Thom Hartmann: Why isn't CNN's Anderson Cooper an enemy of the state?

[thomhartmann]

Yesterday - Julian Assange addressed the United Nations - and discussed the United States' continuing investigation of Wikileaks and Bradley Manning. But what's the real lesson on journalism in the 21st century that needs to be taken away from the Assange case.

Since June - Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London trying to avoid extradition to Sweden - and eventually the United States where he could meet the same fate as Bradley Manning or worse. His crime? Being a journalist. There's one industry specifically mentioned in the Constitution - just one. And it's the press - it's journalism. It's the tool "we the people" have to keep our government in check - and to make sure "we the people" have all the information we need to be informed members of our democracy.

The press is absolutely essential - which is why it's named and protected in the very first amendment in our Bill of Rights. And journalism has taken many different forms over the centuries - adapting to technological changes in our society. From the quill pen to the printing press to radio to television to now the Internet - journalism has utilized all of these methods to do its job and speak truth to power. But it's that last method - the Internet - that really frightens power. And it's that last method - the Internet - in which Wikileaks exclusively operates. The reach and speed by which information can be distributed now - thanks to the Internet - is unprecedented - it's revolutionary! \\

Now - in a matter of seconds - a story of official malfeasance - or even official good deeds -can fly at the speed of light to billions of people around the planet. President Obama may have laid some groundwork for the Arab Spring by going to Cairo in 2009 and basically telling the Arab people to tear down their dictators. But Wikileaks journalism really lit the fuse. Wikileaks released information about the President of Tunisia's kleptocratic greed and massive corruption. Two weeks later - a young street vendor set himself on fire - sparking the revolution in Tunisia.

Wikileaks released information about the greed and corruption of kleptocrat Moammar Gadhafi and his sons in Libya - and soon that country as well was swept up in revolution. And it was Wikileaks which released information about Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's plan to never leave office - despite presidential elections looming. And soon - half a million people were occupying Tahrir Square demanding a revolution - one they eventually got. That's the power of journalism in the Internet age - that's the power of Wikileaks.

Which brings us to why Julian Assange is stuck in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He's wanted not by Arab nations, which have seen firsthand the damage his revelations can cause to established regimes - but instead by Western powers - primarily the United States. Let's face it - Wikileaks is, in part, the twenty-first century version of the New York Times. Both entities receive information from whistleblowers - and both entities publish that information. In fact - the New York Times published much of the exact same information that Wikileaks did - yet they haven't been the subject of federal investigations. And prominent lawmakers and government officials aren't calling editors at the New York Times "enemies of the state" - like they are with Julian Assange.

And no one is declaring CNN's Anderson Cooper a "Terrorist" for reporting on what could be state secrets found in Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens' personal journal. This is a video that Wikileaks exposed - showing our military gunning down journalists in Iraq. This is a war crime - and "we the people" have the right to know this happened - regardless of whether or not this video is labeled as top secret. We absolutely do have a right to know - which allegedly is why Bradley Manning - who was apparently just as concerned about it as all of us should be - allegedly posted it on Wikileaks. That's journalism - not espionage or treason.

Getting stories like that out there is journalism in the purest sense of the word. So what's really going on here? Julian Assange is a political prisoner of the West today - because the most paranoid within the US government are afraid they may be embarrassed or even prosecuted for war crimes. And they have this fear for a good reason. Our government no longer solely belongs to "we the people" - it now also - in large part - belongs to the transnational corporate elite and their military-industrial complex.

Our media also belongs to a "corporate elite" - just a handful of corporations - who own pretty much everything we see in the news media. In Europe - unelected technocrats and banksters have taken over what used to be democratic governments. And one of the few forces out there that haven't yet been totally brought down by this corporate coup de etat in the Western World is Wikileaks. That's why they are a threat to those in power, including those in corporate power. Journalists have always been the underdog in their efforts to speak truth to power - they've been censored, smeared, and even murdered.

This is nothing new - John Adams, the second president of the United States, shamefully shut down opposition newspapers and jailed their editors in the biggest event of his presidency - the passage of the Alien & Sedition laws. But even back in 1798, Vice President Thomas Jefferson protested by leaving town the day Adams signed the law, and then ran against and beat Adams two years later in the election of 1800 - largely on the issue of Adams shutting down the press. Historically, our press has largely been note pad and tape recorders being used as David's slingshots going up against the Goliath army of the state. But in the age of Wikileaks and the Internet - journalists are on a more even ground - and the powers-that-be are scared to death. And no matter what happens to Julian Assange or Wikileaks - this sort of Internet journalism is here to stay.

The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV & FSTV "live" 9pm and 11pm check www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings

[orpupilofnature57]

1. For the same reasons Kkkarl Rove is.

Theres a difference between Outing an agent and embarrassing people with their lies .

[fasttense]

2. Corporate federal governments must keep their

corporate secrets in order to keep consumers consuming and keep labor docile and weak. CNN merely reported on something another reporter already found out. The corporate state government doesn't mind reporters reporting, they just don't want reporters digging out their secrets.

[JDPriestly]

3. Yes. The printing press and the Gutenburg Bible were threats to the Catholic Church at one time.

The Catholic Church got used to it and is doing well.

The US government will get used to the internet and the enormous amount of information and communication that the internet brings -- we will the Muslim religious leaders. You really cannot crush people's curiosity and desire to find out things that they aren't supposed to know.

I remember listening to my grandmother and her sisters speak a foreign language when I was a child. When they started speaking like that, my ears would perk up because I knew that they were using their native language so that I would not understand what they were saying. I learned to understand that language. I just figured it out at a very early age. I think the first conversation in which I realized I understood some of it was when they were talking about my aunt's window.

The thing that is interesting about the Assange affair is the contrast with the way that we Americans kept secrets during WWII. Millions of Americans were engaged and intensely patriotic. Yes. Propaganda was part of it. But there was also the fact that the hard times and FDR's solutions to the difficulties had united most Americans. Ordinary people for the most part really loved FDR. People did not complain about too much government. They had confidence in the government. I base this on the stories my mother tells. She can recite a long list of FDR programs that helped people and kept the country going.

So, the Assange phenomenon is to me more a symptom of a problem -- a lack of a sense of unity in the country and trust in government than a problem in itself.

And I wonder, if Assange could get all that information for free, who might have bought that same or similar information. Unity and trust in government have to be earned. FDR earned it from most Americans. But no president since then has. Barack Obama might come close. We shall see in this election.