Special Blog Poll:
If You Knew
Suppose you had an article you wanted to write. Your intention was to present a conclusion you had reached, one you had offered or strongly suggested in previous articles you had published. The article you were considering was different from the others, however, in that you had gathered more information, and some of that information was of a different kind: many new bits and pieces—facts, observations, hearsay—from people with whom you had spoken. None of these individuals were "connected" in any meaningful way to some central source of secrets; they were, instead, rather common men and women living as they are in extraordinary times and circumstances. What they had told you had created in your mind a compelling case: their individual perspectives had coordinated with your own general and specific knowledge to lead you to near certainty. Whether or not you would put your judgment quite so starkly in a planned article would be a matter of rhetorical style, but you have no doubt that what you have to say is worthy of publication.The problem is that this is an era in which publishing such a story could very well be construed by federal law enforcement personnel as a national security issue. Worse still, those with whom you had spoken might or might not know about your particular political leanings, but you are pretty sure they did not at the time and still do not know you are a writer whose works are read by people all across the nation and the world. It is possible that your sources would not have spoken nearly so freely with you had they known about your literary and journalistic work; and as such, you have no direct permission to quote them. (However, you can't shake the suspicion that some of them actually did know about your journalistic work and were trying to warn the country through you.) If their association with your article were to be revealed, their careers could be in jeopardy were national security interests to learn their names; and even if you were to minimally buttress the credibility of your article by citing "anonymous sources," you know very well that federal courts have now dismissed journalistic source privilege as an affirmative assertion before federal grand juries.
Knowing all that you know, what would you do?
If You Knew
Published 3/14/2006 08:40:00 PM
<< 44 Comments Total
Good evening, Dark Wraith.
That is a very difficult decision. Ouch!
Good evening, Old White Lady.
That's why the readers here at The Dark Wraith Forums are going to help me with it... in a purely hypothetical way, of course.
The Dark Wraith could then, if worse came to worse and this poll had anything to do with something that was really going on, tell the grand jury that it wasn't his fault.
Good evening, DW. I would certainly publish and cite anonymous sources.
Your statement, " federal courts have now dismissed journalistic source privilege as an affirmative assertion before federal grand juries." is not quite as certain as you imply, IMO. I believe (or am I just hoping here?) that courts generally are very reluctant to dismiss privilege and have a pretty high bar set before they will do a Miller deal with prosecutors.
Good evening, Dark Wraith.
Might I suggest another option? I would write the article citing anonymous sources, then shop it around to various mainstream publications. I would promise those institutions to reveal my sources to my editor as soon as I had their written guarantee that if they chose to publish the article, they would protect both me and my sources in court. Of course, if upon learning the sources they chose not to publish the article within a certain reasonable time limit, I would want the freedom to find someone else to publish it, or choose one of the other options suggested in your poll.
Perhaps that isn't a feasible thing to do. Nonetheless, because it is another option, I'm throwing it out there for your consideration.
Good evening, Lymond.
You raise an important point, one I plan to address in my next update on the Valerie Plame scandal.
There are claims flying around certain parts of the Internet that hundreds of journalists are now being subpoenaed by federal prosecutors, who are being given virtual carte blanche by those national security letters they've been allowed to use thanks to the Patriot Act.
Whether or not the "hundreds" is accurate I have yet to confirm, and I might not be able to do so, given that many of these individuals and news organizations are apparently not even permitted to disclose that they have been nailed. One journalist that some dismiss as a bit of a whacko (I do not) is defying an order against him not only by refusing to surrender records, but also by publishing the fact that records have been demanded of his Web host. Interestingly, in his case the Web host was sent a one of those national security letters; but since this fellow hosts his own site, he's in the rather awkward position of being forbidden from telling himself about the demand for information.
As secretive as I am, I must admit that I would have a really hard time with that order.
Cripe. I couldn't even mutter to myself about what a bunch of Gestapo jackboots the feds were.
