Capitalism: A Love Story & Wiki Leaks (or "Principled Leaking")

Note: minor edits done on 12/1/10.
Last weekend we (belatedly) watched Michael Moore's latest film & tonight I finally emerged from under this rock I was living ;) and learned more about Wiki Leaks. Wow... fascinating. And I guess that by the end of this post I will probably find a way to connect these two things.

First, a short history of my "anti-capitalist" upbringing. OK, it was NOT really anti-capitalism, but it was very definitely pro-socialism. My parents lived in Europe for three years (and there I was born, I hate that part, maybe I'll blog more about this some other time, but you can read a few items here) and there my mom had a brief experience with England's socialized medicine that left a deep impression in her. They were traveling in England around the time of my first birthday and my mom had a really unexpected case of hay fever (asthmatic symptoms). She went to the doctor, was given prescription medication and it didn't cost a thing (or she paid something and was fully reimbursed later). They also spent a few months in Sweden and were positively impressed with the system there too.

So when I was growing up, my mom always said that she thought that "social democracy" was the best model and that socialized medicine is great. Brazil does have a socialized medical system together with private insurance (I've owed Karen a post about that for years now!), but it's obviously greatly inferior than its European counterparts. Then I went to the University of São Paulo (USP) and there... ah... Marxism reigns supreme! ;-) So I was nicely indoctrinated. Not that I hadn't always leaned left already. The funny thing is that when I met K he had recently voted to a politician on the right for president whom I hated (Paulo Maluf). Thankfully, within less than a year of dating me (and he also went to USP) he was a leftist too (and years later we campaigned for the worker's party candidate for mayor -- shocking lots of our church friends). ;-)

Anyway... all of this to say that Michael Moore was "preaching to the choir" as far as I am concerned. There were still a few things to be learned in Capitalism: A Love Story, most of which I guess I already forgot because this is, IMHO, his weakest documentary. It's pretty boring at times. His invectives at Wall Street with the Crime Scene tape are pathetic! Please! In any case, in spite of the fact I think this is the weakest documentary entertainment-wise, is the least appellative one -- he really is exposing old, sad, evident truths. And I did watch Roger & Me years ago and that was really good and totally the basis for the newer film. It's all very depressing and outrageous, but not as much as the Abramov documentary.

So, yeah, in the end I don't have a lot to say about Capitalism. As for the Wiki Leaks, of course I've been listening about it for years, particularly on NPR, my major source of news these days (together with browsing Time magazine weekly) and last week most shows were mentioning it and analyzing the latest diplomatic leaks.

Thankfully, Laura twitted a link to this excellent New Yorker article about Assange and the Wiki Leaks that really enlightened me greatly about the whole thing.

And I guess that the weirdest thing that happened was that... I feel strangely sympathetic to this guy and his grandiose scheme. I mean... I really don't subscribe to conspiracy theories, but the truth is that governments and big corporations are obviously not to be trusted and do lots of harm too. And the second dismaying fact is that the media is awfully twisted and almost corrupt too! They're clearly not doing their job well and when you read Wiki Leaks' "About" page their arguments about "principled leaking" make perfect sense!

Now of course it can make harm, destroy diplomatic relations, etc, etc... but... I don't know. Do I really care? I think that in the end I'm pretty rebellious and non-conformist and this guy's personal story is fascinating to me. And all the support he has worldwide is a testimony that lots and lots of people are anti-government and highly suspicious of politicians, the media, etc.

So... yeah... I don't know what I really think about this. And the feeling I get after seeing a documentary like Moore's as well as the Abramov one we saw the other week is one of hopelessness. Assange is doing something, isn't he? Something pretty crazy, that's for sure! I couldn't bring myself to watch the Iraq video ("Colateral Murder"), but reading about the whole process of its "production" and release in the New Yorker article was fascinating. I'm wondering now if they'll "catch" this guy and shut him up. I think that Wiki Leaks may continue without him, no?  And the other thing is, if they do "shut him up" won't that just prove his point that they're trying to hide stuff and silence dissenters?

Oh well... I have to also disclose that I taught several times (four) a class in dystopian fiction (such as 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 etc.) and reading about Assange totally made me think of those works of fiction -- so much of what those authors imagined is getting closer and closer to reality nowadays. It's scary. Big brother's watching! My blog will be under surveillance from now on! (just kidding, but, really, who knows?)

Edited to add: There are other very good articles appearing in the media. I haven't read time to finish reading, but the Atlantic published: David Samuels's The Shameful Attacks on Julian Assange in which a point I forgot to mention above is hammered down: the most frustrating thing about the Wiki Leaks is how journalists (and I think that also researchers, historians and other scholars) have failed big time in doing serious analysis of the documents that Wiki Leaks has made public. It's pretty clear that the media (and the scholars) seem to be biased in favor of governments and authority figures. Here's an impassioned quote from Samuels's article:

Wikileaks is a powerful new way for reporters and human rights advocates to leverage global information technology systems to break the heavy veil of government and corporate secrecy that is slowly suffocating the American press.

P.S. I have a hard time thinking about politics in this country. I think the split is absurd, what's going on now in Congress is infuriating to me. I don't want to think of how the next two years are going to be. Sometimes I don't really feel like becoming a citizen two years from now. But that's another story. And I probably will. Blah.