Wiki-Revolution II

Wikileaks has added a new wrinkle to non-violent protest. Neither Gandhi, nor Martin Luther King could reach so many, to unveil the secrets, of violence and corruption, by so many, over most of the globe. Neither could stop wars, and perhaps wikileaks can't either, but it can certainly reach the masses of people with the information they need, so popular revulsion could stop them. It's possible.

The wikileaks case is radical. Political alliances crumble, and others emerge in unforeseen places, like conservative libertarians and anti-war progressives: Ron Paul insisted that Assange is only the publisher and that nobody was killed by the document dump, compared to the many killed in illegal wars caused by lying, the very thing the documents illustrate. He said if Assange is prosecuted, then the Times and WaPo should be as well. He claimed (as Ellsberg has) that what Assange did was just as legal as Daniel Ellsberg, and the Pentagon Papers. Some claim that Assange is no Ellsberg, but one funny fact is: Ellsberg loudly proclaims that he is.

However, this is bigger than one person. What wikileaks wrought is not simply Assange's creation. As wikileaks' name implies, it involves the cooperation of numberless collaborators all over the world, but it has also awakened a sleeping giant--yes, like Gandhi awakening colonized Indians from their torpor. The counter-offensive, after wikileaks was attacked, on the web and financially, has made people wake up. If you have a computer, and you're enraged at the world as presently constituted, here is a bloodless, even relatively safe, way of expressing your outrage, and perhaps forcing changes. Technology now being what it is, it is entirely possible that a small global movement, say 1 million strong, could force the world's governments to negotiate, to stop their wars, to enforce fair labor laws worldwide, to oppose the power of global corporations, or to act definitively and decisively on global climate change.

Anonymous demonstrates a whole new power, much more direct, non-violent, and populist. Yes, you have to have minimal understanding of computers, and a computer, of course, but computers and computer literacy are like a disease spreading across the globe with lightning speed.

On matters of free speech, and on wars and secrecy, progressives should look around them. As Ron Paul's speech indicates, progressives can find allies in funny places: progressives and libertarians have more in common than they think. There will be more libertarians, and hardly fewer progressives in the next Congress. Think how progressive the free exchange of information could be.

In addition, the resulting generation of hacktavists could make it possible to dismantle The Empire without bloodshed. The US might emulate Britain, peacefully withdrawing, instead of collapsing, like the fall of Rome.