Come to think of it, I've talked to myself about these issues when my cat was lying on my desk. Now I'm wondering if the cat has been issued some kind of subpoena about which she's forbidden from telling me.
I never did trust that cat.
The Dark Wraith needs to check that cat for a wire.
First, I'm going to comment.
Then, I'm going to vote.
My son is a veteran of Gulf War I who came home alive but who was exposed in Iraq to Depleted Uranium poisoning. My son has three children, as does my daughter. Their children's ages range from 3 to 12 years and I'm quite certain that all of these young folk will at some time be exposed to the horrors of armed conflict, unless the current program of perpetual war being used to sustain the faltering American economy is halted.
Someone, and I forget where, once estimated that since the beginning of recorded history, two billion people have died as a result of the wars that mankind wages upon itself.
A great American journalist, Sidney J. Harris once wrote, "Only among men is Nature's law of 'survival of the fittest' thwarted and indeed, reversed; for in almost every generation the fittest are sent forth to be slaughtered by orders of the stunted, the twisted, and the senile".
Will the document save lives?
"As long as you have done unto one of these the least of my brethren, you have done it unto Me".
Now I'm going to vote.
Good evening, Charlie.
I'm really glad you brought that option up: a variation of it was on my mind, and I didn't offer it because of the specific circumstances under which I, as opposed to others, operate. Had this hypothetical article been the planned work of someone other than me, that would definitely have been an option of greater or lesser potential for realization. However, I have learned over a period of many years, and I have learned keenly and quite painfully over the course of this past year or so, that I'm not going to be published by any mainstream print media outlet. It's just not going to happen for me.
I've shopped my best articles from here at The Dark Wraith Forums, and there is nothing—I mean to tell you, nothing—out there that wants anything whatsoever to do with my work.
There are several reasons for this. First, I'm a blogger; and second, I'm not one of the first-tier bloggers.
Oh, yes. Third, I rather suck as a writer. Not as much as some, mind you, but sufficiently to ensure that no mainstream magazine or book publisher in his right mind is going to waste good trees on bad print.
And this isn't self-efacing modesty; rather, this is the conclusion from a nice stack of polite, form-generated, U-Suck rejection letters I've received.
Under the circumstances, I couldn't get a publisher to print such an article, which means the probability that I'll have any negotiating room in which to have a publisher guarantee my defense is exactly zero.
That's why I didn't put this option in the poll.
The Dark Wraith finds a sort of grim humor in the short list of options available.
Good evening, Dark Wraith.
Wow.
I voted for option 3: publish the article, but do so without making any claims that you have spoken with anyone who is directly in the know. Though, inevitably, this choice was influenced a great deal by my overwhelming curiosity about your discoveries.
I suppose a lot depends the specific nature of the information you have been given, and the accuracy of the conclusions you have pieced together. If a certain threshold of sensitivity is breached then it doesn't matter how you choose to parse it; the hammer of GOD will come crashing down. In which case you may as well publish all, and be damned, if you think it's worth the possible consequences.
Well, shit. I don't suppose there's much mystery about the target country, given the graphic, lol. You know, I'd really been hoping that this wouldn't happen. For the past couple of months every fiber of my being has been screaming that surely, they can't be THAT stupid. What about the price of oil? Where will they find the troops to do this? How would they get permission from Congress? With public opinion the way it is even the Repugs wouldn't dare to be this brazen in an election year. It's just plain impossible; madness; total insanity. The ramifications are unthinkable. But then something's been bothering me.
The drop down in American casualties in Iraq over the past couple of months seems anomalous given what's been happening on the ground. It could be that we are simply giving up, or trying not to exacerbate the situation - hunkering down in bases and hoping that it all blows over - but there's another possibility. Namely, that they're prepping for something big, and that Iraq is already in the rear view mirror. Rumsfeld has certainly been making some signals to this effect.
Dear God, the mind just boggles.
