikileaks documents that could damage our national security? perhaps. does that possibility outweigh whatever good could come from the wikileaks documents? no. given the level of secrecy currently practiced in our government, (to say nothing of the tacit permission granted by our press,) and in order to avoid the fate heinlein implies wikileaks is absolutely necessary.

so don't let anyone tell you wikileaks is somehow bad or harming america. that is crap. at this point wikileaks is covering for the poor journalism in this country. wikileaks is real news getting out in spite of the public's watchdog being paid to sleep in.

because we still can't know parts of the warren report, because the united states army tried to give us a completely fabricated version of pat tillman's death, because of the downing street memo, because of judith miller and scooter libby, because of 16 words in a presidential address, and so on and so on and so on, wikileaks is important and needs to be defended.