Five things that change everything, By Mark Morford

[madokie]

This is what they say. This is the breathless abandon that accompanies each tale of discovery and terror, pain and glory across the vast and troubled worlds of science and tech, politics and warfare, love and sex and death, oh my.

"This changes everything," they say. This revelation, that amazing gizmo, this startling new way of seeing things, that flaccid terrorist's imbecilic underwear bomb that now means anyone can be freely groped at the airport. Baby, the terrorists won long ago. Haven't you seen the news?

This box just arrived. Let's see what we've got.

1) Here we have a wall. A thing that divides us, that separates but also contains. That holds everything out, and also in. Also, a thing you safely hide behind, trembling and panting, as the monsters, the tanks, the demons, the enemy gunfire whiz on by, seeking to end your existence but not finding you because, hey look, wall. ...


(Full URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/12/15/notes121510.DTL&nl=fix)

[canoeist52]

1. from the article

"What Wikileaks really is, besides being countless thousands of pages covering the most brutally mundane churn of the daily war machine -- yes, war is hell, but not in the way most of us think -- Wikileaks is one unprecedented, stunningly detailed explanation of just how the global diplomatic sausage gets made.

And lo, it is vile sausage indeed. This is the biggest revelation of all, the thing that changes everything: What we're learning is, this meat is more rancid, disrespectful, abusive, cruel, barbarian and childish than anyone wanted to imagine. No wonder world governments and whimpering doltbuckets like Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee want this Assange guy dead.

It's because Wikileaks is just terrifically embarrassing, humiliating to the bone, so lucid and detailed in its anatomy of the dark and heartless political soul it will be years before its sundry nasties are fully unpacked and absorbed.

This is the real reason Washington and world governments alike are so alarmed by Wikileaks' revelations. It reveals most of them to be world-class charlatans and fools, dictators and megalomaniacs who would eat their own babies for a glimpse into each other's personal Dear Diaries. Same as it ever was? Sure. Only much, much worse."