Re: <nettime> Steve Coll: Leaks (The New Yorker)

[John Young <jya@pipeline.com>]

Give apathy a chance, stash away adrenaline rush. Be quiet
preacher, deity is snoozing with the flock.

Leaks are not what they are claimed to be. Ooze is better.

It is true that nearly all who have asked me, excuse the Thomas
Friedman conceit,  to comment on Wikileaks chastise for failing 
to join the orchestrated furor. I don't call them, the Wikileaks
shills drop the dime and pretend insult when I call them what
they are. Wikileaks in its original formulation is not what it has
become, but that is a common bait and switch of authoritatives,
compulsively reciting their credentials -- the history, the brand -- 
in the face of skepticism, or worse, disinterest -- how dare you
ignore Wikileaks was one of its last press releases and pep
talks to its volunteers mail list in the fall of 2009.

No matter I praise the initiative's valuable contribution of documents 
for study, the main focus since the fall of 2009 has been on the 
Wikileaks advertising wrapping which diminishes attention for 
the documents as does all advertising diminish journalism,
publishing, education and other means of information distribution.
Wikileaks commentary and preen on their documents substitutes
for the time and required to read, reflect and ponder, in accord
with editorialism and hyperbole of authoritatives who only
profit from the cream robbed from the milk.

Few consume Wikileaks documents of the past or present so 
enjoyable is the substitute MREs composed of ignorant opinion. 
Some brag of not reading the documents, then proceed to boogy 
madly "on the urgent issue," i.e., Glenn Greenwald and a pack 
of other pro and con yappers wrapped in ads for themselves, 
sorry, opinionators, articulators of authoritativenss, fierce wide-
eyeballers hoping to offset the dupery of opposing glazers.

No doubt the apatheticism induced by ages-old advertising of
authoritatives is the intent of hyperbole. However, it is worth
considering how apathy -- a euphemism which can conceal
a battery of resistances to parental hounding to behave and
believer -- frees from obedience of an incessant message to 
be like us, those who know, i.e. "breaking news," and a slew 
of exhortations to eat branded puke upchucked in lieu of your 
own meals, your own musings and doubts of the high-volume
yellers.

Adrenaline is the aboriginal drug and without it not much
pig in a poke would be sold, whether for love, war, politics,
security and, OMG, wisdom, trenchancy, insight, reason,
responsibility, the lot of the imaginary chimericals resting
on a natural bed of chemical thrill at being in the know of
"what's important to know." And who knows this best, the
articulators of authoritativeness. Call them charlatans,
for which they will thank you, but do not ignore them, for which
they will assault your go away. Noise is what these brayers 
make, this is not needed by Wikileaks to do what it does best, 
indeed its PR is wide-mouthedly wretched in the carny barker
tradition, and has led to a cessation of document publication. 
All tweets and no docs is what adrenaline peddlers inject.

Knowledge industry is coequal with entertainment, mix the
two and you have advertising, which is a word over-trenchantly
examined for its teleological importance, self-vaunting, with
decades of blather and bombast about whore media and its
pimps, "the finest minds on earth." Writing and speaking in 
cliches is the norm now wrapped in self-hype to counter 
other people's apathy. 







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