By Tom Laskawy
Grist
The Wikileaks release of U.S. State Department classified diplomatic cables may be problematic, but it has been quite a trove of information on the workings of our diplomatic corps. For the most part, the dump has confirmed things that we already knew about U.S. policy — and that seems to be the case regarding the one mention of agricultural policy in these thousands of emails and documents (no doubt there are more) to which I was alerted.
Buried deep in a document that outlines priorities for intelligence gathering in the African “Great Lakes” countries of Burundi, the Republic of Congo, and Rwanda is a list (for the most part, very reasonable) of what the State Department would like to know about the region’s agricultural policy. Things like government policies on food security and food safety top the list, for example, along with information on the impact of rising food prices in these countries. Agricultural yield statistics, infrastructure improvements, data on deforestation and desertification, water issues and invasive species are included as priorities for “reporting” as well.
Read full post at Grist
Food Freedom 
One can always count on Grist for the corporate liberal propaganda take on things, even as the reportage is sometimes worthwhile.
So thanks to them for the report.
But as for something like this:
But it’s still a shame to see that our spymasters are actively engaged in efforts to make the world safe for Monsanto. Aren’t there better things for them to do?
Um, like what, praytell? (The negative attitude toward Wikileaks demonstrates that elitist Lawasky does indeed consider the goons to be “his” spymasters. But what master could he possibly think they serve other than the likes of Monsanto? The mysteries of corporate liberalism….)
lol… lemme tell ya, Russ ~ the longer I run the website, the more the illusion is lifted.
I debated posting this article — because of the slam wikileaks is getting — but while its naysayers all say the datadump has not released info the public didn’t already have, I disagree. I think most of the US public is unaware of the info contained in wikileaks.
So, I think there is value in the info, even if it is part of some grand psyops. I read an interesting analysis of wiki — A careful analysis by Zahir Ebrahim at Project Humanbeingsfirst.org uses the Mighty Wurlitzer “as a metaphor to pluralistically refer to the same message-machine, i.e., the intelligence apparatus for manufacturing consent and controlling dissent, and its concomitant conscious manipulation of peoples’ thoughts, feelings, actions and in-actions, in order to serve the primacy interests of the ruling-elite.” He further explains:
“Only the Mighty Wurlitzer knows the entire tune. What this means is that not all who willingly cooperate with the Mighty Wurlitzer in synchronistically humming its themes are knowingly being purveyors of its myths and deception. Many of its most shrill echoers are often well intentioned functionaries who are fed different motivating myths at different levels in the hierarchy – sometimes the lie is different at every level – such that it suitably motivates each according to their own predilection, professional station, and mission statement.” [emphasis added]
Ebrahim says:
“Wikileaks has always been a rather transparent Mighty Wurlitzer ops. It is trivial to see through the absurdity of its existence despite it promoting itself as being a sort of watchdog upon the empire, and therefore, ostensibly, being inimical to its unbridled quest for “full spectrum dominance” – just like Al Jazeera television based in Qatar, which too, absurdly enough, is permitted to function unhindered in the same nation as America’s CENTCOM headquarters. Would it not be trivial for an armed to the teeth National Security State to take-out either apparatus rather trivially?
“The reason each is allowed to function is of course social engineering, the sine qua non for waging modern warfare upon civilian populations by way of deception.”
For an excellent discussion of social engineering in the 20th century, see Scott Noble’s 2010 film, “Human Resources.” (120 mins.)
Yes, I think the piece is worthwhile for the piece of information it contains. But in that it’s just like the rest of the corporate media – one needs to disregard the propaganda.
As for the conspiracy theories about Wikileaks, those are silly on their face. It’s a no brainer that elites want to monopolize information. And how would Wikileaks as a system ploy help them? It does nothing to mobilize the passive mass in favor of the wars and so on. They simply remain passive. But little by little it does mobilize more resistance as it helps wake up the people who are accessible to it.
The most important thing to me is simply that it’s an existential statement of principle, embodied in action, that all system information is public property and the elites have zero right to monopolize it in the form of “secrecy”.
If Assange were a double agent, why have him issue anti-elite manifestoes? It’s like when I see a website on food which is new to me. It may be hard to tell precisely what its politics are, and there are lots of astroturfer sites out there.
But I figure if the site has direct anti-corporate statements, that’s a good indication that it’s probably on the level. The kind of crackpot Machiavellianism which would have to be involved in e.g. a Monsanto astroturf attacking Monsanto by name, while not impossible, is something we know doesn’t work in reality, and it’s hard to picture anyone actually doing that. (But conspiracy theorists always think everyone acts like that.) Although you know more about these sites than I do, so maybe you’ll point out examples of how I’m mistaken there.
I think if they wanted a double-agent “leak” site, they could use a nihilistic thug like Zuckerberg. Or for that matter Gawker, which has expressed such rabid hatred of Wikileaks, evidently out of sheer jealousy, to the point that it offered bounties on whistleblowers.
Well, I don’t claim to know for sure. But those are some basic impressions on the matter.
It would be great if we could get leaks on what the FDA is really saying in secret about raw milk, relocalization, the bill, etc.