Joe Lieberman emulates Chinese dictators

All of Greenwald's recent articles on Wikileaks are worth reading, in
my opinion.  I've only appended the text for the most recent.

Wikileaks reveals more than just government secrets
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/11/30/wikileaks

The moral standard of Wikileaks critics
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/01/wikileaks

From The Economist's USA covering "Democracy in Action" blog,
In Defense of Wikileaks
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/11/overseeing_state_secrecy

And Glenn Greenwald's latest:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/01/lieberman

-------------------------------------
THURSDAY, DEC 2, 2010 02:02 ET
Joe Lieberman emulates Chinese dictators
BY GLENN GREENWALD

The comparison of these two passages is so telling in so many ways:

The Washington Post, today[0]:
[0] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/01/AR2010120106809.html?hpid=topnews

Revelations by the organization WikiLeaks have received blanket
coverage this week on television, in newspapers and on Web sites
around the globe. But in parts of the world where the leaks have some
of the greatest potential to sow controversy, they have barely caused
a ripple.

Authoritarian governments and tightly controlled media in China and
across the Arab Middle East have suppressed virtually all mention of
the documents, avoiding the public backlash that could result from
such candid portrayals of their leaders' views.

In China, the WikiLeaks site has been blocked by the government's
"Great Firewall," and access to other sources for the documents has
been restricted.  Most Chinese are unable to read the contents of the
diplomatic cables. . . .

The Guardian, yesterday[1]:
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-website-cables-servers-amazon

WikiLeaks website pulled by Amazon after US political pressure

The US struck its first blow against WikiLeaks after Amazon.com pulled
the plug on hosting the whistleblowing website in reaction to heavy
political pressure.

The company announced it was cutting WikiLeaks off yesterday only 24
hours after being contacted by the staff of Joe Lieberman, chairman of
the Senate's committee on homeland security. . . .

While freedom of speech is a sensitive issue in the US, scope for a
full-blown row is limited, given that Democrats and Republicans will
largely applaud Amazon's move. . . .

The question is whether he was acting on his own or pressed to do so
by the Obama administration, and how much pressure was applied to
Amazon. . . .

Lieberman said: "[Amazon's] decision to cut off WikiLeaks now is the
right decision and should set the standard for other companies
WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material. I call
on any other company or organisation that is hosting WikiLeaks to
immediately terminate its relationship with them."

The department of homeland security confirmed Amazon's move, referring
journalists to Lieberman's statement.

Talking Points Memo -- in an article[2] headlined: "How Lieberman Got
Amazon To Drop Wikileaks" -- detailed that Lieberman's "staffers . . .
called Amazon to ask about it, and left questions with a press
secretary including, 'Are there plans to take the site down?'"
Shortly thereafter, "Amazon called them back . . . to say they had
kicked Wikileaks off."  Lieberman's spokeswoman said: "Sen. Lieberman
hopes that the Amazon case will send the message to other companies
that might host Wikileaks that it would be irresponsible to host the
site."
[2] http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/12/how_lieberman_got_amazon_to_drop_wikileaks.php

That Joe Lieberman is abusing his position as Homeland Security
Chairman to thuggishly dictate to private companies which websites
they should and should not host -- and, more important, what you can
and cannot read on the Internet -- is one of the most pernicious acts
by a U.S. Senator in quite some time.   Josh Marshall wrote
yesterday[3]:  "When I'd heard that Amazon had agreed to host
Wikileaks I was frankly surprised given all the fish a big corporation
like Amazon has to fry with the federal government."  That's true of
all large corporations that own media outlets -- every one -- and that
is one big reason why they're so servile to U.S. Government interests
and easily manipulated by those in political power.  That's precisely
the dynamic Lieberman was exploiting with his menacing little phone
call to Amazon (in essence:  Hi, this is the Senate's Homeland
Security Committee calling; you're going to be taking down that
WikiLeaks site right away, right?).  Amazon, of course, did what they
were told.
[3] http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/12/big_web.php?ref=fpblg

Note that Lieberman here is desperate to prevent American citizens --
not The Terrorists -- from reading the WikiLeaks documents which shed
light on what the U.S. Government is doing.  His concern is domestic
consumption.  By his own account, he did this to "send a message to
other companies that might host WikiLeaks" not to do so.  No matter
what you think of WikiLeaks, they have never been charged with, let
alone convicted of, any crime; Lieberman literally wants to dictate --
unilaterally -- what you can and cannot read on the Internet, to
prevent Americans from accessing documents that much of the rest of
the world is freely reading.

