Tuesday, July 5, 2011

The WikiLeaks Mastercard Spoof Is Priceless

Whatever you think of Wikileaks, this video is marvelous, and a very clever fundraising appeal.  It will give you a laugh, and if you believe in the cause, it will point you to where you can donate to help WikiLeaks fight the good fight.   It seems that Julian Assange is not only Robin Hood and The Scarlet Pimpernel wrapped up on one, he is also an advertising genius, or else he knows who to hire.

Personally,  though I applaud truth and transparency in principle, I am not always sure the revelations of WikiLeaks are useful in the long run. Yes, yes, I know that WikiLeaks contributed to the anger that sparked the Arab Spring.  But it did not create that anger, it merely fanned the flames of a fire that was already burning. Many of the leaked documents that constitute " cablegate" amount to not much more than  diplomatic gossip around the international water cooler.

Then, there is the fact that  truth-telling can lead to a lot of collateral damage  Brutal honesty is not always the best course of action and innocent people get caught in the cross-fire.  Think of all those outed CIA agents.  There is a time and a place for prevarication as well as transparency.

Plus there is something I can't put my finger on about Julian Assange that kind of creeps me out-- just a gut reaction. Call it women's intuition.

On the other hand, he is brilliant and ,on principle, I feel good about gadflys and rebellious geeks who bring down the pompous and powerful.

  A Donation to WikiLeaks?  not from me... but the WikiLeaks Mastercard spoof is definitely priceless.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I would donate to the cause..not the person.

But I want to know that people doing their jobs will not be injured..ala Valerie Plame..and that they won't be outed by anything Wikileaks publishes.

Unknown said...

point well taken, but in this case the person IS the cause and you can't separate the two.