I wouldn't say it is an intentional group smear campaign against wikileaks, ATS members tend to latch on to idea's and thread after thread will be posted discussing the same topic. Plus many ATS members have a natural tendency to think of everything as a false flag or give 'elites' some deity like status where they control absolutely anything and everything.

I don't know about a smear campaign against wikileaks, but my thoughts are as follows...

The government wants to crack down on the internet because information is so widely available... but they have no way to do it yet.

How did they infringe on all our other rights so far? National security.

So I think they purposely let Manning leak documents to wikileaks, nothing too important, just enough to cause a stir. Combine that with the "Shirley Sherrod" story, and suddenly you have the mainstream media rambling on about how we need internet regulations and non-anonymity to prevent 'hate speech', 'slander' and protect 'national security'.

I think wikileaks was used as a tool to further the Military Industrial Complex and NWO's aims...

Originally posted by Solomons
I wouldn't say it is an intentional group smear campaign against wikileaks, ATS members tend to latch on to idea's and thread after thread will be posted discussing the same topic. Plus many ATS members have a natural tendency to think of everything as a false flag or give 'elites' some deity like status where they control absolutely anything and everything.

Very true.

This is also important to have in mind. They dont have unlimited power and people are starting to wake up. Do you remember what the world was like 20 years ago? People were completely asleep, including myself. Its almost funny to think about just how asleep I was.

Then 9/11 happened and me and others suddenly woke up. What the heck just happened here? Why did it happen? How could it happen? Whats going on in the world?

From then on, its been a very interesting learning experience for a lot of people, and today there are tons of people who realize we have lost the power to decide where we are heading. So its time to get that power back.


[edit on 31-7-2010 by Copernicus]

Originally posted by Sheol
You will also note that in all the threads you posted there are 2-3 users in each of them who are on forefront of running this propaganda campaign. One has to wonder why, right?

Absolutely. And talk about it.

There may be some truth to what the OP says, but here is my major problem with this whole wikileaks thing.
If a member of ATS comes out and says I have information on an Alex Jones Panic scale,
I expect to see GWbush dancing around a fire pit sacrificing kittens.
Mr Assange said he had (I cannot remember the exact text but,) huge evidence on a major scale.
Then he releases numbers, there is a whole list of things that were done but the only thing that I saw that was even partly damming was the civilian loss numbers.
This is very comparable to a beautiful woman sitting on your lap scantily clad telling you of all of the nasty things she was going to do to you and how many egg beaters were going to be broken in the process as she then kisses you on the forehead and leaves.
The advertising just didn’t hold up to the product specs.
Now if Mr. Assange wishes to reconcile this I will need real proof of something BIG, otherwise he was just a hypester.
Simple as that for me.
But the OP sees what he believes is an accurate angle and he has voiced his/her opinion and good for him/her.
The truth is all that is important.

This is one of the problems some ATSter have. They are so paranoid about what is going on in the world, they fail to see the “real” conspiracies. They lose the ability to differentiate between conspiracy hypothesis, theory and fact. This has led to a small minority of people on ATS who are suspicious of everything despite the most extreme and outrageous conspiracies. I would not say that this is a coordinated effort to discredit Wikileaks, rather it is the coincidental collective mind of a group of people who suspect everything.

Remember, this is ATS where the gamut runs from fact-reporting to speculation to outright hallucination.

IF subject matter = "X" THEN threads =

X is true.

Anyone who questions the truth of X is a traitor / coward /dupe / disinfo agent.

Anyone who believes in the truth of X is a traitor / coward /dupe / disinfo agent.

X is false-flag

X is a gift from the benevolent alens

X is an attack from the evil aliens

Did X really happen?

I just arrived in this universe through a time-track slip; what does "X" mean?

The illuminati are behind X, and I have PROOF!

X is the Antichrist [Insert verses from Ezekiel, Daniel, or Revelation here]

X: Typical left-wing crap

X: Typical right-wing crap

There is no X, its an illusion that can be dispelled by raising our vibrational level together and projecting positive intentionality

I think that it is important to realize that whether this is a smear campaign or not, that one should ponder valid questions raised by some of the posts. I have posted in one of those threads, thinking that the entire situation is suspect to say the least. That doesn't mean that what I suspect is true, but it should at least be considered.

Isn't being open to questioning that which is around you being "awake?"

I don't see a smear campaign. Assange took certain actions, there will be certain repercussions.

The problem ultimately with Wikileaks is none of the information "leaked" through them is vetted. Anyone, from anywhere, could leak secrets to that site. That means it could be a perfect disinfo site for the CIA, FBI, DoD, Mossad, etc., with any complicity on the part of Wikileaks or Assange.

Character assassins will point out Assange is not just a computer hacker, but a CONVICTED computer hacker. For all anyone here knows, Assange made a deal to avoid jail time and is working undercover. Then again, he might be just what he appears, some guy who put together a wiki-oriented site for whistleblowers.

He released classified docs from the DoD. Irresponsible? Yes. Especially since they contain informants names. Those people are walking dead men.

Do the docs contain possible evidence of war crimes? Then perhaps leaking them will bring about justice, and possibly end sooner an unjust war. It's a humane and conscientious thing to do.

Which outweighs the other, the irresponsible act or the conscientious?

Wikileaks isn't exactly original, Cryptome has been doing this forever, just not on as big a scale, it's still Web 1.0, Wikileaks latched onto the wiki craze (anyone can run a wiki script).