The Internet, of course, is rendering decrepit would-be petty tyrants
like Lieberman impotent and obsolete:  WikiLeaks moved its website to
a Swedish server and was accessible again within hours.  But any
attempt by political officials to start blocking Americans' access to
political content on the Internet ought to provoke serious uproar and
unrest.  If the Tea Party movement and the Right generally were even
minimally genuine in their ostensible beliefs, few things would
trigger more intense objections than a political official trying to
dictate to private actors which political content they should allow on
the Internet (instead, you have Newt Gingrich demanding[4] that
Assange be declared an "enemy combatant" and Sarah Palin calling for
his murder[5]).  Remember, though -- as The Post told us today -- it's
"authoritarian governments and tightly controlled media in China and
across the Arab Middle East" which are trying to prevent citizens from
learning about the WikiLeaks documents.
[4] http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/newt-gingrich/2010/12/
[5] http://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/9251635779866625

Then we have this equally revealing passage from the Post article:

In many Arab countries, the mainstream media have largely avoided
reporting on the sensitive contents of the cables, including accounts
of Arab leaders drinking alcohol and siding with Israel in advocating
a U.S. military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

I genuinely laughed aloud when I read that.  Does anyone think that
"the mainstream media" in the U.S. has reported much "on the sensitive
contents of the cables" specifically or the WikiLeaks war documents
generally?  I don't mean salacious gossip or
David-Sanger/Michael-Gordan-type[6] Government-serving fear-mongering
about America's "enemies"  (Iran is operating in Iraq!![7]; Iran is
being armed by North Korea!![8]; Arab dictators want Iran
attacked!![9]).  I mean documents that reflect badly on what the U.S.
Government is doing in the world.
[6] http://www.fair.org/blog/2010/11/29/nyt-oversells-wikileaksiranian-missiles-story/
[7] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/23/world/middleeast/23iran.html
[8] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/middleeast/29missiles.html
[9] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/middleeast/29iran.html?pagewanted=all

Overwhelmingly, the reaction of establishment media figures has been
to scorn these disclosures as somehow being both a Grave Threat and
Nothing New.  Watch this short segment I did yesterday on MSNBC with
Jonathan Capehart of The Washington Post Editorial Page and former GOP
Congresswoman Susan Molinari.  Technical difficulties impeded my
participation, but what's important is not really what I said, but
what they said.  Two notes about it:  (1) Capehart, who calls himself
a "journalist," could not be more contemptuous of WikiLeaks as it
shines a light on the U.S. government, and (2) the snickering and
disdain toward Assange from Capehart and Molinari are
indistinguishable -- totally interchangeable -- because there is no
distinction between how most American "journalists" and how standard
politicians think about those who are actually providing adversarial
checks on U.S. political power; media and political figures are in the
same undifferentiated class:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDVmUk9CvRY

If there's Nothing New in these documents, can Jonathan Capehart (or
any other "journalist" claiming this) please point to where The
Washington Post previously reported on these facts, all revealed by
the WikiLeaks disclosures:

(1) the U.S. military formally adopted a policy of turning a blind eye
to systematic, pervasive torture and other abuses by Iraqi forces;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/22/iraq-detainee-abuse-torture-saddam

(2) the State Department threatened Germany not to criminally
investigate the CIA's kidnapping of one of its citizens who turned out
to be completely innocent;
http://harpers.org/archive/2010/11/hbc-90007831
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/01/wikileaks-and-the-el.html

(3) the State Department under Bush and Obama applied continuous
pressure on the Spanish Government to suppress investigations of the
CIA's torture of its citizens and the 2003 killing of a Spanish
photojournalist when the U.S. military fired on the Palestine Hotel in
Baghdad (see The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch today about this:
"The day Barack Obama Lied to me");
http://harpers.org/archive/2010/12/hbc-90007836
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/At_least_not_quite_as_many_people_died_when_Obama_lied.html

(4) the British Government privately promised to shield Bush officials
from embarrassment as part of its Iraq War "investigation";
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8172243/WikiLeaks-British-government-promised-to-protect-US-interests-at-Chilcot-inquiry.html

(5) there were at least 15,000 people killed in Iraq that were
previously uncounted;
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69L54J20101024

