{"id":15026,"date":"2015-12-03T07:19:55","date_gmt":"2015-12-03T12:19:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=15026"},"modified":"2015-12-03T07:19:55","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T12:19:55","slug":"global-angst-over-us-secrecy-fetish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=15026","title":{"rendered":"Global Angst over US Secrecy Fetish"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2015\/12\/02\/global-angst-over-us-secrecy-fetish\/\" target=\"_blank\">Global Angst over US Secrecy Fetish<\/a><\/h3>\n<p class=\"entry-meta\">With the reach of\u00a0U.S. surveillance\u00a0now global \u2013 and with the U.S. military\u00a0deployed all over the\u00a0world \u2013 anger at\u00a0President Obama\u2019s unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers who disclose the U.S. government\u2019s abuses and crimes\u00a0has gone international, as this Norwegian opinion piece by Victor Wallis shows.<\/p>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<hr \/>\n<p>The more extreme the crimes of state, the more the state seeks to shroud them in secrecy. The greater the secrecy and the accompanying lies, the more vital becomes the role of whistleblowers \u2013 and the more vindictive becomes the state in its pursuit of them.<\/p>\n<p>Whistleblowers are people who start out as loyal servants of the state. Their illusions about the state\u2019s supposed moral agenda \u2013 and the wholeheartedness of their own patriotic commitment \u2013 make them all the more shocked when they discover evidence of the state\u2019s wrongdoing.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"image-anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/bradleymanningposter.jpg?80e558\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3858\" src=\"http:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/bradleymanningposter-300x226.jpg?80e558\" alt=\"Poster in support of Pvt. Bradley Manning, posted in Washington D.C.'s Metro system. \" width=\"300\" height=\"226\" data-lazy-loaded=\"true\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Given the extreme concentration of weaponry (as well as surveillance capabilities) in the hands of the state, and given the disposition of the state to apply such resources even against nonviolent mass movements, the type of defection practiced by whistleblowers \u2013 an option available to military and intelligence operatives at all levels \u2013 is crucial to any eventual triumph of popular forces over the ruling class.<\/p>\n<p>Whistleblowers thus not only embarrass the government, disrupt its policies, and (assuming adequate diffusion) educate the citizenry; they also are harbingers of a broader crumbling of the capitalist state and the order it defends. Acting largely in isolation and at great risk to themselves, they embody the conviction \u2013 or at least the hope \u2013 that basic decency has a more universal grounding than does any possible scheme of oppression.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Global Angst over US Secrecy Fetish With the reach of\u00a0U.S. surveillance\u00a0now global \u2013 and with the U.S. military\u00a0deployed all over the\u00a0world \u2013 anger at\u00a0President Obama\u2019s unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers who disclose the U.S. government\u2019s abuses and crimes\u00a0has gone international, as this Norwegian opinion piece by Victor Wallis shows. The more extreme the crimes of state, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6963,710,1309,765,843,844,876],"class_list":["post-15026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-consortium-news","tag-secrecy","tag-state","tag-surveillance","tag-us-government","tag-us-military","tag-whistleblower"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15027,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15026\/revisions\/15027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}