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Transparency is the key. Governments love secrecy because that allows them to do whatever nasty stuff they want while pretending to be righteous at the surface.
by brabel 3y ago
Transparency is the key. Governments love secrecy because that allows them to do whatever nasty stuff they want while pretending to be righteous at the surface.
Just look at past secrets that have been disclosed recently and think: should those things really be secret? I say absolutely no.
The mentality of keeping things secret to hide your real intentions, or to not upset people too much (or they will panic!), or to keep other governments on their toes so you're ready to take them by surprise in the event of a conflict (how has that worked so far? The real threat actors will know anyway what naughty stuff you're doing to make sure they'll be the losers if the need arises - like when you just urgently need more cheap oil) is something we, all peoples of the world, need to overcome as soon as possible.
You may argue the situation in the world right now proves that governments need to be ready for conflict all the time, and secrecy gives them more power to take enemies by surprise... but you're mistaken, it's exactly the opposite! The whole China/Russia animosities are due to the West patently doing things, like keeping military bases in every weak country[1] that will let them around China and Russia, that clearly shows they have every intention to escalate to a war with them at the earliest sign of trouble, yet we lie without hesitation about it... like we're the peaceful people who keep trying to convince evil governments to change their belligerent ways. Perhaps if we stopped putting weapons pointing right at them, right at their neighbourhood, they would be better persuaded that war is not a possibility?
We do the same with climate change by the way... we want everyone else to change, or we won't do it alone, forgetting that we're the ones who pumped 90% of the CO2 into the atmosphere over the last 200 years of industrialization, while some countries that are now considered "climate villains" have been on it for only a couple of decades... hypocrisy at its worst.
[1] https://www.rferl.org/a/where-are-us-and-russian-military-bases-in-the-world/28890842.html https://www.rferl.org/a/where-are-us-and-russian-military-ba...
- heywhatupboys 3y agoSee also this columnist's take on secrets: "Biden’s classified leak isn’t the problem. The government shouldn’t have secrets in the first place." https://cinchnews.com/2023/01/26/bidens-classified-leak-isnt-the-problem-the-government-shouldnt-have-secrets-in-the-first-place/ https://cinchnews.com/2023/01/26/bidens-classified-leak-isnt...
- genman 3y agoI think you completely misinterpret the situation with Russia and China. Russia and China have the objectives of their own. For Russia it is to expand their empire that in their own mind rightfully belongs to them. They didn't attack Ukraine because of US actions but because they seriously believe that they have some kind of right over Ukrainians lands, or even more seriously, that Ukrainians don't exists. If US would have been in Ukraine, or moved in rapidly when the situation became dangerous, there wouldn't be war at them moment. We see this clearly play out in far east, where China has ambition to overtake Taiwan (what they like Russia with Ukraine believe to belong rightfully to themselves). They clearly would have already attacked if it wasn't clear that US will prevent them doing so. I'm certain that they would have done it, had US backed away from Ukraine. I'm also certain that what led Russia to believe that they could pull off Ukrainian invasion, was the US departure from Afghanistan, not that they did it but how they did it by letting Taliban completely humiliate them without any response. Russia believed that US is weak, not interested, and it would possibly have been like that, had Ukraine not managed to pull off very strong response. US is there to fill the vacuum. If it was not US, it would be China (or it could Russia possibly). If not today, then eventually it would be one of them. I prefer US because it is more predictable and rule based and in the long run more favorable for the people.
- Matl 3y agoThere are many, many explanations for i.e. why didn't China attack Taiwan (yet) and while the U.S. finger in the region helps in some ways, supporting Taiwan proclaiming independence for example may actually not be helping to prevent war there. It seems to me like China is much more reluctant than Russia is to go to such a war, probably because apart from facing domestic nationalistic pressure to do so, there's little actual reason and China does not really want to have its (in Chinese memory) recent expansion of the middle class stopped by facing isolation. Even the Chinese government responds to popular pressure by simply adjusting its policy more often than deploying tanks. With regards to Russia, Putin, (being a Russian neocon), is using the example of how Russians are sometimes treated in former Soviet countries with regards to citizenship, speaking Russian etc., as well as Ukraine say banning Russian language books or the Russian flag being banned at sports events, which actually helps his cause domestically. If we were actually interested in weakening his grip, we'd strongly oppose such policies imo.