There is a tendency amongst a lot of western liberals to go ape about Wikileaks, beyond and above what are its obvious and spectacular contributions.
Wikileaks is good when it exposes Imperialism and its secretive and militarist execution of global domination. Wikileaks is good when it exposes the real language and racist mindset of western diplomats. Wikileaks is good when it exposes videos that depict the lawlessness of the US and other military in Afghanistan and Iraq. Wikileaks is good when it exposes the fact that the Indian state has used torture routinely in Kashmir and elsewhere. Wikileaks is excellent when it clearly reveals that the Saudis are never to be trusted by the Muslim world.
Wikileaks is also very good because it snatches away the control of mainstream media (and the resultant cultural consensus) and provides "other" information (although there is significant evidence that it also collaborates on what it will not release). Wikileaks also expands on the notion that the industrial working poor are not the only people by definition who are fertile for surplus value extraction. Knowledge workers are at the core of creating the code that allows the gears and cogs of the information industry to turn. Their surplus value extraction is increasingly critical for the military-informational complex. Drones, satellite based warfare, counter-hacking, cyber surveillance would not be happenning if this farm of ants were not at work so industriously. Thus their rebellion against the complex is a good thing. Otherwise why else would a Canadian Conservative Minister call for the assasination of Assange on an open line TV show?
But those who say that Wikileaks and Facebook and Twitter, as social media and information technology are going to bring about revolutionary transformation in despotic areas of the world, be it Tunisia or Iran are actually displaying an old "centre country" colonial attitude towards the "periphery". It is the old notion of "modernity", liberating the backward and the medieval. It is an archaic notion that western democracy and information exchange would be a godsend fora pre-capitalist society. For them, what is a battle tactic, a guerilla weapon, is made to sound like "enlightenment" theory for the underdeveloped. It is like worshipping at the altar of the ultimate transcendental information guru--Baba Ram Twitter or Guru Wiki. As some superficial and official sounding liberal once said (I dont know who, although it has been ascribed to many) ... It is the economy, stupid! It is the plight of people, poverty, hunger, lack of shelter, poor health, disease, lack of justice and personal freedoms that make people self-immolate and rebel. Twitter does not do it. Twitter and facebook and even SMS-ing are like lookout couriers for the street corners and rooftops in the real world of rebellion. They are battle hardware, perhaps. The whistle and bird calls in the jungles that guerillas use. To suggest that Wikileaks is the harbinger of a social movement, the unifying core of a world movement opposed to the politics of globalization etc is perhaps in that colonial or post colonial mode, where khaki clad monkeys from the west tried to tell real monkeys in forests how to whistle and talk english......Well, us monkeys have been twitterring forever. It is our culture. We talk and talk and talk, until we turn blue. That is our problem. And now the new info classes have acquired the same disease. Talk and talk and talk and not do much else. But now, they are claiming they are a movement! Not!
Wikileaks is good when it exposes Imperialism and its secretive and militarist execution of global domination. Wikileaks is good when it exposes the real language and racist mindset of western diplomats. Wikileaks is good when it exposes videos that depict the lawlessness of the US and other military in Afghanistan and Iraq. Wikileaks is good when it exposes the fact that the Indian state has used torture routinely in Kashmir and elsewhere. Wikileaks is excellent when it clearly reveals that the Saudis are never to be trusted by the Muslim world.
Wikileaks is also very good because it snatches away the control of mainstream media (and the resultant cultural consensus) and provides "other" information (although there is significant evidence that it also collaborates on what it will not release). Wikileaks also expands on the notion that the industrial working poor are not the only people by definition who are fertile for surplus value extraction. Knowledge workers are at the core of creating the code that allows the gears and cogs of the information industry to turn. Their surplus value extraction is increasingly critical for the military-informational complex. Drones, satellite based warfare, counter-hacking, cyber surveillance would not be happenning if this farm of ants were not at work so industriously. Thus their rebellion against the complex is a good thing. Otherwise why else would a Canadian Conservative Minister call for the assasination of Assange on an open line TV show?
But those who say that Wikileaks and Facebook and Twitter, as social media and information technology are going to bring about revolutionary transformation in despotic areas of the world, be it Tunisia or Iran are actually displaying an old "centre country" colonial attitude towards the "periphery". It is the old notion of "modernity", liberating the backward and the medieval. It is an archaic notion that western democracy and information exchange would be a godsend fora pre-capitalist society. For them, what is a battle tactic, a guerilla weapon, is made to sound like "enlightenment" theory for the underdeveloped. It is like worshipping at the altar of the ultimate transcendental information guru--Baba Ram Twitter or Guru Wiki. As some superficial and official sounding liberal once said (I dont know who, although it has been ascribed to many) ... It is the economy, stupid! It is the plight of people, poverty, hunger, lack of shelter, poor health, disease, lack of justice and personal freedoms that make people self-immolate and rebel. Twitter does not do it. Twitter and facebook and even SMS-ing are like lookout couriers for the street corners and rooftops in the real world of rebellion. They are battle hardware, perhaps. The whistle and bird calls in the jungles that guerillas use. To suggest that Wikileaks is the harbinger of a social movement, the unifying core of a world movement opposed to the politics of globalization etc is perhaps in that colonial or post colonial mode, where khaki clad monkeys from the west tried to tell real monkeys in forests how to whistle and talk english......Well, us monkeys have been twitterring forever. It is our culture. We talk and talk and talk, until we turn blue. That is our problem. And now the new info classes have acquired the same disease. Talk and talk and talk and not do much else. But now, they are claiming they are a movement! Not!
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