While the recent WikiLeaks dump of diplomatic wires has revealed absolutely no information that would shock or surprise even the most naive of Americans, the reaction by those embarrassed by the contents of the leak has raised some concern. A few hours after the new diplomatic documents were released, Comcast internet was knocked out across most of the Northeastern United States. This questionable choice has raised an eyebrow or two. Of course, the region from New England to NorthernVirginia remains the only part of the country where anyone really still believes in the state as a positive social institution, and it makes sense that those impacted by the leak would instinctively seek to plug the ears of America's would-be middle class. However, this was a foolish decision for a number of reasons. First of all, we should not fear losing the allegiance of those who still believe in the state at this point, since there have been much more damaging leaks of information in the past. For example, the WikiLeaks documents on Iraq that made public the fact that the majority of those killed by U.S. troops were civilians was quite damning, yet they received little attention. These diplomatic wires are nothing more than celebrity gossip, so what's the fuss?
I've made this criticism many times, and I'll undoubtedly make it again. Many of us wealthy elites still have no concept of how the lower classes think, and thus, we are always foolishly trying to pull the wool over their eyes when something goes wrong. This is highly counterproductive and it is an insult to the human intelligence of the average American. I think it is clear that Americans - far from being ignorant - are completely aware of the reality and remain cynically complicit because they feel for any number of reasons that it remains in their best interest. Moreover, because most do not feel they are directly harmed or impacted by the scandals of state, they simply do not pay attention.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for the Comcast outage, but unless it was Julian Assange himself, whoever pulled the trigger has made a foolish error with potentially severe consequences. It was a very selfish and shortsighted move. Knocking out the internet may have delayed the spread of the WikiLeaks news and even distracted a few people from it; however, it grabbed the attention of millions of otherwise disinterested Americans who lost internet for a few hours. The last thing any of us need is for someone to start caring about these issues because it suddenly affects them personally. Moreover, this display of muscle, while somewhat threatening, was completely inappropriate. Now is not the time. Americans do not care that the state's actions actually oppose things like democracy, equality, etc. because most of them never really wanted or believed in that. Basically, whoever was behind the shutdown at Comcast needs to calm down. Much worse leaks concerning Xe, Mossad, and Saudi support for Al Qaeda are likely to surface, and it is imperative that we exercise extreme caution in responding so as not to alienate our cynical allies of the masses.