Pussies. No personal offense to anyone but the current voting is going the way of the pussy democrats (exactly like with their stance on Feingold's censure proposal). At this rate we'll never have a straw that broke the fvcking camel's back.
The answer should be obvious if the question is important enough to ask. Anonymous sources? A lame approach - unless you have enough credibility (or really, really good dirt) to get noticed to begin with. Then, maybe, would anon sources work to your advantage by being able to create more air time for the issue under the guise of trying to "protect" your sources by drawing it out. Otherwise you'll get swept under the rug.
This country is in serious trouble and has been for some time now; a majority of people realize this to some degree. Borrow a line from the neo-cons - if you are not for changing this sad state of affairs you are against us. I say standup and fight - publish and name sources, and by doing that, either force the sources to support your conclusion or show themselves to be yellow-bellied sheeple.
"Namely, that they're prepping for something big..." -- Mr. Shakes
Something big? Consider this, Mr. Shakes: In the last 108 years, the United States has waged war on The Phillipines, Germany, Italy, Japan, North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Iraq, Russia (a cold war but we 'won'), and now we're planning an assault on Iran. What country is surrounded by all these countries?
Then, I invite you to read:
"Yuan Has Biggest Gain Since Revaluation After Wen's Comments"
(Bloomberg) -- "China's yuan had the biggest gain since a decade-old peg to the dollar ended in July, after Premier Wen Jiabao called for the market to play a greater role in setting exchange rates."
Balance of article is at http://tinyurl.com/qoc8z
Think about all the blogs and websites that post preposterous claims. Is anything done about it by the government? They seem to keep updating regularly. I thought I had read just about every opinion on these interesting time on the internet. Print is another story. It appears that the government is more interested in what is printed even though I imagine a webpage might have even more readers eventually.
I'd keep my sources anonymous, connect the dots and pull a bush saying you would have to trust me on this. heh.
Based on you response to Pteroflonetree In order to get this piece of work published it seems that you would need to quote them...does it not?
Or if you are happy just knowing that years from now you can stand upright and say "I told you so" feel free to go anonymous.
Being married I can attest to the "I told you so" years later is sweet! Being a Man though it is sweet for 2 seconds b/c the woman always forgets what you are referring too.
Good morning, Donviti.
Although I consider it a matter of duty and honor to come to the defense of friends in their times of need and trial, when it comes to providing supporting words to a man who has just referenced the male perspective on the nuances and frustrations of marriage, my response is typically, "You are on your own, Chief."
The Dark Wraith will, however, have a moment of respectful silence should Donviti's comment lead to sundry and adverse consequences.
Regarding your earlier comment about your writing skills, I completely disagree. Having voted in the Koufax awards and having visited the sites and posts of other bloggers in the lefty community, your works, particularly in the "Best Series" and "Best Single Posts", by far outshine the great majority of other contenders. I am grateful that the Koufax awards has given me a chance to discover many other worthy sites that I haven't visited before; however I am a bit ticked by what I suspect is blatant "Ballot stuffing" by a certain professor who, unlike our host, clearly identifies himself, thereby leaving an open invitation for his students to score points by voting for his blog. Not that this instructor's work is bad, mind you; it's just that his writing style is not as engaging, and his humor is nowhere nearly as sharp as the rapier wit of the Wraith himself.
Even under the “Best Single Humorous Posts” category, I found most entries pleasantly entertaining at best; but none, and I mean NONE, begin to compare with the post our host did on AmericaBlog after the Election 2004 debacle, about the Bush/Kerry Tag Team smackdown. (I have it archived on my computer; I don’t know if AmericaBlog still has it on there server.)
i voted for the third option, publish w/o names. i'm thinking you, er, it, could generate interest, which would mean more people nosing around. tho i do think option 2 is viable also. perhaps you, or whoever, could write the piece with names and quotes and ask the named to "preview" it, giving them, privately, a chance to see who else has spoken up.
publish here and label it fiction if you must. i think we'll get the drift.
oh yeah. thanks lindibee for the reminder about writing quality.
no hiding behind that now DW. we read your stuff. we know you can write.
The world, including the world of successful authors, is replete with rejection notices from publishing houses - all with polite variations on "That sucked! You're a horrible writer!"
You may or may not get published, but you most definitely can write!
- oddjob
"So let it be written; so let it be done."
Good luck with your decision. In a not disimilar situation I once took the info I had and approached a couple of fairly well-known journalists. The first one did nothing and the second (Washington Post) said he would look into it but nothing as yet.
Good morning, Dark Wraith. Regarding your quote: ...Diplomatic and covert operations methods have allowed not one, but two whacko nations to come within a hair's breadth of having the nuclear capability to blow their neighbors to Kingdom Come.
That really depends on how you define "Whacko"...and "allowed"... and "having".
Because of our readiness to attack others (and the arrogance of our leaders) we could now be construed as "whacko". Of course, we already have nuclear capabilities.
Good morning, Dark Wraith.
That's a difficult problem, indeed. I voted for calling my sources "anonymous", evn though I feel uneasy about that. If there had been an option to discuss the article with my sources first, before hitting "publish", say, I would do that and name names in the article itself.
There are some people who wouldn't appreciate it any other way, and I respect that. So...I'd rather name names if the sources agree.
By the way, I'd like to say a belated thank you for the warm welcome a while back. I've been getting all sorts of help with my writing lately, so I haven't been commenting as I'd like to.
Good morning, karen m.
You are, of course, correct that the straight-forward approach of asking the sources for permission to use their names would be best. My dilemma is that I have a standing policy of not telling former students the URL of this Website, although in a few cases, I make an exception based upon their political leanings and the likelihood that they'll ever take a course from me again.
As LindiBee noted, some professors openly promote their blogs to current and former students. In my judgment, that's a pretty bright conflict-of-interest line the other side of which I don't want to explore in most circumstances. It is for similar reasons that I waive royalties on published content I have students purchase and that I refuse to require or even suggest magazines and journals like Barron's and the Wall Street Journal that give in-kind or other kickbacks to professors who sell subscriptions to students. (This kind of publisher push-marketing is getting a little more noticeable these days, by the way.) As noted, others have no problem with this, and that's their call. It's also their call to claim this is a matter of academic freedom, just as it's my call to introduce at the administrative level outright bans on such practices.
To the matter at hand, my article entitled "Fire and Seeds" was sufficiently close to the line to give me some pause because of the personal nature of descriptions I set forth. I plan to write another article about certain incidents at a religious college at which I taught, and that article will approach (but not go way too far into) a zone of discomfort for me in not seeking direct permission from people described therein.
The one about what people have told me concerning war is where I would be better off asking permissions, but to do so would for the sake of honestly letting them know what I write here probably necessitate telling them the URL of this blog, thereby opening the can of worms about which I was blathering above.
Tough calls. Sort of like in my days of consulting when I was between my duty to tell securities administrators of wrong-doing by clients and my sense of obligation to long-standing friends, both those who were committing violations and those whose investments would surely be wrecked by my disclosures before they could sell out their positions.
Damnable be the moral dilemmas.
The Dark Wraith ought to consider becoming a hermit.
Publish it as an OP-Ed. Let the burden of proof fall on the reader.
Say it as a matter of fact and don't cite sources.
This is how the pundits play the game anyhow.
If people pester you for facts, sources, and references, tell them to go google themselves.
Good evening, PoliShifter.
Telling people to "go Google themselves" sounds almost obscene!
I wonder if a Democratic member of the Senate who went and googled himself would get referred to the Endangered Invertebrates Display at the Smithsonian Museum or something like that.
Oh, I keep forgetting that the official Democratic Party line now is that what we bloggers think and write doesn't matter.
That's sort of liberating in a way, don't you think, PoliShifter? Complete freedom from relevance: sort of like the Yippies before the Democratic National Convention in 1968.
God, how I love history repeating itself. It makes for a lot less memorization when it comes to taking the test.
The Dark Wraith is getting creeped out by what looks for all the world like Hubert Humphrey's face in this cup of coffee on the desk.
Evining DW,
Fascinated by the arguments backing up the responses.
I guess authors have always faced a certain sense of risk for sundry reasons, but once personal safety and that of others enter the equation it is no longer the least bit funny.
We truly may have reached that point, especially with the DOJ willing to push the espionage law into a large envelope without windows. (courtesy of Haliburton)
Personally I would have to take into serious consideration how my publishing would affect my sources. Lets say I were able to quote someone, but then the gov. starts asking questions. There goes my source and possibly any others that may have considered giving me good information. So how will I continue getting the word out to the public then?
Deep background based on how Newsweek operates gives one plenty of clues today; so who is willing to stick their neck out besides me the writer.
I have a tendency to want to side with My PetGoat and say you bet we are all pussies, but what about the person with this information who really wants it to get out and has a true concern and fear of reprisal.
Leads me to go with the third one leaving me the author in the hot seat publishing what little I can in hopes it will be seen and understood leading to positive change.
Just don't call me Judy!!!
Since the first day I posted a comment I have felt welcomed here but even without all the great coffee I would have returned because of what and how you write.
And must include: the puns!!!
p.s. the grand jury would have a hard time accepting what you wrote was not your fault. Unless you had a different nickname lol
Hi Dark Wraith,
I seem to remember the members of the House of Burgesses saying the same thing about pamphleteers during the 1770's.
The pamphleteers were calling for seperation from England and Independence.
Initially the powers at be tried to quell such notions of rebellion against King George.
On the one hand you are right Dark Wraith, seeing as how history keeps repeating itself it does leave left to memorize.
In fact, when I die, if I get reicarnated again as a human, when I go to college I'll be sure NOT to take history since I will know it all...
On the other hand it is very sad that we keep making the same mistakes over and over and over and contiually fail to learn the lessons of our history.
Humans are hard headed, what can I say.
Some months back National Geographic ran an article on our energy dependence (& its implications) that finished by making the observation that the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.
- oddjob
Good evening, OddJob.
My next Quoth the Dark Wraith should be thus:
History will never be a particularly popular college major because no one likes to be told, "I told you so."
The Dark Wraith shares the sentiment.
Who needs history when you can do it over in real time and stream it over the internet.
Or better yet, make a nice flash cartoon about it as it's happening and drive all kinds of traffic to your site.
I used to think that the Romans were stupid for letting their Empire crumble.
Somehow I know how many of the Roman citizens must have felt...
Good evening, PoliShifter.
We usually present to high school students that the Roman Empire "fell" in A.D. 467, but this is a simplification that is terribly misleading. A more accurate way of describing the collapse of the Empire was that it never really was destroyed. In the Fifth Century (but well before that in its origins), the sovereign power of the central government began to contract, both in geographic terms because of expenses that outran budgets and in ideological terms as competing interests began to sway leaders away from dedication to the central authority. No small part of why the "hordes" were able to march right into Rome on that fateful day was due to Roman generals who had made their own arrangements with power structures other than those of the government.
However, as I've noted in threads previously, the idea of "Rome" was not shattered by the unwashed heathen pouring in from the hinterlands. Most importantly, Roman law, Lex Romana, was not dismissed; instead, it was simply renamed Lex Romana Visigoth: the Law of the Visigoth Romans.
Rome didn't fall so much as it transformed. At its high point, the Roman Empire was a highly centralized, technologically sophisticated, well-funded state where the chariot of military power was lashed to the steed of religious authority underpinned by centuries of secular, statutory law. In its ebb, the steed broke free as the chariot rotted from lack of funds and attendant loss of dedication.
The demise of the Classical Age was no more and no less than the withering of the vine of technological sophistication and capacity to project law and uniform order through military power. That horse of the Holy Roman Catholic Church was unable to maintain great control in the East, but it was sufficiently strong to carry into and maintain in Western Europe some remnants of Roman civilization for the new age. Its ability to and interest in holding onto the technologies and even some of the methods of Roman civilization at its highest point were rather dubious at best; nevertheless, though, the Middle Ages in Europe were not a break from the age of the Roman Empire nearly as much as they were a fitful reconciliation of Western societies and cultures with its vestiges as such were embodied in belief systems, scholarly expressions and suppressions, and means of production, distribution, and commerce in a world where there was the potential for functional spheres governed by less control even as secular and religious leaders insisted upon more of it.
That, in an over-simplified summary, is some history; and it bears fruitful lessons for our own age... if only we would pay attention.
The Dark Wraith has thus yammered.
The new link I put in the Open Forum thread below is worth your perusing, folks.
- oddjob
Hi Dark Wraith,
thank you for your very insightful comment.
I guess what I ment was it seems to me that Rome suffered from corruption as much as our current government is. They also had over stepped their bounds as you pointed it and were unable to manage the far reaches of their empire...Much like the United States is doing.
Another turning point was that in the begining Rome's army was nearly 100% Roman. By the end of the empire that number had dropped to less than 30%.
I see the same thing today with our military. We are taking in immigrants and promising them citizenship if they fight for us. A very Roman idea indeed.
What I ment was that it seems easy for me to look back at Rome and say to myself:
"what a bunch of dumbasses. You can't have madmen managing your empire and you certainly cannot have rogue generals threatening the empire. And you most certainly cannot maintain empire if you do not truly win the hearts and minds of the people you occupy"
What I am saying is that, for me, looking at our own country and its follies, I feel I am pretty well aware of the mistakes we are making and where they will lead us if we do not correct them.
I now suspect there may have been several Romans, perhaps even a Dark Wraith or two, who could see what was happening and was trying to change the course of Roman politics.
So for me to think that the Romans were a bunch of dumbasses for not averting their demise that in hind site, we could all see coming, is akin to me thinking everyone in America alive today is also a dumbass for not trying to stop the demise we also can see coming.
I guess I was always taught and left with the impression that Rome was blinded by its power and wealth to even realize its own mistakes. Thus, the Roman populous often seems damned all together along with the ruling elite for the ruling elite's mistakes.
Historians may say the same thing 2000 years from now about the U.S.
But the fact of the matter is that many people like you Dark Wraith, see that we are headed for disaster.
It would be unfair for that historian 2000 years from now to paint us all as a bunch of dumbasses not aware of our own demise. Clearly many of us are.
And in that way, I can now relate to how perhaps many Romans felt, especially when madmen were ruling their country much how a madman is ruling our country today.
I see the same thing today with our military. We are taking in immigrants and promising them citizenship if they fight for us.
I don't disagree at all with the general tenor of your post, but there's nothing new about this particular development at all. Even in the Civil War there was a fighting unit in the Union Army of Irish conscripts known as The Irish Brigade.
When I was a graduate student I ended up doing a fair bit of talking with the night watchman for our building on the edge of the campus. He was born in Hungary shortly before WWII, fought in Vietnam with the French Foreign Legion, and then served as a US Marine which was how he got his US citizenship.
- oddjob
Good points Oddjob...
Is it fair to say then that the United States has always had its eye on creating empire? At least since the 1850's?
I've had this conversation with myself in hindsight. I've always regretted not saying something more than I've regretted the consequences of venting my outrage.
Always.
Is it fair to say then that the United States has always had its eye on creating empire? At least since the 1850's?
I don't think that's a logical conclusion to make based upon knowledge of that policy, not on its own. I don't have a problem with offering citizenship to others willing to fight in our armed forces, and I have always been ashamed at our fascination with empire.
Learning about the Spanish-American War was just the worst..... (& yet here we are with the country run by Karl Rove, an open admirer of the administration that engaged in that bit of shameless jingoism!)
- oddjob
Allow me to "blogpimp" if I may:
Pissed Off Patricia of Morning-Martini (ne of Blondesense) has posted an especially apt characterization of the alien country we now find ourselves living in.
- oddjob
Hi Oddjob,
I don't have a problem with offering citizenship to those who would fight for America either. But I do think it is a hallmark of empire.
I happen to be of the opinion that once America accompished Manifest Destiny that we turned our sites on global empire.
It started with the Louisianna Purchase, the Mexican Cession, and aquiring Alaska.
Why we never took over Canada and Mexico is beyond me.
By the 20th century we set our sites on Central and South America.
Now it seems the PNAC NeoCons have dreams of world domination.
I do find it sad though that we would recruit the poor, immigrants, and those less fortunate to go fight our unjust wars.
I saw a commercial the other day for the military advertising that you could join the military AND get your college education at the same time.
Bush has successfully shifted from the peace time economy of Clinton to a war time economy.
The end result of Bush's policies are that more and more young people in our country are seeing the military as the only viable option for them.
Good Evening Dark Wraith. Interesting premise – marvelous commentary. I will add my own, but first let me address several points raised in this thread. First – I understand why some of the more mainstream news organizations might shy away from your work – you yourself stated a few of the more usual suspects. Bad writing, however, has nothing to do with it - as you well know; especially considering the very real possibility of your winning a Koufax (much deserved, I might add). I would suggest, however, an attempt be made approaching those publications somewhat off the radar (though widely read). The Onion, for one. I happen to know that its publisher has a rather mercurial mind, open to any number of offbeat ideas. Second – have you contacted anyone from Mother Jones? Then (depending upon the subject) there are always those publications attached to the Anomaly Community. Just a few thoughts – it really depends on the subject matter. Of course – there is also the possibility of like minds banding together. There are quite a few of us here at the Forum with what I consider interesting voices. Why not group some of our work under your banner and offer it as a download? Just another idea.
Now – let’s get down to business. What to do? I’m afraid for me, that answer is multi-leveled. When I was much younger, I had a somewhat crusading nature. I rarely looked before leaping head first into the nearest abyss. That I usually dragged my friends in with me was a consequence I never seemed to foresee. I never asked what they thought, mind you; if I felt it was the right thing to do, I damn well did it. Very selfish of me. No matter how important the situation – I needed to take into consideration whosoever else would be affected. Then I gained some maturity, and realized whatever decisions I made had to be made by myself alone – I could risk my own skin - but no one else’s. The weight must fall on my shoulders, not be spread amongst those I loved. Now we come to your particular dilemma – what to do with your truths. Well – you must inform those whose work you reference (supposing they, like you are unpublished. Previously published material just needs to be footnoted). In my opinion, you should not include somebody who prefers to opt out. You can, of course, cite them as anonymous sources; though I would make sure their quote would not act as a trail of bread crumbs back to the source.
It makes your job harder, I know. But, ethically speaking – you cannot drag someone into that abyss without first getting their permission. At least, that is my opinion. This little morality play is, I’m afraid, all your own. Good luck, my dear. I’m afraid you’re probably going to need it.
Good evening, Fat Lady Sings. Thank you for your contribution.
Your experiences parallel my own. In past years, I had no mind of those who would end up being harmed by my crusades. In that time, lives and fortunes were ruined. In fact, had I better grasped the extent of the influence I had over people and events, I might have been able to prevent at least one death and possibly more. I certainly could have chosen my words and actions more carefully. It isn't enough for me to point to the mad, greed-obsessed, and violent people against whom I began to war: their nature was the given from my side of the fights; my nature was the product of putatively free will, the triumph of circumspection over passion, as it were. I had spent my entire life from adolescence onward contemplating my will in battle against every manner of my biological cravings, practicing brutal self-denials, even clawing my way from one religion to another in deep search of ways to fight myself. And yet, there I was, entirely at the whim of my own need for grace in the defense of Holy Truth and Justice, letting be damned decent, if perhaps flawed, people in the way of my self-righteous, wholly unconcerned and uncontrolled scimitar.
