Wikileaks is harmful to American society. But not in the way people think.

Americans should not need professional whistleblowers or millions of classified documents to tell them that wars are bad or that our government is doing stupid things. I believe that while wikileaks gets people from being dependent slaves on the government all wikileaks does is create a diversion and then create awareness to other issues and makes them dependent slaves to wikileaks, and not all the other anti-war stuff already you there. Wikileaks does not teach people how to think or learn for themselves. People should not need "insiders" to always leak things out to them like in Watergate and in the Pentagon papers.

The pentagon papers were huge because the truth was released to the press but the fact of the matter is that it's not like you needed the Pentagon papers to know the truth about the Vietnam war. Dr. King was speaking the truth about the Vietnam war I think before the Pentagon papers were released.

It's like with that, you don't need all these documents to find out that there is torture going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. That just happens. You don't necessarily need all these documents to prove that innocent people are dying and that the US might be murdering journalists.

If the public actually had a ****** mind of its own and if it weren't brainwashed by the corporatist media we wouldn't even need wikileaks. If only we had an informed public, the whole concept of wikileaks wouldn't need to exist.

reply to post by Frankidealist35


I couldn't agree with you more. The only question is how do we get there. I just commented in another thread, that it seems like any attempt to inform the public of anything lately, including this wiki leaks release is immediately classified as disinfo or a false flag. It makes things really confusing and creates division. Instead of the people here on ATS deciding what is the best use of new information, you have half the people calling it disinfo and the other half forced to defend it and nothing really gets accomplished.

Not sure what the solution is... but I think we should all be more vigilant when considering the logic of the consummate and immediate debunkers that populate the threads around here nowadays.

Well the one drama is everyone is so paranoid about what the government does that if you are thinking for yourself are you really thinking for yourself? Or are you just playing into their hands with so many different stories out there it's hard to decipher truth from fiction and most conspiracy nuts are the same everyone has these far out ideas and some maybe spot on but some could be missing parts of the truth.

Thats where MSM gets it's grip on everyone they play the same story on all channels so of course it must be true they are all saying the same thing right?

I know this will never change but wiki leaks does smell a bit off especially when the pentagon didn't even have to delete any of the info newspapers submitted to them that was from Wiki. Surely there had to be something but no there is always a hidden agenda is this one we will never know till we all know if this insurance file has some real damaging info on it.

Well theres my 2 cents worth, Do others feel the same?

reply to post by Frankidealist35


I agree with what you are saying except this, "You don't necessarily need all these documents to prove that innocent people are dying and that the US might be murdering journalists."

We all may have a sense or intuition that thousands of civilians are dying and these horrible things are happening, but without physical evidence we have no proof to disprove the disbelievers. It is the same with aliens, we all believe, but until we have physical proof they are just a conspiracy theory.

I think Wikileaks would like to create protests and riots in the streets to cause a new American Revolution of its Military Industrial Complex and bring our troops home, but I don’t see it happening. We all know we were lied to in 2003 about WMDs in Iraq, have we done anything since then to stop the war? Even if we wanted to put a stop to it politically we couldn’t. Every candidate will say they want to bring the troops home or end the occupations, but once each elected official gets in office they flip-flop and are FOR the war. There is no end in sight because everybody seems to agree that war is extremely profitable and profit is what we are all after.

I do not know what you mean about the pentagon did not have to delete any of the info?

The info was all there. The pentagon had a copy of it and released it with names redacted.

Wikileaks published it, and it was redacted even more heavy than the pentagon did, yet the pentagon yells wikileaks leaves information in it that could get people hurt.

So I don't think I took the same impression away from that angle that you did.

reply to post by Frankidealist35


The fact is most people don't have a mind of their own. So many are brainwashed.

I was sitting at a friends house the other day, when I heard a very loud debate going on. I went to see what it was about since it was so passionate. It could have been one out of a million important things going on in the world...but no...it wasn't. It was about football. A game.

This whole system is set up to be a distraction. It's like they read 1984 and figured out how to do it better. This world needs wikileaks. The mindless need wikileaks.

Mmm, so the mirror is once again to blame for daring to reflect our image.

This what we did, we all see it now ...

Don't like the consequences?
Wanna keep turning two blind eyes?
Don''t like to look in the mirror for fear that seeing what we see might force us to put down the remote, get the McNuggets out of our mouths, and get off the freaking couch and do something about it?

