WIKILEAKS

Wikileaks

Freedom of Speech or Too much to handle?

Wikileaks has definitely been the most important event of 2010. The importance of the revelations made public by Wikileaks can easily be measured by the thousands of passionate comments and opinions all around the world, only matched by the efforts of the leaders (powerful) to minimize the facts.

I would even suggest this has been the greatest “wake up call” in a modern global world led by a super power that seems to know no boundaries in achieving its goals, whatever they might be. The arrogance of the “Empire of Good” does not seem to raise any critical questions or resistance in the leaders of western “supposed” sovereign countries. The famous “Axis of Evil” prophecy seems to have brainwashed all the western world leaders and give them a wild card to justify illegal, immoral and unethical acts in the name of this “cleanup crusade”.

And while our fear mongering leaders seem to gain more and more power and control over our lives, many citizens do not really know what to do with this leaked information.
The “good citizens” continue listening to orporate news and hear Wikileaks is a criminal organization or even worse a terrorist organization that is putting the Free World at risk and what is now public was already known, just not officially, but everybody knew it or should have known it.

Well, to the commentators and journalists that try to sell us this crap: Where were you when citizens needed you to question the official version? In Germany they have a name for these people: “Klugscheisser” (“wiseass”). My problem however is that these opinion makers are again trying to deceive the public, worried that the hand that feeds them might pull the flow of money. The truth is that while there was no hard evidence, these opinion makers now minimizing the information leaked, rushed to discredit the ones that were calling for justice before the information was made public by Wikileaks.

The problem of Wikileaks is not only freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is at risk anyway, with a justice system increasingly depending on political ideologies. The real problem is that a vast majority of the population is not able or willing to think by themselves, looking for the usual suspects in the corporate media to help them create their opinion. I am not so much worried about freedom of speech as long as we have free thinking people. I am much more worried about the capacity of society to give the adequate response to all the deception that is opening up in front of our eyes.

I am glad that the 5 newspapers chosen by Wikileaks had the guts to publish the information made available to them. In a way this has also been a great opportunity for the “true journalists” to go back to basics and do real journalism without corporate intromission. Evidence was too big to hide and under the pressure that competition would publish it if they would not, the chosen newspapers had no other choice than embrace this opportunity. Would they have done it if they would have had more control over the information?  Probably not. The Wikileaks people played their hand right.

I wonder about our capacity to handle the information, not only the supposed free press but also the citizens. The press needs to grab this opportunity to gain some of its lost credibility back but citizens need to grab this opportunity to take back control of their lives and future by exposing their leaders and if needed bringing them to justice.
Freedom of speech is a right, but rights come with obligations. We need to take the responsibility as a people freedom of speech brings with it. We need to take the consequent actions this new and genuine information gives us.

Rise to the occasion, do not let anyone tell you that you have no opinion, you do and it’s time you use it.

James Tector
Critical Citizen