Rachel Maddow Interviews Michael Moore: "WikiLeaks Is More Than Just This One Man"

[Turborama]

Run time: 15:02 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPiv5T76ve8   Posted on YouTube: December 22, 2010 By YouTube Member: MOXNEWSd0tCOM Views on YouTube: 304   Posted on DU: December 22, 2010 By DU Member: Turborama Views on DU: 1836

 
More on this at the Maddow blog: http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/12/21/5692437-the-michael-moore-interview

BBC Radio 4 interviews Julian Assange (25 minutes long): http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9309000/9309320.stm

(BBC interview also posted in GD and added to my journal)

[JDPriestly]

1. Michael Moore is correct. We need real investigative reporting.

I think that Rachel Maddow is hedging here. She is trying to protect her job.

She is correct in that there are problems with the reliability of the information in the Wikileaks. This "news" has not passed the two sources test, for example.

But Michael Moore pointed to two interesting issues:

1) Why are our diplomats so concerned about petty things? That really troubles me.

2) Why doesn't our media report on many of the most important facts and stories. Wikileaks is not the ideal way to get the information we need to vote wisely and participate in our supposed democracy, but the release of Wikileaks does reveal the complete inadequacy of what we accept for a press.

Why aren't the important questions being asked in a public forum. For example, why is it that although we are fighting six wars, our government blames our deficit on Social Security and other social programs? Where are our values? If these wars are so important, why do we bear so much of the burden in funding them? Why aren't other countries covering more of the cost?

If our diplomats weren't so focused on buxom blondes and whether Cuba shows Moore's movies, would we live in a safer, more peaceful world?

[EmeraldCityGrl]

3. I didn't want to go as far as you did to suggest Racheal

is CHA, because I have so much respect for her, but yeah, she was really selling the
leaks are flawed argument before introducing MM. As a journalist in the future I will
expect Rachael to thoroughly investigate the leaks as they are released or at least before
she publicly criticizes them.

[Enthusiast]

4. I don't think we were

any more manipulated during the peak of the cold war than we are now. The American people now happily accept war crimes including torture. How much lower can we get than torture? And how much lower can we get than falsifying reasons for a war? Really. But by a huge margin the American people aren't alarmed in the slightest. I think we're fucked.

[JDPriestly]

6. Yes, torture is the worst of all behavior.

It is not a crime of passion. It is a crime that is either committed by people with sociopathic or psycopathic personalities or after much consideration. It is a crime that must be plotted and planned systematically. It is the most outrageous of all crimes. It is not just committed by governments, but a government that commits it should be called to accounts in the law.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

2. One correction.

MM was responsible for posting a portion of Assange's bail, not the entire amount.
MM placed $20,000 with the total somewhere over $300,000.

Racheal's argument has merit, but as MM suggested, it's the journalist's job to
verify the accuracy of the leaks as they should any news story.

[tedeng]

5. Rachel perpetuating the negative narrative

I love Rachel, but this is the first time recently where I'd wonder about motives because RMS is always the sharpest angle with the best background about the story.

Michael made some great points and in the end torched her misrepresentations, his point about our government having mis-behaved for the last decade and that as a consequence, we need to err on the side of more visibility and not allowing selective shoot the messenger memes to persist again.

Rachel made a couple comments which I thought were intended to distort: 1) "Wikileaks dumped all these documents".. In fact they could be criticized for the Iraq and Afghanistan doc dumps in their totality, but they've really allowed the participating papers to define which documents were of interest to readers in their countries with the recent embassy revelations, I suspect the number that have been released are still less than 1% of the quantity provided to the Int'l newspapers, and 2) when she stated " that the two women went to the police for essentially date rape charges" that seems intended to distort based on what we know. The Guardian has reported at (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-sweden) on the parties statements, and you can certainly find serious concerns with what is reported, but I think to summarize it to a "essentially date rape charge", overlooks the actions and motives of the women following the events, the delay in them approaching the police, and their stated purpose of having Mr. Assange tested for STD in going to the police. The purported charges are serious, however given what we now know about the way the US pressures other governments, why can't we consider that it is going on in this case, and demand clarity from our media?

[teknomanzer]

7. Rachel works for MSNBC...

A colaborative effort between Microsoft and NBC, a subsidiary of General Electric. I pose this question. Has Rachel ever done a story that might have been embarrasing for GE or Microsoft? I doubt it. I am really starting to believe that liberal commentators are just kept around to appease the meek members of the left and complete the framing of the officially accepted story. All corporate media should be viewed with healthy skepticism.

[Tripod]

8. Great interview!

Thanks for posting! :applause: