Still, it is not easy knowing who is who when they play the
same game using the same strategies, moves, gambits,
ploys, feints, struts, deceptions. This mirroring of the opposition
is a long tradition of authorities, their covert agents and
provocateurs manipulating their citizenry, consumers, fans,
doling out manufactured information.

No doubt the game advances the interests of all the games players
so long as they follow their agreed upon rules and cheat very
carefully. We may admire their skill and daring and triumphs but
the rules state we are not qualified to be the players, that requires
ranking by authorities of the game.

Assange was once not a player, studied hard, watched the masters,
now he is surrounded by grand masterful players and reaps the
rewards of fame, acclaim, and happily the monetary prizes, to
be sure spending a lot of that on lawyers and promoters. So
it goes.

Meanwhile there is a need for more undoctored documents
for the newbies and bystanders angling for a chance, for
consumers to see what happens offstage, how vetting and
redacting, parceling and censoring is done.

But Assange and cohorts have become secretive about the
WikiLeaks operation and apparently (who knows) hidden
stashes of income, in concert with the practices of secretkeepers
of all stripes.

And not least WL engages in defamation to an almost hysterical
extent that suggests much to hide, again mirroring authoritarian
shilling. Promoting adversarialism is ancient theocracy where
only priests play the game they rig.

Let us all play, unmedicated by reputation-mongering tradecraft
of TV, news, advertizing, limited access to documentation and
overload of "if you knew what we know, trust us" pulp fiction.

At 10:21 AM 9/4/2013, you wrote:

2013/9/4 John Young <jya@pipeline.com>

The Snowden material needs an untethered, unchoked,

and unmarionetted leaker not more commercial journalism

dribbling what, unforntunately has become common in the

"era of WikiLeaks journalism," is disinfo. And implies the

prospect of complicity with authorities under rigging of

privileged journalism and coddled D-Noticers.

You could say playing games is what politicians do. But not playing the games means you get no game. Assange does explicitly, publicly and knowingly play games. He knows they work. Had all the documents been published unedited there would be a single headline in every newspaper.

Now there's thousands. Every week it's hammered upon. We see people claiming "Oh, see, the NSA said something to make it okay, and I think it actually is!" only to be stomped by the next headline showing it was definitely not okay. This releasing scheme is a very, very good match for the current journalistic reality.

Given Assange seems to be pretty well on the side of civil liberty, freedom and power, I think he's doing a rather good job.