I just wanted to put something into the ongoing blog conversation, and found this relevant with discussion of the news in Postman's book.
Apparently, a website called Wikileaks.com is making headlines for its leaks of various government, military, and high-security secrets. They are a professional team of hackers and couriers who cracked the U.S. computer servers. What is REALLY making controversy are its leaks of information of U.S. involvement in the Middle East.
Here's an example you may have heard of. A video was leaked on a website called collateralmurder.com on behalf of Wikileaks that showed footage from an Apache attack helicopter shooting civilians in Iraq sometime between 2003 and 2004. Audio is also available, and the radio chatter is very disturbing. Especially with this twist: the so-called terrorists with rocket-propelled grenade launchers were actually cameramen for the news organization Reuters. (The footage is very violent and explicit, though affecting, but be advised.)
A more recent example that is even more controversial is the so-called "Afghan War Diary", which is a thorough list of top-secret documents about U.S. involvement in the war. The most controversial aspects of it, by far, are the accounts of civilian fire, the actual loss in the war, and foreign involvement with the Taliban. Governments across the world are in outcry.
I do not really want this to be a political debate. (I'm neutral, to throw it out there.) I am just curious what you, and maybe the bloggers, think about this new, censorless, borderless kind of news that eliminates government secrecy. And, based on Postman's ideas, will people care? Will it stop the war? Should Wikileaks be stopped? Just think this is a very interesting topic.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Oh, yes, Kevin. The Wikileaks debacle has been front and center in the news for several weeks now.
ReplyDeleteI think that more than ever, we, the public, have to be critical and alert consumers of media. We cannot "stop" organizations like Wikileaks -- the Big Brother-esque actions required to accomplish such a feat would be ineffective and brutish in the extreme. It makes me think of China, Iran, North Korea -- regimes where censorship is active.
Think of the positive impact that "borderless media" had during the recent Iranian uprisings. There is something both empowering and risky about putting the tools of communication into everyone's hands.
What is truly dangerous is a population so blissed out on metaphorical soma that they accept whatever they read as absolute truth.
The entire thrust of our summer work is to encourage you young people to interrogate the media and the technology you consume. It is foolish to think that it is going anywhere...remember when Postman talks about that guy Jerry Mander's book and his *Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television?* (Can that be a real name? I never am able to accept that is a person's actual name.) Anyway, Postman criticizes his argument by saying it is so extreme and impossible that to make such an argument is to make no argument at all. It's a little like wishing for a cat who could whistle Beethoven's Fifth so you could drop out of school, travel around and exploit your cat for cash and fame. Nice idea, but you should probably start working on a better plan.
Think of what it would actually take to remove televisions from American homes. Talk about starting a war! Everyone would take to the streets. It would take a Facist leader the likes of whom we have never seen to put that revolution down.
I think the same is probably true with information technology. I resent that Wikileaks guy. Who does he think he is? In the name of some notion of justice and transparency, he has put many lives at risk, and further damaged American relationships with both our allies and our enemies. If I were Queen of the World, I'd put him on a space shuttle headed for Jupiter. But it wouldn't change the fact that the documents are out, they are electronic, and anyone can see them.
Tomorrow, try to catch Left Right and Center on KCRW 89.9. It airs twice, and I think they archive past episodes on their website (kcrw.com). Pundits from all areas of the political spectrum weigh in on these big issues. I find it to be a very enlightening half hour.
I said, "what is dangerous is a population...who believes everything they read..." What on earth was I thinking? I should have said, "everything they hear or see on TV..."
ReplyDeleteHaha. Jerry Mander/Gerrymander. Kinda sounds like a gimmick.
ReplyDeleteI really think it was a good thing to release the chopper video. People need to ditch the glorified "Call of Duty-chopper gunner" version of war. However, I agree that it was an absolute stupid idea to release the documents in their entire form.
I feel for those informants, in a way. You actually do something that benefits your country to get the Taliban out, then some doofus sells out your name so that your wife and kids are bait to the sharks.
Yeah, information freedom, all right.