PayPal has permanently restricted the account used by WikiLeaks due to a violation of the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy, which states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity. We’ve notified the account holder of this action.[1]
‘I wish to state my dissatisfaction with your decision to suspend payments to the Wikileaks website. The loyalty of any business should be to its customers, not the government. If Wikileaks is breaking any law, which is very doubtful, it is for the government to take action against it, not private business.
Wikileaks is merely publishing documents it received. Are you prepared to suspend payments to the Guardian newspaper, or the New York Times, who are equally guilty by your reasoning.
I am one of your customers and I’m disgusted with the PayPal/eBay
management. I will not be using your service again until this matter is resolved.[2]
PayPal today stated it stopped payments to the Wikileaks website because of pressure from the US Government. The firm’s vice-president Osama Bedier said the company received a letter from a ‘senior official’ at the US State Department saying the website’s activities were illegal in the US.
US Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip Crowley has accused Mister Bedier of lying.
According to the BBC:
US Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip Crowley tweeted: “The US government did not write to PayPal requesting any action regarding #WikiLeaks. Not true.”[3]
Finally, a politician has had the courage to raise his index finger to the all high and mighty American government, and tell it as it is.
From the BBC:
Australia’s foreign minister has said the US is to blame for the release of thousands of diplomatic cables on Wikileaks, not its Australian founder, Julian Assange.
Kevin Rudd said the release raised questions about US security.
Mr Rudd said he did not “give a damn” about criticism of him in the cables.[1]
In making the statement, Kevin Rudd has gone against his prime minister, Julia Gillard, who in an earlier quote called Assange, “grossly irresponsible”.
It’s good that one politician on the planet has discovered he still has a backbone. All the rest sold their’s to America in exchange for ‘favors’. That’s one thing the leaked cables have revealed.
Take the kindest, gentlest, pet dog, stamp on its foot with all your might, and it’ll turn round and try to bite you. It’s a reaction. The animal doesn’t think – it reacts. It’s what animals do when they’re subjected to pain, or fear. A dog that develops a sudden belly ache may well try to bite at its own stomach.
The instinctive urge to turn on those we believe don’t act in our best interests is still prevalent among human beings. Yet Homo sapiens is able to overcome this instinctive reaction; it has an ability not given to lower animals – the power of cognitive response.
Response is vastly superior to reaction. It involves the use of conscious thought processes. Reaction is entirely instinctive, any brain involvement being on a purely autonomic level. Unlike a dog, when Homo sapiens reacts to a situation that causes it pain, or fear, it usually manifests in the emotional form known as ‘revenge’.
It was to this superior power of cognitive response that Jesus of Nazareth eluded when he staggered his disciples by telling them, “Love thine enemies.” To the Jews of that time, living under the sword of Rome, sworn to banish the invaders from the Holy Land, he must have seemed crazy. But Jesus preached love. He realized there was no future for mankind while one nation was constantly trying to annihilate another out of some vague sense of self-righteous revenge.
At no time was this demonstrated more starkly than immediately following the events of 9/11/2001, when the vengeful blood-lust of American citizenry completely blocked out the love and compassion emanating from all corners of the globe. Instead, a mass wave of negative vengeful emotion sanctioned the US government’s razing of an innocent Middle East nation; one that had nothing whatever to do with the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon
Genuine diplomacy, an ability to care about and comprehend the other’s viewpoint and by so doing reach an amicable arrangement, was what Jesus of Nazareth meant when he commanded his followers to, “Turn the other cheek.”
Wikileaks website owner, Julian Assange, appears the latest victim of vengeful reaction, but whether or not the accusations of rape have any basis in truth, or, more likely, are an undercover attempt to silence Assange, the apparent reactions of certain high-profile, right-wing, politicians to the latest Wikileaks revelations are not what they seem. They are, in fact, carefully considered, cognitive, responses designed to appear reactive.
Newt Gingrich, (himself hardly ‘without sin’), has called for the hunting down and execution of Assange, as has Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum, and “Christian” Pastor Mike Huckabee.[1] [2]
While initially this may appear reaction rather than response, it must be remembered that all four are politicians with an eye to the presidency in 2012. Their aim is to secure support from voters. Projecting such, apparently, reactive opinions into the public arena is no more than a deliberate attempt to stir up the same nationalistic, combative, fervor that prevailed after 9/11.
Strangely, all these high-profile individuals publicize themselves as ardent followers of that same Jesus of Nazareth whose teachings advocated ‘turning the other cheek’. However, that is merely another result of their own cognitive responses. In a nation that salves its conscience by the advocacy of a decidedly warped form of Christianity, no politician will make career progress by declaring himself, or herself, other than a fervent member of that faith.
The aim of all four politicals is to head a national blood-lust against Assange that will create for them mythical leadership qualities capable of propelling one of them into the White House. Personal gain is the ultimate reward, rather than any concern for national security.
Meanwhile, Mr & Mrs John Doe have yet to prove whether their Christianity is as warped as that of their leaders, or indeed, if their brains are more evolved than that of a domestic pet dog.
Wikileaks
Manipulating the masses