“Michael Hastings contacted WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him.” – says the Guardian.
Michael Hastings was best known for his 2010 article in the Rolling Stone magazine about General Stanley McChrystal. The general was forced to resign from his post as commander of all U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan as a result of the piece.
So, we know Michael Hastings wasn’t your average reporter. He dug as deep as the story required and wasn’t afraid of angering the establishment. And he had the “wrong” friends.
But should he have been concerned for his life? Did the government kill him? We are the good guys, right?
He died in a car crash. His car, apparently a Mercedes (details are sketchy) was wrapped around a tree and it caught fire. Immediately, the web was flooded with conspiracy theories. Not surprising, given the circumstances.
He was disliked by the establishment. He was apparently working on a piece relating to the NSA scandal, so the timing is interesting. Mercedes generally manufacture quality cars that don’t catch fire on impact. The U.S. government is unlikely to be thrilled about yet another leak, scandal or anything that will complicate their situation even further.
Whether the government killed Hastings or not, it is interesting to see how people are not shocked by the idea. People are not surprised at all. Indifferent even. It seems to indicate that we have reached a point in history where people expect the worst of the authorities. Believe their elected leaders will do anything to silence inconvenient voices. We are either living in a sick, totalitarian world, or the authorities have behaved in such a way that the general population believe they live in such a world.
This wasn’t always the case. Somewhere along the way, it all went horribly wrong.
We elected them. We live in a democracy. Elected officials should work for us, but everyone seems to have forgotten about that.
Streets around the world are flooded with people demonstrating against their governments. From Turkey to Brazil and beyond, the world seems to be going through a great shift. People are waking up to the fact that things are not as they seemed. We don’t live in democracies after all. Liberty was sacrificed on the altar of fake security a long time ago.
But will this be another 1917 or 1968? Will the powers be toppled like they were in Russia, where an initially well meaning, but ultimately more corrupt leadership doomed a nation to a century of poverty, lies and persecutions? Or will it be like 1968, where no governments were toppled, but a slight shift in values and norms was temporarily achieved? Or will it be 1989, where oppressive governments will be toppled and people will be able to live in relative freedom for a while, until the next generation, that never knew the hardships and the corruption, takes over and starts abusing their power?
It’s hard to tell, but the summer of 2013 will probably be up there with the ones mentioned above. And rightly so, because if we can’t trust the people we elect into power, because the system makes it easy to abuse said power, it is time for change. Real and lasting change.
Here is hoping we get it right this time.
Posted in politics, thoughts, Uncategorized | Tagged istanbul, murder, peace, politics, revolution, thoughts, war
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