According to one website the UK has about 300 gag orders on media and I think much of the self-censorship comes purely from a survival instinct (fear) both at the commercial level in jeopardising some of those scratch-back arrangements.

A spokesman from Wikileaks once said (it may have been Assange) that: “We’re the canary in the coal mine because we take the hardest publishing cases.”

Wikileaks is unique in pushing those boundaries to 'go where other media are afraid to go'. The information, once revealed, provides some form of safety net for the wary mainstream media to then follow-up on detail and commentary.

The greater the distance between governments and their people the more organisations like Wikileaks are needed to correct the balance and return us back to a real peoples government.

The real anarchists are those that work to radically reduce the principles of democracy and reduce the government to an oligarchy.

And that should be a concern for people on both the Left and Right of politics.

Poirot,

Firstly, I think its more instructive to listen to what Assange says when he thinks no one is listening, ie his old blogs, than what he is saying in the mainstream media. Secondly, it is clear from a reading of both your quotes and mine, that the second outcome is his actual goal.

Briar Rose,

Its specious that you would even attempt to suggest that I made this claim. I never said “ he wants to overthrow our system – therefore he’s an anarchist.

My point was this, If

1) your thematic quote at the top of your essay is a revered anarchist explaining his opinion on what society should look like http://web.archive.org/web/20071020051936/iq.org/

2) in this essay you go into how you can overthrow the conspirators.

Then its a good bet that you’re a revolutionary of some type. And anarchist would be the obvious choice.

If his goal (however unlikely) is to participate in or encourage the overthrow of our established system of governance, then he can no longer be considered a whistleblower.

Pelican,

Virtually the sole reason anyone knows anything about the wikileaks cables is because of the established media. Without them, wikileaks would just be another conspiracy/far left website that only true believers would know about

I challenge you to produce one of these cables which has significant public interest value, that the mainstream media is not reporting. Or do you think they are all of vital interest and all 250,000 odd cables should have their own front page news stories?

So, real anarchism is working towards oligarchy, is it? Sorry, wouldn’t that be oligarchism? Or facism?

Jennifer,

I agree with much you say in your message but find it a little disconcerting to have scientology.org ad's flashing up in the middle of it.

Why is scientology.org advertising on onlineopinion.org?

PaulL, in his post of Tuesday, 14 December 2010 at 10:52:53 PM says:

"Wilson claims to be upset that the mainstream media
is dismissing wikileaks newest round of leaks as
unremarkable, Yet neglects to point to even a single
leak which substantially disproves this description."

I don't know as to whether Jennifer Wilson (who has been engaging in this discussion as OLO userID 'briar rose') could have pointed to this leak, but I contend that it could be one such that disproves the description of the leaks as 'unremarkable": http://bit.ly/fryQuN . It is a shortened link to an item by Patricia Karvelas published in The Australian on December 17, 2010 at 12:00AM, titled "Julia Gillard 'after top job a year before coup'".




So why should this leak be considered remarkable?




At this point my observations will probably appear to become somewhat tangential to the discussion, but I suggest they may ultimately come to be seen as interestingly relevant to understanding the 'shoot the messenger' line taken in respect to Assange and WikiLeaks.



Jennifer Wilson wrote an article titled 'Moving forward, trust me' which was published on OLO on Thursday, 22 July 2010. She opened with the statement:

"The term “moving forward” is employed by politicians
when they’ve done something they don’t want to dwell
on for any number of reasons, usually because they fear
close examination will put them in a bad light. ... "

The sixth paragraph of that article began:

"What the Rudd downfall shows is that the people
of Australia are not in control of who will be
the Prime Minister, ... "

The interesting thing we learn from The Australian's news item is that:

"A WikiLeaks cable names Senator Farrell
as telling US embassy staff in June last
year Ms Gillard was trying to knock off
Mr Rudd.

"Don Farrell, the right-wing union powerbroker
from South Australia, told us Gillard is
'campaigning for the leadership' and at this
point is the frontrunner to succeed Rudd,
conceding that the Right did not yet have an
alternative," the cable states."




TBC

PaulL
I am not sure what your point is. I clearly stated the mainstream media is reporting on the Wikileaks information. The mainstream media gives commentary and opinion about the information too depending on their point of view. All good in a democracy.

I have also clearly stated that much of the information is not news, other than in detail and has been reported prior to the leaks eg. in particular in relation to Afghanistan and Iraq/WMDs. Although the building of an underground nuclear facility in Burma was something I don't think I have read about prior.

As far as whether all the cables should be given front page features is not for me or you to decide. The information is on the site should anyone want to read it and comment on it in a society that values free speech and thought.

My reference to gag orders is that Wikileaks does not suffer the same disabling influences nor does it have a commercial interest.

PaulL
The cables are accessible to anybody and it is not my task to do this research for people.

Briefly, you really need to consider that what you may or may not understand as significant does not necessarily coincide with the opinions of others, and the desire of others (which may well be different to yours) to be informed on the wide range of topics the cables have thus far covered.

There is also an over-arching consideration: while much of the chatter in individual cables may be of varying importance, it is extremely significant that this chatter is now available to anyone who wants to look at it, along with whatever of importance we have yet to see.

The leak yesterday on the Coalition's desire for an infinite number of boat arrivals does put Abbot's **stop the boat policy in a new light,** to say the least.

Perhaps one of the important things the leaks are revealing is that what we have long suspected, such as the piece I wrote some time ago quoted by Forrest Gump, is indeed true, we now have the evidence, these things are no longer suspicions, and politicians now cannot deny them.

In my book, that's worth a great deal.

You are beginning to sound as if you want some form of censorship, determined by what you consider important or otherwise.

There are many many forms of revolution. I am not going to argue with you any further as to whether not not Assange is an anarchist.
On that we must agree to differ.
Jennifer