Either do or don't ... but blaming the messenger is weak imho.

Originally posted by Frankidealist35
If the public actually had a ****** mind of its own and if it weren't brainwashed by the corporatist media we wouldn't even need wikileaks. If only we had an informed public, the whole concept of wikileaks wouldn't need to exist.

You got to use the word "if" three times, but I shall use it twice

If only we had an informative media

If only we had a transparent government

would the concept of wikileaks need not exist

reply to post by hadriana


What I mean is the newspaper The Times that had what Wiki released which already hadhurtful info blacked out but they still sent it to the pentagon to proof it to make it was ok to put in their newspaper thats what i mean.

So it's like someone had already proofed it before it went to Wiki and more info was blacked out than what the pentagon would have done.

Sorry if I wasn't clear

Originally posted by Frankidealist35

If only we had an informed public, the whole concept of wikileaks wouldn't need to exist.

Just aminute here...isn`t that what WikiLeaks is TRYING to do...inform the public?

If it doesn`t seem that way to you...how would you suggest the public GET informed?

Maybe YOU`D like to try & inform the public without providing supporting evidence...and see

just far you get!

reply to post by Frankidealist35


I find that Wikileaks documents have created a general dis-like towards America.
I've found my views on America have degraded over time, Since the invasion of Iraq.
I even know some of my family in America, that say they are shamed to be living in such a fascist nation.
I like the American people, I don't like the way the country is run, and TPTB. I hope they all burn in hell.

Cheers
Brady

Well its the main stream media that have created wikileaks little niche.There has not been genuine independant war correspondents with access to main stream media sine Vietnam.Back then if a village in Cambodia was inadvertently bombed or a rumour of a massacre happened a reporter would get in his jeep and go check it out.This of course made the war unpopular but the military learnt from this war to control and keep all information close to their chest.

Firstly we have embedding where reporters are with a unit and all their information is sensored the embedded reporters though are usually charecters like Oliver North or Geraldo Rivera who are pro us military,then we have the release of things like clinical Roger Ramjet footage precision strikes which the military drip feeds.

Of the so called independant reporters with main stream media that call themselves war correspondents most are like Christiane Amanpour who hasn't put her heini anywhere dangerous since Sarajevo they report safely from the rear.

The few truely independant reporters in warzones do not have military protection or access and their reports aren't shown on mainstream media usually ending up documentaries on you tube.

So in the absence of anyone with any real media exposure keeping them honest there isnt much there hence I believe the need for wikileaks type ventures,now I dont know Mr Assange or his motivations but I so far agree with what he's done.

reply to post by Maiden PEI


I would provide the public with actual evidence. What wikileaks is doing is providing people with documents from alleged whistle-blowers that may or may not be true. We don't know what is true or what isn't true from the documents. However that being said, nothing that wikileaks has said so far or talked about is new. They're just regurgitating all the facts that us anti-war people have been telling people about for years. A far more effective way to inform the public about all this stuff would be to have an anti-war news network and to cover this stuff from an anti-war perspective than to publish all these documents and get in trouble for it. We don't need government documents to tell people what's up or that war is bad. That's what I was getting at.

reply to post by GetRadNZ


I don't think that it's created resentment towards the people more so than the American government. If people were following the news they wouldn't need wikileaks to tell them how bad the situations are. We have a government filled of liars and wolves so but now the public is suddenly becoming aware of all of these facts that have been suppressed for far too long. I guess I have no problems with what wikileaks is trying to do, but my only problem is that the majority of the American public can't think for themselves when it comes to politics wikileaks is essentially just going to become another MSM outlet for these people who don't actively seek information. If people actively sought information on their own I think that the country would be in a better shape and people would be more informed about what's really going on behind the scenes and who is behind the curtains.

reply to post by ADUB77


Fair enough. Maybe I shouldn't be too hard on wikileaks.

My only problem is that wikileaks is becoming mainstream.

We know what happens when things become mainstream. The anti-war cause is better when it's not mainstream and when it can center on a number of issues. When it's mainstream it becomes hijacked for political partisan reasons. It would be better if everyone could just unite against the war mongers in power.

Maybe I wouldn't have as much of a problem of the mainstreaming of the anti-war cause wouldn't be a problem if people could see beyond their red and blue colored glasses.