(6) "American leaders lied, knowingly, to the American public, to
American troops, and to the world" about the Iraq war as it was
prosecuted, a conclusion the Post's own former Baghdad Bureau Chief
wrote was proven by the WikiLeaks documents;
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-10-25/wikileaks-shows-rumsfeld-and-casey-lied-about-the-iraq-war/

(7) the U.S.'s own Ambassador concluded that the July, 2009 removal of
the Honduran President was illegal -- a coup -- but the State
Department did not want to conclude that and thus ignored it until it
was too late to matter;
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2010/12/01/john-perry/yes-it-was-a-coup/

(8) U.S. and British officials colluded to allow the U.S. to keep
cluster bombs on British soil even though Britain had signed the
treaty banning such weapons, and,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-cables-cluster-bombs-britain

(9) Hillary Clinton's State Department ordered diplomats to collect
passwords, emails, and biometric data on U.N. and other foreign
officials, almost certainly in violation of the Vienna Treaty of 1961.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-spying-un

That's just a sampling.

This is what Joe Lieberman and his comrades are desperately trying to
suppress -- literally prevent it from being accessible on the
Internet.  And "journalists" like Capehart play along by continuing to
insist there's "nothing new" being revealed by WikiLeaks despite their
never having reported any of this.  And since the disclosures, does
anyone believe that any of these revelations have received anything
close to meaningful attention by the American establishment media?
But remember -- as Capehart's newspaper taught us today --
"revelations by the organization WikiLeaks have received blanket
coverage this week on television, in newspapers" in Free America --
showing what a Vibrant, Adversarial Press we are blessed with -- but
"in many Arab countries, the mainstream media have largely avoided
reporting on the sensitive contents of the cables."

* * * * *

If anyone is aware of some sort of campaign to boycott Amazon's web
services over its capitulation to Joe Lieberman -- and there should be
one -- please alert me to it so I can promote it.  Of course, everyone
is able on their own to cease using those services even without some
formally organized campaign.

On a different note:  the excellent website 3 Quarks Daily is hosting
its 2nd annual prize for the best blog writing in politics, to be
judged by long-time Harper's Editor Lewis Lapham, and it includes a
cash prize of $1,000.  As I won last year, I'm ineligible, but they
are now accepting nominations, which entail submitting the URL for a
specific post along with, if desired, a "brief comment describing the
entry and saying why you think it should win."  Everyone is encouraged
to submit nominations of those they think are worthy winners.



UPDATE:  NYU Journalism Professor Jay Rosen has a characteristically
insightful and thought-provoking analysis of WikiLeaks, expressed
through a 14-minute video[10].  Regarding why many valuable sources
prefer to give their documents and other leaks to WikiLeaks rather
than traditional press outlets, he says:
[10] http://vimeo.com/17393373

In the American case, one of the reasons is that the legitimacy of the
press itself is in doubt in the minds of the leakers.  And there's
good reason for that.  Because while we have what purports to be a
"watchdog press," we also have -- laid out in front of us -- the clear
record of the watchdog press'  failure to do what it says it can do,
which is provide a check on power when it tries to conceal its deeds
and its purpose.

So I think it's a mistake to try to reckon with WikiLeaks and what
it's about without including in the frame the spectactulr failures of
the watchdog press over the last 10, 20, 30, 40 years - but especially
recently.  And so without this legitimacy crisis in mainstream
American journalism, the leakers might not be so inclined to trust an
upstart like Julian Assange and a shadowly organization like WikiLeaks
. . .

These kinds of huge, cataclysmic events [the Iraq War] within the
legitimacy regime lie in the background of the WikiLeaks case, because
if it wasn't for those things, WikiLeaks wouldn't have the supporters
it has, the leakers wouldn't collaborate the way they do, and the
moral force behind exposing what this Government is doing just
wouldn't be there. . . . The watchdog press died, and what we have is
WikiLeaks instead.

Most American journalists -- represented by Jonathan Capehart in the
video above and the Post's self-praising contrast between the Free,
Robust American Press and the anemic, controlled "Arab media" -- are
so far away from even beginning to process those facts, indeed are
constitutionally incapable of understanding or facing them, that they
are just in a different universe than reality.  And that -- combined
with the fact that they are rooted in and dependent upon the very
political system they are supposed to check and which these
disclosures threaten -- are the reasons why most of them react to
WikiLeaks with an equal dose of confoundedness and contempt.

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