In a highly charged article by Frank Mason, executive editor for the Internet Chronicle, questions were raised about an Anonymous “moralfag” known as MotorMouth, who runs the MotorMouthNews twitter feed. MotorMouth might be described as one of many leaders within Anonymous, but he considers himself more of an educator. His self-styled role in Anonymous is purportedly to keep new members in line with the principles of freedom of press, freedom of religion, and freedom of information.
In Frank Mason’s article, MotorMouth is depicted as a “bounty hunter.” While MotorMouth has confirmed that the pastebin referenced in Mason’s article was legitimate, he says the statements were taken out of context. “I said I was a bounty hunter as a part of an experiment to see how [Jamie Corne] would react. And she took the bait,” MotorMouth stated.
This disinformation campaign against MotorMouth allegedly started over MotorMouth’s refusal to support the Stratfor hack. MotorMouth suggests that the smear campaign against him might have even been Sabu’s idea.
While this is all very interesting, this cyberwar bullshit must be taken with a grain of salt. In the heavily edited words of Frank Mason: “So remember anons, if you see this man[/woman/ANYONE WHO CLAIMS TO BE FROM ANONYMOUS], do not divulge information to him[/her]. He[/she] could be a bounty hunter hooking up crooked cops, so better safe than sorry. Like we used to say back in the World War II days: ‘Loose Lips Sink Ships!'”
You know I don’t give a fuck about your free market economy failfest.
I don’t give a fuck about your friends.
I don’t fucking like you.
I don’t fucking like this job.
I don’t like your debt palaces or your shit eating faces grinning back at me like I’m your next victim. Eat shit, and DIE.
I hate myself. I hate this website. I hate the readers. I hate Akon, Lil Wayne, black people, white people, Arabs, the Arab Spring oilfest. I hate every crumbling idea you thought was your own that actually belonged to some dickhead in a casual suit on a yacht.
I hate it all.
I hope 2012 December 21 really is the end. I pray to every God in the book that some crackpot conspiracy theorist would become the next Messiah on that day and summon Planet X Himself via SMS right into the face of this foul, miserable planet of humanity.
I pray to Christ himself, sometimes, because he’s the one who is MOST real by Western definitions, I mean delusions, of superstition and whatever the fuck else you want to think about – whatever makes you feel better about serving the capital gods, sucking the dick of credit. The recession! Oh lord! I pray to sweet baby Jesus in the womb of the Virgin fucking Mary to end this miserable bitch like the dinosaurs so we can all go together and for once be on the same page about something. Sameness, communism, capitalism, we’re all getting fucking by an overlord and we act like we’re free! Weeeeee so free! All this freedom on my green grass in my big cars and my free freeness of freedomosity, baby Jesus, thank you for America which served the WHITE RACE so well! Thank you little baby Jesus thank you!!
Thank you for all these THINGS that I HAVE so now I can relish the danger of LOSING it! Holy poopsex, blessed art thou in Heaven whose name I dare not speak, Satan himself, President Barack Hussein Obama the PulitzerNobel Peace Prize Stealing Fascist of the Fifth Reich, the Dark Knight of Neoliberalism, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Come! TAKE IT ALL AND LEAVE ME NOTHING.
Separate me from my family, imprison my terrorist friends and rape my communist lover. And leave me only with this: my soul. Because I don’t fucking need it. I just wanna watch TV.
When Julian Assange revealed the collateral murder video in Washington DC, I was so incredibly glad that someone had finally brought light to the horrors of war. After learning the effect that such reporting could have from the Vietnam war, the US government has essentially taken complete control of war reporting. I was less impressed with Cablegate, which raised a lot of questions for me. Was the publishing of this information simply a manifestation of Assange’s anti-American bent? Was it possible to even view these cables in the proper context? At this point in time, I still sided with Assange and felt that Bradley Manning’s good intentions and idealistic desire for transparency would make for a better world.
WikiLeaks was marginalized and then demonized in a way that shocked me deeply. I was inspired by the response from Anonymous, and quickly shocked by the pure extremism which climaxed with the FBI’s AntiSec sting operation. Likewise, the publishing of Stratfor’s internal e-mails, which were stolen simply out of opportunism and malice, was absolutely horrifying.
WikiLeaks has become a tabloid, cheerleading for Anonymous and publishing snippets of e-mails from Stratfor which are taken wildly out of context. One infamous quotation of George Friedman, CEO of Stratfor, has been misrepresented in a deeply crass and disgusting way. As is the rule for tabloids, outrageous headlines obscure the true story.
Oh, that must mean Stratfor is not to be trusted!
The link, of course, leads a tiny minority of readers to a silly e-mail about lunches being stolen from the fridge at Stratfor headquarters. The vast majority of people read the quote and go on to the next tweet, automatically assuming that Stratfor is a bunch of conniving liars. The notion that Stratfor is a “Shadow-CIA” has also spread to all corners of the Internet, although it is a gross misrepresentation at best. Really, Stratfor isn’t nearly as sinister as it might sound.
Supporters of WikiLeaks repeatedly state that Stratfor is a legitimate target for this campaign of forced transparency simply because its business overlaps with the military industrial complex. While I fully agree with the sentiment that the military industrial complex is basically an overgrown monster, is it okay to attack Campbell’s soup for feeding the troops? This simple bad guy/good guy paradigm is obviously not realistic, and the situation is much more complicated. Stratfor provides their services to many corporations, individuals, and government entities both in and outside the United States. Many of these subscribers have been targeted by Anonymous and literally robbed, seemingly for no reason at all. The suggestion that there are important confidential e-mails dripping with scandal and crime has so far proven totally false.
What the Stratfor leaks have revealed, essentially, is that there are a bunch of analysts doing their best to figure out world events and speculating about practically every major happening. Some of these analysts don’t really like Julian Assange, and some of them even make racist statements in private e-mails. On the surface, the Global Intelligence Files appear to be an astounding list of revelations which will keep conspiracy theorists abuzz and WikiLeaks in the public spotlight. At their heart, it’s a sad failure for truth where context has been cut out to push an obvious anti-American agenda.
Right now, you might be thinking, “Hey, but all these tabloids are trying to take down WikiLeaks and smear Assange,” and you’d be totally right. But Assange has fired back, making equally outrageous claims about his detractors. The reductio ad absurdum of Assange’s stance is summarized in the following tweet:
Of course the e-mails from Stratfor are legitimate.
I have considered Assange a genuine agent for positive change and much needed transparency in the past, but this is the tweet that made me realize what WikiLeaks has become: A stupid tabloid with a penchant for the absurd. Look at the web site around you. This is absolutely the Internet’s fastest growing tabloid, featuring intelligent and biting satire. I know what a tabloid does. WikiLeaks has become a tabloid.
I challenge Assange to officially recognize the importance of context. Assange should pony up the $50,000 because I pointed out where he literally destroyed veracity by placing a quotation wildly out of context. And what is truth, if the framework of meaning behind it has been omitted?
A tabloid we may be, but at least we aren’t perniciously cramming a single-minded agenda down your throat by twisting the context of stolen material. Well, I guess we are, but at least our agenda is just all about the laughs. Kinda.
