Joe Lieberman Emulates Chinese Dictators

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/01/lieberman/index.html

by ccoop • 16 years ago

92 46 16 years ago

salon.com

xentronium• 16 years ago

What's the point of disabling wikileaks when anyone can access them from the biggest news sites?

What's the logic behind this decision?

nkassis• 16 years ago

I'm wondering the same thing. Liebermann probably knows too. It's all a big show right now. As the economist said in the past few days, things have changed. You can store on a USB key the equivalent of truck loads(Stevenson would be proud ;p) of documents. It's going to be harder and harder to keep this information secure.

I hope the Government accepts this and I think the current administration does. I wouldn't be surprised if they figure out a way to use it to their advantage.

In WW2 purposely leaked information was used to confuse the Germans about the location of the beach landing on D-Day.

jtbigwoo• 16 years ago

I'm wondering the same thing. Liebermann probably knows too.

People say this a lot about politicians and I wonder how true it is. Lieberman in particular has never shown himself to be particularly smart. He mostly repeats the conventional "centrist" line and seems to contradict himself fairly regularly. I seem to remember that he drove the Gore campaign nuts in 2000 by spouting off whatever popped into his head.

Most politicians are not following a grand plan but are rather following a guideline of "What will Rush Limbaugh like?" (Conservatives) or "What will the editorial page of the Washington Post like?" (Centrists) or "What will my donors like?" (Pretty much everybody)

dtf3• 16 years ago

a) to whip up public outrage about the leak by declaring it an attack on US interests, US security and and endangering of the lives of US military and diplomatic personnel. b) be seen by the public to be doing something about a), in an effort to convince them of their efficacy at protecting against enemies of the US. c) in keeping the biggest new sites and the public occupied with a) and b), distract as much attention as possible from the contents of the cables.

If you look around the world, most governments are taking a similar strategy.

pigbucket• 16 years ago

I think this is right. While it's amusing to note the apparent heterogeneity in responses from representatives of the state to the leaks (criminal! boring! dangerous! nothing new!), looked on as a strategy of noise generation to drown out the signal (i.e., revelations of criminal activity by the state), the approach is cohesive and effective, and it demonstrates unrestrained contempt for the American people.

steakandfries• 16 years ago

A little disappointed to see this behaviour from the American government.

Correct me if I am wrong but didn't Obama administration promise full transparency?

olefoo2• 16 years ago

He also promised to take a principled stand against torture and to close Guantanomo, and restore due process; before being elected. Since being elected, none of those things have happened, and he has come out in favour of assassinating US Citizens living abroad without any judicial process whatsoever (The Al-Awliki case).

So the failure of Obama to publicly condemn Lieberman's petty campaign of censorship and crude threats against Amazon is not at all surprising.

m0th872• 16 years ago

Wait what? He standardized the Army field manual for interrogation [1] and has been attempting to close Guantanamo [2].

1: http://articles.cnn.com/2009-01-22/politics/obama.interrogat...

2: http://articles.cnn.com/2009-01-22/politics/guantanamo.order...

dolinsky3• 16 years ago

It's incredible that your fallacious statement has 19 upvotes, while m0th's correction of your fallacies only has 2.

http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/

Tangurena3• 16 years ago

To be (slightly) fair, the assassination policy was created by the Bush administration and merely carried forwards (like so many Bush administration policies). Although I agree he's done zero to stop torture, and backpedaled on his "promises" to close Gitmo and end the war in Iraq.

gjenkin• 16 years ago

Yes, disappointing to see this behavior from the government, and also from corporations like Amazon.

Perhaps most disappointing though is that much of the MSM coverage is focused on Wikileaks itself and not on the actual content of the cables. The NYT and other media outlets are doing their best to push the substantive issues, but that's not what is being discussed by our so-called leaders and politicians.

The cable leaks have highlighted - as if we didn't know it already - how reckless and out of touch many of our foreign officials and diplomats are. To name a few random acts: bargaining with Slovenia to take Guantanamo prisoners in exchange for a visit with President Obama; threatening Germany against investigating the unwarranted kidnapping (is any kidnapping warranted?) of one of its citizens by the CIA; collusion with British officials to illegally stock cluster bombs in the UK.

Perhaps if the mainstream media was focused on these issues, we may have a serious public debate about the quality and purpose of our state department and our foreign diplomats ... and maybe even improve them. Now that would be progress.

