These people have no shame! There have been whistle blowers around the world for centuries and many of them go unsung, they put themselves and their livelihoods at risk. To the genuine, unsung unassuming whistle blower I say well done. I am talking about the honest whistle blower: the person who has done their research carefully; the one who has taken things as far as they can go within official and formal channels. Things don’t work and still there is a genuine and important story to be told.
Then there are people who do things for personal and private gain in the name of blowing the whistle. The people whose aim is to damage someone by having blown the whistle on them and hang the consequences.
As far as Assange is concerned, the WikiLeaks refugee, he has managed to gather round himself a coterie of unthinking but influential people who are able to bail him out of prison and will probably keep him out of prison. They have done this because they think Assange is some kind of freedom fighter. I don’t think so. From the things I have seen from WikiLeaks, I see an indiscriminate man whose aim is to help to maim and slaughter innocent people whilst pretending that all he wants to do is to blow a fanfare for the common man. Tosh!
In my opinion, I see someone with access to a load of files hiding away in a back room and stealing those files. Yes, these files might contain some interesting information and yes I might want to read some of it. However, by and large, the things I have seen have been none of my business.
You can tell me that now we know what Senior Politician X thinks of Robert Mugabe … and? By revealing these things, we are often seeing just one side of a story and several of the stories the news channels have chosen to report have been potentially damaging to individuals and nations alike. And who is Assange and his thief to decide that someone should be put in the firing line because he thinks it is right to do so? Let Assange come face to face with people who are probably innocent but who have been hurt by his actions. Let him explain and then apologise once he discovers just how much damage his indiscriminate publications are causing.
Oh! and let me ask Assange, how much of the reported £1.1 million he is going to receive for the books he pretends he doesn’t want to write will be going to help the victims of his whistle blowing? Thought so … not one penny. How much will go into his personal bank account, in spite of the words he spouts about saving his web site.
Finally, I find it very distasteful that a man who is under the cosh for at least two crimes that I am aware of is put into the spotlight in the way Assange is and is then apparently rewarded for all of his efforts including crimes of which he may well be guilty.
These people are not honest whistle blowers, they are self appointed opportunists who know very well that all they have to do is to make some noise in the right area and direction and our sleazy publishing houses will chase them with their cheque books.
DW
