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unhinged
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'assange's point is correct. in every conflict i covered as a war correspondent, the press of the nation at war was an enthusiastic part of the machine - cheerleaders for slaughter and tireless myth makers for the nation and the military. the few renegades within the press who refuse to wave the flag and lionize the troops become pariahs in newsrooms and find themselves attacked - like assange and manning - by the state.
there is no free press without a willingness to defy law and expose the abuses and lies carried out by the powerful. the pentagon papers, released to the new york times in 1971, as well as the times' pulitzer-winning 2005 exposure of the warrantless wiretapping of US citizens by the national security agency, made public information that had been classified as 'top secret' - a classification more restricted than the lower level 'secret' designation of the documents released by wikileaks. but as the traditional press atrophies with dizzying speed - crippled by barack obamas use of the espionage act seven times since 2009 to target whistle-blowers, including edward snowden - our last hope lies with rebels such as manning, assange, hammond, and snowden. - chris hedges
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171217
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