But no, that's just too difficult for the Senator Liebermans of the world to take on. Much easier for these politicians to beat their chests in disgust at Assange's actions. While that may be good for Lieberman in the short term - he gets his bully pulpit - we're all still left with the same crappy state department, and the same foreign officials in the same embassies still making the same out-of-touch recommendations that end up making the world a less safe place for all of us.

Where is the leadership? Where is the "change" that was promised two years ago? I want to see a commitment from Obama that he's going to look seriously at the issues raised by the cables, and fix our state department. Not holding my breath though.

dtf3• 16 years ago

OVH, one of WikiLeaks' French hosting providers, just had to deal with a similar "request" from the French government. Their response was, "it's not up to politicians or OVH to decide the site's closure".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-france...

At least somebody has a grasp of the separation of powers.

Benjo• 16 years ago

Lieberman is not part of the administration. I haven't seen Obama trying to censor this, although he obviously would have prevented it if he could have. By definition he doesn't want classified information leaked.

neworbit• 16 years ago

Um... how is Lieberman not part of the administration?

steveklabnik• 16 years ago

Joe Lieberman has been a pro-censorship force for years. I'm not surprised that he's continued here, though I'm still disappointed.

grandalf• 16 years ago

Not meaning to be trite, but it's amazing how Al Gore's desire to move toward the right led him to select Lieberman as VP, and paved the way for the rise of one of the most backward politicians ever in US history.

Recall how influential Lieberman was in helping Bush sell the Iraq war, etc.

Tangurena3• 16 years ago

It is worth watching a documentary titled "The Power of Nightmares" which will give some insight into "why Iraq" and "why Israel." And the answers to "why Israel" will explain why the choice of Lieberman (who is frequently titled "the Senator for Israel") for Gore's running mate appeared to be the right choice at that time.

http://www.amazon.com/Power-Nightmares-Various/dp/B001707D98

If your local library has a copy, I strongly recommend watching it.

tetsuo13• 16 years ago

I also can't recommend the documentary enough. The Internet Archive has it available for download/streaming, however:

http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares

dtf3• 16 years ago

"You've played right into my hands, Lieberman. Mwahahahaha... " .. ok he didn't quite say that. But Assange did just claim in a Guardian Q&A that choosing Amazon was a deliberate ploy to test/highlight the deficits in US commitment to free speech.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/03/julian-assange-l...

dolinsky3• 16 years ago

Free speech is not a blanket protection that allows you to say anything you want at anytime. Whether or not what Wikileaks is doing falls under the protection of the 1st Amendment is something I would love to see the Supreme Court decide, but it isn't as simple as crying foul on free speech b/c Amazon disabled their account.

nomurrcy• 16 years ago

I would hope that if our notion of free speech protects pornography, it protects important political speech like this.

jbooth3• 16 years ago

I'm pretty sure the Supreme Court has decided that what wikileaks is doing falls under free speech in a number of cases.

For one, there's whistleblower protections.

For another, it's legal to advocate fascism or any other unpopular ideology.

This isn't shouting fire in a crowded theatre. Unless it falls under espionage, it should be free speech.

quanticle2• 16 years ago

The Supreme Court has decided the WikiLeaks issue. It decided it when it ruled that the New York Times could publish the Pentagon Papers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers).

martythemaniak2• 16 years ago

I don't know about others, but the reason why I am firmly on Wikileaks' side can be clearly seen in that video. The media are a bunch of pliant, spineless, brain-dead, PR sound bite regurgitating pussies. Think about it, when was the last time you saw a media figure really dig into someone powerful and call them out on their bullshit? Everything the powerful do and say is so scripted and carefully managed that it loses any connection to reality.

javanix4• 16 years ago

Well, Jon Stewart for one, when he isn't being just a stand-up, does tend to call out major journalistic and political figures for their inadequacies in this regard.

gruseom• 16 years ago

With extreme irregularity (i.e. when it suits him) and a disingenuous tendency to hide behind "I'm just a comedian" as soon as anyone calls him on it.

martythemaniak2• 16 years ago

True, Jon is one of the very very few. But isn't it telling that serious political discourse can now only take place on a comedy show?

jbooth3• 16 years ago

Yeah, that video infuriated me. We had the host and 2 out of the 3 guests just harping on about how the guy is "anti-american". For basically doing the job they're supposed to be doing. And this was on MSNBC.

Tangurena3• 16 years ago

PG pointed in that direction with his essay "The Submarine" and how PR firms have a total stranglehold on news media. With the huge consolidation in the media, and the main news sources all controlled by the same few companies, it makes sense why the big companies don't want to rock the boat.

http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

Joe Lieberman Emulates Chinese Dictators

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