WikiRebels: The Documentary

I have to wonder if WikiRebels, a documentary that aired on Swedish television earlier this month, will be aired on any stations in the U.S.  In any case, it doesn't matter, because it's available online.  See it in parts or see it as a whole at the link above.  But whatever you do, see it.  Whether Julian Assange will be convicted of the rape charges against him or not, whether the U.S. government will succeed in its misguided attempts to silence him or not, ultimately, is not important.  What matters is our knowledge, engagement and participation in the political structures that govern us.

And now, pardon me for a moment while I proselytize:

I watched the video Assange chose to call Collateral Murder for the first time in many months.  As I did the first time I saw it, I cried when the Apache helicopter crew fired their weapons on a group of men on a street below.  I cried for the victims and I cried for the brash American voices congratulating themselves for hitting their mark.  Everyone lost something in that moment, and I'm fairly certain that war is largely composed of just such moments, repeating in a loop until a decision is made to close it.  War is, those of us fortunate enough to avoid it are told, hell.  No joke.  So, how do we make a decision to end it?  After almost 9 years of fighting in Afghanistan and 7 in Iraq, I'm convinced that it is precisely the obscurity of both wars that allows them to persist.  Looking for a ready example of systemic obscurity?  How's this: the U.S. Air Force is denying its servicemembers access to websites and blogs that disseminate the WikiLeaks cables.

So, don't we know by now, when we close our eyes to the truth that our whole world can be destroyed.  In the dark, it's too easy to follow fear's motivation, to label freedoms as terrorist threats, to kill civilians in the name of irrational wars.  None of the fear imposed on us-- I swear I believe this-- should be considered necessary or acceptable.

If we don't have a chance to see what goes on in our names, then we can't know what is necessary or acceptable.  And if we don't take the opportunity to see what goes on when that information is made transparent, then are choosing fear over truth.

Demand transparency.

Thanks.

That'll be the end of my proselytizing.  For now.