Wiki-What!

I've always thought freedom of speech and information were essential values to human existence, but then I've always thought Arsenal would win the the premier league at the start of every season and that I would one day explain myself to a cockroach. Afterall I am of a higher order( no comments invited here) How misguided I have been. I've been avoiding this issue of the Wiki-leak for a while. Whilst similarly avoiding X-what-a-load-of craptor, Am-a-nobody-get-me-out-of-here. I think you get the picture. But you know, whilst these reality shows claim to be entertainment for those of us with less refined taste, I will submit they provide a useful diversion at a time when the government need to take away the focus from the upcoming hike in VAT. Happy new year everyone!

This week witnessed the highest hike in petrol prices this country has ever seen, but imagine the rage when you add that increase in Vat in the new year to the petrol prices and everything else. Boy, are we in this together or what!

People criticising the student demonstration miss the point. The students do get the fact that increases in tuition fees are as inevitable as mobile phone bills, what they despise is what led us to having to cut so severely 80% of Vince Cable's department expenditure to universities that those same uni's now need to claw back that money by mortgaging our children's lives. People are not connecting why students might be angry with the like's of Sir Phillip Green. Let me break it down for you: its because luminaries such as Sir Phil, use tax loop-holes to tax avoid. Quite legal, but it kicks this country's teeth-in to the tunes of billions in lost tax revenue's. Which, if it were available would lighten the blow from the economic gloom.

But I digress,..

The crux of my argument about freedom of information is this: with all the information released by wiki-leak, what has the general populace really done with the information? Has it really given us more freedom, has it showed us anything new we didnt know about politicians? Did it really shed any new light on America and its politics in the world? Has it not really just given more editorial pages to the media than really changing anything? Has'nt it just re-affirmed what we have always suspected but could not prove,...that you cant believe everything you read. Politicians come out of meetings and tell everybody, everything is great,..but behind the scene they confirm their true feelings. Nobody needs to expose that! Its a dangerous world we live in. These exposures really only serves one purpose: They put lives in danger. Honourable men and women serving in dangerous theaters of war will become targets. Those serving in charitable sectors in dangerous parts of the world will become targets.

Diplomacy is the best friend of politics and students of politics will tell you one cannot go without the other. What wiki-leak has done is plaintively salacious and a childish pursuit of fame and in leading the misguided, they make uncomfortable rods for our backs. Controlled freedom of information is the prize we pay in the west for the freedom we enjoy and the ability to expound views as we wish.

In other less tolerant countries, wiki-leak will be interpreted as an attack on a way of life, a culture, a religion etc,.. If wiki-leak really wants to serve the world,..it should expose why successful trials of drugs which makes it easier to cope with Aid/HIV were tried on unsuspecting Africans.

Now the drugs are available after clinical trials on the poor and unreported but not available to those same people because it's way too expensive. Wiki-leak should focus on the middle east question as to why atrocities upon atrocities are being visited upon the people of the Gaza, yet the Jewish lobby's aren't exposed. And finally, how the hell did Tony Blair get that job as middle east envoy. A region he only knows too well?

This is my rant for the week.

Remember: running water always finds a path. A path to the truth,..