The guest speaker?
The United States has announced plans to host World Press Freedom Day in 2011 as part of its efforts “to support and expand press freedom and the free flow of information in this digital age.”
State Department spokesman Philip Crowley made the announcement Tuesday that the event under the auspices of UNESCO would be held in Washington from May 1-3.
The theme for the commemoration will be “21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers.”
“The United States places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts,” Crowley said.
“New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals? right to freedom of expression.
“At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information.”
I don’t suppose, in a gesture of anti-censorship and respect for the free flow of information, Wikileaks might get their site/domain unblocked by the government sponsoring this? And stop pressuring companies like PayPal from helping fund them? It could happen…
Well done Unc Dave. Yes, poor Mr Assange. The height of irony.
Facts begin to trickle in. Consensual sex until he beds a second woman and a rubber breaks with one of them all resulting in some sort of sex crime?
This is what happens when too many women get into government. And we all know women are about keeping secrets and forming midnight cabals, etc.
Yes, very telling circumstances here and as always, the surrounding actions so much more important than the original stimulus.
For any of you on the fence or near to it, add the distance of the “generic” value of the truth. Does the truth have any relevance, any guiding morality, make a person or even a whole country more EFFECTIVE because having to deal with the truth brings you closer to a summing up of all the competing realities?
Make truth your friend.
I nominate bobbo for the Ranter of the Year Award
Not irony. Wikileaks is not Press of any kind.
Wikileaks purpose is information-attack on Capitalistic system as a whole. Fact that they are not using bullets or sticks is irrelevant. They are terrorists in clearest definition of the term.
Again, name one press organization in the history of the World that have extorted behavior from any Govt. by manipulating release of information…
I accept the nomination and would argue for the win given that Guyver hasn’t posted for a while “but” I’m on another blog arguing the finer points of difference between mousse and souffle.
Thank god I can keep my priorities straight.
Heh, heh. Its an innocent diverstisement.
Dismal–the legal extortion you complain of is the very function of the press. Figures a boot licker like you would be all against it.
I do feel another rant coming on. Anyone know of the main difference when using egg whites rather than whipped cream to leaven a product?
Their “World Press Freedom” day is for the WORLD CORPORATE PRESS FREEDOM – CORPORATE PROPAGANDA 24/7/365 !!!
Politicians NEVER TELL THE WHOLE TRUTH !!!
So, it’s “World Press Freedom” day – but not for YOU !!!
#3: You’re kidding, right?
Wikileaks provided the information to newspapers first and, supposedly, has many journalists around the world helping it. Technically not a press organization, but heavily involved in and with the biz.
As for your question, I’ll pick two, easy examples. William Randolf Hearst and his newspaper empire which fueled the Spanish-American war. Then, how about the publishing of the Pentagon Papers? That affected the waging of the Vietnam war.
He will NEVER get out of prison, good ridden’s to this creep!
#3
What a crock. Wikileaks is most definitely part of the press. Any body which disseminates information to the public is part of “the press”. It is not required that you print a physical newspaper. Furthermore, the information that was in the leaked documents shouldn’t have been classified in the first place and absolutely has nothing to do with national security.
It is the people the grant power to the government and one power they most definitely do not give to the government is the authority to conceal information about their misdeeds.
I’m tired of arguing about this. We’ve all pretty much taken every stand that can be assumed and few of us, on either side, truly agree. BUT …
The biggest surprise in all of this: Julie Assange fucks women?!?!?!?!
Hmm… i do not think the world has gone crazy…
But.
No information is to bee kept secret forever when shared between more than three people. An old fact. Many newly released (20 years!) books about the second world war is about this fact.
The “west” has nothing to hide because it is “open”. The “east” is corrupt because it is “closed”. Well wikileaks has “opened” some of the open information. What is the problem ?. Maybee the “west” is the closed one ???
By the way, is the “west” and “east” from an european perspective ?
No one is normaly declared a hero in its own lifetime. Because of that, maybe the best thing to do by the US is to kill “him”. Then “he” will shurely be a hero.
Do not write anything you regret in a memo…. i regret this memo…..
Why would people who currently work at dry cleaners and taylors do their job for free?
I never knew that you could get a free presser. I wonder where I can find one.
Poor old Assange isn’t the problem, they’re desperately chasing a shadow.
He’s merely one of the progenitors, and the public face of an intensely non-public cohort of like-minded parties seeking – whatever they are seeking… openness & transparency in government?
Sadly – despite the past 20 years, governments of the world have not realised that everything is interconnected now, and chopping off the head will only make Wikileaks stronger and harder to find.
These ‘past-date’ leaders are trying for net-filters and other clumsy tools that have no hope of succeeding in the long-term.
Why not fix the problem at the root, workign toward a sustainable open & honest framework for the citizens of the world to govern by consensus.
It will take time, but is inevitable. Ask Kim Jong-Il – still hiding in the cupboard after all thes4 years.
Nothing too ironic here. We didn’t take any action against him or the media outlets who published Wikileaks’ stuff. We are not the country drumming up phony charges against him.
The less freedom the government allows the slaves the more it likes to celebrate it.
No, its great. We can lock them all up as they arrive!
Assange has jumped the shark.
It all seems very basic, either you believe in democracy, (people controlling/guiding the government by being informed) or you believe in a tyrant.
Like any good executive, the executive is only as good as he/she is informed/aware.
Since people are supposed to be the executive in charge of controlling/guiding the government, then the people are required to be well informed.
Do you think the pamphleteers like Thomas Paine, a journalist? Do you think his pamphlet “common sense” should be allowed to be in the public? Didn’t we have a revolutionary war about that already decided all this shit?
If you don’t like freedom of speech, live in a country more to your liking, move to Russia!!!
I’m telling you guys, Boobo got rape. We need some federal investigation here!
#3 dusanmal
WikiLeaks turned over all of the classified U.S. State Department cables it obtained to Le Monde in France, El Pais in Spain, The Guardian in Britain and Der Spiegel in Germany. The Guardian shared the material with The New York Times, and the five news organizations have been working together to plan the timing of their reports.
All “terrorists in clearest definition of the term”, as you so eloquently put it.
Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free, I believe some guy once said that.
-my 2¢
It is more likely World Press Freedom Day will be canceled due to lack of interest.
#3 is obviously a government shill.
-That aside, “Freedom of the Press” is yet another fiction of our scripted “democratic” delusion.
The “Free Press” was bought, payed for and killed decades, if not a centuries ago by the global intelligentsia, multinational machines and of course, the
egomaniacal royal misfits.
Any actual truths are carefully orchestrated “bones” for media pickings and political manipulations.
-no meat whatsoever.
Anecdotal observation:
As illuminating as some of the Wikileak cables may be, I’d like to know why so far, there does not appear to be even one “shocking cable” about Israel being ballyhooed about in the so called Free Press?
Are we to believe the untouchable “3rd Rail” of Media are so pristine and honorable that not once, was a negative or derogitory
thought provoked by any one of our most pompous elected officials in the US government “cable network”
-Business as usual.
We have been lied to for so long that should anything even resembling the actual truth, (or reality for that matter) finally see the light of day, it will be vehemently attacked it as if it were an epic plague against the very fabric Humanity itself.
The saddest part of it all, is that so ignorant are we, that a large majority of the populous will be at the very front of the onslaught to destroy it, -should the real truth ever be spied upon by the people’s eyes.
-s