I certainly hope I shall be proud of myself in my dying hour, standing as I will before the black well of nothingness while looking back on the bloody carcasses of the vanquished and innocent. I doubt that I shall have much evidence for such pride, though; most of those fights came to a miserable draw anyway, but only after both I and those I opposed had set to waste the wealth and spirit of people undeserving of such fate. If the count of injured marks the paces from a man to his Salvation, I cannot say that my journey would be any shorter than that of anyone I claim as evil.
But paralysis to action is every bit as despicable. We see this terrible truth right now, right here in our own lives and times, in the appeasement—the veritable surrender—of the mainstream Democrats to the draining force of ignorance, superstition, and cruelty that is the Republican Party and its life force within the Christian Right.
To use the unwilling and the unwary is wrong; but to let stand the undeserving and unacceptable is perhaps more so.
Such a time as this: all roads lead to Hell, and the choice of highway depends upon one's preference for the scenic quality of claim to righteousness.
The Dark Wraith has had enough of introspection for a while.
Good Morning Dark Wraith,
I will just return the favor of reminding you that this administration doesn't pull it's punches. And add that Hitler sent young college students to their death in Auchwitz for handing out pamphlets against him. Keep yourself safe, if possible.
That said, there is another factor in the fall of the Roman Empire that may be germaine: the volcanic eruption that changed the climate and brought on the Black Plague.
In the book "Collapse", the author traces the collapse of civilizations from the Mideast to the Mayans to the south Pacific, and always there was rapid climate change, followed by famine and depletion of resources.
We are now facing at the very least one of these events, and the chimpster is oblivious, to the probable ruin of us all.
..Just thought I'd brighten up your morning. ;)
I voted for leaving your sources anonymous, but in reality was in agreement from the start with several other posters here who feel that you should clear the use of their commentary with your sources before naming them, and quote them anonymously if they prefer to remain so. I understand that you feel that some lines would be crossed in doing this, but those lines cannot be as important as you have made this decision out to be. You need not inform them of your blog, but only of your intent to publish an article in as prominent a publication as you can manage, or online if need be.
I was going to suggest writing it with the names included, and then showing a physical copy to the people who's names you really feel are necessary (with other names blanked out of course), but that comes with other complications, starting with them wanting to provide editorial input and being able to search for phrases within the article and find this place more easily, and moving on to things I have not thought of.
As to you being a less then extremely competent, clear, and compelling writer: horsewash! (If you'll pardon my language.) Or is that hogwash! Either does well enough as you wouldn't want to drink the water afterwards any more than any who read this site would imbibe that idea. If anything, the problem may be that your writing is too good. I forget the precise grade level, but most newspapers and magazines rarely if ever stray into publishing writing beyond the high school level. Little, if any, of your writing falls to that mark.
If you have something as important and relevant in this day and age to write as it sounds, I advise you not to predict, neither positively nor negatively, its reception at any publication but rather to send it out to as many as possible and appropriate. If you write it, it is to get it read. And if the writing and publishing even on your website carries such risk, you may as well do your best to seek the maximum readership and impact for the risk you are taking.
My best wishes, and my thanks for your work so far, which I started reading with great relish about a month ago,
Siri
Greetings, Dark Wraith,
Quite a conundrum you have here. However, you can't just sit on what you know. Morally, it would be wrong.
That being said, you do need to take steps to protect yourself and others.
I went with option #2 because I felt that was the best way to say what you know, yet protect your sources. If a judge makes you spill, you probably wouldn't feel too badly about it, given the description of how you received this information.
Or, you could tell me all about it and I'll sing like a canary!
Mixter
Hi DW,
Just want to say that upon reading Sy Hersh's article in The New Yorker this past weekend, all I could think of was this article you wrote. And I wonder why.