So today we’re going to be talking about whistleblowers. Not ones like the nice lady pictured above. I mean the kind that reveals secret information to the public. Though maybe she’s doing that and is just being dramatic about it. Who knows.
Whistleblowing is something that is incredibly important in any society. I would argue it’s practically a necessity. Anytime you have an entity – be it a corporation or a government – there are going to be things they try to hide and cover up. Not just from enemy entities (rival companies or countries), but also from their own internal people. Whistleblowers help ensure that any illegal or unethical practices are revealed so corrective action may be taken. They are an integral part of the system.
Today we’re going to be looking at a few political whistleblowers and how they have been treated. People who, at great personal risk, have revealed aspects of our government to the world so that the public can know what is being done in their names. Because that is, at the end of the day, what a government is supposed to be: the representative of a group of people.
What Is A Whistleblower?
Whistleblowers are invaluable. They help ensure that organizations are doing the right thing from within. Yet they aren’t treated as the heros they are; far from it. Most are vilified. People don’t appreciate them – unless of course, their whistleblowing aligns with their own personal values.
It is this aspect of whistleblowing that this article is focused on: the hypocrisy with which the establishment – especially the media – treat political whistleblowers.
Julian Assange
This is Julian Assange. He is the founder of Wikileaks, most famous right now for being the platform through which other whistleblowers revealed information about Hillary Clinton’s legendarily atrocious 2016 campaign.
My colleague, Shawn Ketcham, wrote an excellent summary of what Wikileaks & Julian Assange have done, and I encourage you all to read that article. I won’t go into the sum total of the information that Wikileaks has released as that has been talked about elsewhere. My purpose is to use Julian Assange as a prime example of how the media is hypocritical in their treatment of whistleblowers.
The Hypocrisy
Not many people seem to be aware, or they just refuse to acknowledge, that before Julian and Wikileaks were being demonized by CNN, MSNBC, & every neoliberal under the sun, they were being praised for their journalism.
Yes, the very same people calling for Julian’s “trial” and the resulting execution for “treason”, once labeled him a hero. What happened?
You see, Wikileaks first came to prominence for reporting on the crimes of the GOP and the Republicans, mostly surrounding the Iraq War and the multiple horrendous war crimes that occured – and are still occuring.
At that time, the Democrats were ostensibly against these things and so they welcomed the reporting of Wikileaks because it gave them ammunition to use against the Republicans. The Republicans, of course, labeled Assange a terrorist and traitor and called for his execution. But the Democrats defended him.
That is until 2016 when he released Hillary Clinton’s emails. When he attacked the Queen, he stepped too far. The Democrats couldn’t have their own secrets being exposed. That’s when Julian went from hero to arch-villain almost overnight. In the mainstream media, Julian was Public Enemy #1.
Right now, unfortunately the US seems to have won. Julian was recently extradited from where he was taking shelter and is currently being tortured as we speak. A man who did nothing except tell the American people what their government was doing in their names is being tortured, right now.
And the Democrats are just fine with that.
Edward Snowden
This man has been demonized more than Julian Assange, if possible. That is because Edward Snowden released information about the NSA & the programs of mass surveillance that have been put into place in America.
Unlike Assange, Snowden never enjoyed the temporary backing of the Democrats. He was vilified by both parties immediately. That’s because the information he released struck at both of our supposedly separate political parties, and our government as a whole, not just one aspect.
Again, multiple articles have been written on Snowden. He’s even written his own books, which I highly recommend reading. I mention Snowden not to go into his actions, but to illustrate further how the media treats certain whistleblowers over others.
The Hypocrisy
Recently, CNN did a segment on the Ukraine whistleblower. The one who had information about Donald Trump doing illegal things and who was being propped up as a key witness for the impeachment hearings.
As you may have guessed, they love whoever this whistleblower is. Love them. Their segment praised them. But, they also made a special effort to draw a comparison between this Ukraine whistleblower and other whistleblowers, like Snowden.
Yea. It doesn’t get much more blatant than that. Partisan hackery at its finest. The Ukraine whistleblower helps the Democrats, so they’re “legitimate”. Other whistleblowers hurt the Democrats, so they’re not.
Snowden, luckily, is safe in Russia. He has been writing books and making appearances on certain media platforms talking about his story. His voice has not been silenced, despite the best efforts of our corrupt government to do so. More power to him.
Reality Winner
You may not have heard of Reality Winner. She isn’t as well known as Julian Assange or Edward Snowden. However, she is no less a hero. Reality, like Snowden, worked as an intelligence specialist for the American government. She was arrested and charged in 2017 for passing information to a news outlet.
The information she passed on were reports about attempted Russian interference in the 2016 election by hacking voter machine software and sending some phishing emails to election officials.
This information exposed just how lax our election security is, and how stupid it is to be transitioning to electronic voting machines owned and operated by 2 companies (both of which are major donors of Nancy Pelosi & Mitch McConnell, incidentally).
For her “crime” she was sentenced to prison after accepting a plea deal, where she currently resides.
The Hypocrisy
The hypocrisy with Reality Winner comes mostly from the Tyrant-In-Chief, Donald Trump. Trump has tweeted about Reality, criticizing her sentence for such a “small potatoes” crime compared to what Hillary Clinton herself did.
Contrast this with the tweets he’s put out about Edward Snowden, where he’s called him a spy deserving of execution.
I don’t even need to point out how he’s been tweeting about the Ukraine whistleblower.
This is hypocrisy at its finest. A whistleblower who ostensibly is helping him is amazing and shouldn’t be in jail. A whistleblower who hurts him (and the government) is a villain and should be killed.
Conclusions
A whistleblower is a whistleblower. They are all legitimate, regardless of whether or not their information is on one party or all of government. It is not the role of the media to play favorites. However, in our partisan environment, that’s exactly what happens. It also doesn’t help that the various mainstream news outlets essentially function as propaganda arms of the political parties; Fox for the Republicans and MSNBC & CNN for the Democrats.
Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Reality Winner, and so many others are heros, and deserve to be treated as such. They are not traitors, or villains, or bad actors. They are trying to protect our rights as the public to know what our own government is doing.
Free them all.